TJ wrote: > Now that software patents are wholesale in the industry, it makes > this even more unlikely. Microsoft patented their CIFS protocol, aka > "file-sharing" in Windows, then licensed to everyone as an open > standard - BUT deliberately said you CANNOT use it for GPL or other > similar "share-alike" licenses. You can look it up, if you don't > believe me. To do so is a legal liability here in the US. In response to emails received, I didn't say the patent was logistically enforceable, or even sensible given the SAMBA implimentations. You can read more about it on SAMBA's website if that's what worries you. I don't want to start a flamewar on the topic of intellectual property rights and patents. That in and of itself is a nest of deadly vipers that nobody wants to touch. I simply said they can and did patent SMB/CIFS. If you use the portions described in the MS documentation with the GPL, you run awry of MS. They did deliberately exclude GPL implimentations in their free use license. That, by itself is a "red light", in my opinion. That notably does not exclude the MIT/BSD licenses as far as I can tell - but hey, I'm not a lawyer. My point was that MS functions on the philosophy of "users embrace, then extend and patent" in order to control. And yes, look at the USTPO (US Trademark and Patent Office) record of operations in the last 10 years, and you will see that they allow such nonsense - even when the technology has been available to the public for years. If you can generate enough fear of costly patent infringement litigation, you can easily drive programmers off. Look at multimedia on Linux, as another example. From what I've seen personally, 80% or more of the top-notch video and audio streaming work for Linux is developed outside the US because of issues with the US legal system of patents. Multimedia and compression are patent minefields.