[Samba] CIFS & SMB Microsoft licenses

[Jeremy Allison]

On Tue, Apr 16, 2002 at 04:49:29PM +0200, Davide Dozza wrote:
> 
> Hello guys,
> 
> does anyone knows the implications that the CIFS and SMB Microsoft 
> licenses may have on samba development ?
> 
> http://news.com.com/2010-1075-882846.html

We're consulting the legal staff at the FSF for a definitive
answer on this. More when we have a US legal opinion.

In the meantime, don't panic. We don't think we infringe
their patent claims (but this is why we're getting a legal
opinion - to make sure this is the case) and the license
is for CIFS *documentation*, not any code at present.

The opinion of someone who has seen this documentation 
(not me) is that there is nothing in it that Samba doesn't
already implement. In fact it is a significant subset of
the SNIA CIFS documentation which the Samba Team has
helped prepare. This license seems to have been created (IMHO)
to create fear uncertainty and doubt amongst Samba users
and vendors using Samba - such as the comments that have
been appearing on this list :-). It's a classic marketing
tactic I believe.

Jeremy.