WASHINGTON--Internet companies said Tuesday that they're racing to roll out better methods to block junk e-mail, but have not resolved long-standing differences over how much influence Microsoft will have over the final technology.
Key Internet standards currently are "freely available, no patent licensing from Microsoft," said Daniel Quinlan, a vice president of the Apache Software Foundation. "We want to make sure it stays that way for e-mail and other important parts of the Internet."
Quinlan's group, a nonprofit association, maintains the popular SpamAssassin software. In a statement, the foundation said Microsoft's proposal to authenticate senders of e-mail messages was "expressly incompatible" with the way the open-source development and distribution process works.
The summit, which ends Wednesday, comes as U.S. companies are becoming increasingly concerned about the problem of junk e-mail and "phishing" solicitations for personal data.
Some summit participants said they didn't care what standard was adopted--as long as it stopped the flow of fraudulent e-mail and Viagra solicitations. Visa, for instance, said Tuesday that it strongly endorsed the concept of e-mail authentication methods--but didn't reveal whether it preferred Microsoft's Sender ID, Yahoo's DomainKeys, or Cisco Systems' Identified Internet Mail.
David Kaefer, a director of Microsoft's patent licensing office, said Apache and other open-source advocates were ignoring "commercial realities" that require his employer to retain substantial control over its patents.
Web giant is spending $120 million to beef up its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, according to filings with the city reviewed by the San Jose Mercury News.
The Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 S6500 could make its debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month, according to a leaked promotional image.
MIT creates a simulation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Spacewar. A relic of the early days of minicomputers, it was one of the first computer video games and set the stage for many others, including Asteroids.
