You know something’s not quite right when Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo agree. You just can’t put your finger on it. Lucky you. Apache has its fingers all over it.

You know Apache. The head of Team Apache-SpamAssassin-JAMES, an open source giant that touches vastly more email than Microsoft.

Anyway, Apache took a peak at Sender-ID. Didn’t like it much:”We believe the current license is generally incompatible with open source, contrary to the practice of open Internet standards, and specifically incompatible with the Apache License 2.0. Therefore, we will not implement or deploy Sender ID under the current license terms.”

In other words, if Microsoft won’t let go, Sender-ID is all but dead.

Remember the heady days of April? We told you then that a “wait-and-see” approach may be in order till the dust settles. So relax and enjoy the fireworks.