Microsoft will now allow you all to use certail protocols if you just sign on
the dotted line and admit that you may be using Microsoft IP as follows:
"This source code may incorporate intellectual property owned by Microsoft
Corporation. Our provision of this source code does not include any licenses or
any other rights to you under any Microsoft intellectual property. If you would
like a license from Microsoft (e.g. to rebrand, redistribute), you need to
contact Microsoft directly (send mail to protocol{at}microsoft.com)."

Some of the things included in this licence (I'll hit the BBS related
highlights):
DNS
DHCP
FTP
HTTP Authentication (Both Basic and Digest)
HTTP itself.
1K XModem
ANSI terminal emulation
Kermit
RS-232 Serial Protocol
XModem
YModem
Zmodem
YModem-G
ZModem with Crash Recovery
Parallel interface
Gopher
IPsec
PPP
POP3
rlogin
SSL
SLIP
SCSI
Telnet
TCP/IP v4
TCP/IP v6

It's avaiable here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/randz/protocol
/royalty_free_protocol_license_agreement.asp
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