Slashdot Mirror
Michael Chaney asks Microsoft to Open Kerberos
On Microsoft, Kerberos, Slashdot, and Trade Secrets
A few months ago at an NLUG meeting, I jokingly asked a presenter to reveal his root password to the assemblage, adding "it's just us, we won't tell anybody." The "us" in this case referred to the 50 or so people in the room, and we had a chuckle while the presenter wisely decided against giving us his password.
The point of this story is something that we all know to be obvious: the level of secrecy afforded a piece of information by a recipient of that information is directly related to the way in which the secret piece of information is passed along. A password freely given to all in a user group meeting wouldn't be held in much confidence by the people present; they wouldn't really consider it a secret.
Likewise, it's difficult for anyone to consider a document to be a trade secret if it's posted on a website for anybody to freely download. Yet this is precisely the manner in which Microsoft is distributing their "Microsoft Authorization Data Specification v. 1.0 for Microsoft Windows 2000 Operating Systems," which we know is nothing more than a slightly modified version of Kerberos.
In a click-through (aka "ignorable") license, Microsoft states that their specification is "confidential information and a trade secret," and that "you must take reasonable security precautions... to keep the Specification confidential." Who, exactly, must I keep from knowing this "secret" information? Presumably someone without internet access.
Contrary to [what seems to be] popular opinion within Microsoft, they have nothing to lose from making their products compatible with existing standards. As a matter of fact, strict compatibility actually raises the value of all products, including those from Microsoft. Given that fact, it makes no sense for Microsoft to create an incompatible version of Kerberos. And if they do make an incompatible version of Kerberos, it makes even less sense to restrict access to documentation concerning your "extensions." (I can imagine a Microsoft internal memo: "Embracement achieved, on to step two.")
So the situation as it stands is that Microsoft has released a document that they're claiming is a trade secret and copyrighted, parts of it have been posted to Slashdot, and Microsoft is pulling out the DMCA to get those posts removed. Given that Microsoft has made the information freely available, I can't imagine what this can gain for them.
But I really take offense to the fact that they go a step farther and request that a link be removed, and that instructions on bypassing their goofy EULA be removed. First, we've had plenty of discussions on here about the dangers of sites being forced to remove links; specifically at what level do we decide that a chain of links is no longer offensive. If I link to the Slashdot article that links to an "Unauthorized Copy of the Specification," is that a "crime?" How about a link to a link to a link? At some level, I'm sure I could find a chain that I could follow from Microsoft's own website to the offending Slashdot post (for those of you who wish to try, search for "samba" on Microsoft's site, it'll link to www.samba.org, try to find Slashdot from there).
As for posts "Containing Instructions on How to Bypass the End User License Agreement and Extract the Specification," I'd like to see someone from Microsoft explain how that constitutes a copyright violation, as J.K. Weston has stated (under penalty of perjury, no less). Self-extracting zip files are nothing new, J.K. Weston, nor is the concept of using WinZip to extract their contents.
The most offensive part of this whole ordeal, though, is that it's just been five months since Slashdot bailed Microsoft out when Network Solutions mistakenly shut off the passport.com domain on Christmas Eve. How soon Microsoft forgets! If it wasn't for Slashdot, it's likely that Hotmail would have been down for another day or more after Christmas, and that surely would have been a bigger blow, in terms of PR, than a bunch of Linux advocates solving their problems for them.
It's my not so humble opinion that Microsoft is in the process of making yet another major PR blunder. The company is famous for them, and it couldn't come at a worse time than as the Justice Department is trying to get them split up for doing exactly what they're doing right now: changing the specifications of an open protocol to reduce interoperability with other products.
Here's my advice to Microsoft: drop the silly EULA and make your Specification freely available under the terms of the new GNU Free Documentation License, or something like it. You'll gain some PR points, which you desperately need. This provides you with a way out that allows you to save face.
And my advice to anyone who talks to the press regarding this issue: remind them that it was Slashdot that saved Hotmail over Christmas.
- Michael Chaney
If we abide for a moment with the legal fiction that MS Corporation is an entity, then the only reasonable conclusion is that said entity is certifiably insane and not competent to enter into legally-binding contracts.
Really, how could this hogwash stand up in any court of law anywhere that wasn't being bribed senseless by Microsoft?
www.alarmist.org
As Michael points out, this behavior is exactly what should interest the forces that are right now deciding on Microsoft's future. How do we let them know? Alternately, is this something the mainstream press would be at all interested in?
Law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained. -- Aaron Burr
what makes him think he's someone to be taken seriously? just because he sent in a $35 check and got a lot of publicity? This may sound like flamebait, but it's a serious question. I don't know.. just because someone has gained fame among a particular crowd doesn't mean that he can start preaching to that crowd. Yes, it was neat that he sent a check to NSI. But does that really make him an expert on anything?
The DMCA: Redefining Customer Service
Chaney for president ;-)! Seriously though, Michael's saving of Hotmail hopefully shows the public that it's not just the "rabid Linux zealots" that think that Microsoft's stand on the Kerberos incident is ridiculous.
the ultra-competitive, take-no-prisoners attitude that Microsoft has displayed for most (all?) of its existance is both an asset and a liability. the kerberos issue is just one more example of how that attitude is diffused throughout the organization, and how a systemic remedy is needed.
i doubt that microsoft takes linux, /., and open source very seriously. that is not to say that there are microsoft employees who do takes these matters seriously, but that on the whole it it an insular, self-referential, and arrogant institution.
This is a really great letter. Unfortunately we're talking about a company that practices deciept as a standard business tactic. Even if they did release the document under an open licence, they would simply install another catch elsewhere. Perhaps modify the standard yet again or find another method to stop W2K from "hearing" other non-MS applications. I surely don't blame all MS employees. I surely do blame MS managment.
If M.C. is reading this: we know that Microsoft sent you a $500 check for your kind restoration of Hotmail. I also remember that you attempted to auction the check of on eBay to raise some money for charity. Can you tell us how much you managed to raise (I expect you had a fair number of fake bids) and where the money went.
Can't Microsoft be sued for applying the Name Kerberos to their Closed Product. Since it is an Open system, and Microsoft has changed it to NOT work with others. Doesn't that eliminate the whole point behind it? And if so, then isn't this an example of Microsoft Using its power to eliminate Competition?
No never your way, always the Microsoft Way. You have no choice
Offtopic:By the way, I WANT MY QUICKTIME 4 FOR LINUX ALREADY
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
Gates: Who?
Assistant: Chaney, you know, the guy who saved hotmail for us?
Gates:Michael who?
tcd004
Here's my Microsoft Parody, where's yours?
I think it's a good thing, that someone in the position of irony can use it... Lots of /. readers would probably want to say the same things, but its good to have a name saying the voice, and it's quite cool that it's a guy with a record in M$ side-jabs ;)
As a monopoly MSFT clearly has much to gain from poor interoperability. They control the vast majority of desktops which need to authenticate to network resources. If authentication the Microsoft way becomes the de-facto standard for many organizations MSFT benefits by being the vendor with the best interoperability with its own products. Other vendors can interoperate, but only as long as MSFT releases the specifications for their "enhancement" and only _after_ MSFT has implemented the enhancement in their own product. MSFT benefits as the "first mover" in a situation where only they can move first.
For those that ask "who is this guy and why should we care about this?":
He may be hoping that someone at Microsoft will remember who he is and what he did... and their brains will kick in and they'll listen to him speak in a pleasant, calm, rational, grits-free, petrification-free tone of voice.
And if it works, great. There has to be someone rational inside Microsoft....
....right?
----
Brazil has decided you're cute.
I know that this has been gone over and over.. But how can a EULA in an EXE be binding? Using an unzip program is hardly "cracking".. This sounds like one of those nice items thrown into the UCITA.. Agree to the terms.. THEN we'll show you the terms that you are agreeing to.
-
air and light and time and space
I think we should let M$ go on their merry way. Let them have all the rope they need to hang themselves. If they keep doing what they're doing, they'll get split up, people will get sick of them, and the software and OS market will once again be competitive. Competition stimulates growth. I for one look forward to MS-Office for Linux (produced by a software division uleashed from the OS division).
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
This level of reasoning probably explains the Microsoft PR babble we have had to suffer about how breaking them up will harm the computer industry, damage the economy, speed up global warming, cause the death of every first-born child, rant, rant...
Being a libertarian, I don't believe that anti-trust laws are a good thing at all. Most monopolies exist as a result of government mandate. In the case of other near-monopolies (such as Standard Oil), consumers didn't benefit at all by government intervention. (The price of oil rose, in fact.)
But really, MS has this absurd attitude of "I will do what I want, everyone but us be damned!" So really, waht Bill Gates needs is a good tuning up by Andy Sipowitz in some grungy interview room of the 15th squad.
Cool stuff on GeekPress: Chinese engineer wins site's jackpot, but collecting is tricky / How to Hack a Bank / Helmet o'Death, Almost
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
It seems to me that Microsofts biggest problem in this issue is trying to keep the life-blood of the technical community from being knowledgeable about there products. How can they expect IT professionals to be able to fully support their system if they can't have access to all the protocols, ect. used by the system. I think we would all agree that Microsoft needs to get their heads out of their "buttocks" and get with the program.
This is the second or third time I've heard J.K. Weston's claims being referred to as false and therefore illegal themselves.
So who is suing him?
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Is it me, or is Microsoft been getting some bad publicity lately? Kerberos-this and Outlook-that... whatever happened to the Slashdot headlines like "Microsoft donates $50,000 to open source development" or "Microsoft plants a tree" or "Microsoft implements cross-platform media initiative"?
Don't want to pay Lars? Sue him!
From the link:It doesn't get much funnier than that.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Microsoft will never open Kerberos now that Slashdot has suggested it. Taking advice from Slashdot would be a sign of Microsoft giving in.
;-)
Maybe next time we should try reverse psycology on them. You know, sarcastically say "Microsoft, don't open up Kerberos...... that would be a BAD thing. No, really, stop it. Don't split. Don't fire Billy Gates. Don't make a reliable OS that doesn't crash every half hour.....".
Maybe, just maybe, they'll fall for it.
I don't think it has anything to do with MC's quest for fame. He raises a serious issue, and he does it because he's an interoperability advocate, not because he bailed MS out. He probably would be doing this in any case. It's because he saved MS that it's ironic.
Akardam "Waiting for Slashdot to mail me my password..." Out
Everything but TheKitchenSink - www.akardam.net
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
(adapted from Gandhi)
Yes, that is in fact how things work now. You get some attention for yourself and then people listen to you. Of course, it's always been this way, it's just easier to leverage attention with the net. Good or bad, it's the way of the future- embrace and extend this model for yourself
However, I would like to address one part of his post that he left open:
Given that Microsoft has made the information freely available, I can't imagine what this can gain for them.
It is clearly a challenge to the concept of OSS and the GPL. If they can prevail over the community by succeeding in keeping their kerberos "extension" closed source, they win. If they can simultaneously do a little media spinning that shows how lawless OSS advocates are, they win twice. By this I mean that "everyone" knows that Slashdot is a haven for rabid OSS zealots who do nothing but pirate software, trade illegal MP3s on Napster, and read that damn anti-corporatist Noam Chomsky all day long. If M$ can show that these types of people will stop at nothing, including violating license agreements, publishing trade secrets, and being generally abusive towards all things corporate, then they will help stem the tide of converts. It will damage the reputation of OSS and the Free Software movement. It will make conservative businessmen (who outnumber the liberals) baised against OSS in their organizations, etc.
We as a community need to be on guard against these tactics. One good court case taht goes against OSS on top of everything else that is happening regarding the RIAA, MPAA, DeCSS, MP3.com, Napster, etc. and we will have taht much more difficulty gaining broad acceptance. And M$ will have that much more sway over people's opinions.
Certainly they can try to slow the OSS movement down, and give it a bad name, but it can never be stopped unless precedents and laws get in the way of progress and evolution.
------- "One of the joys of travel is visiting new towns and meeting new people." -- G. KHAN
IMHO, it's no different that helping a stranded motorist change a flat tire. An act that in itself expects no rewards. Just the feeling of doing something right for your own piece of mind.
The only trouble is, you're dealing with Microsoft here. During that selfless act, you never expect that motorist to hit you over the head with a tire iron and steal your wallet and car
I truly hope they get themselves out of the corner they've painted themselves into. It would save them face, Slashdot lawyers fees and us techs quite a few headaches in trying to get this to interoperate with standard versions of Kerberos.
Perhaps Win2k SP2 will include changes to Kerberos to put it back to the standard operability that it was designed for.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
What at this point is stopping us from just reverse engineering the stupid M$ extension and removing their last possible thing to say about this issue? Is anybody working on this already?
The way I see it, when the disputed, disturbed specification is in GPL'd source code, they won't have any legal recourse. Why sue someone to remove a link to something that is already implemented?
How badly could they have screwed it up? This is _microsoft_ we're talking about here! They couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. How much work could it possibly be? A couple of days for some UberhHacker?
Once the fix is GPL'd, with no authors mentioned anywhere, who could they sue? What would they sue? It's like Gnutella; who do you persecute?
Maybe I'm just naive but this seems pretty obvious at this point.
Some time ago, I read a book by Orsen Scott Card I believe called The Worthing Saga. Part of the book deals with a man who wanted to engineer the destruction of civilization, since he saw humanity and its culture as stagnating.
He proceeded to enginner the total collapse of society, first by purposly angering the "lower people" just enough so that they would be angry, but not revolt. Then he alienated the "upper people" so that they were incinsed, but would not withdraw support. He sent messages out that "All is well, do not worry" while issuing secret messages to people about "how bad things really are."
And when all the pieces were ready, he finally pushed everybody over the edge at once, and everything fell apart all at once, like a house of cards toppled by a child.
I don't hate Microsoft. I've used DOS as far back as I can remember, I've used Windows when that's all I knew. Indirectly, I have a good living as a professional geek and now game reviewer. I like my life, and I owe a part of that to companies like Microsoft.
But the more they act, the more it seems like they are engineering their own demise. They upset people just enough with their competitive practices- and I'm not just talking about making new products, but giving them away to put other people out of business. They upset government officials by continueing to engage in monopoly practices while they are under investigation- from the Kerberos issue to "renting" software at university's at such a low price that college students can't resist, then jacking up the prices after everyones standardized. They put on commercials saying "We innovate, we work hard for you!" while they have "Holloween E-mails" that talk about how scared they are of Linux.
Microsoft is not a bad company. I'm going to say this again: Microsoft is not a bad company. I may not like all of their products, but others I think are great. I like Internet Explorer, I just don't like how it was rammed down my throat.
But with each new story, I become a little angrier at Microsoft, to the point that I'm about to install Linux on my machine at home and only use the Windows partitions for games (hey, I've still got to write my reviews.) And if Microsoft keeps up this behavior, they'll find thier carefully built house of cards all falling to the ground at the same time.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
We don't just like games, we love them!
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Just go to M.I.T and enter Kerberos in the search box. When I tried it, the top link that came up was "Kerberos for Windows"...
I didn't take it any further - is anyone actually using M.I.T's own Kerberos for Windows ?
Though this guys credentials are as good as anyone's as far as I'm concerned. If his arguments make sense then he is as worthy of attention as the next man.
Of course, there are many people with such low self esteem that they will only listen to opinions from some "authority" on the subject. How else could they possibly know what to think ? Heaven forbid they should actually try judging the worth of the arguments irrespective of where they come from. That would involve thinking for themselves. That's not how things are done in a civilised society - it's not efficient. Instead we must have experts on every topic under the sun who decide these things for us.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Everybody seems to be acting like M$ NEEDS good publicity and HAS to behave like a good citizen and is in need of some sort of redemption. Well, they don't. When your software is used on 90-95% of the world's computers you don't have to have a heart or a conscience or a soul or a brain. You get to do whatever you want. Until somebody takes you down. Period. Their whole legal strategy shows this. Deny everything, admit nothing, brook no comprimise and wait until you can appeal the case to a new administration which will most likely let you weasel out of the whole thing. Then vengeance is yours. Is this a good or sane or proper or responsible attitude? NO! But Lawyers and law and the kind of money and power that is at stake here have never been about making sense or being a good citizen or being responsible. They've always been about Their Way and nothing else until you can put Their head on a platter. And that's all they have to(and probably will) do.
Hmm. Using a monopoly to extend another monopoly... isn't that a law somewhere?
-Militant Elf (A PFY for a BOFH)
remove the sos for deliverable flames
If you're going to post material copied from Brunching Shuttlecocks you should at least credit them...
Here is the link to the original Brunching feature: Why there's no Microsoft Settlement
The copyright office specifically says bibliograpic references are always legal -- you may not be able to use the text itself, but you can always tell someone where to find the originally published text. The only difference between "Journal of Irr. Results Vol 3.14159 number 1.735 (June 2003) pp 10-12" and www.JIR.joke/volpi/number_sqrt(3)/joes-stuff is one of formatting. I could write either down on the back of a biz card, and take it to a good research library, and be looking at the text in short order... In the case under discussion, posting the actual text (so it comes from a /. drive) is likely a violation for the user. Posting the URL of the page on the MS site, so the acutal bits of the article come from a drive in Redmond, is just citing the published article... (it meets the copyright definition of "fixed in a tangible form", so it counts as "published" -- published for copyright purposes includes so-claimed trade secrets)
Organizer:New England Rubbish Deconstruction Society;The NERDS,first US team in the UK Scrapheap Challenge/Junkyard Wars
This is stupid. Both Microsoft and Slashdot are at fault. Microsoft is at fault by perverting an otherwise open standard, then claiming to have published the changes by forcing anyone wishing to view the documentation through a non-disclosure agreement (faithfully supported by brilliant UCITA legislature). Shame on Microsoft, although it can hardly be called unexpected. But even more shame on Slashdot. The core of the "information wants to be free" meme, is copyright, whether you like it or not. If you want information to be free, you must at the same time respect the same copyright that upholds the GPL (until such copyright laws are done away with). Refusing to remove blatently illegal material is not a first amendment issue...it is a juvenile snub to Microsoft. I'm sure Microsoft has no reservations from unleashing its legaldroids upon Slashdot. It is just dumb. Just as we would not like someone to violate GPL, we cannot at the same time violate an analogous legal (BUT STUPID!) binding. Slashdot should remove the stupid text. We should work to change the laws...not peurily snub our noses at it and then go crying that big bad Microsoft is opressing our first amendment.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
So, you decided to rip off this post from Brunching Shuttlecocks, huh? It was originally posted the week of March 20. How appropriate that this kind of stuff gets posted without credit on a story that has at least some content about copyrights.
Yeah, sure, information wants to be free yadda, yadd. But, if you're going to quote someone else, at least give them credit where credit is due. It's only fair.
--
Well, put the pieces together...
M-I-T-N-I-C-K... :-)
Teach your kids: "C++ made baby Jesus cry."
Quite clearly Microsoft do not think this is the case, and it's not a clear "matter of fact" to me either. Microsoft have done extremely well with their current philosophy; it goes to the core of their anti-competitive nature, which has made Bill Gates a multi-billionaire and the richest man in the world.
Why do Slashdot readers insist they understand the industry better than the single main player in it? Yes, strict compatibility "raises the value of all products", but Microsoft do not want to raise the value of all products, only theirs. They are unique in that this actually poses an advantage to them - no other software company makes a full complement of interoperating software, so these companies are forced to interoperate with each other's stuff properly. Not so Microsoft; they have a vested interest in only interoperating with their own software. You can buy a complete enterprise software setup and never pay a dime to anyone but Microsoft. And that's exactly what their non-interoperability encourages you to do.
The rest of the article seems a little naive given the real matters of fact.
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
The bit about posts "Containing Instructions on How to Bypass the End User License Agreement and Extract the Specification" really cracks me up.
.doc file, which I knew StarOffice could probably handle.
How about instructions on how to read the damn license?!
I downloaded that EXE thing and wondered on how to get it "installed" while running Linux. I went about it in the usual Unix way. First I ran "file" on it, which told me it was a windows executable (saw that coming somehow, not a complete dummy me) as well as a "RAR archive".
That's an animal I hadn't heard of, but a quick inspection showed that there was something called "unrar" on my SuSE distro. I ran that and was presented with some sort of
I never did get to see that license. Too bad, because I was kind of curious about the wording.
So, what's the fuzz? it's not MS' implementation not working with Unix' implementations of kerberos, but about Samba that wants to replace win2k servers and wants to act like a win2k server.
Does this have anything to do with kerberos at all? no. A company which is totally entitled to keep things closed or release their extensions in a way THEY LIKE, is flamed and slaughtered to death here... by whom? well I'll tell you: by the unknowing..
Get a life, your actions don't help anybody, not Linux users nor potentional linux users or enthousiasts. But hey... it would be a total shock to the world if the majority of the /. community suddenly acted like an adult with brains in a Microsoft-related thread ....
Selectively educate the uneducated and they will believe what ever you tell them. Microsoft Certification exams are pathetic, and many busineses actually believe that it means something.
I should take one of those exams again, its been a while since I laughed during a test everyone thought was hard...
I just want to send a big "Unix is GOD" poster to microsoft, with the caption, "Windows is mortal"
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
I don't know if reading this article and resulting posts makes me sad or not. Someone stands up to voice the same opinion as many people on Slashdot hold and he gets attacked. No wonder OSS has such a lingering bad taste in people's mouths. Nothing like trying to help out and having the people on your side question your motives and character. Face value people. It still exists.
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
License is the verb
Whilst USA usage may be different, it's inappropriate to correct the spelling used in the rest of the world to the USA form in an international forum.
In a click-through (aka "ignorable") license...
Police Officer: Sir, did you not see the stop sign?
Motorist: Of course I saw the stop sign! It was drive-through (aka "Ignorable").
Police Officer: Sir, would you please get out of the car?
Just because you can ignore something does not mean that you may ignore it.
According to the page announcing the "publication" of the implementation of the specification, Microsoft stated that it was releasing this document in order to have third-party security analysis and validation that it was within the letter and spirit of the Kerberos spec with the IETF.
I see no reason why we here on /. could not help Microsoft with this aim. After all, we recognize that many of our mutual security problems with viruses and so forth have occurred for precisely the reason that in the past Microsoft was not so open about security matters and did not check with the community at large first.
However, Microsoft needs to understand that any discussion of the document needs to refer to it in detail. Therefore Microsoft needs to withdraw its claim to trade secrets and the EULA requirement.
If Slashdot were to withdraw, in turn, its copy of the copyrighted document, and instead link to an open online copy at Microsoft's site, then why wouldn't everybody be happy and we work together to achieve our mutual objectives?
Thanks, MC, for trying to negotiate a settlement--you are wise and I hope Microsoft responds.
So, we shouldn't take you seriously either?
I think he should be taken seriously because he states his case well, regardless of his moment of glory. By what standard should we grant someone our attention - to say that what they have to say is worth hearing? Should we listen to Richard Gere in reference to Tibet simply because of his greater public exposure as an actor (or perhaps the gerbil stories would have been enough for that)?
carlos
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
This guy gets karma for plagarizing? Cite brunching shuttlecocks, at least.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
The above was not Flamebait.
And medicthree is well-known for getting things wrong. So, yes, it does seems like he is too cool to do stuff like checking his facts.
He did a good deed for an evil corporation. It didn't cost him much out of pocket, but he bothered to do it. He entitled to use this soapbox occasionally. If he misuses or overuses it, we may choose to stop listening. We may choose not to listen to him now, but the soapbox is his. That's what free speech is all about. Look into it.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
...matter is to anti-matter.
---- Politics: Kissing ass and pointing blames.
whois the second company?
At first your insinuation that microsoft could bribe a court "senseless" seemed ludicrous. The US isn't some 3rd world corrupt banana republic. But as i though more about it, bribery could have two forms: one, cash payoffs, or two, the judge could be so scared to rule against microsoft in fear that he would hurt our wonderful economy that he wouldn't impose sanctions. This is in effect a type of bribery brought on by the MS monopoly, which means that no court would rule against MS for fear of losing that payoff, in their wallets (judges own stock too) and the wallets of the country. Not so ridiculous of a term after all.
I am that that is, not that that is not, that is.
It would be nice if you credited the person who came up with the idea for this site. Even JonKatz and Hemos know that this is only polite.
--
E_NOSIG
And when everyone realises they can get /. discussions broken up that easily, people will stop using it as a discussion forum. But out of the ashes will come Slashdot II, using Gnutella, Freenet and some yet-to-be-invented distributed anonymising version-controlled message propagation protocol, which will make it impossible for any messages to be deleted (unless they mention hot grits).
The more they try to squash free speech, the more we'll fight back. And doesn't anyone find it funny that we can look at Internet censorship in China as a sign of a ruthless power-crazed governm ent, but in the West it's a sign of the success of capitalism...
-- Andrem
There has been a major scientific break-in
OK I am borrowing this from a fellow poster over at Ars Technica. Read and get a fucking clue:
"Ok, just to set the record straight, since many people
(even right here on this board) seem to be clueless (or purposely covering their eyes) about the whole Kerberos and Win2K thing.
Facts: (all of which I have documentation for, including direct quotes from Jeremy from the Samba team, and Paul from the MIT Athena project/Kerberos team)
- Win2K's implementation of krb5 v1 (Kerberos 5) is fully compliant with MIT's spec. This is fully documented and acknowledged by MIT and people like the Samba team.
- Where the confusion lies is Microsoft's usage of a special vendor-specific proprietary data field that Microsoft uses proprietarily.
Microsoft knew that the Kerberos spec didn't provide everything that they needed, so they contacted MIT and explained their position. MIT, eager to help MS and improve the standard graciously met with MS and worked out a solution. The solution was to create a field for vendors (like MS) to put their miscellaneous proprietary data.
This field would be used by Microsoft Windows boxes, but ignored by non-Windows machines without any harm or loss in basic functionality.
What MS does is store group membership and group policy information in that field. This data would be worthless to, say, a BSD KDC or other server anyhow, so there's no loss.
The only thing that MS didn't do is provide people who COULD use the data (namely the samba team) with the format of the data in that field. While that isn't very nice, it certainly is not a breach of the standard.
Recently, they released this data, but under a restrictive license. I haven't read the license yet, but from what I've heard, the license, at this point, prevents the samba team from using it in their products.
So, if you would be so kind as to not spout inaccuracies or falsehoods in the future, and give less-informed people the impression that MS broke the standard.
Most of the documentation of this and MS' use of the GSS-API can be found in several posts from Jeremy from the SAMBA team and Paul Hill from the MIT team on NT BugTraq in the Fed-Mar area of the archives.
Also, there is extensive documentation of how MS used Kerberos on their site, and it's actually factual reference material."
I'm going to reproduce an AC's post found here because it seems very relevant to the copyright issue.
/. apply the precedent to your present case.
There is an interesting precedent on what happens when copyright and first-amendment collide. Some decades ago, the Soviets published a badly bawdlerized version of a dissident's book that had become widely acclaimed in hand-copied "samizdat" editions. When the original was smuggled to the West and published here, the Soviet "publisher" sued for violation of copyright. The court, in throwing out the lawsuit, reasoned that copyright law was being used to stifle a protected political debate: about Communist _praxis_ then, about Microsoft's extend-to-destroy strategy now.
The core of the court's reasoning was based on the original purpose of each clause. When two constitutonal provisions collide, the one that is being used for its original constitutional purpose prevails. The purpose of copyrights was to promote the dissemination of knowledge, by giving a financial incentive to writing and publication. This is the central purpose that must be protected. Other uses of copyright, such as trying to halt the spread of of information that might harm the political interests of the copyright owner, enjoy a lower level of protection, particularly when they act against the original purpose of copyright, and hinder, rather than promote, the dissemination of ideas. Similarly, the original purpose of free speech guarantees was to promote unhindered debate of political issues. Other uses of the 1st amendment's guarantee of free expression - for example, the provision of pornography to masturbators - enjoy less protection. Such secondary uses of the free-spech guarantee may have to give way when they are in conflict wih the central purpose of some other constitutional provision.
In the case that set the precedent - just like the case now - the 1st amendment case involved publication of material going to the heart of a public political controversy, the exact purpose for which the 1st amendment was written into our constituton. As for copyright, it was being used then - just like now - directly _against_ the original constitutional purpose. The Soviets then, and Microsoft now, have tried to use copyright to hinder, rather than promote, the dissemination of knowledge. I hope that the above will help
The above is a very reasonable argument for why Slashdot should not have to censor the offendings posts.
For those who want a copyright-free interpretation of Microsoft's kerberos implementation, try
http://www.thetop.net/kerbos/spec.txt.
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Thousands of dorks that would actually read their email on Christmas morning being able to do so: priceless.
I thought only unix's were boxes, and why is MS shipping X on it instead of using 2000?
---
Given that there is a GPL'd document published that does not have the Microsoft restrictions, I wonder where they stand legally now?
I published this on Friday, but here it is again. Maybe it'll get moderated up this time.
http://www.thetop.net/kerbos/spec.html
http://www.thetop.net/kerbos/spec.txt
Good luck!
-Hope
The domain wasn't available. When he paid the fee, he didn't own the domain in any way whatsoever. Therefore, he didn't give it back. Your comment that he "considered it not to be fair to keep the domain" is completely bogus, since he never had it to begin with.
So, he most certainly could not have "struggled to keep it or sell it to someone else," since he'd have to own it first, nor could he have "settled for a good amount of cash," since Microsoft didn't owe him a single penny.
You make the point of the guy you responded to. You're giving him credit for playing fair simply because he wasn't unfair to them. Just like the guy said, just because it wasn't "unethical" doesn't make it "ethical." His only two options in this situation were (1) pay the bill, or (2) not pay the bill. There was nothing to be fair or unfair about.
And seeing how much publicity he's gotten from his 35 bucks, I'd say it's a Hell of an investment, but no more ethical (or unethical) than playing the stock market.
- Microsoft.com. Search for exact phrase "SAMBA." (include the period)
- Web Workshop - CIFS Products and Vendors
- Samba
- At the bottom of the page select Linuxcare
- then click the Linuxcare logo to go to the US site for Linuxcare
- Under Linux Links select News/Press
- then, finally, Slashdot!
Voila! Microsoft to Slashdot and back in under 10 links.My office has been taken over by iPod people.
I read an in depth article once about the MS extension of Kerebros. Basically, the functional part of the spec involves a string of values. Lets say the spec string had 30 characters. The Kerebros group decided to use only 26 of the characters, leaving the last four unused. MS decided to use these spaces.
Is it just me or does all this sound just a little too familiar? Reminds me of Halloween
;-)
...
De-commoditize protocols & applications
OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.
...
Fold extended functionality into commodity protocols / services and create new protocols
Linux's homebase is currently commodity network and server infrastructure. By folding extended functionality (e.g. Storage+ in file systems, DAV/POD for networking) into today's commodity services, we raise the bar & change the rules of the game.
Hmm...I wonder if Microsoft employees are required to put a EULA and a huge copyright notice at the top of all of their emails to prevent future leaks from being posted on Slashdot. I guess then they would try to throw the DMCA at us for telling people to just use `tail` to view the email contents.
--
-- Grow up and use mutt.
Why did you do this?
I did it to see what would happen if I did it, and I did it to help Hotmail users. It's been the most fun I've ever had for $35.
There has been some confusion, so let me state now that I had none of the following motivations:
To get to my Hotmail- While it's true that I noticed the problem while trying to get to my Hotmail, that wasn't a motivation. Like many people, I use Hotmail as a spam trap and alternative email which I check once every couple of weeks. I own enough domain names to have cooler email addresses, like mdchaney@michaelchaney.com.
There's more, but that answers your allegation -- if he's telling the truth, and why wouldn't he?
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
Everyone (including Mr. Chaney) says "M$ is so stupid, you can just open it with WinZip". Have you actually tried to open it with WinZip? I just did, and I got an error that it was an invalid file. Winzip's popup says: "If this is a self-extracting file it is either not in the standard Zip file format or it is corrupt." I suspect it is not really a .ZIP. WinRAR also errors on trying to open it. So tell me how exactly you can open this file without clicking OK on the EULA?
If only I had taken that typing class in highschool. The need to be within the first 60 posts for your comment to be read compounds the problem. As a side note, if you understood my writing well enough to comprehend what I was trying to say then I'm happy.
As the author of this piece, I hereby demand, upon pain of lawsuit, that Slashdot delete the above post, delete this thread, delete this article, delete all backups of all Slashdot data just to be safe, ban this "177" person from the site, personally spank anyone who moderated it up, and for God's sake wash your hands afterwards.
Nah, just kidding. But thanks to everyone who set the record straight as to the authorship of this little bit of absurdity.
If you don't want my koalas, baby, don't shake my eucalyptus tree.
Your first sentence is correct, your second is not. All products do benefit when they are compatibile and interoperable with one another. But Microsoft doesn't want to raise the value of all products. It only wants its own to benefit.
It makes perfect business sense for Microsoft to try to lower the value of competing products by preventing interoperability with its own. It's called lock-in, and it increases switching costs for users and barriers to entry for competitors. It's a strategy that makes perfect sense if you have a dominant (especially monopoly) position, and little or no sense if you don't have such a position. Harness network effects to exclusively benefit your product, what could be simpler?
The only time this doesn't pay off is if it sufficiently alienates customers or developers. So far, Microsoft has managed to hew a fine line where such alienation has not outweighed the benefits of its platform. It's up to knowledgeable people to point out the oft-hidden costs and risks of adopting Microsoft's technology approach.
Remember, in reality, most of Microsoft's succesful innovations have been *legal* innovations, beginning with their DOS contract and extending through various exclusive OEM agreements and their chiseling away at the Java contract and DOJ Consent Decree. Their trade-secret licensing of Kerberos and their attempt to license software on a renewal basis (first at universities) are just the latest examples of this. Just what you'd expect from a firm founded by the bright son of a lawyer.
--LinuxParanoid, paranoid for Linux's sake
Ah, but Grasshopper, why do you bring the results of an action into the question of the act being ethical. Except for a limited set of ethics the results of an act (since there is really no way to know what they will be) having nothing to do with whether an act is good.
That aside--the only point he seems to be making is that /. is about a certain ethos (despite the raging masses of ACs and Zealots) typified in some way by what he did and the antithesis of how MS is behaving in this matter.
And what he did was a "hack"--he used his technical knowledge to do what no-one else thought to do and provided a tid bit of humour to those who could appreciate it while also providing minor but easily digestable embarassement to "the establishment".
As with other hacks--it wasn't done for ethics, but because it could be done.
ACk
Did the fact that he had given M$ a mere $35 to help out some Hotmail users make you think any less of what he had written?
Because I don't know all the facts about his actions with the Hotmail incident, I can't say whether or not what he did could be considered "ethical"; but I can say that I agree with your statement the just because an action isn't "unethical" doesn't mean that it's "ethical"
Microsoft sure doesn't do much to prevent changing/hacking/etc. of their EULA's.. For instance, check out this image. Microsoft Service Packs come with a file called eula.txt, which can be changed at will!
All in all, a good article; however, in regard to:
Given that Microsoft has made the information freely available, I can't imagine what this can gain for them.
I believe that a main point of this release that MC missed is that by releasing these the specs for Kerberos in this manner, they have tainted the water, in as much as they have made it near impossible for someone such as the Samba team to prove that they developed the correct methods to extend Kerberos into the same areas as MS without using MS's copyrighted, freely available, EULA protected methods.
"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -- Thomas Jefferson
I disagree with the use of the GNU Free Documentation License for a specification, in this case Microsoft's extensions of Kerberos. Wouldn't a specification tend to have the equivalent of header file information, interfaces, function calls, variables etc.? Now IANAL, but in order to implement a specification, a programmer might need to copy from the document the exact form of the interfaces, so wouldn't the program be a derived work of the GFDLed document, and thus be required to be released under the GFDL? Reading the GFDL, I am not even sure that source code GFDLed is compatible with GPLed source code.
With the current legal climate I think it would be unwise to rely on "fair use" defenses. Perhaps an amended form of the GFDL for specifications can explicitly permit derived source code, similar to how autoconf produced scripts are explicitly unencumbered.
Now, less than a year later, Microsoft takes Kerberos, an existing open standard, and changes it with the sole purpose of stopping interoperability between Windows 2000 machines and other clients not developed by them. As if that wasn't bad enough, they then publish their Kerberos spec with such a tight licence that the information in it is rendered useless to all that read it. In fact those that read it no longer have the right to develop their own Kerberos client with the information contained in the spec. So basically, Microsoft published the spec with the sole intention of slowing down development of alternative clients (i.e. Kerberos clients for Linux).
One must now wonder what is Microsoft's stance on open standards. Are they for or against them? I would like to close with two quotes from Microsoft's letter to AOL as mentioned above. The meaning is the same, but the technology is different.
You are just making a fool of yourself by misrepresenting by point.
That should read 'my'.
Period!
PERIOD!
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
The first time, the gun refused to fire.
The second time, the bullet moved so slow I got out of the way.
The third time, it fired okay but the gun was so inaccurate it killed someone standing BEHIND the MS goon.
The fourth time, the gun blew up and took out the MS flunky with it.
Now I've heard they're going to try to fire a nuclear missle at me. Since I'm in Minnesota, people in Hawaii should probably start evacuating.
OK, I overreacted. Post #8 says that the guy isn't supposed to be taken seriously because he is not an expert (an OS guru or a hot lawyer, I suppose) and my point is that he behaved fairly during the whole thing. And by fair I mean not trying to take malicious advantage, which he could. That gives him at least the right to be taken seriously while suggesting MS to GPL their Kerberos extensions.
But I'm not making anybody's point. What does unethical mean? It means not ethical! Come on, if it is false that something is not, than it is true that it is!
You took eight jumps. Here's
:)
<ol>
<li>Start from <a href="www.microsoft.com">Microsoft</a>, then search for "samba"
<li>On the Web workshop page, go to the bottom of the links
<li>Last link gets you redirected to <a href="www.littleigloo.com">Littleigloo</a>
<li>Click on thier 'featured site' - <a href="http://www.linuxdev.net>Linux Dev</a>
<li>Second link on Linux Dev main page is (cutrrently) Slashdot.
I make that 5. Anyone want to try and beat that?
(Yes, I start in the same way. Isn't that part of the point of free software, learn from others, and improve?
Just hit 100 page requests. Now if someone would moderate this up, maybe it'll get some serious play.
This is the MS Kerbos Spec WITHOUT the MS copyright, EULA, or trade secret issues. It has been rewritten from scratch and GPL'd.
-Hope
(1) The information can no longer be assumed to be a trade secret.
(2) It's not patented.
(3) The Microsoft document is copyrighted, but the information can be disseminated in any way other than their document.
Solution: Rewrite the document
Like this: http://www.thetop.net/kerbos/spec.html
I've got a message posted below, but it's buried too deep to get moderated up. Hopefully, it can see some light up here.
So far, over 100 hits since I posted two hours ago. The server wouldn't mind a couple thousand... it's bored out of its skull anyway.
-Hope
... is that people like me (IT admin) are going to become annoyed enough about it all that we start recommending shifting out of MS software and into something where we only have to worry about the technology, not the license.
DB
Yes, I share your sin. Mea culpa. Whip me massa! Punish me too, Microsoft! I offer myself on the altar of culpability. Perhaps Microsoft should be interested in punishing me as well. And Al Gore, he got the info and didn't turn me in. Does that make him an accessory? How about Sharon Stone? Does Microsoft have to chastise all of us who have shared your sin. My mind boggles at the implications, but then again, my mind terminally boggled some time ago. Good Grief, the comedian's a bear! No he's a not, he's a wearing a neck-a-tie.
What I want to know is why has this became a character defamation thread on Mr. Chaney? He did a random act of kindness over the holidays, and now he's tactfully written a letter stating how he feels the Kerberos thing should be handled. What a guy.
While we're on character (and I *know* I'll get flamed for this one) let's take a peek at Linus Torvalds. I think he's a cool guy, most of you think he's a cool guy. But hey, he wrote an OS back in the early 90's that's been installed on some corporate servers and they've been broken into. Man, Linus must be horrible.
Please people, use some common sense when you post.
Trade secrets are protected only weakly by intellectual property law. In particular, a trade
secret ceases to be a trade secret once it is revealed to the public, even if the revelation takes place by illegal means--at least, before the DMCA.
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
Actually there's a very good case to be made that MS is massively guilty of fraud. They lie to their ISV developers all the time. They say, here's all of the Win32 API, here's the exact same tools that MS has to develop so you can compete with us. It's a lie and they extract money out of thousands of software development companies because of that lie.
This is criminal fraud on a massive scale and a perfectly respectable libertarian response is to jail Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and the other people who went along with this long term criminal fraud. You end up with MS in one piece but no more memos instructing people to break interoperability etc.
The problem with the Republicans is that they don't want to recognize that MS committed a crime. The problem with the Democrats is that they want to convict MS of the wrong crime. The problem with the Libertarians is that they don't have any power at all so that justice could be done.
Politics can suck
DB
The data field used by MS Kerberos is being used within the spirit and letter of the spec, if you believe the original designers of Kerberos. Non-MS implementations don't look for a value in that field, and work as before. The only "incompatibility" involved is that non-MS software can't take advantage of the data in the field, and MS clients don't work without it. Don't buy Windows 2000 if you want to use a non-MS KDC. Furthermore, if MS had not used Kerberos, Linux machines would be totally unable to use MS servers for authentication. This use of standards benefits the Linux community, by allowing companies to use Linux on some of their desktops.
We all know that Linux does not have a standard for distributed group memberships. This is just one of the benefits of using Microsoft systems as servers. If some of your services don't need this functionality, then you are free to use MS Kerberos for authentication and use local authorization. For the rest of us, we take advantage of the features MS provides.
Why would you expect MS to give away its products and intellectual property for free? They produced software that allows easier management of larger distributed systems, that is better than what is available for Linux. Allowing their servers to take the place of other servers over Linux networks is in their interest. Allowing their workstations to access resources on Linux servers is in their interest, but their biggest profit comes from the whole package. We should not expect them to make it possible for someone using a Linux infrastructure to get the benefits MS is trying to make money off of. Their interest is best served by making people buy it from them if they want the MS features.
Bottom line: If you want distributed Authentication, any Kerberos implementation will do, including that from MS, for either servers or workstations. If you want the additional benefit of distributed authorization, everyone involved needs to speak that extended data field. Since that field is for third party use, MS made use of it. If you want the benefits that come from that MS field, use MS products all around. If you don't think it's worth it, don't buy from them. If you want, you can define your own schema for that field, and try to sell that. MS did nothing wrong here.
--Sandy
We need a t-shirt with the data structure printed on it!
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
OpenNAP is actually an open-source NAPSTER SERVER for UNIX. Napster clients are available at the OpenNAP page (click the OpenNAP link). I personally use Gnapster and like it. I also use the command-line (but not open source!?!?!!!!!????) 'nap' program that uses ncurses, over shell accounts. It's quite convenient. It's the 'nap' program in the Closed Source section of the OpenNAP page.
the real at&t mix
As UCITA has been passed and signed into law in two states, this could be a problem if the Web Server that the EXE appeared on had physical residence in Virginia or that other backwards state that passed it.
Under the terms of UCITA, you don't even have to read the non-extracted file that you didn't know was there to have basically given away all your rights to MSFT. The non-publication of the license still makes it enforceable, and they now can hunt inside your computer system, without court order or permission, to try to find the Kerboros spec if they determine that you violated the license from their perspective. You're automatically presumed guilty before being proven innocent. It's up to you to pay the legal fees, and you have no recourse.
At least UCITA hasn't even appeared in Washington State, we're not that gullible about tech stuff. Plus I told about half the state officials, state reps, and state senators about it.
Will in Seattle
For those who aren't familar, Six Degrees of Separation is an exploration into the fundamental interconnectedness of relations.
You've probably heard of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, now lets play Six Degrees of MADS (Microsoft Authorization Data Specification).
Aim of the game, to link from the Microsoft site to a copy of the MADS docs on the internet in 6 clicks or less.
Start your engines people
You make absolutely no sense. He's telling Microsoft to what to do mot slashdot. Not that it matters unless you're some sort of elitist ass.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
- Get gun, sack, and mask (mask optional)
- Walk into bank with gun concealed then walk up to bank teller and point gun and make threats if mask off; or leap into bank with gun out while shouting threats if mask on.
- Demand bank teller hand over money. (note: Be sure to be gruff and demanding, i.e. "Give me all your money, f###er!". Being polite will NOT do if you have a gun to their head.)
- Provide teller with sack so as to have money placed into it.
- Get out of the bank, making sure that no security guards are planning on shooting you.
- Hop into getaway car and get away.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATIVE AND CAUTIONARY NOTES:- Money may not be of any use after you have stolen it.
- You could easily be shot during this procedure. Be sure to wear a flak jacket.
- Don't shoot anyone of you can help it. You are robbing a bank here, not killing.
- Above all, have fun! And have a good getaway plan!
DISCLAIMER: poster of this slashdot post is not liable for anything resulting from this posting or anyone reading this posting, including but not limited to hospital bills, equipment availablity, money availability, bank availability, brain availability, and any other problems associated with robbing a bank, judged at the poster's discretion.(Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to skip the country, since this posting makes me a criminal. Yeah. :) )
-----------
-Jo Hunter
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Here's my Microsoft Parody, where's yours?
Here.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Slashdot may not be quite as reliable as going to CNN.com - L. Torvalds
"Al Gore invented the Internet" -- CNN.com
Now, Slashdot would not be the forum it is without a free range of views. Having said that, here are my points. I hope these paint a bigger single unified picture in when you bring them together.
- Kerberos is not Microsoft's to GPL or bestow any other copyright upon. I am sure it has its own copyright right now and what that is remains the decision of the contributors to it
- I do not agree with the implicit slant that this issue (M$, Kerberos and the nastygram to
/.) is a big misunderstanding. To me, it looks like a well-thought-out campaign hatched from the earliest days when it was becoming clear that free software was going to be the biggest threat to to a dominance based on commercial monopolistic practice. If it is the case that M$ were (a large part of) the money behind lobbying in the 1998 period which caused the DCMA to be brought into being, that fits in with the time scale I am portraying. - The battle is in progress now, and it has taken a lot of courage for the owners of the group which hosts
/. to draw a deep breath, weigh-up the purposefully assembled legal firepower (one assumes to be in place for this "move" (in the chess-game sense of the meaning)) and declare M$'s "claim" to be bogus and a toothless bluff. The die is cast and M$ must end up with a blooding which terminates any further attempts along this line of attack. And yes; M$ will come all hurt and misunderstood afterwards!
Right now is a good time to see off this attack. M$ have been put in a "use it or lose it" position after a long time of preparation - and good fortune has it that they are presently mired by the consequences of other separate shenanigans. The shafting of their customers in very recent memory with "ILOVEYOU" virus vulnerability (all of which they bear no liability for via the shrink-wrap agreement) should prevent them easily gaining widespread public support by loud and well-funded media misrepresentation. "Up on Capitol Hill" (if I understand the general gist of US politics correctly) I don't think ANYONE(!) will recall benefiting from M$ largesse or ever having supported legislation benefiting an organisation which was at the time abusing monopolistic power at the expense of the electoral base they serve!I sincerely hope M$ ends up with egg on its face and the DCMA is rendered inoperable in one fell swoop.
Anyway - one last point. Slashdot and forums like it on the internet are not "broadcasters", and should not be treated as such. People come to it, can follow an interest in what they like and leave when they like. Good point to make for the inoperability of the recent Act?
It is been accurately pointed out that the GPL is not the correct license for this type of distribution. My fault for not paying better attention; I write more code than specifications. That said however, if this ever becomes a problem, there are at least two obvious solutions. 1) if there is a legal migration to the GFDL, then use it; otherwise 2) use it as the basis for a properly GFDL'd specification.
This spec is the starting point for a more comprehensive solution. Certain details have been left out on purpose so that the authors of the new spec must parse the data from the server to understand certain data types. This will happen normally in the course of implementing the spec anyway.
-Hope
Yes. You are correct. The Gnu Free Document License is the more appropriate license. My mistake.
As mentioned in a prior post above, this document is a starting point. If it cannot be legally migrated to the GFDL, then a new, more comprehensive document can be written using this as a foundation.
-Hope
As some one who eats frequently at the sisters of the road cafe.. I'd like to thank M.C. for his generous contribution.
Movie News - "Entertainment news, bitch!"
(MIT, right?)
If MS can't be made to open up the standard, then maybe they can be forced to drop the name "Kerberos", at least from the clients, as they are not compatible with a "standard" Kerberos server.
After all, that's one of the reasons why Linus owns the Linux trademark, right? If MS came out with "Microsoft Linux" (ignoring the GPL for a moment), but it only worked with its own proprietary file system extensions, or some other change, I presume Linus could LART them for that and get them to drop the name.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
This morning at 9:30, on "The Exchange" on New Hampshire Pulic Radio, Slashdot was mentioned as "This really good techincal news website" and they talked about the Kerberos/Microsoft continuim. M@
Krispy Cream is people