Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Openly Provides Kerberos Interop Specs
konstant writes: "Microsoft has published a document on its TechNet security site providing most of the information in the infamous CAB file plus sample code. There appears to be no onerous license this time." Well, it's not the *whole thing* but has lots of useful info about Microsoft's Kerberos implementation. Strange note: the page where this appears has a footer that says, "Last updated January 21, 2000," but when I did a search on Microsoft.com during our little tussle with them last month, I didn't find it.
Very true... in fact, look at this file that I modified on Christmas in 1942:
:)
-rwxr-xr-x 1 twilde twilde 107 Dec 25 1942 traceover.pl
:) My point was just that... well, I don't think I had a point, I just felt like saying something. Fact is, if they wanted to be underhanded, there are plenty of ways they could have done it, and they probably used every single one of them. But we don't KNOW that they did!
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Tim Wilde
Gimme 42 daemons!
Afaics the copyright notice does not prevent you from writing a SAMBA-style hack that interops with MS Kerberos. It does however prevent anyone writing commercial software which takes advantage of this. Preseumably that means that you wouldn't find an MS-kerberos workaround on a Red Hat CD, but for free off the Net? That ain't commercial.
I think this is M$ trying to put an end to the bad PR they recieved when they stuck their hand in the pengiuns nest, so to speak. Still, it's a step in the right direction... First open MS Kerberos, next... World Domination! (er...)
That must be a huge blow to them, who are used to being able to dictate to people what they would use and what standards would be supported. Imagine their fear that they are losing that control and must actually play nice with other operating systems and programs.
Finkployd
But this does makes you wonder.. Could it be that /.'s hassle with MS was just MS's way in following the saying "it doesn't matter how they talk about you as long as they are talking about you.", which they've done before? The last (afaik also proven) example of this behaviour was during the introduction of Windows 95. There were quite some rumours going on that the OS was massivly spread by hackers (according to the local news, we call 'm warez weenies) but in the end it turned out that it was MS itself who spread those 'illegal' copies. Another scheme to get the whole campain on the news without the extra commercial costs.
If this theory is correct, and please not that I'm not stating that it is, the remaining question would be "why /. ?". Well, it is a fact that a lot of technical skilled people hang out on Slashdot. This kind of information is only interessting for people who actually know a little bit more about stuff like this. But I'm quite positive that this thread gets far more attention now that /. had a little hassle with MS about this very same issue. At least among regular /. readers.
The time doesn't change for daylight savings - I'm in London, England but to get the correct times I'm using French Western time instead...
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Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
You're damn right I'm quoting their material. Especially since there was no click-through license agreement. This information is publicly available and published. This is not the same issue as before at all. Microsoft has never before made a stink about quoting them when it wasn't a `trade secret.' And more importantly, I support those other poster's in what they did, and I would have done the same.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Adding 2 and 2, we get: time representation is supposed to be local zone. EST goes right and CET DST (which I called CST in my previous post) is off by one hour, displaying winter time rather than summer time. Which leads to the possible answer, that for some time zones, the summertime index is broken or absent.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
The truth shall make you fret. (Ankh-Morpork tImes motto)
yeah I'm sorry guys... ill have to do better next time. I'm going to write a large text file that will be the best "first post" ever and then when the time comes, ill copy and paste it, and everyone will be amased.
witty sig goes here
The post is obviously an example of fair use. The poster quotes a small amount of text from the original text to support his/her comment.
Besides, as the original poster noted, there is no "trade secret" clause now.
Shouldn't it then contain a correct release date?
It seems the date on the document is there to leave you to believe that is the public release date not the creation date.
I also suspect the accual creation date of the document is a bit older if it was created internally as this dosn't fit within the develupment cycle.
No such documents like this should have been created around that time frame as Win2K was being readyed for release.
Don't be amazed.. history has a tendency to repeate itself...
I expect history to repeate it self and this is why I'm not supprised when people expect it won't.
I don't actually exist.
That's not true. I used to work with their products, and have earned MCSD/partly MCSE certification. In one of the exams (cannot remember which one) they asked which system was best for a particular task. The right answer was some Novell product.
Microsoft is a company like many others. They use whatever they can, and whatever they (think they) can get away with to make money. Contrary to the popular notion here, MS has some good products. The reason for that is that it's a way to make money.
----------------------------------------------
the pun is mightier than the sword
Microsoft was never really the dominant power that it has had the image of being. I think that the world and the company was under the illusion that they were, but you'll notice that NT has never been the true dominant enterprise server, that there really are more machines that at least look like unix than ones the run windows, and that standards really do reign. What M$ had power over was their users, which while that was the significant desktop market, that has never been where the REAL power in computing was. For M$ to ever be a real dominant company in the computer science realm, you would have to see supercomputers and mainframes that run windows, and you don't, because it's not a suitable market for them. Microsoft has always had to at least meet the standards part way, otherwise nothing would ever have worked under windows. The real problem is where they "embrace and extend" things into the proprietary realm, which has been destroying good standards for some time now. I think that they are learning the lesson that you don't take, for instance, Java, and make it only work under windows. We may start looking at an era where M$ is a real rival and not just a company that holds a bigger market share (no offense guys, it just pisses people off when you wreck our perfectly good software).
Eh...
I had no idea that anybody outside the United States used daylight savings time, but apparently much of Europe does, and I have a feeling Slashdot doesn't know about that, so if you're outside the US try setting your time zone for some country to the east of you - e.g in the UK pick France or something. Apparently the UK is currently at GMT+0100, Spain is GMT+0200, etc. and everything will make more sense in the fall.
I'm in Arizona, which (like Hawaii) doesn't go on daylight savings time, so I'm on Mountain Standard (GMT-0700). Slashdot does know about Arizona (stupid backwards state that it is).
blah, sorry for ranting off-topic...
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Exactly. The date "Last updated on..." is not necessarily related to the date for "Made public on..."
========
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
Its no surprise that this type of propaganda would flow from MS. That they would purposely use an openly MS employee as a cog in their FUD machine leads me to believe this is not a calculated maneuver.
.000023ns and popular public discourse occurs on 21/3 minute segments by the 11o'clock talking heads. This is all they need to do, this will build a 'case' that the Kerbos Case is not one of embrace and extend.
It dosnt surprise me, in this day when peoples attention spans are
MS Markatroid Quote 06.28.01:
"WE PUT THIS OUT IN JANUARY _LAST YEAR_, what you read on SLASHDOT are the ramblings of Linux Crazed Zealots(tm) obviously brainwashed and drunk on the evil you know of as 'Open Source'"
The EU-commissioner Mario Monti still wants an inquery on Microsoft.
Mr. Monti says that the US trial does not change his views. The US trial did focus on webbrowsers, the European trial will focus on servers.
The important question for the EU is that Microsoft Windows 2000 security software is designed only to work with Windows 2000 servers.
-- From Denmark
What ramifications does this new developement have for the Samba crew? Does this provide enough (legal) information for them to use?
No, the right thing would be to conform to the existing standard rather than extend it in some arbitrary way.
Documenting that arbitrary extension is helpful, but requesting an extension through the original authors would be a great deal better.
I'm trying to think of a specific example... the best that I can come up with is Internet Explorer 3.0 for the MacOS. This was one of the best web browsers of all time, and it was specifically designed to work closely with the MacOS. And, for the record, it was released before the infamous alliance between MS and Apple. I suppose the project just kept a low profile at Microsoft, so the programmers were allowed to do it right.
MSK
Never attribute to malice or conspiracy what can be attributed to incompetence or stupidity.
Not that I'm a huge fan of MS, but I personally think that the failure to update their search engine is a far likelier probability than MS intentionally concealing the specs.
My, what a big kerberos you have. dc:
You seem to be responding to this poor fellow as though he was Microsoft hatred incarnate, while that's really hard to judge without more information.
Still, you have an interesting point, and since I do have the basic opinion you cite above, I thought I'd give you the courtesy of a response.
The worst thing about Microsoft is simply that it builds its products on a house of cards foundation, which generally falls down on anyone trying to do serious work with the platform. Mix this with the virtual monopoly they have in many parts of the industry, and you have a killer brew which brings out the worst in programmers.
The general idea of having to use products we despise in order to eat is highly unsettling. I'd make a case for saying that millions of programmers are slowly killing themselves working with systems they despise. Until I became fortunate enough to get a Linux-based job, I was one of those people - so I know how it feels, and that I don't exaggerate.
Microsoft is the most vicious competitor in the industry. This is why, despite all they have to offer, they have made so few real friends. I wasn't as ferociously against them as I am now before their giant Internet push; I felt that "my internet" could survive on Unix servers and I wouldn't have to use crummy Microsoft technology. Well, I was wrong; Microsoft followed me to the net, and I will never forgive them for it.
The reason they have a near-monopoly in PC operating systems is that developers will generally write for the platform that has the most consumer/business mindshare. They got the mindshare by basically giving away the product with PCs running their previously dominant DOS. They acted brilliantly in exploiting their position. As a result, lots of people developed for them, and Microsoft Windows, despite its faults, became dominant.
It was proably inevitable that some company would thus gain a near-monopoly on operating systems. My beef is not with the monopoly; it's with the quality of the system and software provided with it.
So why don't I dislike Sun, SGI, Cisco or Oracle? Because they produce high quality products, for the most part, and I like using them.
I hate using Microsoft Windows, and yet there's a Microsoft Windows computer on my desktop. Granted, I have three others that I use 95% of the time, but the fact that even I have to use Windows for some things irks me.
I hope that answers your question.
D
----
Geez, time zones, daylight savings time, and 12 clocks are incredibly annoying IMHO. I wished the whole world used 24 hour UTC (and I don't live in UK)
To my increasingly paranoid eye, this is yet another attempt to seize by misdirection and intimidation rights and protections not actually granted by law, and to deny by those same tactices the rights accorded to actual breathing citizens.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I was not virulently anti-Microsoft until I was forced to use their products. Currently I am looking for an escape, but management seems convinced that MS is the only possible choice. This makes things difficult. Every crash that I experience increases my distaste for MS. They seem to go out of their way to make it difficult to do anything except what they've planned for you to do. This is probably seen as making it simple, but if that's the goal, why didn't they include "rename data table" in the help? All I could find was how to do it by hand. Eventually I figured it out (by trial and error) but that was something that should have been easy which ended up taking several hours. If they weren't paid big wads of cash for this garbage it would be easier to forgive them. If there was any reasonable way to find the information I would be less continually irritated with them. Trial and error is *not* how I like to approach programming!
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was up on their site the whole time. Speaking as someone who regularly has to try and find content on MS's site I can safely say that it's impossible. Often the same search will return different pages several days apart. Trying to find development info is a joke I spent two hours looking for a place to download the ADO update. After looking through 15+ pages of marketing fluff and presentation slides the search engine return, all of which were telling me how great the update is, I gave up and went looking for RDO info. Annoyingly from there I found a link to the DAC which apparently encompasses the ADO. The point of this rambling is that I was probably there in plain "Microsoft" sight, which translates to if you had the exact URL you could have found it.
Your virulent-anti-Microsoft frame of mind coupled with the lack of *equally* strong foundations to back it up make me wonder about your mental health.
If you are a qualified mental health professional then I'd be interested to know what your diagnosis of my condition is after never meeting me and reading merely a few of my sentences. If you are not a qualified mental health professional, then it should be clear to you how idiotic it is for you to make statements about my mental health.
It can't be [ . . .]
This is an example of "trifurcation" (kind of like bifurcation, except with three examples instead of two). You attempt to discredit my argument my limiting me to three positions and then systematically shoot down each one. Do you think there could be another reason (or reasons) why I loathe and detest Microsoft? Would it make a difference to you if my reasons may be valid? At this point I can't tell if you care.
When you go off the deep end in your dislike of Redmond inhabitants you do more harm to your own position than to Microsoft's.
This is a valid argument, and I agree with you. I find it hard to temper my anger in the face of such egregious evil. At the same time, I know that the Microsoft people will point to me as some "foaming-at-the-mouth linux zealot." You know what? They're right. And it does hurt my position. But when I calm down and explain my position those Microsoft people get awfully quiet or get that deer-in-headlights look. Alas, I'm only human.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
HTH, HAND,
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
The truth shall make you fret. (Ankh-Morpork tImes motto)
No, Gates only wants towell boys who know that humans are primates :)
Finkployd
The last release was copyrighted (because it was a published work) AND labelled a "trade secret". It was this second designation that allowed MS (or so they thought) to add "so don't use this to create your own implementation" to the license.
With only a copyright, this essentially becomes a "how to implement MS Kerb" book--you can use it to create an implementation but you can't copy the text. Just like any other book.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
No, they just doctor video tapes for court evidence :)
Finkployd
I've never been able to find anything by searching on the Microsoft Site. Google or AltaVista have a better index of MS than MS does.
--- Have you seen MURL?
The key here is that the license does not use a click thru to attempt to ban reverse engineering the protocol.
That is pretty important.
Wow, MS is recommending interoperability with Solaris using GCC! Personally, I never thought I'd live to see this.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Aside from legal issues, paranoid conspiracy theories, etc., has anyone considered that the guys at Micro$oft are jsut trying to do the right thing for once?
Sure people like Gates and Balmer are megalomanical incarnations of evil, but not everyone at Micro$oft is bad. Is it possible that somewhere in the chain of command there was a good guy that stepped back, took a long look, and realized that trying to add proprietary stuff to Kerberos was just a shitty thing to do?
When Micro$oft does things like this, try not to be such dicks about it. If people encourage them to keep open things open, and allow for interopability, and on top of that come up with some sort of positive response, maybe Micro$oft will start doing this sort of thing more often.
This is horribly funny. Anything a MS employee walks away with from a meeting between his two ears (in his natural memory) is considered the property of MS. And once it's theirs, as we see, they never, ever give it up.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
I wasn't the only geek who grew up watching MacGuyver. Essentially, an hour long show(with a great theme song) of Ad Hoc Geekdom saving the world on a regular basis. Great TV; I'm sorry it's gone.
For all the fears about bombmaking information on the Internet, MacGyver in its time never needed to worry it was really teaching kids how to make any form of explosive--while most of the steps were technically accurate(usually), something was always left out so that kids wouln't blow off their fingers and sue the production company.
My question here is, has Microsoft left something out, something minor and non-obvious but critical to successful reimplementation? I'm not accusing them of doing this, but I am interested in what's been removed from the public documentation. Now, it's likely to be nothing--there's more likely more than a few very pissed off Kerberos developers within Microsoft, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if them and a few "volunteer managers" were starting to get fed up with being used as pawns, particularly with the stock price falling so precipitously. The entire Kerberos debacle was a embarassment for everyone involved and I'm sure MS Upper Management figured that out reasonably quickly.
But still, the question remains: Has anything substantive been removed from these pubic documents?
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Sheesh, I'm seriously thinking of putting the Microsoft topic in the same place a the Amiga topic. Nothing worthwile is showing up in the discussions here. It's always open-source, (because it's free as in beer,not speech, although they say otherwise) closed-mind-Linux-above-everything crap spews out here. Frankly it's making me sick. I dislike MS, and think they have become market leaders, not because of good or even inexspenive products, but right through bullying and other shoddy methods. But I don't loathe Ballmer or Gates, actually I suspect that Gates is an intelligent geek, but sadly raised by a laywer (What would you expect out of a child who has a big cat attorney for a father?:>) Ach, why do I even bother?
J.
Does anyone else think this might just be a ploy to garner a little more ammo for their upcoming appeal?
"Look your honor - we can play nice! The geek community complained, and we opened our arms to them!"
And how many people will ignore or forget the fact that the problems arose when MS bastardized an open protocol. Of course, when you're Bill Gates, you can afford to re-write history...
---
Gort! Klatu Barata Nikto!
J.K. Weston has been reassigned to an exciting new career as trainee in the phone tech support dept?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
"Last Updated" means the last time a document was changed. You can't equate Last Updated with Release Date. They are two totally different things.
If MS changed the information in the document, would you want the Last Updated date to be when they updated it, or the original release date of the information?
Everything in this post is false.
When I first talked to a Microsoft employee, it was all I could do to keep from screaming, "How can you do what you do and feel good about yourself! Are you some kind of whore!"
In my current, virulently-anti-Microsoft frame of mind, I don't know how I'd react if any of my friends went and worked there!
You probably don't feel as strongly about Microsoft as I do (I've found few people who do), but do your friends believe the same lies which Microsoft dumps on the public? I.e., have they been "brainwashed" to the "One Microsoft Way"?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I took TRoLLaXoR's course and now I too am a dreg of trolldom. You can be one too! Here's a link to some more trolling tips. I hope they are helpful.
I didn't take this name, boy, I earned it. I am the one and only ERRoR 808. To help you see the TRoLLaXoR/ERRoR 808 conection, here's a link to set you on your way.
The odd date might be pertaining to the actuall document. Which may have not changed except for the fact that you don't have to click through. I mean they would never falsify documents to make it look like they aren't being bad. Would they =)
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
We saw acouple of progress reports from Roblimo about talking with lawyers and such, but where does it stand as of right now? Did the Redmond legal machine actually back down? Did they they just bury it and hope everyone would forget? Details, details!
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Well, we all konstant is actually an employee of Microsoft, and he's submitted this story both here and at kuro5hin now. Haven't read the info at the website yet, but I'd be inclined to believe that this is some kind of MS set up, especially in light of their attack on /. last month...
but when I did a search on Microsoft.com during our little tussle with them last month, I didn't find it.
What ever happened with that tussle, anyhow? Did MS slink away when Andover's lawyers got tough or what?
-carl
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Yeah, we used to put the wrong dates on our timecards just to avoid managerial and legal tussle too. It happens.
As for the spec. I think that Microsoft realizes that nobody will adopt their software if it doesn't work in the existing infastructure, and doesn't conform. I mean, I can call Java C++ all I want, but it doesn't mean that Java is C++, and programmers trying to use it to write C++ will go with a different compiler. Get it? Whether they found it morally right or wrong, they are beginning to see that they have to start playing nice, or die after they are split up.
Eh...
NOTICE SPECIFIC TO DOCUMENTS AVAILABLE ON THIS WEBSITE. Permission to use Documents (such as white papers, press releases, datasheets and FAQs) from this server ("Server") is granted, provided that (1) the below copyright notice appears in all copies and that both the copyright notice and this permission notice appear, (2) use of such Documents from this Server is for informational and non-commercial or personal use only and will not be copied or posted on any network computer or broadcast in any media, and (3) no modifications of any Documents are made. Educational institutions ( specifically K-12, universities and state community colleges) may download and reproduce the Documents for distribution in the classroom. Distribution outside the classroom requires express written permission. Use for any other purpose is expressly prohibited by law, and may result in severe civil and criminal penalties. Violators will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible
Documents specified above do not include the design or layout of the Microsoft.com website or any other Microsoft owned, operated, licensed or controlled site. Elements of Microsoft websites are protected by trade dress, trademark, unfair competition, and other laws and may not be copied or imitated in whole or in part. No logo, graphic, sound or image from any Microsoft website may be copied or retransmitted unless expressly permitted by Microsoft.
Looks pretty much like the previous release, just without the trade secret nonsense.
So, does this mean we won? Is Slashdot still under threat of Microsoft lawyers, or has that all blown over? We want to know! :)
Syllable : It's an Operating System
I think it's about time MSFT does something like this. I work at a computer company, and we do a lot of software development. Currently, we are developing for Windows CE, and I have to say, I was really ticked when I learned I couldn't just d/l the SDK... I actually had to **order** it off of the developer store (Now true, it was free, but I still had to pay $7 s/h and wait 3 weeks to get the darned thing). Although this is a bit late in coming, it is a welcome addition. It will really help in programming for Windows 2000 sekurity. Better late than never!
Agelmar
Stefan.
[0] Letters, not missiles.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
The truth shall make you fret. (Ankh-Morpork tImes motto)
Commander Taco
Will bend over any time
I troll in haiku.
I don't know what your problem is but all times show up correctly for me (EST zone).
As previously suggested, MS might have provided the documentation on their site, but that certainly doesn't mean it's open. I poked around their site quite thoroughly when all of this Kerberos Extension Cr*p began, looking for their specs, but found nothing, and that was just a few months ago. It certainly doesn't look like that date is valid in pertaining to that site at all.
However, the point can be furnished that it WAS available... within the Microsoft internal network. Perhaps that document carries that date based NOT on the time that it was released, but at the time of its original internal publication. It seems a very Microsofty thing to do (using the tired old suspicious airs that we /.ers are known for).
Of course, this is all conjecture, and is completely un-needed, but it does offer some explaination to those curious enough.
-wulf-From their copyright:
Elements of Microsoft websites are protected by ... unfair competition
Does this not make you want to ROTFL?
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
no $hit, they have the worst search engine and organization I've seen. I heard somewhere that they constantly rearrange stuff so that search engine spiders think it's new and index it higher. That goes hand in hand with my real world experience. Quick, someone go find the IIS download! See ya in 30 minutes...
--
+&x
All one has to do to generate a date in a document (past or future) is to change the "Date & Time" from the taskbar to whatever they want, and then to create or modify the document. Voila! So I really don't know how you can actually trust any dates in a document.
wiZd0mThis is barely related to the previous flap. In particular, there is nothing here which says what MS did with the PAC. Or in other words, how a non-Windows system can find out to what groups a particular user belongs. I don't see what all the hootin' and hollerin' is about.
BB: I'll never forget how you got us out of that trap in Cairo, MacGyver, Ho, Ho, Ho!!
Not once was it explain how they escaped.
The film ended with the chamber of secrets collapsing due to the planets aligning (he watched them line up out of a hole in the roof, you could see the surface of Jupitor, for gods sake).
Oh, and the 'Eastern European Military Camp', which was actually Battersea power station.
And 'The London University', which was actually Royal Holloway University.
Very poor.
The poor cook he caught the fits
And threw away all of my grits
Well couldn't it have been last updated January 21st but now put up onto the live site until recently?
Josh
Crack Head!
they now pay me to wear their shoes.
CmdrTaco
If you wish an extremely amusing take on how daylight savings time is handled in the rest of the world check out the last Darwin Award.
Being the spawn of a lawyer just makes him that much MORE contemptable.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
As far as the date on the page is concerned, well they make heavy use of headers, footers & other automated elements on their site, so I don't think they are trying to claim its been there since Jan. 21st.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
It could simply be the case that AltaVista uses the Last-Modified-Date supplied by the web server it gets the document from.
So if Microsoft's web server reports 21 January, then AltaVista believes it. Why would it do otherwise?
Microsoft may well have prepared the document on that date, but not actually made it available on the Web until just recently.
You'll have to become Bill Gates's towel boy to use them!
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Err... if you actually take a look at the TechNet web page, you'll discover that there isn't nearly enough information to actually *implement* an interoperable implementation. There's a very high-level description of what goes into the Kerberos AUTH_DATA field, but not nearly enough bits-and-bytes information to actually implement anything interesting.
So when do you think MS will apologize for threatening a lawsuit?
Not to poke fingers, but the time on the Slashdot articles on the front page is always off by at least an hour. Often times I'll be looking at the site, and then look 10 minutes later and a new article appears with a time of 2 hours ago...
I'm not sure what the motivation is to make the time incorrect, but it's fairly annoying.
Rich
There are two distinct possibilities. I will be generous and present them in order of highest benefit to M$:
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
I mean, obviously they'd have this document, it's just that they chose to share it with us that's changed!
This is not a criticism, it's just something to keep in mind when you read his take on things - just as it is when any employee of a company publicly comments on something directly involving that company's business).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
After all the fuss last month over people posting Microsoft's copyrighted material to Slashdot, now someone's gone and done it again. Let's hope Microsoft see this as "Fair Use" before they unleash the lawyers again.
I bet it was under the advice of Bill's legal staff to "keep the non-monopoly image". Regardless, it is a step closer to what we need. br
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Microsoft has a habit of backdating alot of its technical articles. It is hard to tell if this is because the article existed internally for a while before it was released (most likely), whether it was a mistake, or whether they are trying to be sneaky. I have seen security problems reported to them that cause a technical article to appear publically with a date weeks in the past.
-weld
(Slashdot thinks I'm not logged in, though I was logged in a few minutes ago. Slashdot's been wierd today; a few minutes ago I was seeing lots of Perl error messages regarding "mu.current.nu", which supports Slashdot in some way.)
(OK, did a Preview, and now Slashdot has me logged in again. Somebody needs a new roll of duct tape.)
True, but how many research machines, supercomputers, massively distributed systems, that sort of thing run it? How many machines are designed to run it? More these days, but most of them were designed with a version of unix that comes along with it. Look at the riscstations, the sun systems, the new processors.
Eh...
The big furor was that this document previously was under a license that said that it was a trade secret, and which prohibited you from using the INFORMATION in it. This license doesn't do that, it merely prohibits you from re-distributing Microsoft's copyrighted document. No big deal, eh?
While I dislike Microsoft's business practices as much as the next guy (see my home page :-), let's not go overboard and read things into their actions that aren't there.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
If that was supposed to be the first post, then I strongly suggest you readjust your sniper scope. :)
Voting Moo Anyway!
It's your declaration of it as "egregious evil" that indicates to people that you've got some kind of problem [ . . . ]
What problem would that be?
"[ . . . ] you make it sound like Microsoft is the Third Reich. Which it's not - not by a loooooooooooong stretch. It's those kinds of statements that get people wondering.
I did not say Microsoft was the Third Reich. I claimed that they were evil. I infer from your statements that think that they are not. Could it be possible that the difference stems from what you and I recognize as "evil"?
Personally, I'd say lay off the caffeine and try to learn that life isn't binary; there are shades of gray. This way you'll find it much easier to deal with life in the real world.
You could have said, "Get a life," and said the same thing with fewer words. I don't see how you were able to take my hatred of Microsoft and conclude that I see life only in extremes. Awfully arrogant of you considering you and I have never met, and the only communication from me you have is the few things I have posted here on Slashdot.
Ultimately your post is merely a big ad hominem. If you disagree with my argument, then refute it. If you resort to attacking me, then it shows that either you have no argument or that your argument sucks. Doubting what you perceive as my mental health will not change my mind. A strong argument backed up with plenty of evidence would be infinitely more effecive.
If I were you, then I would proceed by challenging my notion of "evil." That certainly is up for debate.
On an unrelated note, you have a nice looking web page.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
The date, 21 Jan 2000, is probably accurate. A quick AltaVista search for that particular article title shows matches at the Microsoft TechNet site as early as 10 Feb. A more likely explanation is that M$'s search engine didn't get updated in a timely fashion. Or M$ paid off AltaVista to pre-date their index (which isn't very likely at all).
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"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
"Hey, that's not our fault! It must be a Pentium bug!"
So, Now's your chance to METAMODERATE!
My office has been taken over by iPod people.