Red Hat CTO Testifies at MS trial

An anonymous reader writes "Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann testified on behalf of the 9 states in MS's trial. From the article on SF Gate: "Red Hat Chief Technology Officer Michael Tiemann said Microsoft adds 'extensions' to critical communications methods that computers use to transmit security information, print, and perform other tasks. Those extensions are proprietary to Microsoft, he said, and despite recent actions Microsoft has not been forthcoming in releasing details of those changes.""

Comments

No big surprises here

[neophase]

Proprietary protocols are but one of Microsoft's ways to keep customers nicely handcuffed.

Just as an example, look at the hoops the folks doing the Samba development had to jump through in order to make Samba able to mount Windows shared drives.

Re:The main problem

[AnotherBlackHat]

as far as MS having to divulge its secrets in protecting their networks, I don't think that is viable. I am no MS fan by any means, but I don't see why they should be forced to allow open access from other OS's.

If they want to block out whatever, I think that they should have that right.

Lest we forget, Microsoft broke the law, and this is being suggested as a punishment for having done that. The question isn't "is this fair?" it's "is this an appropriate punishment for the crime that has been committed?". I think it's more appropriate than many of the punishments that have been suggested, but considering that this isn't Microsoft's first offence, I think a structural remedy is more appropriate.

-- this is not a .sig

Re:What is the point of testimony like this?

[catfood]

Anyway, what Microsoft is doing with Kerberos is perfectly legal and allowed by the standard. Sure it might hurt Red Hat -- so what? Red Hat is a competitor of Microsoft!!

Once again.

You are limited in your actions even if they might otherwise be legal if you do them to maintain your monopoly.

It's not clear what Red Hat really wants from this case. Would they be happy with anything less than Microsoft going open source, releasing all their intellectual property, and a government guarantee of X% market share for Linux? If so, they are dreaming and I have little sympathy for them.

Straw man.

The nine states are seeking enforcement of good old standard antitrust law that has said essentially the same thing for nearly a hundred years now. If Red Hat asks for anything beyond the scope of the law be assured that the judge (you know, someone who has actually made a career out of studying this stuff) will surely show them the door.

It's not as though antitrust law was dreamed up in the last few years just to "get" Microsoft.

Re:Fuck the subject!!!

[SirSlud]

> Well the last time I looked Netscape was fucking FREE

But what about the first time you looked? As memory serves, Netscape had to offer their browser for free because MS started offering IE for free. MS wouldn't have been able to afford to offer IE for free had they not used their success as an OS monopoly in the browser market.

Why does it not surprise me that XP tech support lacks any knowledge on the history of their own companies wrong doings?

I'm only pointing this out because you're asking for replies, and you seem to omit the aforementionned detail in this post, which really just furthur drives home why you work for Satan :)

Dissenting states almost have it right...

[rkhalloran]

The dissenters' proposal has MS auctioning off a license to Office with source so a Linux port could be done. My take on this is that this just extends the MS 'viral upgrade' model to Linux.

What would make much more sense to me is complete documentation of the formats used in Office, with a mandatory N-month lead time (they were convicted of monopoly, weren't they?) before implementing new, um, features [yeah, that's what they are, features...]. This would allow compatibility filters from the competing office suites, and remove the window of opportunity for new versions from MS while the others chase the changes.

Oh, and the penalty for failure-to-disclose would be public source release of Office; that would almost guarantee they behave, since there'd be legions of open-source eyes looking for any inconsistencies.

Re:What is the point of tectimony like this?

[Soko]

I agree with you on almost every point in your post.

It's kind of a Catch22, isn't it? By helping to punish Microsoft, RedHat and other competitors are actually doing the same thing that they accuse Bill & Co. of doing - gaining un-fair advantage by means other than technical superiority and value to the consumer. Doing this could be construed as approving of Microsofts methods. However, by doing nothing, they would be giving tacit approval to Microsoft's methods even more blatantly. Neither is really acceptable IMHO.

One way around this is to declare that standards, and any extentions to accepted standards, should be documented, no matter the IP involved, no matter who's doing the extending. If it's a standard, it's a standard, period, full stop. If you want to keep your IP that extends that standard, don't use the word standard, or don't call it "standard". (This is the same equalising effect that the GPL has.) Fairness to all that way.

From what I've seen, most of the industry is mad at Microsoft for their arrogant attitude and failure to not "play nice" with others. I remeber Ballmer saying he couldn't believe that the rest of the industry didn't rally around Microsoft when the DOJ went after them - and I thought "You're either a liar, an idiot, or think that I'm an idiot, Monkey Boy. Fuck you."

When Microsoft drops that huge lever (with significant mechanical advantage) attached to Windows, other industry players may actually accept their role in the industry.

Soko