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Samba Team Responds to Microsoft CIFS Spec License

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the jeremey-reads-slashdot-at-minus-one dept.

Jeremy Allison - Samba Team writes: "The Samba Team has released a statement regarding the Microsoft CIFS specification license and its effect on Samba. Regards! Jeremy Allison" Reading this and the Microsoft CIFS Technical License raises a number of issues worth considering. The statement maintains that the specification details an old implementation of the SMB/CIFS protocol, one Microsoft itself has abandoned. One wonders if the only reason they release such docs are as props for a court case or something.

2 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why... by TightByte · · Score: 5, Informative

    Regardless of whether what you suggest would or would not be legal, it isn't necessary. As the article points out, the document is obsolete and the methods it describes are not even in use by Microsoft anymore. Besides, they are inappropriate for a Posix/Unix implementation, so alternative methods have been in use for some time anyway.

  2. Performance comparisons by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Informative

    I found the other news link for today on the Samba home page even more interesting. Could this be the motivation behind the strange licensing hijinx?