Samba Team Responds to Microsoft CIFS Spec License

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.

Comments

Why...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Can't some fool like me (I hope I'm not volunteering) read the document, and then write his own version of the documentation with whatever license he wants?

Certainly I'm allowed to write whatever works I want, especially ones devoted to some obtuse piece of knowledge like this.

Re:Why...

[TightByte]

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 As the article points out, the document is obsolete and the methods it describes are not even in use by Microsoft anymore.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.

Re:Why...

[plierhead]

What you suggest is not legal.

By using the original document as input for your document, you are creating a derivative work of it, and you must therefore obey the license you "obtained" the document under.

You would therefore have no right to issue such a derivative work under the GPL, and you, and anyone who built on your work (and so on down) would have their asses sued off by MS until they stopped.

Of course you might say "but how would they know I copied/adapted/altered their work" - but thats a different question. If you based your work on theirs you have to obey their rules.

Re:Why...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

A derivative work is when I write a sequel to your fiction novel. This is the equivalent of me producing my own phone book, and using Bell's phone book for the info.

That info isn't copyrightable, in and of itself. This has been decided in court (the phone book example is real).

Re:Why...

[dhogaza]

Yes, but you don't sign a license when you pick up the latest phone book from your porch every year. There's no EULA, either.

The phone book is protected by copyright law and nothing else. MS is making you sign a license. A contract. An agreement. Maybe that last phrase is the easiest to understand - when you sign an agreement you are agreeing to the terms. That's the whole point of having an agreement/contract/license in the first place.

Re:Why...

[Zeinfeld]

The phone book analogy is not quite relevant because the information in a phone book is public information, and the information in MS documentation is not, and as I recall, it is the public nature of the data in a phone book that was the reason it could not be

Perhaps a tax on amateur lawyers on slashdot would close the WBush budget deficit and help save social security.

IANAL but I know the basics of copyright law having spent time trying to stop people extending them. Copyright has no connection to trade secret law as you imply. In fact under European law copyright is a bargain, you get copyright protection in return for disclosure. In the US that bargain aspect has largely been erased as the doctrine of intellectual property as intrinsic right developed.

The point about the phone book is that copyright is meant to protect only the representation of the idea, not the idea itself. In the case of a phone book the representation is so lacking in creativity - alphabetical order, that there is only an idea.

The Microsoft 'license' is not something I would want to spend money attempting to enforce. The information in the document is clearly not a trade secret, bars on redistribution of ideas are unlikely to work in a US court. Copyright doctrine even in the US is not favorable.

What the license does do however is to make it clear that anyone developing a samba type implementation knows that there is a patent on the implementation.

The license also makes it impossible for someone to claim that they have acquired any rights as a result of a GPL license. While folk on slashdot try to claim otherwise the explicit purpose of RMS's scheme was to make it impossible to sell software. You might think RMS is with you but whatever RedHat and co say, RMS turned down offers to join their advisory boards because their business is contrary to his 'principles'. What this comes down to is that Gates understands what RMS is really up to better than most slashdotters.

Re:Why...

[Zeinfeld]

I think that copyright can presently covers more than simply the representation of an idea as illustrated by the (fairly) recent court decision to supress a retelling of Gone With the Wind from the point of view of one of the servents in a book titled The Wind Done Gone due to the decendents of the original author's copyright claims over the characters and storyline.

The book is currently on sale so the legal theories can't have been too compelling. In that particular case the argument made was that the characters Scarlet etc. were representations in their own right. There may also have been a trademark claim, I did not read the briefs and it is never a good idea to go by journalists accounts which are often either completely wrong or describe a legal theory that is tactical rather than expected to work.

The court found that the work was a parody and thus protected under the first ammendment as 'fair comment'. The broader principle that an author has rights over the characters they create in a novel is well established however. Anyone can write a love story set in the racist south during the civil war, however the characters Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler are normally considered a representation rather than an idea. The same would not hold however if the characters were not fictitious. I believe that the various Amistrad lawsuits were mainly dismissed on the grounds that the idea of writing a book or making a film of a historical event is not protected. Cases based on historical events typically center on the actual prose - for example in the Alex Halley Roots case. It was the specific description of a storm at sea that was at issue, not the idea of a slave ship in a storm.

And the GPL couldn't assign away MS's patent or copyright rights anyway, it can't give away what it doesn't own

At issue is what happens when someone sells an item that has GPL code embedded in a part of it, possibly without the knowledge that it is there. Microsoft subcontracts a lot of development, there is a risk that someone might sell Microsoft GPL code, that Microsoft would incorporate it into a product and that later someone might claim they have a right to pirate the software on those grounds. Probably not going to work as a legal theory but if someone tries it would be expensive.

sigh) and as for your claim that RMS is against selling software, he has sold software in the past,

Expecting consistency from RMS at that level suggests that you have never met him. I know the history of the FSF CDROM and the various arguments that surrounded it. I can't say for certain which side that RMS was on in that case, I suspect both. I also suspect that he is actually opposed to the concept money. There are not many people who would hold out living in an office building to be the ideal lifestyle. Certainly he has no concept of how an economy works.

Re:Why...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I never signed a license when I glanced at the M$ docs. Nor a contract. Clicking buttons is how you get to things on the web, and implies no real agreement. Now if they had me sign an NDA on real paper first....

Samba/MS

[neksys]

As much as I like and support the Samba team, I think they're going to end up fighting a losing battle here - Microsoft won't give up its stranglehold on any facet of its operating system. And while in the old days, the would have just purchased the entire Samba project, now they have little choice but to try these sneaky strongarm tactics. After all these months/years of bashing the GPL and OSS in general, Microsoft can't just absorb and accept Samba - especially not in front of the courts.

A thought: How many snippets of Samba code do you think has found its way into, say, Windows 2000?

Re:Samba/MS

[TightByte]

I believe the poster you replied to asked his question with a jesting undertone, but you afforded him/her the courtesy of a serious reply, and so I'll do the same to you.

While it's unlikely that Microsoft has used any code from the Samba project, it's certain that they optimised their SMB/CIFS implementation in Windows 2000. And prior to that, it had been verified (and heavily marketed, if you remember) that SGI servers running Samba achieved better performance than Windows NT servers. Hence it is not impossible that this served to motivate Microsoft to improve their implementation, proving how the benefits of GPL'ed code fosters innovation and betterment.

However, the SMB protocol was not created by Microsoft. If any one entity, corporate or otherwise, is to be credited with the design of this protocol, it is IBM corporation. It IS true that Microsoft then developed the protocol further from its early LANMAN days, however.

Re:Samba/MS

[Da Schmiz]

I do some work on CIFS and there is indeed some samba code in the codebase.

Is this for real? Blockquote the AC:

Rather than rewite it ourselves, samba code was taken and obfuscated. After all, who's going to find it? And good luck proving it.

If you aren't just some clever troll making this up, then you could blow the whistle and gain far more fame than you ever would as a code grunt in Big Billy's Zoo of Death. After that, you could probably have a job at any free-software-friendly house out there.

Or you could just write a book and milk the talk show circuit for all it's worth.

Re:Samba/MS

[kinkie]

Not really. SMB was created by DEC for their Pathworks software and by IBM (see http://samba.anu.edu.au/cifs/docs/what-is-smb.html ).
Strike one more Microsoft innovation from the list.

Re:Samba/MS

[spectecjr]

Posting as an AC because I don't feel like losing my job... I do some work on CIFS and there is indeed some samba code in the codebase. Their implimentations of some functionality is portable to Win32 and more efficient than the in-house code we had previously. Rather than rewite it ourselves, samba code was taken and obfuscated. After all, who's going to find it? And good luck proving it.

Okay then:

Which building number does not exist on the Microsoft campus?

What does v- at the beginning of an email address mean?

What is the name of the asian supermarket near the campus?

What is the name of the bank that has the closest affiliation with Microsoft employees?

If you can get any of these right, I might believe you. My current guess would be that, no, you won't be able to.

Especially since as early as 1998 there were EXPLICIT instructions to all MS employees not to even LOOK at open-source code, on pain of death.

Simon

Re:Samba/MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Not 100% on the legalities, but surely an NDA used to perpetuate such a copyright infringement (or theft of IP for the tinfoilers) cannot be considered valid?

It's like saying "I'm stamping fake DVDs in the basement, but you can't tell cos you signed this agreement." Don't think it's gonna hold up somehow.

Re:Samba/MS

[arivanov]

Have you read the article.

1. There is no fight at all. The Samba team has simply evaded the confrontation and carried on. Standard maneuver against a slower but heavily armed opponent in any war game.

2. Even if there was a grain of truth in what you are blabbering about the samba team can move to where it came. Once upon a time MSFT was claiming most parts of CIFS to be a trade secret. As a result SAMBA was written in countries which do not have this concept in their laws applied to software. Samba can go back there again. World is not just US.

3. Most iportantly, Microsoft has tried this before with most of domain related stuff. They claimed copyright on documentation and issued cease and desist letters to anyone describing how to set policy and other settings from a non-windows machine. These claims were successfully challenged somewhere (in EU but forgot where). So all it is some young legal genius that has forgotten that the world is not US and most likely never new that MSFT has already been burned on enforcing a similar cause in the past. It will get burned again.

Re:Samba/MS

[glwtta]

Yeah, talk shows just go nuts for geeks talking about coding, it's what the American audience craves.

Re:Samba/MS

[fw3]

as early as 1998 there were EXPLICIT instructions to all MS employees not to even LOOK at open-source code

So you're saying that the incorporation of zlib (non-gpl lic.) was prior to '98?

Anyhow my understanding per an earlier /. is that a large number of universities and others have source licenses for all versions of winblows. (see list of who's who) I'm sure that the NDA's associated preclude actually saying anything about it but if CIFS has samba code these source-licensed groups would be able to find it.

Re:Samba/MS

[Fulcrum of Evil]

>What is the name of the bank that has the closest affiliation with Microsoft employees?

Still working on that, but I'll hedge a guess: "Bank of America"?

First Tech Credit Union. They serve Boeing as well.

Re:Samba/MS

[StormyMonday]

IIRC, this is exactly what happened when Keith Henson was sued by the Church of Scientology. He spread around a bunch of their "secret scriptures" advocating illegal action and they sued him for breach of trade secrets.

They won.

Re:Samba/MS

[spectecjr]

Think about it. Microsoft wrapped FreeBSD's TCP/IP stack with their own high-level custom interface. They wouldn't expose the sockets interface as it is presented in FreeBSD.

I'd like to see someone try doing that.

No, I'm sorry, but the Windows 2000 TCP/IP stack is not based on BSD.

Earlier versions were.

The real scoop

Re:Samba/MS

[Tony-A]

The real fun starts when Samba/Linux etc becomes the de-facto standard. When Microsoft does something that breaks ineroperability then it is Microsoft that is broken. When people start considering such as running samba on win32, that day is looming closer.

It is interesting...

[DaedalusLogic]

To think about what kind of a paradox would be arise when complex licenses overlap. I think a valid point was brought up in why not make alternate documentation that wouldn't refer to the original license... I would think it would put all the liability on the head of someone who wrote the new docs... Personally I wish they could sort it down to plane English and short sentences. Kinda like the ten commandments for users. But someone has to feed all the starving lawyers I guess... lol. Sadly it does come down to how much political pressure and money you can throw at enforcing a license that makes it stand up...

Hmm -- Samba for win32?

[Selanit]

Is Samba available for Win32 platforms?

I know this sounds like a strange question, but consider: Microsoft's SMB-based file sharing system is buggy and insecure. Could Samba be used as a drop-in replacement for regular Windows file sharing?

E.G.: you don't like Windows file sharing. So, you turn it off and install Samba instead. It works the same -- you wind up with shared folders that appear on the network -- but the sharing is being handled by Samba instead of the vanilla Win32 file sharing.

Is that possible? Maybe I'm suffering from hallucinations induced by too much Mountain Dew . . .

Re:Hmm -- Samba for win32?

[j09824]

NFS isn't really any better--it just has a different set of problems than SMB. We really need something better in the open soruce community.

Hmm...

[Khaed]

Uh, so it's a non-issue?

That's kind of what I thought when I first heard about this.

"Microsoft...documented basically what Samba already knows...and doesn't want people to...use the documentation for GNU purposes...Ok...what about what they already have? Oh, not affected? Ok."

Looks to me like Microsoft just got these reactions: Loving fanboy support(all three of them), people who could care less(most people), people who went into an idiotic rage(a lot, but not a majority), and people who scratched there heads and asked, "So?"(more than the first, less than the other catagories.)

I mean, basically all they did was brass off some of the geek community and make themselves look, well, dumb. No one really cares about their documentation...do they?

Re:Hmm...

[sasha328]

In this case, there was nothing new, so says the SAMABA people. But what would happens when (notice I didn't say if) MS changes the specs significantly to break the surrent implementation of SAMBA, but before doing this, they release the specs with similar restrictions to what they've just done) That is, no GPLed products? Where would the SAMBA teams stand when they upgrade their implementation?
* MS to Judge (in case of MS vs SAMBA): Sorry your honour, but they couldn't possibly have reverse engineered the new implementation; they must've used the published specs. This, your honour, violated the (some acronym) law.
Seems far fetched? I hope so.

Re:Hmm...

[Da Schmiz]

I mean, basically all they did was brass off some of the geek community and make themselves look, well, dumb. No one really cares about their documentation...do they?

I think Microsoft shot themselves in the foot. Again.

Besides making themselves look dumb to the geek community (and, at least to some degree, to the entire tech community as well), Microsoft has obviously acted in a predatory and anticompetitive manner toward one of the more successful implementations of a competitive middleware product -- without solid legal grounds (the GPL was specifically excluded even though it did not meet MS's own definition of an "IPR-impairing" license) or solid patent support (as Jeremy Allison points out, the patents in question don't even apply to Samba's network interface)! If this isn't shooting Microsoft's antitrust case in the foot, I don't know what would.

Re:Hmm...

[Simon Brooke]

But what would happens when (notice I didn't say if) MS changes the specs significantly to break the surrent implementation of SAMBA, but before doing this, they release the specs with similar restrictions to what they've just done) That is, no GPLed products? Where would the SAMBA teams stand when they upgrade their implementation?

Provided they didn't look at the Microsoft documents, but continued to reverse engineer and build a clean-room reimplementation (as they have up to now), they' d be fine.

Re:Hmm...

[oyenstikker]

Big Company takes domain name from 12 year old kid with website about his family.

XXAA sues nice musician for X million dollars for giving their own music away.

XXAA sues kid for playing the DVD he paid for on the hardware he paid for with software he wrote.

Big Company arrests some foreign guy who offered some constructive critisism.

I soure wouldn't bet on the little guy.

Re:Hmm...

[alcmena]

Tell that to the bnetd team.

Re:Hmm...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Let's see... Big Respectable Company(tm) or Evil Hackers(tm). Who am I going to believe?

</SARCASM>

SARCASM tags added under the ADA for the sarcasm impaired.

Re:Interesting aspects

[macinslak]

Does nobody read the article? (brilliant troll btw)

The Samba team specifically states that Microsoft has changed nothing in reliscensing their documentation and that their work continues unaffected.

Honestly, I think /. is by far the most effective Linux FUD spreading device known to man. "Linux is not piracy" anyone?

I'd like to see this in court

[nukey56]

Seriously though, if this isn't a show of how much of a monopoly they are, I don't know what is. Next thing you know, they'll force MS-TCP/IP out, and have a similar agreement saying that anything not under their license is not permitted.

How would Microsoft react if suddenly the open-source community decided that anything under the GNU could not inter-operate with microsoft products? I think MS would flip out kill whole town.

Re:I'd like to see this in court

[MillionthMonkey]

How would Microsoft react if suddenly the open-source community decided that anything under the GNU could not inter-operate with microsoft products? I think MS would flip out kill whole town.
Microsoft would love this development; it would prevent them from having to do the dirty work themselves. Windows doesn't depend on interoperability with GNU stuff quite as much as GNU depends on interoperability with Windows.

Re:I'd like to see this in court

[Technician]

Seriously though, if this isn't a show of how much of a monopoly they are, I don't know what is. Next thing you know, they'll force MS-TCP/IP out.

Did I miss something? I thought Windows XP home version did drop TCP/IP from the LAN choices. Did they add it back in? I thought that was one of the things they did to keep it from being used in a business environment. The home version was made incompatible with most company LAN's forcing the use of the PRO version instead.
I don't run XP so I could be mistaken here.

Re:I'd like to see this in court

[Qrlx]

I thought Windows XP home version did drop TCP/IP from the LAN choices

You're kinda right, but your terminology is getting murky. Either you don't use Windows, so you simply don't know the lingo, or you are a Windows User, which means you are clueless ;-)

WinXP Hemos Edition has TCP/IP. (Maybe that's just becuase IE is part of the OS, and TCP/IP be the language of the Internet...) What it doesn't have is the ability to take part in a Windows Domain. (you know, the thing with the PDC and the BDC or maybe just some DCs. That thing that I do at work when I'm not on slashdot.)

Yep, with XP Home Ed. you're in perma-Workgroup mode, which has the effect of making Windows XP Home Edition utterly useless in any decent sized (as in more than ten WinBoxen) office.

It also makes it pretty hard to save about $300 by buying a Dell Refurbished for the office, because 95% of them have either Windows ME (barf) or Windows XP Home Ed (not compatible). But I have to admit, I kinda enjoy the challenge of ferreting out the occasional Dell refurb system with XP Pro or 2K.

Steven says: Dude, you're getting a Dell!

Re:I'd like to see this in court

[Reziac]

I wonder (per comments about it being obsolete) to what degree this IS a test case, to see if they can get away with it in a case where legally it doesn't matter (being outdated and out of use anyway). If this flies without the DoJ noticing (since this sort of thing would be pretty clear evidence of using their monopoly to prevent others from competing), then maybe "you cannot use any software with Windows that doesn't use a M$-approved license" WILL be the ultimate step.

And since users would ignore that, it would be enforced by checking at runtime and forbidding non-approved programs from executing. Personally I think XP's so-called compatibility mode (which I have yet to see improve its compatibility with anything) was another testing of these waters, rather than a concession to people who still need older software.

Re:Kudos to the Samba team

[nolife]

Actually.. Samba is trademarked in Germany.

I searched Google for some old info but couldn't find much. Sniplet below is from an old Samba announcement page

(3rd June 2001) The German Samba Trademark problem has been solved. CMG has given a license to Service Network GmbH (SerNet), in this case representing the Open Source Community, to use the word Samba for the Open Source product. This license allows SerNet to issue sublicenses to all who sell or support Samba. More information can be found on samba.sernet.de

Testing Waters

[Bouncings]

Although this particularly license has no real implications, and I think we can be sure Microsoft is aware of this, perhaps their is a more sinister goal here: testing the waters of anti-GPL and/or anti-free-software licenses.

What would happen, for example, if Windows were "licensed" to exclude its use in conjunction with certain free software -- such as -- oh say -- Wine. Wine works better with Windows binary libraries accessible, and Microsoft might be thinking about some kind of anti-free-software clause in the Windows license.

I suspect this obsolete Samba license is just a beta test of their newest scam.

Re:Testing Waters

[Da Schmiz]

What would happen, for example, if Windows were "licensed" to exclude its use in conjunction with certain free software -- such as -- oh say -- Wine.

Actually, the latest Wine builds are working better and better even without Microsoft libraries. A far more likely scenario -- and one with a more powerful impact -- would be if MS Office was licensed so that it could only be used with Windows... or if it could only authenticate using Passport, or something along those lines. In fact, I believe that the reason CodeWeavers Office does not yet support MS Office XP has to do with this kind of licensing issue.

Or worse, what if the Windows EULA was changed to explictly forbid running it in an emulated virtual machine? That would kill VirtualPC, VMware, and plex86 all with one fell swoop -- and drive a lot of users back to the Windows platform.

You've got a good point. Hopefully, if enough people become aware of the dangerous possibilities of this kind of faux-open documentation licensing, the antitrust people will be able to do something about it.

Re:Testing Waters

[Ziviyr]

It is debatable whether wine qould qualify as an unlicensed copy of Windows, though.

Bran flakes aren't corn flakes.
And WINE isn't Windows (licensed or otherwise).

Re:Testing Waters

[glwtta]

the antitrust people will be able to do something about it

Yeah, they've got an excellent record so far.

Re:Testing Waters

[dpilot]

>>What would happen, for example, if Windows were "licensed" to exclude its use in conjunction with certain free software -- such as --
>>oh say -- Wine.

>Or worse, what if the Windows EULA was changed to explictly forbid running it in an emulated virtual machine? That would kill VirtualPC, VMware,
>and plex86 all with one fell swoop -- and drive a lot of users back to the Windows platform.

Something like this has already happened. From what I read in the comments to a Codeweavers Crossover announcement, the Office XP license specifically requires that it be run on a valid licensed copy of Windows.

Now IANAL, but this makes me wonder about that wonderful monopoly-maintenance/extension concept called "tying". If Company X's product A works with their product B, but also works with Company Y's product C, I thought it was specifically illegal to create a "tie" between A and B that excludes C. Most of the time you have to "prove" things in court, but in this case, it seems to me that the only proof necessary is that Codeweavers Crossover really is capable of running Office XP, to specified levels. Beyond that, Microsoft has done the rest of the job in a "legal" document, the EULA.

But as I said, IANAL. Perhaps I'm mistaking monopoly mainetnance/extension here for "Innovation".

Re:Testing Waters

[anshil]

Actually, the latest Wine builds are working better and better even without Microsoft libraries. A far more likely scenario -- and one with a more powerful impact -- would be if MS Office was licensed so that it could only be used with Windows... or if it could only authenticate using Passport, or something along those lines. In fact, I believe that the reason CodeWeavers Office does not yet support MS Office XP has to do with this kind of licensing issue.

Well we have already been there, back some years in the DOS ages. Some microsoft tools tested exactly to be runned only on "MS-DOS", and refused to run with in example DR-DOS. No need to say as this was discovered it there were huge riots about this. But as it is, time covers everything well, who remembers these "crimes" today?

They argued they just wanted to be sure there are no side effects... tsss.. tsss..

Well at that times everybody understood well that you wantded to run a non ms-OS, like DR-DOS, and didn't start eyeing you unbelieving as today if you tell a friend you aren't running any MS-OS on your home system.

Re:007

[leviramsey]

As James Bond said once, "How do you kill a few hours in Rio, if you don't samba?"

Network configuration

[totallygeek]

So, now we will have this list in the network neighborhood properties?

Microsoft Client for Microsoft Networks
Microsoft Client for Netware Networks
Samba Team Client for What Microsoft Should Use

Re:Network configuration

[VValdo]

No, cuz when you try to install Samba, you'll now get an error that says:

"We're sorry, the Network Neighborhood is a Gated community."

W

Re:Interesting aspects

[yeOldeSkeptic]

When I upgrade to XP or 2002 or whatever, I'm going to want to make sure I'm still able to access the Samba shares. If I can't, I hate to say it, but I may be forced to switch my network storage box to some Windows variant.

I have a crazy idea. Since Samba is probably used by many Microsoft-oriented shops too, why can't the Samba Team embrace and extend the CIFS protocol? This would be a two pronged attack. One of the prongs would be the Samba Team which will extend the CIFS protocol and publish it under the GPL. The other prong will be a group that will write win32 applications that will take advantage of the Samba extensions to the CIFS and distribute the app for free. Since the OSS community numbers in the thousands at least, this would be very straightforward to accomplish.

I wonder what Microsoft will do if the Samba extensions to the CIFS become a de-facto standard? When is the next iteration of Windows anyway? Right now could be a window of opportunity just opening up.

Sigh, I know I'm day dreaming. But, wouldn't it be nice to give MS a dose of its own medicine?

Or...

[ashpool7]

Your thoughts could be answered with a simple google search.

http://main.mswinxp.net/~lpackham/smbclient/

Of course, it requires Cygwin. But, a drop in replacement for something that is proprietary to begin with and comes bundled with all windows version sounds kind of ridiculous, doesn't it. ;)

Re:Or...

[Selanit]

Blockquoth the responder:

. . . a drop in replacement for something that is proprietary to begin with and comes bundled with all windows version sounds kind of ridiculous, doesn't it. ;)

Heh.

Tell that to the Mozilla team, or anybody who's worked on a win32 web browser in the last few years. Internet Explorer is proprietary, comes bundled with all windows versions . . . and it's got a big, red bulls-eye in the middle that all the other browsers are aiming for.

Thanks for the info on the Cygwin Samba client. I actually did do a couple of Google searches before posting, but evidently I didn't pick the magic words.

Re:Or...

[popeyethesailor]

Just to nitpick-- Mozilla et.al are implementing a client for an industry standard protocol HTTP ( so is IE, i guess), whereas Samba is aiming to replace the Microsoft standard SMB/CIFS protocol.. [yeah, i know CIFS is now an industry standard and all that ]

Re:Or...

[epsalon]

Actually, IE does not implement HTTP.

As I wrote ealier, IE does not implement RFC2616. Details in the link.

Re:Or...

[mpe]

Of course, it requires Cygwin. But, a drop in replacement for something that is proprietary to begin with and comes bundled with all windows version sounds kind of ridiculous, doesn't it. ;)

Except that there are a few things which samba will do which the inbuilt WIndows stuff cannot manage. e.g. restricting the avaliability of a share to specific workstations.

Re:Or...

[scrytch]

Your thoughts could be answered with a simple google search.

http://main.mswinxp.net/~lpackham/smbclient/


No, that is a samba client. The poster asked for samba. Why on earth would someone want a samba client only when they have net use and can then use it as a filesystem?

Of course, it requires Cygwin.

Which is enough to kill it for me. Compromise one cygwin app and you've compromised them all, and that doesn't even cover whether cygwin's own libs are secure. Thank the stateful-DLL-based design for that instead of it using real NT API objects like it should, because cygwin also has to run on win9x. Redhat doesn't even recommend running cygwin for anything secure, and why should they -- they have a vested interest in making sure cygwin never competes with redhat.

But, a drop in replacement for something that is proprietary to begin with and comes bundled with all windows version sounds kind of ridiculous, doesn't it. ;)

Isn't the entire purpose of drop-in replacements to commoditize something proprietary? Plus, samba has scriptability and customizability that you'll never get with what comes with NT. I personally would love being able to send an alert to a particular account when x number of RPC requests to a flakey service start taking over y seconds to complete, so I can kick it before it falls over. Right now that would take a sniffer, since I don't see anything even resembling that in perfmon. With samba, I could just edit the source.

Re:Or...

[scrytch]

Apologies, I read down further and it is the samba suite as well. It's still quite useful, again for some of the reasons I mentioned, and another really simple one: your workstation can become a domain controller. Think small networks in a poor school or nonprofit where you don't have a spare box to throw on the network, at least not yet, but you still want to configure the clients for a domain. Samba to the rescue.

Re:Or...

[scrytch]

Hey, most FTP clients don't implement third-party transfers, so they're really not FTP clients. My car is missing a starter, so it's really not a car. There's plenty of legitimate digs you can get off at Microsoft, but this one is just pathetic.

Technically speaking, IE is just a container, and all the work is done by a few DLL's. shdocvw.dll, mshtml.dll, and urlmon.dll, if I recall correctly. So I guess by that logic, IE doesn't really even exist

Samba lives just until it's really born

[jukal]

I hope this is a horror scenario, but happenings similar this are already documented history:
when and if Samba raises to compete as the file/printer sharing protocol to be installed on Microsoft products instead of Microsoft products, they will just start using client certificates or something to criple Samba access to other MSFT shares. I quess cross-compatibility is not bad enough for MSFT to take action, but dare you replace their perfect piece of software with some GPL crap and you are in trouble.

I do believe this is a scenario which could happen, maybe the court case changes something and the future is different, but until then they have strong artillery left to "defend the shares" ;))

Performance comparisons

[Waffle Iron]

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?

For the sake of interoperability

[fireboy1919]

...SMB will have to go away.

Micro$haft is the main company working on Windows networking protocols, and as has always been the case they don't seem to encourage standards or interoperability.

I'm thinking a better solution would be to use OpenAFS. It works on Windows and Linux just fine, and its not going to have interoperability problems because all of the stuff is open source.

I believe its only a short time, maybe a year or four, before M$ doesn't have anything to do with network interoperability software, unless they change their policy.

A saying comes to mind:
"The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

Re:For the sake of interoperability

[Saturn49]

This is completely flawed logic. Just because something is open source does not mean that it works perfectly, or doesn't have interoperability problems.

Ever seen an open source FTP client have interoperability problems with an FTP server? How about an open source web browser having problems with an open source web server? It can and does happen.

I have no problems with finding and using alternatives to Microsoft software. But PLEASE don't assume that because it is open source that it doesn't and won't ever have interoperability problems with another implementation.

Re:For the sake of interoperability

[trenton]

Yeah. Let's just hope Microsoft doesn't destory Alderan before a "structural remedy" is delivered down their thermal exhaust port.

Re:For the sake of interoperability

[coene]

Open Source software does not automatically "play better with friends". SMB is an extreme case where higher-level features of the protocol get constantly added/modified/removed by a proprietary vendor (MS). It's hard to manage (and the Samba team has done an excellent job with this).

SMB will not go away, much in the same way NFS wont. Its the cornerstone of Microsoft based file/print/resource sharing.

Market share trumph's evolution.
Market share trumph's innovation.

Re:For the sake of interoperability

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said. I was involved in a project that implemented the CIFS/SMB protocol in an Apple product. The specification is a moving target. For instance, Microsoft's version of the spec stated that a particular field of an SMB call must contain zero and nothing else. The call would fail consistently in our product. A smart engineer, some test tools and a sniffer soon revealed the problem: Microsoft used that field to carry the length of the data used in the call.

If Microsoft were the best engineers and competed on that basis, my view of them would be different. But they see no problem in crippling or co-opting other protocols and standards if it serves their purposes (i.e. "Cha-ching, Jocko!"). Navigator, QuickTime, Java, and CIFS/SMB are hallmarks of how Microsoft leverages its monopoly power and why the court's remedy must give the industry some recourse.

Re:For the sake of interoperability

[anshil]

Micro$haft is the main company working on Windows networking protocols, and as has always been the case they don't seem to encourage standards or interoperability.

_Please_ just write "microsoft" that gives any comment a better mature feeling, nobody gains anything by writing micro$oft, or mirco$hoft or anything like that. It just makes the first impression of "stupid geek", who knows nothing about economy.

Re:For the sake of interoperability

[Peyna]

the client SHOULD send LIST, not 'ls -l'. It's the servers job to figure out what to do with that command on its end.

Also, a good FTP client will recognize the server it is connected to and act accordingly.

Re:For the sake of interoperability

[Tony-A]

The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
But that's the way to bet.
(Somebody else said it, probably better, a long time ago)

Re:Linux is dying

[goingware]

Linux isn't the only one who holds copyrights in the Linux kernel. Each kernel developer who has done much work at all holds a copyright to some source file in there, so the whole of the kernel probably has hundreds of copyright owners.

Even if Linus were to do that (and even Richard Stallman says one can do such things) he'd have to get the agreement of all the other kernel developers, something I don't think can happen.

Re:Note the link (with further reading)

[rusty0101]

The portions of the SMB tree that these pattents apply to have been abandoned by Microsoft because they have a flaw in their design.

Conjecture is that the flaw affected the naming of files, or possibly handling the case of file names, though with Unix/POSIX I am not entirely certain. For all I know the flaw or flaws affected how a directory was identified.

I tend to doubt that there is anything preventing a port of SAMBA to Win32, other than demand. As SMB is installed by default, the only reason that a user would look for an alternative is that there is a bug that prevents the user from accomplishing whatever task SMB/Samba is required to accomplish.

While I as a network maintenance person may feel the security threats built into the Win32 implemntations of SMB from Microsoft are sufficient reason to migrate to some other solution, I tend to suspect that most CIO and other upper management personell are not so inclined.

As I recall, there are alternative protocols available, including IPX over IP, as well as IBM's APPN that could provide some of the same services, however it would surprise me if any business switched to any of those at this point in their history either. If you wish to investigate, open your network control pannel, and "Add a protocol". I belive that you will find protocols from Banyon, IBM, Microsoft and Novell.

Then again, I could be wrong.

-Rusty

FUD

[tanveer1979]

We would like to also point out that these patents cover an obsolete section of the CIFS/SMB protocol that Microsoft themselves have abandoned in their own products long ago. Microsoft abandoned these "raw" protocol operations in CIFS because their basic design is fatally flawed. FUD. Plain FUD. The license as the statement says covers an onlder version. So it will not really affect the development , atleast thats why i inferred, correct me if I am wrong. M$ is most probably using FUD, to scare. they wouldnt dare to doanything which will stand against them in the court case so glaringly. The may be evil but they are not Fools

Books under trade secret law

[yerricde]

For now, the PR is that an electronic document is somehow different than a book. But that is not being argued in court. When the time comes, the LEGAL argument will be simple. An electronic document is just like a book.

EULAs on documentation, even printed documentation, are extremely commonplace in many industries. See also trade secret law and non-disclosure agreement.

Re:Interesting aspects

[TheSHAD0W]

MS has incorporated plenty of open-source already (not GPL'd, of course -- though with their source being proprietary, we can't know for sure). If these extensions were GPL'd, and MS couldn't live without them, I'm sure they would just write a clean room spec and reimplement them.

Unless those extensions were based on patents that required open-source implementation...

Sooner or later....

[3seas]

Sooner or later that parites that matter are going to have to recognize the disconnected from reality arrogance of MS. And as the boy who cried wolf, MS has been BS'ing since Bill Yelled and coined the term "software piracy" in the mid 1970's.

I just hope the court system involved in the anti-trust case does before a decission is made by the judge.

Re:Interesting aspects

[Bronster]

I have a crazy idea. Since Samba is probably used by many Microsoft-oriented shops too, why can't the Samba Team embrace and extend the CIFS protocol? This would be a two pronged attack. One of the prongs would be the Samba Team which will extend the CIFS protocol and publish it under the GPL. The other prong will be a group that will write win32 applications that will take advantage of the Samba extensions to the CIFS and distribute the app for free. Since the OSS community numbers in the thousands at least, this would be very straightforward to accomplish.

This would work so long as there was a compelling advantage (i.e. - lots faster file transfers). There's no point adding extensions just for the hell of it - they have to do something that users want done. Personally I'd like to see SSL support built into SMB, and adding that to the Samba implementation with a seamless Win32 client would be enough for me to switch all the Windows boxen I use to the Samba implementation.

Mischief-making

[Observer]

So, it seems that MS spent a little small change cooking up some documentation that raised the possibility that Samba might infringe on some of MS's intellectual property. Samba Team was then obliged to spend (proportionally considerably more) time and resources analysing this suggestion so they can issue a plausible refutation. In the meantime, all the 'careful' line management types whose reason for existence is never to be seen to be responsible for a mistake will have taken the point that deploying Samba is 'risky', and will now have to be persuaded all over again that this particular risk is an acceptable one, and that in this case there was smoke without fire.

Neat work, MS.

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. You can't choose just two out of the three, they come co-mingled.

Re:Interesting aspects

[Technician]

If I can't, I hate to say it, but I may be forced to switch my network storage box to some Windows variant.

Wrong answer. I am not obsoleting my entire system because a user adds a new incompatible box. I insist the new stuff is compatible with my LAN. I have the incompatible new box user find and install the drivers needed to access the system. If it can't do SMB and TCP/IP, it's incompatible.

Re:Interesting aspects

[Enrico Pulatzo]

Stop spreading FUD about Closed Source. You say though with their source being proprietary, we can't know for sure. By saying this, you appear to be thinking that that MS has stolen GPL source code. I think you've been watching Antitrust too much.

Microsoft has better things to do with its development dollars than hire people to rip off open source developers. If they were ripping off OSS, Microsoft is smart enough to fold Apache into IIS a long time ago and make IIS not suck so much :)

Requiring open source implementations takes away from the ability of the best coder to sell a better product, and harms software devel as a business. So stop spreading FUD about closed source. Let people choose their own damn license. If someone believes that a closed source license protects their interests, let them use it.

They're shooting themselves in the foot...

[Mustang Matt]

Sure they can piss and moan about stuff like this and maybe they'll take it all the way through court. Win or lose it doesn't matter really...

Think of government and educational facilities that have just begun to adopt linux and are loving it. Many of them RELY on samba.

I mean, geez, my company just put in a network to replace Novell with SuSE 7.3 throughout an entire school district. 90% of the usage is file and printer sharing.

So if Microsoft is going to screw them, I'd be very surprised to see them even buy any more MS clients. Microsoft will basically force them to switch to linux on the desktop which is something they're already experimenting with.

You'd be surprised how much easier it is to switch to linux on the desktop when your entire organization switches at the same time. (and budget cuts don't leave any room to purchase new MS licensed software.)

Re: Time for something new?

[KidSock]

I second this. I think it's high time some people get together and start to think about a network filesystem that addresses all the issues. I don't know much about NFSv3 but historically NFS has huge holes. And RPC is overrated I think. The API just doesn't change enough to warrant it. It's just overhead and an implementation barrier for other languages. How hard is it to serialize data structures for cripes sake. CIFS is actually good to know when considering a new protocol though. It's got a lot of different stuff in there. That's why it sucks but it's useful to how they tried something, saw it fail in some way so they abondonded it and stuck another layer of crap on top to hide the previous layer of crap. It's quite funny to think about the layers. You have:

• MS/RPC on top of
  
• DCE/RPC and
  
• Remote Access Protocol (RAP) over
  
• Named Pipes on top of
  
• Transactions on top of
  
• Server Message Block (SMB) on top of
  
• NetBIOS
  

If you do an RPC call it goes through all of that (minus RAP which is quite dead post NT). A redesign would be trivial to implement by comparison because you could reduce all of that crap to one uniform API.

Re:Linux is dying

[Vegard]

Ok, I know I'm not supposed to feed the troll. But here goes:

If Linus *could* do that, that is licence for example 2.4.21 under a non-GPL license, anyone is free to take for example 2.4.20 and continue development with GPL. Linus could make his own, proprietary implementation, but 2.4.20 and it's GPL successors would still be GPL, and Linus' proprietary kernel would soon be irrelevant. I don't think the kernel is as dependent upon Linus as it once was, there's plenty of people who knows as much about each specific part of the kernel as Linus does.

This is *exactly* one of the benefits of open source, and an argument the proprietary/closed source software business had better NOT try to press, because the problem is much worse with closed source software. What if MS decided that they didn't want to develop Microsoft SQL server OR provide security fixes anymore? What if they decided that they for example didn't like a specific business, and decided to alter the license so that that business was no longer allowed to use MS SQL server?

Viral Licenses

[k2r]

> work of it, and you must therefore obey the
> license you "obtained" the document under.

So I should consider the license MS uses for this document as a viral license in the Gates/Ballmer sense of terms.

MS is using viral licenses to threaten open source developers with law suits. Nice.

Re: Time for something new?

[benhaha]

Firstly MS RPC is not "on top of" DCE RPC. It is an implementation of DCE RPC. Secondly if you make an RPC call, it can go over a variety of transports -- one of the great things about DCE RPC. Most windows boxes from NT4.0 onwards are configured to use IP by default.

Some more errors:

• RAP is not a layer in the stack for most of what you describe, only for the actual RAP functions, such as NetShareEnum. Most operations (such as open/read/lock) don't use it at all.
• Named Pipes are not "on top of" transactions. Transactions are an option for Named Pipes.
• Named pipes aren't on top of SMB. They are one of the things you can open using SMB, i.e. a type of file in a special part of the filesystem. The analogy is with character or block fifos in unix.

I might as well say:

• MIME on top of
• HTTP on top of
• TCP on top of
• IP on top of
• Ethernet on top of
• voltages on copper wires

If you reduced it all down to copper wires imagine how efficient it could be! All you'd need is different voltages! Just code your application to read directly from an ADC!

Don't implement windows in SAMBA.

[Fuzzums]

Turn it around. Implement SAMBA in windows.
My FTP-client is integrated in windows, so why don't they make a SAMBA-plugin for windows.
Don't bow for windows and accept everything they invent.
This way you can get maximum compatibility between M$ and Linux without nasty M$ licences.

Re:Don't implement windows in SAMBA.

[Thing 1]

Turn it around. Implement SAMBA in windows.
My FTP-client is integrated in windows, so why don't they make a SAMBA-plugin for windows.
Don't bow for windows and accept everything they invent.

Even better: implement WINE on Windows.

Sounds a little silly, but I'm completely serious -- develop replacements for each DLL/EXE, one at a time, and use those instead of the Windows DLLs/EXEs.

Might be a little work getting it to behave properly with (I forget the name) the piece of Windows that replaces corrupted files (it would see these as corrupted, since their checksums/whatever won't match).

And of course there'll be problems with windowsupdate.com (heh).

Extra credit: write a replacement for windowsupdate.com, so any user with any version of Windows could go there and (after a lengthy download) have Open Source Windows.

Yeah, I know, I'm dreaming, it's more work than anyone would pay for. But we've already got WINE and SAMBA; my idea is more packaging than actual development.

Anti-Trust

[maroberts]

I believe that banning Microsoft selling software with anti-GPL licences would make part of a good settlement in the anti-trust case.

It probably wouldn't help victims of Microsofts past conduct but it would help potential victims of its future conduct.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Note the link (with further reading)

[TheTomcat]

this isn't a troll.. more of an information post, but you can type:

\\servername\sharename

into IE with the same results.
I think it's called a UNC name.

S

Typical Microsoft

[Pedrito]

For people interested in a more accurate and complete description of the CIFS/SMB protocol the Samba Team recommends the recently released SNIA CIFS document, which has been developed through a process of industry collaboration.

Years ago, I wrote a number of articles and then a book of Microsoft's undocumented file formats. In one case, there was a graphic file format called the .SHG (Segmented Hyper Graphic, basically a big name for a graphic with link areas).

Anyway, Microsoft had publicly "released" the file format, but it was almost entirely wrong. The funny thing is that not long after my article on the real format appeared, Microsoft actually approached me to document the format for them. Ha ha ha. I guess whoever developped it left them high and dry.

I never did it because we disagreed on two key points. One: I wanted some payment upfront because they were notorious for taking their time paying people, and two: I wanted an agreement in writing that it would be released publicly. They didn't agree to either. Oh well, I released the documentation publicly.

Microsoft Interoperability and the GPL?

[NZheretic]

See the recent Ask slashdot forum Microsoft Interoperability and the GPL?

Microsoft's position on GPL and LGPL licensing is even less sustainable after Microsoft's announcement that the next release of its Services For Unix (SFU) tool kit will be including Interix, which includes a copy of the GPL licensed GNU GCC compiler toolset.

Microsoft's new trend of denying access to the GPL and LGPL license has the the potential for more damage to Microsoft customers than just the ability to use SAMBA servers.

A new project The Open CD project, has the mission statement

To compile and distribute A CD-ROM containing a selection of high quality open source software for use on proprietary operating systems.

How viable will Microsoft's OSs be as host platform for theOpenCD,if Microsoft continue to restrict access to any GPL or LGPL product that provides any competition to Microsoft's own products?

Microsoft is effectively denying its users of Microsoft OSs access to competing products, which as I pointed out in the ask.slashdot forum, puts Microsoft in serous problems with the Antitrust laws.

The short version of the article

[cluge]

f*ck you Microsoft

Re:Linux is dying

[glwtta]

I thought Tux held all the copyrights to the Linux kernel?

Re:Interesting aspects

[Enry]

Then MS is even more brain dead than I thought.

I have never seen a case where a printer cannot be shared over the network under UNIX. The printer driver layer and the network printing layer are separated. I always thought it was the same under MS, so every printer could be shared. Then again, I don't use MS as a print server.

Re:Interesting aspects

[archen]

"I'd like to see SSL support built into SMB"

That's a very interesting idea. And I'd have to say that I would probably also switch to such an implementation. I'd also like to see passwords stored in Win9x with MUCH stronger encryption. I wonder if the Samba team is up for a few ideas.

Re:Interesting aspects

[benhaha]

The Microsoft system of printer sharing is based on having a printer-specific driver for each printer. This permits the application to invoke a printer-specific options page for any printer, past, present or future, without having to decide which printers they wish to support. It also allows the printer to support a variety of spool formats, from plain text to PCL, PostScript and GDI.

It also in turn allows printer manufacturers to add new, arbitrary features to their printers to control things like color models, printing multiple pages in one, draft modes of different types, control of different dithering models used when printing graphics, control over paper input trays, collation, stapling, and so on and so forth. The user is not forced to use the lowest common denominator, because the manufacturer supplies the GUI.

But if the manufacturer can't be bothered to produce a driver...

For what it's worth, I'll bet you can get it to work using a driver for another printer made by the same manufacturer on the client machine, if you can be bothered. Try the manufacturers website. They often have step-by-step instructions for this sort of thing. I'm assuming you are the same AC...

Re:Interesting aspects

[Karl Cocknozzle]

Wrong answer. I am not obsoleting my entire system because a user adds a new incompatible box. I insist the new stuff is compatible with my LAN. I have the incompatible new box user find and install the drivers needed to access the system. If it can't do SMB and TCP/IP, it's incompatible.

...And when the corporate director of IT says everybody must support Windows 2004 then what?

You'll either let them on the network or polish up your resume...

Re:Interesting aspects

[Technician]

...And when the corporate director of IT says everybody must support Windows 2004 then what?

Then I write up and submit the cost estimate for the new hardware, software, per seat licenses, etc., and the implimentation stratagey including data transfer/outages impact statement.

I follow all that with a budget and personel request for them to get approved by the budget department.

Re:Interesting aspects

[AJWM]

Nah, just set up all your Windows clients with PC-NFS.

Re:Interesting aspects

[SCHecklerX]

This would work so long as there was a compelling advantage (i.e. - lots faster file transfers). There's no point adding extensions just for the hell of it - they have to do something that users want done. Personally I'd like to see SSL support built into SMB, and adding that to the Samba implementation with a seamless Win32 client would be enough for me to switch all the Windows boxen I use to the Samba implementation. One that I can see would be the ability to have file permissions when it is a linux/winnt/win2k file system that is being 'exported'.

That would be very sweet.

Re:Why... (OT by now)

[Zeinfeld]

I have seen nothing to support your suspicion that he is opposed to the concept [of] money (which would be a ridiculous thing to be opposed to as it is merely an abstract of goods and services used to facilitate trade above a primitive barter system.) On what do you base this suspicion of yours?

The fact he is a hippie who lives in his office and does not take baths or showers.

Now in ordinary cases that might just be ad-hominem, but the thing about RMS is that he has no social interface whatsoever.

The free software thing originally began as he got upset that many people in the AI lab left to go work at symbolics. Now Genera is an introspective O/S and you can get the whole code tree from the code, there never was a 'closed source' issue, it was not about the source code it was about the copyright.

Why opensource==operability here

[fireboy1919]

Perhaps I should be more clear as to why I say that open source leads to interoperability in this case.

1) Everyone who wants to develop a client for this system works with the developers themselves; its all part of one project. That means they test the interoperability between each system. This is possible because no one cares about profit. If people did care about profit, then there would be different entities working on each system (unless one had enough for all systems, which is seldom the case).

2) Age leads to maturity for Open Source products (because of the many eyes system), and this is an old enough product to be mature, and therefore not particularly buggy.

3) The goal of any open source developer is that their product becomes popular. Breaking standards can take away that popularity as long as the product does not have market dominance. The developers therefore have a vested interest in ensuring that the product is interoperable.

Why did I give this example rather than NFS? Because there is a Windows DLL which will let you mount AFS shares automatically on any version of Windows. This means that there is no real reason to use the Windows protocol (other than laziness, which I'll admit is a problem).

Perhaps this clears up the fact that I understand what I'm talking about and that open source sometimes means better interoperability.

And as far as understanding economics, I find that perhaps that claim is based upon some lack of such understanding. A company is leveraging its dominant market position to become a standards leader to drive out competition and thereby increase demand for their products. This is certainly shafting consumers, making the name "Micro$haft" quite apropoe. Perhaps you didn't think of OSS as a part of the economic system. It is, though its effects aren't quite the same.

Re:Very good point.

[Tony-A]

Also to consider: Microsoft dropping supports really means:
NO NEW BUGS.

Re: Time for something new?

[KidSock]

FYI (like anyone cares) the above message is a useless karma sucking banter. Way to go benhaha. You got your 5 karma points I guess.

Nope, Probably Not. (The WABI Experience)

[Elias Israel]

What would happen, for example, if Windows were "licensed" to exclude its use in conjunction with certain free software -- such as -- oh say -- Wine. Wine works better with Windows binary libraries accessible, and Microsoft might be thinking about some kind of anti-free-software clause in the Windows license.

MS already had their shot at such a strategy. Substantially before WINE, there was WABI, a product developed by Praxsys Corp (later bought by and popularized by Sun Microsystems) that also permitted Win16 and Win32 binaries to run on UN*X workstations.

I worked on WABI at both Praxsys and at Sun as both a developer and a project manager.

WABI actually required the use of MS-WIN binaries to operate properly. MS never prohibited that use. Their only response was to rev their software faster to prevent Sun from keeping up. (A strategy that worked better than we liked to admit, it can now be said.)