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Passport for Linux On the Way
mrsam writes "PCWorld reports that
Microsoft comissioned
Ready-to-Run Software,
a small software vendor,
to port the Passport server software
to Solaris, Red Hat Linux, AIX, and HPUX. Oh, joy."
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what will be surprising is that once the fist iteration is shipped Microsoft keeps the updates flowing - Frontpage extensions for Apache on Unix anyone?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I guess with the usual EULA that gives the permission to send all kinds of information to Microsoft about your usage habits and possibly automatically removes your linux partition and install Windows X-whatever on it, after automatically getting the money from your credit card.
No thanks.
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant."
It truly seems that MS has 'alienated' a lot of the computer-folks, as it becomes apparent that said computer-folks should now aquire a Passport.
E
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
Or is microsoft trying to prove that *nix really can be cracked as easily as windows?
...it keeps crashing on Windows.
<rimshot>
Thanks, I'm here all week.
Seriously, though - why passport? Why not something people might want to use - like Office. Oh yeah - because then there'd be *no* excuse to stick with Windows.
Does it really matter?
The fact that Passport server software will now run on (some of) the unices isn't really a cause for dismay; although it may speed uptake of Passport, it also removes another reason for a web service provider to use IIS.
Any company that really *wants* to run Passport WILL. It's just a matter of what platform they run it on.
As it was originally designed, Passport Manager could only be installed on Microsoft server software. However, prompted by requests from large Passport customers that manage user authentication on Unix or Linux servers, Microsoft has worked with a company called Ready-to-Run Software, in order to port the software to non-Windows systems.
Ok, who is the idiot, stock photo posing, Microsoft "freelance" idiot that asked for this thing? Come on, own up to it. You can't hide forever. We know you _THOUGHT_ it was a good idea.
Is it just me or is the idea of centralising security bad?
It seems to me that a spread of security/password systems is better, since a comprise of one does not comprise the others?
Somehow the buzz to make everything easier overrules normal safety practises. Do we not get told not to have the same PIN for different credit cards?
One wonders what MS's true intentions are in porting this to Linux... embrace and extend?
Can you even do that to something as complex and loosely-coupled as the open source community of linux developers?
They probably just realized how large a marketshare Linux is getting on the server side and want to attain total market dominance for their worthless Passport product, lest we develop a better, more secure alternative. Hint, hint: won't work, MS. Much like Gnome, KDE and the other 10 or so windows managers, we are all about freedom and choice and will code alternatives to the alternatives to the alternatives until sourceforge runs out of disk space. Just because we can, just because we love coding and have common ideals for what life should be like: Free, especially of YOUR control.
I didn't realise there were Visual BASIC ports to Solaris, Linux, AIX and HP/UX :-)
Why did MS comissioned a small company to port Passport server software?
I'm not an expert in corporate tactics but could it be that they're already forseeing the flop of those ports and rather ask a small company to have the trouble, the (possible) losses, etc... ?
-- Would it be acceptable to just put my name on my sig?
I believe we in the Linux community should return the favor, and port Wine to Windows.
In a recent article at OSNews, I commented about Microsoft's business practices (to a degree), and the "Microsoft problem".
What we need to do is continue the big push with our own software, and develop it from medicore software to Great Software.
Does anyone remember the Insanely Great comment from years ago by Steve Jobs? It's much the same attitude and spirit that we need now, in not only the Linux Communities, BeOS Community, and more, but everywhere that is offering a choice for the end user.
We have to continously keep in mind that all of our hard work is for one target: The end user.
I cite the recent Red Hat reviews at OSNews and other places as prime examples of how we still are not quite getting it.
Please feel free to read my original comment at OSNews here:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=1951&off set=34
The problem won't go away if we play by Microsoft's rules. We need to create our own, and survive.
user@host$ diff
Making mink coats for PETA members?
Vortran out
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
So let me get this straight. Their productivity software, Office, that uses de facto document standards and which can currently be sold for a profit, they have no intention of porting to Linux.
But a broken, hole-y DRM/anti-privacy schema, accepted by only a few and generally looked on with suspicion, being developed with no profits in the near future to -- that, they're porting to Linux.
Uh.... HUH.
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
I'm certainly Ready-to-Run away from it.
Actually, seeing Microsoft source code, but under a dodgy "pseudo-open" license is actually worse than not seeing it at all. You become "tainted" and MS may well sue you if you work on a conceptually related project. They have taken legal action in the past. NTFS driver development in the Linux kernel was effectively halted, for example, over such an issue.
That's why most MS releases are WORSE THAN USELESS.
For companies that already have passport for certain things, you can setup a secure, fast, *nix server, and allow the few half-wits that use passport to authenticate. How many people got excited by the prospect of being able to do groupware, email, and calendar funtions like Exchange, but without using an Exchange server? This could be the same thing; a way for *nix admins to use their current systems, and support their users who choose to use this thing.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
Interesting how such a limited platform list is provided for servers. What about Mandrake, SuSE, et. al.? With canned commercial support, what of potential customers that want to use a different HTTP server, different patches, different languages/tools, etc.?
You also note that there is no mention of support for developing client software under the *nix platforms. It's yet another way to lock in the desktop as Microsoft-only, much as many of their "servers" already do.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
chroot() jail
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
First of all, everyone is gonna love Microsoft for porting its great universal authentication solution to the *nices platforms, making it more universal. Big *NIX companies will buy the software and will offer Passport support to their clients. Then, after a couple of (outdated) versions, specifications will change without previous notice and the implementation will be worthless, the performance will go much below that the native winXX version, big companies customers will start bitching around about lack of support and functionality, and the final response from M$ to big compianies will be 'our passport system was created to work from the ground up on the .NET framework, which uses native winXX functions not available in any other working environment, thus we cannot guarantee the correct behaviour on other platforms'.
End result: big company will migrate its *NIX servers to M$ platforms, and big company customers opinion about how *nix sucks, and how far winXX is superior at accomplishing the same tasks.
Don't you see it's all but just a FUD game the M$ people is trying to play with you?
Articulos para gente geek: Poleras, linux, libros y mas
A properly set up centralized security server does nothing but run the authentication services and possibly the authorization services. It should not be running other services such as NFS, print services, HTTP servers, etc.
That is not to say that different applications can't use secondary passwords to authorize certain facilities, or to mandate a seperate security ticket for the duration of a special session (e.g. starting an admin tool to add new users to the application's authorization set, or changing their authorization lists.)
Many authentication and authorization services also support facilities like session limits (the place I work at right now only allows each id to be used for a single client station at a time; development and support staff are a special case.)
Centralizing security also means that you only have to deal with hardening one set of authentication servers (gotta have redundant server clusters in a large environment for something this critical!) When patches are needed, you know they've been applied because you don't have to run around to all the application, data, and web server systems. Some application/web servers might break if they aren't patched to work with the updated security server, but that is a good thing -- you don't want outdated clients being authenticated when they're running software that has known security issues.
However, there are far better products out there that aren't limited to Microsoft clients. Tools like Kerberos, Verisign products, Netware, etc. I just cannot fathom why anyone would voluntarily limit their options rather than just using a non-Microsoft product.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
However, amidst the dust and noise of the current storm of PR, spin, ads, and FUD, they are also dropping support for several key products like NT 4, Exchange 5.5 and Win2000 pro now and in the near future. At least when Cisco is hurting, their sales team treats for lunch. Or when McDonalds jacks up the price of a coke, they run a sale on the burgers.
Microsoft appears to have been circling the ol' financial drain for some time, with shaky bookkeeping, shrinking markets, and admissions that their products cannot compete on technical merits. Perhaps this last week's media blitz is a sign that the execs have offloaded enough of their stock options for us to hear that last *glunk* and see MSFT along side EOG.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Yes, think about it, *why* are they sharing the code?
They are fighting fire with fire, all we, as coders have to do, is to see the code, and we are now tainted, and can not legally implement a competing code base.
The same as if they use GPL code, it taints their talent pool, if we *see* their code, it taints ours.
be very careful when offered a bite of this apple.
apt-get install pam-passport clippy ntkernel msdllmgr mslicmgr msautopay msextraviruses mssolitaire
I so look forward to being able to read those Word attachments management keeps sending me!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I know they exist, I installed them on day 1.
The updates fell out of step with the IIS versions.
And so many things didn't work compared to the IIS version that we dropped the whole 'we host frontpage' idea because it was too much time in support explaining the differences to frontpage users who, quite reasonably, just wanted it to work like it says in the instructions.
And then you still have "why don't my database controls work" to contend with.
fp on Unix was a poisoned chalice as far as we were concerned.
Poison on IIS too but that's another story!
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
...please forgive my pseudo-rambling, It's going on 24hrs since I last slept ;p doh! ...
...and don't give me that crap about "nobody is buying X-Box systems". You're right, nobody is buying them. That's not the point. If MS was worried about sales, they wouldn't be giving away litterally hundres, if not thousands of consoles regularly. Pepsi shortly ends yet another "500 free X-Boxes" promotions this month. Who as ever heard of a console manufacture regularly givining away thousands of systems as much as a year after launch? MS only cares about
Look, the primary reason for passport logins is in order to attract customers. PERIOD. If MS can offer passport security (sic) login support across nearly all commonly used platforms, then they can potentially approach a company with large volume customer interaction such as AT&T, FedEx, etc... or even our Government and use the sell line of "XX% of the US internet population has access to Passport, and XX% of internet users already have accounts created, reducing your sign-up/registration headaches. We would like to offer you this secure (sic), unified login solution for your customers as a convienence to both you and them. We can even integrate all of your customer service functions into this login for you as part of your initial installation! We'll even support your internal *nix environment so that you don't have to change servers (!for now!)."
So, then say, FedEx says hey, that sounds great, we can integrate everything into this, and it looks like everyone already has a Passport account, and there's no change in equipment on our end, and wow this will really make it easier for our customers to login and issue shipments, track shipments... We'll take it.
Microsoft never abandons a product, period, they just repurpose it a few years later. The MSN network never died, MS is just trying to co-op the internet under their wing. They want all data to come through them so they can get on with the subcription model they have been trying to migrate to since 1995. Passport has one primary purpose, it is the login mechanism of MSN, and the leverage to get companies to chanel data through MSN, which get's more customers, then more companies, etc...
Once MS has "critical mass" on Passport, they can leverage it even harder as part of their DRM initiatives. This isn't to control what you see and here per se. Remember, MS is about one and only one thing, maximizing the profit of the shareholders. PERIOD. If every piece of data has to pass through a piece of MS technology, even a nominal toll of cents becomes a tremendous amount of money.
What do you think the X-Box is all about. It is about marginalizing the PC. Just wait till next year when the data/streaming formats that are only X-Box compatible, or X-Box first start to role out. Just wait until you can subscribe to Office on your X-Box variant... Not only does this completely elimiate anti-trust issues due to the large volume of established law supporting the rights of hardware manufactures to control the content on their systems. The consolidation of all of these technologies over the next couple of years will give MS even more leverage in pushing their protocols to prospective clients... thus feeding the loop.
DRM components on a PC may or may not ever happen, but I believe the whole discussion will be mute in a number of years anyways...
Second point, so what? Passport has practically zero penetration, even less since the screwed over doristheflorist.com and removed the Wallet functionality (for being unnecessary bloat). Now don't me wrong, I'm sure MS will push Passport until it gets bigger and better, but at the moment that isn't an issue.
Final point, digital identity is a good idea, and the world will be an easier and more secure place for those who want it to be when we can have digital identities. So, what are we doing about it?
The PingID project is developing an open royalty free set of protocols, with an open source (though unfortunately non-free) reference implementation of the server. This will be something you can download and install onto your server for free, that will then let you sign in to various accounts that support the protocols, manage your personal document store and any authorizations you have given out (at least, in the beginning). The url is pingid.org but I'm not linking to it, because we're going to be putting up a new site that more accurately reflects the new open source nature of the project in like 3 or 4 days, so I don't want people to go look and go "huh, he was talking out of his ass". Code for v0.1 will be coming in a few weeks hopefully, I get paid to hack on it part time. Join the mailing lists to help out and track its progress. So far, this is really the only open answer to digital identity we've found, so I'm pretty glad I'm a part of it :)
Really, it's the OS that we don't want Microsoft controlling right?
If this is a move on their part to start supporting Linux as a "valid" operating system, and start developing applications for it, I'm not upset with that one bit.
You can "OpenOffice" all you want, but personally, I *do* like Microsoft Word. And I like Outlook. If they started making these applications available in full form to Linux, I would run them.
Personally, I think that down the road sometime (probably not very soon) Microsoft will be developing real products for alternate operating systems. On one hand, they want everyone to use Windows. On the other hand, there is a growing amount of users switching to alternate systems, and Microsoft would love to sell you software. At some point, unless something goes horribly wrong with Linux, the community won't be able to be ignored.
Ahh well. Who cares what I think anyways.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Sorry, couldnt resist, carry on about your business folks, nothing to see here.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
Much as I would like to believe this, I haven't seen any public signs that they are hurting. Could this be true? The decision in India has to be a big blow to them, I wonder just how bad the international numbers are at this point. I know they are always trying to spread out their income and losses, but if things really are bad, at some point they will have to take a loss. Any predictions on when this might happen?
What is EOG?
Everybody please avoid Passport for *nix when it comes out - they are in all likelihood doing the exact same thing. They will abandon you as soon as they get what they want (i.e., a monopoly position).
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