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Microsoft Settlement Compliance Criticized
Jeremy Allison - Samba Team writes "A report on the Microsoft "release" of communication protocols, as required by the proposed settlement. Article from the Washington Post. Speaking for the Samba Team, we can't look at these documents as they require signing an NDA before even getting the terms of release. Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team."
Of course, this should surprise no-one. Nothing short of a radical break-up will cause this company to be one whit less arrogant---indeed, one can argue that since its primary duty is towards its shareholders, there is no incentive for Microsoft to change.
But in this political climate, such government action is highly unlikely. In fact, the opposite has been happening: Standard oil was broken up a nearly a century ago, and now its old pieces are reassembling themselves. There does not seem a merger that the F.T.C. does not love.
The biggest mistake that Microsoft has made was ignoring politics for such a long time. Before this case, its net political contribution to either party were nearly nil. As soon as the first writs started to come in, so did money start to pour from Redmond to Washington, now contributions to both parties are in the millions, and Federal prosecutors have become far less eager.
Perhaps I am a pessimist, but here is my prediction as to the outcome of all these legal actions: appeals, followed by more appeals, followed by earnest wrist slapping.
But there is a bright side: Microsoft vision of the P.C. as a direct conduit between it and its customers' wallets will do more to break up its stranglehold than all the judges on the bench.
No, and that's the problem with the settlement. Not that they should be required to make their code Open Source, but they should be required to publish the protocols in an open manner so that other companies/software projects (ie. NetApp, EMC, Samba) can interoperate.
:-).
That was one of the whole points of the legal action remember, to prevent them leveraging their desktop monopoly into the server space.
Repeat after me... competition is *good*
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
Of course, we couldn't do anything with the data, since:Damn.
Jouster
Basically, a commercial entity or entities (e.g. Sun, IBM) with an interest in promoting free software competition to Microsoft could finance an operation which would use the Microsoft specs to put together a compliance suite. Since a great deal of the effort in reverse-engineering protocols lies in making sure that your tests are complete, a black-box compliance suite -- even though not itself free -- would dramatically ease the process of reverse-engineering the specs themselves.
As a dandy side-effect, the suite would also show up where Microsoft doesn't comply with their own specs, which detail might be of interest to the public and the Court.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Computer science 101 time :-).
:-).
API's are *not* protocols. I don't care what their API's are, I don't program under Win32.
I care what bytes come out from and go into the *network* from a Windows computer as a protocol description.
You know, that rather thick blue piece of string hanging out the back of your computer
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
Until the judge issues her decision, anything that MS is doing is just posturing...
I've finally decided that I believe the courts cannot resolve this. So, now I'll just what what little I can - I've purchased an iMac. Of course, my purchase makes no difference in the grand scheme of things. But maybe if someone else does it too...
I have to say thanks to the SAMBA team!
I'm working on an implementation of a closed-source proprietary application. This app is installable on unix and Windows boxes.
The code repository is on an AIX box here, and I needed to make that available to a Windows box. I don't have root on the AIX box, but I do have root on a linux box. I nfs-mounted the code repository to my Linux box, and was able to export _that_ filesystem using Samba in a matter of minutes.
Rather than fighting political battles, I'm getting my work done. That would be much more difficult if the Samba team wasn't doing a great job.
I've read some comments dinging Samba for not being a perfect clone of SMB/CIFS. I can understand frustration when you need a feature that's not available yet, but we should all be thankful that any interoperability is possible.
Keep up the good work!
Regards,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Perhaps not surprisingly, the mainstream press gets salient details wrong. The last sentence of the above paragraph is simply untrue. Even Microsoft understands they can sell GPL-covered software (as they have been doing for quite some time now). The GNU GPL (erroneously referred to as "the General Public License" above) does not "[bar] any payment"; it can be okay to sell Free Software including GNU GPL-covered software. In fact, in the essay I just linked to it is encouraged that one get as much money as one can for distributing Free Software.
One element that makes payment impossible for Free Software developers are licenses that require per-seat payments. When you have the freedom to share the software freely you can't keep track of who gets a copy. When you have the freedom to modify the software tracking systems built into the software can (and probably will) be removed. Free Software licenses grant you the freedoms to share and modify the software under that license.
Digital Citizen
"Microsoft pays taxes."
Not really. Not that much.
"Microsoft employs many Americans."
Not really. They have under 30 thousand employees. Let's Compare that to some other large employers shall we.
IBM = 312,000
AT&T = 151,000
Exxon = 131,000
Philip Morris = 140,000
The paltry 30K employees of MS could very easily be absorbed into the US economy.
"Microsoft isn't a terrorist state."
No but they are convicted criminals.
"Microsoft buys politicians."
There is no debating this.
"Microsoft is mostly clean, un-threatening white guys."
Mostly white sure. Un-threating? depends on who you are I suppose. Unethical most likely? Remember these people have a cult like attitude towards their company and Bill Gates and have remarkable ability to rationalize away any evil committed in their name and with their help.
War is necrophilia.
I also tackled the issues of cost (e.g. subscription fees) and protocol patents.
Hmmm. It seems that I was right to be worried.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Microsoft has managed to survive many tough legal blows to date and, despite a criminal conviction, seemed like they would survive with a slap on the wrist. Part of it was some tough negotiations with a timid (or well-lobbied, perhaps) Justice Department and a few states, and part of it was a well-oiled "P.R." campaign to good cop the new judge. Part of that campaign was a supposed, "voluntary," implementation of the settlement.
Microsoft, ever incorrigible, can't seem to help itself, and this is A REAL GOOD THING. I would rather the insufficiency of the settlement be realized in a practical and tangible manner before, and not after, the judge reaches her decision -- when there is still time for her to change her mind.
It is stuff like this that turned Judge Jackson into a Microsoft-hater, and indeed, it will have a similar impact on the present judge. However unlikely it was that she might reject the positions of both parties and ask for briefings on structural relief -- conduct such as this makes that one step more likely to happen.
For those hoping that she will throw the book at Microsoft, however she does it, this kind of news is the best thing that could happen. The Judge has the power now -- and Microsoft's bad acting is amazingly short-sighted.
I love when my opponents overreach visibly. It always helps me in the end.