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Microsoft Can't DRM Docs Fast Enough
grcumb writes "As part of the DoJ Anti-trust settlement, Microsoft was ordered to provide freely available documentation for its communications protocols. InfoWorld is reporting that not only are they late in delivering the required APIs, but it's because they want to convert everything to the read-only Web Archive (MHT) format, which can only be viewed in MSIE. InfoWorld reports that, "In July, Microsoft said it would complete revisions of the documentation required by the court in the autumn, a season generally reckoned to include the months of September, October and November in North America, but may now have to extend work on a beta or test version of the new documentation into December...." So we have to wait longer for a format that makes the content harder for developers (developers! developers!) to use. Maybe they didn't read the documentation ..."
MHT and MHTML files are actually really cool and its too bad other browsers don't support it. (Or in Mozilla's case, support it outside of the mail client.) I wonder if its just because MS came up with the idea? (AFAIK)
The format is *extremely* useful for things like demo'ing a web site or portions of a website on a frequent basis to different people. I work for a company where we are constantly updating our demo server with new accounts, constantly creating new subdomains, etc, just to allow a client to view the site in their browser securely. We need to be able to take premission away from them after the demo period is over, as well as, make sure unprivledged users don't see the content.
This could all be solved by storing the mhtml archive of the web content in our digital asset management system. Administering that is much easier that setting up new domains/users/etc.
But alas, nobody supports it.
1;
If the judge demands that the documentation for Microsoft APIs is open an available for everyone, how is delivering said documentation in a form that only IE can read, meeting the judge demands?
Don't we just need one machine on the net somewhere to which we can submit these encrypted (for want of a better word) documents and which returns a HTML equivalent?
...that they would get a contempt of court citation, but they deserve it.
None of this corporate nonsense will end, and it will continue to get worse and worse, until the law is readjusted to reflect that only named individual human beings have personal rights. Corporations avoid a lot of "guilt" by hiding behind the artificial person legal construct. It's beyond loony, was insane when it was aquired, now it's out of control and has lead to defacto fascism, let's call it what it is.
And I blame the law/justice/court system just as much in this mess as the corporations.
"Microsoft" should have never gone to trial, it should have been named humans, completely responsible for their decisions.
Here's a thought, a mass protest by millions of people having a nationwide "incorporation day", flood the system with incorporation papers and lawsuits, a tidal wave of paperwork shuffling, patent applications, copyright registrations, and so on and so forth. Get every human to be part of their own friends and family corporation, watch the system grind to a halt, THEN maybe we'll get some change. Take every single tax break corporations get, fill out the paperwork. Why should they get all the tax break perks, and avoid personal responsibility? Sue the pants off of every large existing corporation out there, find little picyaune laws you can use. Patent everything possible, no matter how obscure. Challenge "no warranty" EULAS in small claims court all over. Serve every PHB out there with papers detailing your employment status, make them sign off to you on every single decision. They balk, sue em. Hand your own puchase contract to every shopkeeper out there when you go to buy something, demand they sign it for the sale.
They want stupid, inane, ridiculous, society choking crap busywork and laws I say give it to 'em!
Completely drown them in their own corporate/governmental/so called "legal system" paperwork BS.....
There's nothing evil/proprietary/whatever about MHT - it's just HTML + linked stuff like CSS and images packed into single MIME message.
Call me pessimistic, but this sounds like exactly the kind of thing Microsoft might have filed a submarine patent on.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I saw that metadata and I must admit that seeing the last 10 authors, the fact that MS folks had crashed no less than 2 times in the document itself, and seeing the revealed tracked changes that showed up again as a result of the corrupting document was a real hoot. Apparently the folks at Microsoft were somewhat horrified...
Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult. -Whitton
Not that handy. They are, indeed, just MHTML (multipart MIME messages with HTML and accompanying data), but all of the resources in the file are base64-encoded (waste of space).
MHTML is fine for HTML-based e-mail (blech), but "ZIP" or "JAR" (same thing) would be much better since the contents are nicely indexed, etc. A properly formatted JAR file is even executable in many environments (perhaps not Windows) provided that they have a Java application in them. XML or HTML marked-up text in a Jar file with a Java viewer and/or installer would be pretty slick indeed... Then again, it's Microsoft -- "where innovation is put out to pasture".
Yes, technically they did comply, but they made it as difficult as possible for everyone involved.
Isn't this contempt of court? Like showing up to pay a fine with pennies in a jar?
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
You WILL produce following documentation by (30days) or the following MS officers will report to jail for contempt of court... What part of 30 minutes would be necessary if capital punishment were involved?
I believe this is probably the first shot over the bow... so to speak. I see this, and other M$oft tactics, as a sign that they are getting ready to use the DMCA (and hopefully the IDUCE act if it *GASP* get's passed) to bully the wayward explorers that have moved away from them to the Open Source Initiative. They will end up wrapping EVERY file that is created through their programs in some for of DRM/File Encryption so that they can sue the pants of anyone who writes an import program, like Open Office and all the other Office "Compatible" suites. I think this is a step in the wrong direction that needs to be stopped before Microsoft has the right to deny the CIA or the President the right to view a document simply because it was created by Microsoft Word and they want to view it in open office.
The really scarry part... All the above coupled with "Trusted Computing" and you no longer own anything you create, you no longer own a "lifetime" license to the software you purchased, hell you don't even really OWN your hardware at that point............
And people wonder why geeks view M$oft as such a bad company. It's a perfect example of the damage that can be done by an entity that has a monopoly on the system.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
PDF's also come in a DRM version, so I don't see an advantage in terms of DRM.
And as far as the formats themselves go, I believe MHT is just a multipart MIME collection of web pages and images--all open stuff; to me, that seems vastly preferable to PDF, which is a huge and complicated spec that Adobe keeps changing around. Recently, Adobe has started to keep some particularly lucrative bits of PDF undocumented and proprietary.
The only problem with MHT, as far as I can tell, is that Mozilla doesn't support it yet. Hopefully, that will get resolved soon.
available only in printed form, and only to people who pay an admin fee of a few hundred dollars.
And that's the way that many "open" standards are available. Sure, using the standard is free (if there are no related patents), but the documents are copyrighted and could cost as much as $500. Unless you're a member of the standardisation organisation and have paid thousands of dollars in dues.
Then there's the standards containing patented alorithms (MP3, MPEG4 etc.) Bleh.
I'm all for the freedom to keep your code secret, but what's this secret standards nonsense? Well, it makes sense as a way for paying for the standardisation work.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Microsoft apparently has complete control of the Toronto District School Board already, and this will just add more fuel to their idiotic fire...(about 40,000 desktops). I run one of the very few linux labs, and have been told that internet access will be cut to my lab, because it is not Microsoft windows!?! They are doing this 'to increase security'...I kid you not. My linux lab is quite possibly the only lab of computers that has been running continuously for 3 years without any problems, yet they are going to cut internet access to a lab that runs perfectly, and run 40,000 windoze computers, (24 hours a day, in empty schools for 16 hours a day!? environmental damage is enormous...as well as cost to the taxpayers), using some Microsoft plan called CTMI, which involves overnight reimaging...constantly...continuously...in order to keep the systems running...sigh...what gross incompetence...
Do I get to dictate the terms under which I satisfy the court's orders?
Logic (not that logic has anything to do with our legal system) would suggest that if the court orders me to produce records, the court, not I now controls the records.
In the past, producing the records in one format or other would seem to satisfy the requirements of the court--the court now has the records, and I do not control them.
However, if I attempt to satisfy the court's order by producing records in a DRM format--one in which I control the use of the records--I have explicitly said "I, not the court, control those records."
Doesn't sound like I've produced much of anything at that point.
Is there a lawyer in the house?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Microsoft was created largely by some changes in IP law that created a niche for a software monopoly.
Containing that would be simple:
Require that all software for which the developer
wants IP protection have source code escrowed that would go into the public domain after some finite time(say 5-10 years).
Use Constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce to move taxes from the broad public onto companies that have a measurable degree of monopoly power.
Now this isn't being done because congress is intent on selling their offices to the highest bidder.
Breakfast served all day!
For the most part, they are like raw emails with a .mht extension, so much that there are probably many email readers that could be tricked into displaying them. There's nothing too proprietary about that.
Just because you don't pay money, doesn't mean it's free.
...oh, wait.
That's the dumbest thing I've ever read...
Reminds me: My dad was a missionary to various countries in South America -- he spoke fluent Spanish. One day a fellow preacher came by, from the US (Estados Unidos), to give a grand Protestant sermon to the mostly Catholic-born natives. The title of his sermon (in English): "The Difference Between Righteousness by Faith and Justification by Faith". (Yes, humans often quibble over the finest of details.)
He had to take a seat, aghast and flabbergasted, after just ten minutes into his 90-minute sermon, when his translator (mi papa) explained to him that, in Spanish, there is only one word (Justicia) for his two words, Justification and Righteousness.
Freedom, sir... I'll take Freedom over Free, any day.