Microsoft Agrees to Release Work Group Protocols

UnknowingFool writes "Groklaw is reporting that the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF) has signed an agreement with Microsoft to release their protocols relating to Windows Work Group Server. The Foundation agrees to pay MS $10,000, and the agreement does not cover patents. This agreement apparently was made to somewhat satisfy the EU Commission complaints. With PFIF's objective to aid open source, this agreement means that the Samba Team may finally get the information they need to fully interoperate with Windows AD servers."

Comments

Re:That's akin to

[sepluv]

That's the point I'm a little confused about. I fully understand that Samba decided to continue propping up the EC's prosecution (after all the other witnesses...ahem...changed their minds about testifying) of Microsoft as a matter of principle as the victim of a crime (rather than necessarily to be compensated in any way), but, I am assuming (even though they didn't pay for it themselves) this information must be worth something to them still (despite how well Samba currently works) and the PFIF apparently thinks it is worth 10 000 (which might be donated to the Samba developers for reverse engineering or something instead). Maybe someone with knowledge of Samba development (rather than the legal cases) fill me in on what they need from this data.

Re:Good

[Jeremy Allison - Sam]

Yes they're true. Please help us. See here :

http://samba.org/samba/devel/

for details.

Thanks

Jeremy.

I'm not understanding something...

[idontgno]

If the licensed documentation is under non-disclosure terms, but the source code is still freely distributable....

what's the point to the documentation not being disclosable?

Talk about pointless legalese...

Re:I'm not understanding something...

[sepluv]

I suppose so proprietary software developers have to pay them the 10 000 again (or pay Samba for a non-GPL license), although an X11-style licensed free software project could, of course, get the documents gratis from the PFIF making that situation moot.

However, the more fundemental reason is that Microsoft's European lawyers need something that they can tell Ballmer they haven't backed down on in their fight with the EC to avoid any coniciosesiation* incidents.

* chair throwing

Re:I'm not understanding something...

[idontgno]

As far as patents go, this analogy is great. (Although lacking in the Slashdot-standard "Car Analogy" standard.) And the settlement and disclosure agreement we're all commenting on requires Microsoft to disclose the patent numbers of the software "inventions" they feel are embodied in the interfaces documented in the ultra-spiffy double-uber-non-disclosable documents. That means that Microsoft has to mark out the patent minefield in their workgroup protocols so that the Samba team knows what they have to re-engineer.

Somehow, I'm failing to make my real point though. My point is this: nondisclosure of the document is effectively pointless, because (A) the code will contain any of the information in the document necessary to fulfill the software's improved functionality, and yet be freely distributable and capable of study from the source code; and (B) patents can't be hidden: the patent numbers disclosed in accordance with the agreement are guaranteed pointers to the actual patent filings, and patent filings must be sufficiently detailed that the patented invention could actually be implemented according to the patent description.

Patents are public things. Inspect one and you have most of the knowledge you need to actually build the patented thing. You just aren't allowed to, unless you have license from the patent-holder. So hiding a patent in a non-disclosable document is a non-issue. Patents aren't the reason to make the document non-disclosable. And obviously, the information itself in the document isn't a reason to make the document non-disclosable, since the information is about to be translated into another language (C, problably) and published for libre. So, ultimately, I'm guessing the document remains non-disclosable for non-pragmatic reasons: bureaucratic inertia at Microsoft ("This document is non-disclosable. It's always been."); deliberate or incidental attempt to make working with the document and its information tougher (witness the necessity of a complete distinct holding entity which will receive the docs); perhaps a futile attempt to lay a "non-disclosure trap" ("I am Inigo Montoya. Your comments include detailed information from a non-disclosable Microsoft document. Prepare to die.")

Again, it makes no pragmatic sense to me.

Re:So where can I find the documentation?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

I don't mean to belittle your work, which is important, but I want to pre-empt Microsoft salesmen who might decide to point to this as evidence that Microsoft protocols are as open as, say, NFSv4.

Re:Until the next release?

[calebt3]

That's how they are going to implement the "Extinguish" part of their plan. Release a new version (always incompatible w/it's predecessor) every week/month until Samba can no longer afford to keep buying the new specs. Does the agreement apply to future versions as well?

...
...
...
... I guess it is a good thing after all that corporations don't upgrade as fast as the software world moves.

Ok

[rrohbeck]

Now can we do the same thing for the Outlook/Exchange protocol?

Re:Fully interoperate with the AD

[ddoctor]

Wow. THE Jeremy Allison. I guess it's not that surprising to see a famous opensourcerer on /. but good to see you involved. This must be MASSIVE news for your team - the years and years of painstaking reverse-engineering and guesswork are over.

Have you guys busted out the champagne, yet?

Re:Just another example

[B3ryllium]

that EU did something the US DOJ couldn't.

There, fixed it for you. :)

Re:Just another example

[tyrione]

that EU did something the US DOJ wouldn't do, on behalf of the current sitting President.

There, I fixed it for you. ;)

Re:Fully interoperate with the AD

[Jeremy Allison - Sam]

But I *loved* the goatse trolls :-). It used to be the only reason I
came to read /. :-). I miss sig11 and klerk and the rest of that crew.

They made /. fun, especially as they drove taco *nuts* :-).

Anyone remember the Bruce Perens impersonators ? :-).

Jeremy.

Re:What's this mean in the real world?

[Ajehals]

I would assume since the EU is aiming to make it possible for third parties to interoperate with Microsoft products (IIRC this is intended to mitigate the negative effects of Microsoft's monopoly whilst providing an opportunity for competition) that Microsoft 'letting'

a third party have all of the knowledge required to produce an Active Directory domain. isn't really an issue, the intent is to try to make it possible and in doing so make it possible for anyone interested to produce a node (for want of a better word) that can provide an/or utilise services made available within a domain.

Microsoft may not want others to be able to be able to provide services that work well with and/or provide similar or better functionality than their own, but that is what they have been told not to hinder by hiding their specs.

Re:and you'll see this in a glossy brochure...

[Kihaji]

Actually, I bet none of them are for a couple of reasons. 1) These are machines that do very little if anything on a network. They are usually those boxes that sit in "mom's office" for her to do home accounting, and if they are on the net, they do email and some web with very very old browsers. And 2)Thier libraries are so old that the attack vectors modern virus/worms use just don't exist.