[CLUE-Talk] The Microsoft penalty that isn't - Tech News - CNET.com

[Jed S. Baer]

On Wed, 17 Apr 2002 08:07:49 -0600 (MDT)
Randy Arabie <rrarabie at arabie.org> wrote:

> On Tue, 16 Apr 2002, Kevin Cullis wrote:
> > http://news.com.com/2010-1075-882846.html
> 
> Am I understanding this correctly...in that SAMBA will not work 
> with future versions of Windows?  The ONLY way to access files 
> on a Windows fileserver will be from a Windows client?

It appears to be a reference to this (and perhaps other stuff).

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnkerb/html/Finalcifs_LicenseAgrmnt_032802.asp
http://www.advogato.net/article/453.html

My impression is that this prohibition is like an EULA for use of the
technical spec. So, if you don't download the spech, your not bound by its
restrictions. IIRC, Samba was "clean-room" reverse engineered. So, using
the IBM PC BIOS as an example, M$ would not be able to legally enforce any
implementations not burdened by the use of their own technical documents.

> If so...WOW!  Microsoft is basically saying, "No more heterogenous
> environments" (AFA network filesystems go).  I think that is a 
> really BIG mistake.

Of course they're saying that. They've been after it for a long time. As
long as we're on this topic, the current anti-trust legislation is
actually almost a red herring, IMHO. A much larger issue is actually their
use of dominance in the desktop to leverage the server market. Yes, it is
a smaller number of machines, but looking at their revenue stream, with
the latest changes in the server licensing structure, it appears to be
something they're wanting to do (DOH!).

Also, remember that M$ is a publicly held company. As such, they have a
fiscal obligation to do one thing: produce revenue for their stockholders.
You can argue whether interoperability would be a better long-term
assurance of revenue, but clearly they don't think so.

> Of course, the same thing is gonna be true with .NET.  The ONLY 
> way to access .NET services will be from IE.

Uh, no. At least I don't think so. The name ".NET" doesn't imply only web
services. Think single-signon authentication using a .NET component to
access a hailstorm server, or active directory. M$'s has abandoned that as
a corporate/B2B/B2C service with _only_ them providing it, but they're
still going to market it as a technology, which companies could deploy on
an intranet. No reason the plugin can't function inside the Windoze
signon, or in C# or VB# applications.

jed
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