The Justice Department is trying to determine whether Microsoft is sharing details about its Windows operating system with competitors as required under a proposed antitrust settlement, the Los Angeles Times reported. Investigators want to know whether Microsoft has withheld formulas that could allow rivals to write programs that work well with Windows, the newspaper’s Web site reported Wednesday night, quoting unidentified executives of software companies.
Is Microsoft Still Hiding Windows Details?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
The guiding principals behind Microsofts compliance is the letter of the agreement, not the spirit. This situation has no “spirit”, they have no motivation to go “above and beyond” what is explicitly spelled out.
Anybody raising questions here has to raise question against the definitions of the words in the agreement. If all the agreement says is “License”, then they may well be in compliance.
It doesn’t have a be a good license, just a license. Much like the trend for web sites to have a Privacy Policy. “Spamsite.com’s Privacy Policy is: Collect initimate information, sell it to the highest bidder, honor requests for removal placed in person at our satellite office in Gyzylarbat, Turkmenistan between the times of 12:00 and 12:05 local time”.
It’s a Privacy Policy, but no doubt not what those who call for a Privacy Policy were thinking about.
> Is Microsoft still hiding Windows details?
man yes
“man yes”
No manual entry for yes.
>man yes
Care to elaborate instead of writing unfounded comments that take database space?
If details are hidden how do you know they exist?
Having been in the Windows software business for many years, I’d say it’s a lost cause trying to convince or force Microsoft to completely open the Windows APIs and not to bundle applications with the OS.
Give us rigorous Federal review of OEM contracts, so hardware makers of all kinds can install whatever software they want and still get the exact same deal from Microsoft, open up CIFS, Kerberos, and the Office formats, and call it a day.
umm, Kerberos is open already…it was developed by MIT, not MS.
actually there is a manual entry for “yes’
i use it all the time, it’s useful for when you have to give a lot of repetative confirmations…example:
if you want to delete all files that end in .doc
and you have it set to ask if you actually want to
delete the file (as mandrake sets as default for the rm command) instead of typing yes or hitting the return all the time (especially if there are a lot of them) you can do this;
yes | rm -r *.doc
Yeah, but Microsoft added proprietary extensions in their implementation. The free software people use this as an example of why BSD/X11 licenses are bad.
Microsoft has altered Kerberos. The developers at MIT were quite upset with Microsoft over it.
Examples of withholding info from competitors would be their treatment of the Samba team. The links are quite easy to find if you bother to look for them.
How does one successfully uninstall IE from all versions Windows? Is that closed API? I don’t know, but I sure can’t remove it even though its a SECURITY RISK to computers. Seems like ever day you have to patch the damn thing. One solution, is to REMOVE it, but you can’t, can you? That’s what I call a pretty CLOSED API.
Can you uninstall Instant Messenger from XP? or their media player in XP? I don’t know since I don’t have XP, but I bet you can’t do it either.
You should know that starting a thread like this would result in a big stupid flame war. Before the end of the week, it’ll be stupid in size.
Boring.
As of WinXP SP1, you can uninstall Media Player, MSN Messenger and the Frontend of IE (not the html rendering engine, I believe)
In fact, I just recently eagerly took advantage of closing my passport account, something that hasn’t been an option for a long time.
Palm is one of the companies crying foul.
I have no supportive evidence, so sorry for wasting database resources with this 2 sentence long post.
Actually by default you can’t remove IE and Messenger. But when you modify the sysoc.inf file you can change what components are listed in the add remove components section of add remove programs. You can remove alot of unwanted things. I actually removed IE once and Messanger and Autoupdate and a few other items. However who knows what else is dependent on them and when you apply SP1 or certain updates things comeback (messenger).
Do I hear more MS defense? Yes, Yes I think I hear it again at the OS News site
Boring.
There’s about, oh 4 billion sites that discuss Microsoft API tactics.
“Microsoft knows the power of APIs very well. In his ruling against the company, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson not only found that the folks in Redmond had illegally leveraged Windows and its APIs to move into the browser market, but that MS had also stifled other technologies, such as Java, that would give developers another API to write to.”
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2595479,00.ht…
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-502453.html?legacy=zdnn
It is possible to remove the files in the IE dir, Outlook dir and Messenger dir and then when Windows XP askes for the cd to restore the files to click cancel. You will still be able to boot and use XP, but things like Device Manager will give an error that they need at least IE 5.5 to be installed. I did this without SP1 (on the day XP was released I found this out actually
.
i have not bought a M$FT OS since win98se first was released back in 1999 and been using Win98se that has been “Gutted like a fish” with a handy dandy little tool named “Revenge of Mozilla” (ROM2se) and no more IE & OE and Windoze explorer shell was replaced with the older Win95 (OSR2) Shell with mozilla as a default web browser & email client since Mickysoft can not seem to keep a simple thing as a web browser patched and secure SEE: http://www.pivx.com/larholm/unpatched/
23 October 2002: There are currently 32 unpatched vulnerabilities.
and dual boot with Linux
yes | rm -r *.doc
or just plain rm -rf *.doc 🙂
>>or just plain rm -rf *.doc 🙂
that was just a simple example, there are better examples i am sure
> Care to elaborate instead of writing unfounded comments that take database space?
> If details are hidden how do you know they exist?
Why do they require NDA for disclosing what Direct3D functions should really do? I can download OpenGL specification and see what they really mean without signing NDAs. The API of Direct3D is public but what the technical side that is hidden is not available.
And then there are m$s numerous file formats (.doc and so on) and registry entries..
Based on their previous behaviour it would be naive to assume they’re now behaving well.
“Microsoft has altered Kerberos. The developers at MIT were quite upset with Microsoft over it.”
Embrace, extend and extinguish.
Oh MS how we all love you! :-p
>”Microsoft has altered Kerberos. The developers at MIT were quite upset with Microsoft over it
Hmm.. I assume that the Kerberos code came under the liberal license of MIT (http://www.advogato.org/proj/Kerberos/). That gives Microsoft every right to do whatever the hell they want with the code, as the BSD license also allow. It is irresponsible, unfounded and stupid of the MIT developers to be “quite upset with Microsoft over it”. They should grow up.
>Embrace, extend and extinguish. Oh MS how we all love you! :-p
I think you should take that back under the circumstances of the Kerberos license.
What is it with you? You seem to have an urge do defend Microsoft blindly, whether or not they deserve it(Which, to your credit, they do in several cases.). I’m not cynical, I believe that in many situations, Windows is the right tool for the job. However, what Microsoft did with the Kerberos standard is downright wicked, and though it is technically legal, I still find a great deal wrong with it.
MIT put a great deal of effort in to something that is extremely useful. It provided a way for users to easily and securely prove who they were. This requires people at the receiveing end to have the kerberos standard implemented. Microsoft took that standard, mutilated it so that no other operating system was able to use Microsoft Kerberos, because they didn’t tell people how exactly they had changed the standard. If microsoft had developed their own technology that would be one thing, but the fact that they took a piece of software that was freely available for the benefit of everyone and twisted it so it could only work to their advantage and to the loss of everyone else is morally wrong, whether or not it is illegal.
I do understand that Microsoft Flaming has gone way to far everywhere, and I appreciate that it has no place on osnews, but this is not a matter of legality, but of a corporation that has overstepped pounds, punishing people for their good will.
And I think you should take back “irresponsible, unfounded and stupid of the MIT developers” because whether or not you are using the microsoft version of Kerberos or otherwise owes a debt of appreciation to these individuals.
“And I think you should take back “irresponsible, unfounded and stupid of the MIT developers” because whether or not you are using the microsoft version of Kerberos or otherwise owes a debt of appreciation to these individuals.”
She’s right. They released it unter a liscense that allowed exactly what ms did, and then they get upset at ms about it. It’s naive of them to be upset about something that they knew could happen. Thats like being upset about someone dying when you shoot them in the head.
>What is it with you? You seem to have an urge do defend Microsoft blindly
BLIDLY? How can you say that? I offered evidence that the MIT license was used. Something that the previous poster “forgot” to mention. If there was someone crapping on MS in this case unfairly, that was just “FUD” and that “anonymous coward” poster. I offered substantial evidence for my opinion.
>MIT put a great deal of effort in to something that is extremely useful
Sure it is useful. This is why MS used it. But you CAN’T blame Ms for not returning the code. The MIT license allows just that.
If the folks at MIT did not want that to happen, they should have released their software under another, less liberal license.
>whether or not you are using the microsoft version of Kerberos or otherwise owes a debt of appreciation to these individuals.
According to the MIT license, no one owes anyone anything. Sorry.
I am not here as the cheerleader of either proprierty or open source license. Everyone gets whatever they deserve in my articles, comments and personal conversations I have with people.
When MS sh*ts about something, I will sh*t on them too. But when they are unfairly critisized, as here today, I will do defend them. The SAME is true for any other company or project, open source or not.
I am not hiding behind my own finger as many do over here.
“Thats like being upset about someone dying when you shoot them in the head.”
Genaldar, that’s about the least accurate analogy I have ever heard. Every time I see your name I check your IP address to make sure it’s not Eugenia’s.
No, it’s a lot more like developing a great tool for anyone to use, and then having someone steal the design and break everyone elses.
> Genaldar, that’s about the least accurate analogy I have ever heard. Every time I see your name I check your IP address to make sure it’s not Eugenia’s.
And I will be checking your own IP from now on and ban you if you become as sarcastic again.
Be a man when dealing with people, not a filthy rat. Be a fair man when justice has to be shown. And be devastating when it also has to be shown to circumstances that deserve it. But make sure you are doing it the right way and you are fair in your judgments. I am trying to be. And if I sound cynical on my statements regarding Kerberos, sorry, the MIT developers should have known better.
“I think you should take that back under the circumstances of the Kerberos license.”
No I will not take that back.
1. Embrace:
RFC 1510 is this case.
2. Extend:
Place a security token in the application-specific data field.
3. Extinguish:
Make the Microsoft specific authentication process involving that token proprietary and only allow an entity to use a Microsoft application if that token is present.
Thus a Windows 2000 server can athenticate a non Microsoft domain but a non Microsoft kerberos implentation cannot authenticate a Microsoft domain.
Or in other words you have to run Windows 2000/XP Server to do all your authentication or you will fail to get basic fuctionality out of your Windohs machines (ie shared files or networked printer use).
Remind me how many MS desktops are usually present in a typical companies domain?
Competition has been extinguished.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%252C_extend_and_extinguis…
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,14996,00.html?body_page=1
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,66204,…
“Give them an inch and they’ll take a foot, much more than that and you wont have a leg to stand on” – DWBT
All I read there are people shouting at MS for not following the standard, but having created their own standard based on Kerberos and adding their own proprierty extentions to it. I still fail to see how this is not right, given the fact that Kerberos is under the MIT license.
Care to enlighten me?
stahbird: Having been in the Windows software business for many years, I’d say it’s a lost cause trying to convince or force Microsoft to completely open the Windows APIs and not to bundle applications with the OS.
May I know…. what software business do you work in? Plus, how many times have you specifically asked Microsoft directly to comply to your request of opening up Win32 and not bundle applications with the OS? Now, I have three guesses on who you are
1) Working for the same rivals of Microsoft that is suing them
This is because they are the only ones benefiting from the removal of bundled/co-minggled apps.
2) Works in a ISV yet have no knowlegde on programming.
This is because bundled apps like Internet Explorer is widely used by ISV, and it actually saves time.
3) Just someone super-ethical yet get too convinced by the press.
stahbird: Give us rigorous Federal review of OEM contracts, so hardware makers of all kinds can install whatever software they want and still get the exact same deal from Microsoft, open up CIFS, Kerberos, and the Office formats, and call it a day.
On the first detail, this isn’t the complaint. Heck, yeah, this is the first thing they were compliant with. (Besides, both antitrust settlements only focuses on the aspect of pricing)
Besides CIFS is already open. Just lately Microsoft forbid the use of copyleft licenses when using two Windows-specific licenses. Kerberos isn’t made by Microsoft, but by MIT. Office isn’t part of Windows, for crying out loud.
stahbird: Yeah, but Microsoft added proprietary extensions in their implementation. The free software people use this as an example of why BSD/X11 licenses are bad.
1) Please explain to us as well as you can what propietary extensions Microsoft have placed in.
2) BTW, if weren’t for the MIT/X license, do you think Microsoft would spend time making something compatible with MIT’s implementation? Hell, no.
Jonathan: How does one successfully uninstall IE from all versions Windows? Is that closed API? I don’t know, but I sure can’t remove it even though its a SECURITY RISK to computers. Seems like ever day you have to patch the damn thing. One solution, is to REMOVE it, but you can’t, can you?
Go on MSDN, and find all IE related DLLs. Delete them. Just don’t expect any applications, including explorer.exe to run. Those aren’t closed APIs. Otherwise the entire Win32 is closed. Same with Qt, GTK+, Cocoa, etc. They have no reason to overwhelm users with Win32 information, no?
Jonathan: Can you uninstall Instant Messenger from XP? or their media player in XP? I don’t know since I don’t have XP, but I bet you can’t do it either.
While Windows Messenger isn’t used for much apps, do again what I suggested to you at MSDN. Don’t expect Netmeeting to work. As for Windows Media Player, it is the second most used app after IE in applications, you could do the same, explorer.exe would run, but not many multimedia related apps would.
the Wizard: As of WinXP SP1, you can uninstall Media Player, MSN Messenger and the Frontend of IE (not the html rendering engine, I believe)
None of the executables from Media Player, Windows Messenger and IE is deleted. They are hidden. (To the user, this is pretty much like uninstalling).
Jonathan: Do I hear more MS defense? Yes, Yes I think I hear it again at the OS News site
Boring.
You know what’s more boring? Guys like you. Can’t form your own argument. Just follow what the press sensationalize. If the press tommorrow says Microsoft is an angel, and sensationalize on that for a year, you would beg Microsoft for them to hire you.
anonymous coward: Why do they require NDA for disclosing what Direct3D functions should really do? I can download OpenGL specification and see what they really mean without signing NDAs.
Ahh, a real Slashdot AC. Well, unless you want to broadcast your findings in the APIs, sign the damn NDA. It does nothing but make sure you don’t go to the press. (IIRC, Direct32 isn’t under that part of the Win32, which requires an NDA…. corect me if I’m wrong).
Red: Genaldar, that’s about the least accurate analogy I have ever heard. Every time I see your name I check your IP address to make sure it’s not Eugenia’s.
Trust me, in some threads, especially BeOS and Linux related threads – they are two worlds apart. So they have the same opinion in this case, doesn’t give you the right to accuse them of being a troll disguised as two people. (Besides, Eugenia is the main gal behind OSNews – why would she even think of becoming Genaldar).
Eugenia:
I’m afraid you will not get a real answer as these people are doing the exact same thing as they accuse you of, “blindly defending”….
I’m so sick of people that accuse other people who come and defend Microsoft in a certain area, and then they get called an idiot, basically… but truely, it’s exactly the opposite. You people are, and I’ll use your words “blindly defending” anything but Microsoft, and that’s just pathetic.
Everytime there is a piece of Microsoft news, such as a press release, everyone goes out flamming the site saying, “oh, this site is so biased”, “What is this, a Microsoft advertisement”, even though it’s just announcing a new product/service… I don’t see anyone doing the same when a product coming from another company or group is posted.
Is it really that hard to approach the world with an objective view? I guess this is the way that our American society is going these days… it’s quite sad.
“You people are, and I’ll use your words “blindly defending” anything but Microsoft, and that’s just pathetic.”
This is not my viewpoint at all, did you even read my initial post? I actually *paid* for windows XP, I believe it is a good product, microsoft is making strides. I also believe that microsoft has made some serious missteps along the way, the Kerberos issue being a very large one.
To respond to Eugenia’s post, my issue with “…having created their own standard based on Kerberos and adding their own proprierty extentions to it.” is that they still don’t allow non-UNIX servers to interoperate with windows correctly.
“Is it really that hard to approach the world with an objective view? I guess this is the way that our American society is going these days… it’s quite sad.”
It really is…
My Apologies to Genaldar, my earlier remark was uncalled for.
First of all I don’t think that was the intended use of the application-specific data field.
Anyways I think there is a repeating theme here that people should be aware of when dealing with Microsoft. If they like what they see they WILL take it.
Defore:
Thedore Ts’o before (maybe Microsoft will do the right thing):
http://www.usenix.org/publications/login/1997-11/embraces.html
After:
Thedore Ts’o after (they hijacked the protocol!): http://slashdot.org/articles/00/05/02/158204.shtml
“All I read there are people shouting at MS for not following the standard, but having created their own standard based on Kerberos and adding their own proprierty extentions to it. I still fail to see how this is not right, given the fact that Kerberos is under the MIT license.”
As much as I respect your honesty you are arguing the wrong viewpoint here.
1. Kerberos was meant to be a standard
2. Standard means exactly that, Microsoft bastardized that standard for the reasons of maintaining an illegal monopoly advantage.
3. They would not disclose the changes they made so that other competitors could market compatible products.
4. Taking advantage of the licensing mistake does not make it right.
Seeing the world in black and white only works some times.
You’re wrong.
“critical flaw that could allow hackers to circumvent the secure networking system…The problem lies with software in MIT Kerberos 5 called kadmind4 (Kerberos v4 compatibility administration daemon), which allows compatibility with older administrative clients. A buffer stack overflow allows an attacker to use a specially formed request to gain access to the KDC with the privileges of a user running kadmind4.’ It affects all MIT-derived versions of Kerberos 4 and 5.”
Here hoping the fix is released under the GPL.
>2. Standard means exactly that, Microsoft bastardized that standard for the reasons of maintaining an illegal monopoly advantage.
Or they bastardised it in order to make it work better with their own products. You just guessing here, you have no solid proof of that. If you do, please direct me to it.
>3. They would not disclose the changes they made so that other competitors could market compatible products.
They don’t have to. The license allows that.
>4. Taking advantage of the licensing mistake does not make it right.
Excuse me, but you are way off here. What makes you think that the license of Kerberos was a mistake? If it was a mistake, the writers and copyright holders of the code, could easily change its license to GPL any time for any future versions. They didn’t.
The MIT license is coming from MIT uni and it is definately not a “mistake”. It is/was a choice and they continue to offer their software under that same choice.
Please. Let’s be fair here.
How about the fact that they ensured that there is no backwards compatibility to servers/clients that used the non-enhanced version
Sure, I have no problems with people enhancing standards to allow “added value”, however, when you add a feature and remove the posibility for others to interoperate with it, that is what annoys me.
Microsoft can enhance their stuff to their hearts content, however, it is an openstandard, write extactly to the letter, THEN add ONTOP of it the features you want.
>4. Taking advantage of the licensing mistake does not make it right.
It might not make it ethically right, but it makes legal. Companies are here to make money, not to make it “right” and make people happy.
> How about the fact that they ensured that there is no backwards compatibility to servers/clients that used the non-enhanced version.
So? I don’t get your point.
They wanted to do their own thing. I have seen kernels getting adopted by others, the developer makes changes to fit his needs, and oops, they lose binary compatibility: Like all the forks of BSD for example.
What MS did was to fork the code. It happens all the time. Don’t take it personally. Especially when the license endorses it in such a way.
The difference between forking the BSD code and forking Kerberos is that BSD doesn’t occupy the dominant position in the market. Forking Kerberos is one thing, making a non-compatible version and then implementing it on 98% of all PCs is another.
By doing that you are essentially locking out people who consciously choose any computing platform other than a Microsoft one. If one could freely choose to use MS products or not this wouldn’t be an issue. Fact is in a lot of modern IT situation you aren’t given a choice at all – great for MS, sucks for users.
The difference is that Microsoft doesn’t give anything back. Sure, under the license they don’t have to, however, why don’t they do what SUN does? SUN developed NFS 3 and NFS 4, now they are out for all and sundry to adopt. Here is the most humourous part. EVERY one of the companies that adopt NFS NEVER stuffed around with the standard. Microsft seems to think that the “spirit” of the IT world doesn’t apply to them because they’re Microsoft.
That spirit being the quest to ensure maximum interoperability between differing systems.
“License allows MS to do this”.
Sure.
But pls, notice the fact, that article is not about license and what LICENSE allows.
Article is about possible violation of court/judge decisions.
And Kerberos case is 100% under it. Though, as with all those decisions, words mattter and lawyers have their bread and butter.
But if be honset, not hypocritic, it is just the case.
What annoys me is that everyone wants MS to open its Office file format. FFS why????? If MS will be forced to open its fileformats, EVERY F@&%ING COMPANY SHOULD BE FORCED!
Oh about Kerberos, I think MS is reverting it to make it compatible to the original Kerberos in Win.NET Server. Don’t quote me on that one though.
“actually there is a manual entry for “yes’ ”
There is on Linux, and probably the BSDs, but not on Solaris.
I think all of the debate about MS opening up it’s source and surrendering it’s massive market share to competitor’s is really about where the line is between Computer Science and the Computer Industry.
I see the computer industry to be alot like the Pharmicudical industry. You have a science end, which everyone believes should be shared by the community to further the progresssion of the science, and then you have the industry end, which makes a profit off the scientific research and hold patents on their formula’s and processes. Unfortunatly neither side is willing to accept any views from the other and the line just gets more blury.
Now with .NET Framework, API tend to be useless…
.NET Framework is documented.
The only truely backed claim anyone here can say is that Microsoft’s Kerberos version has propietary extensions. With standard ones, I’m quite darn sure, it is compatible.
“It might not make it ethically right, but it makes legal. Companies are here to make money, not to make it “right” and make people happy.”
No but unethical buisness descisions do EFFECT the way other people do buisness with you. Bad PR will get you in trouble. I’m sure a lot more people are wary of doing buisness with Microsoft after all the recent high profile screw overs. Making a deal with Microsoft is like making a deal with the Devil or a malevolent Djinn. You’re lucky to come out of the deal with your pants on.
Furthermore, the Open Source community is in part a back lash due to the brashness of giants like Microsoft, IBM, etc and I’ve know a few excellent programmers who have refused to work for Microsoft when offered a job by them (of course I’ve seen an equal number of people who preach Open Source until they’re blue in the face and then snap up a Microsoft job when the’re offered one. Heh heh you hypocrites! :-p)
Speaking of Microsofts bad buisness practices I keep hearing vague rumors of how the contract between Nvidia and Microsoft for the Xbox fell through. Anyone know anything about that?
FUD: nVidia and Microsoft are in arbitration over the pricing of the chips from nVidia. I don’t remember the intement details of it, but I do know that it is about that.
You know what? I doubt you would be here bashing Microsoft if the press didn’t blew over the antitrust case. The press sensationalize the news so much, people like you which is directly influence by them, go out against Microsoft. The press wants nothing but money – would it get money if it didn’t sensationalize this case? Nope. How many articles was written, which brought more ads, and for websites, more hits?
If Netscape didn’t sue Microsoft, or if the press didn’t bother with the case, I doubt you would be here spewing FUD was your nick implies. Cause I don’t see you on other threads bashing other companies which practice more or less the same business tactics.
Besides, doing business with Microsoft (i.e. not being its competitor) is amazingly easier than doing business with Netscape or Sun. They are open to anything as long they have nothing to loose and everything to gain, or little risk in making some profit.
They aren’t here to play nice with its competitors. That’s not what you call competition. That’s what you call playing nice. Playing nice and business don’t mix, sorry to say. All successful (i.e. profitable and growing) companies NEVER play nice. They play extremely competitively. They take every opportunity to strengten its competitive egde.
As for programmers working at Microsoft, many work there not just because of philosophical purposes. They work there because having a Microsoft job is like having a SGI or the old HP job. The company respects you and your opinion. Sure, they would never follow all opinions, but they still respect you.
I know some ex-Microsoft employees (I’m an email buddy with one), they all miss working at Microsoft. Sure, some of them moprh into something like you, but generally they still miss working at Microsoft. None of them hate their experience working at Microsoft. And I know what Microsoft engineer – he wouldn’t get a Sun job even if they payed him more.
As for the XBOX and Nvidia thingy, both companies sign an agreement that wasn’t clear to the point, and are debating the points. In this case, unless you are working at either one company and KNOW what is going on, you can’t pick sides. (Besides, there is a rumour saying xbox 2 would come with a ATI card).