Standards bearers: No need to cry wolf
Thus, it was no surprise last week when within minutes of Microsoft's lawyers' sending a note to Slashdot, the Linux free-for-all site, that the open software community was up in arms. Microsoft asked Slashdot, in its role as ISP, to pull a handful of posts from its site that Microsoft said violated its end-user license agreement covering a proprietary extension Microsoft made to Kerberos. Kerberos is an Internet Engineering Task Force standard authentication protocol, support for which Microsoft built into Windows 2000.
That's all well and good. But instead of targeting their wrath at Microsoft for bastardizing a standard, the majority of Slashdot posters went nuts on Microsoft for allegedly attempting to curtail free speech.
While it's true that all posters are entitled to their personal interpretations, why cry wolf? If history is any indication, Microsoft and other companies who play fast and loose with standards ultimately will cut their own throats.
After all, this isn't the first time (and definitely won't be the last) that Microsoft has called in the lawyers -- to its own detriment. Remember when Microsoft slapped a reporter with a subpoena last year for exposing proprietary company e-mail messages guarded by protective order that were instrumental in the Microsoft vs. Sun Java case? Microsoft later dropped its badly executed plot to reclaim its documents, but the PR damage had been done.
And Microsoft may be at it, again, on yet another front, as Sm@rt Reseller colleague Deborah Gage tipped me this week.
According to a poster on the Seattle Java User Group (Seajug) mailing list, Microsoft recently resorted to hardball tactics over the emerging SOAP standard. Simple Object Access Protocol, a method for interconnecting web apps running on heterogeneous platforms using XML over HTTP, was originally developed by Microsoft, Userland Software and DevelopMentor. Once Microsoft agreed to less proprietary XML implementations, IBM and Lotus joined the list of backers, and the group submitted SOAP for standardization consideration to the W3C.
But here's the rub: According to the Seajug poster, Microsoft got wind of a SOAP presentation to be given by a former Microsoft tools developer to the Java user group and sent in the troops (including a number of former Microsoft colleagues) to make sure the former employee didn't break any NDAs. Microsoft officials said the company did not send any lawyers as the poster alleged, but it was possible, they added, that a Microsoft attorney "could have called to remind him (the former Microsoft contractor) he was under NDA for anything considered confidential."
Wait a second: if something is an open standard, should it be protected by nondisclosure agreements? I acknowledge SOAP is of prime importance to Microsoft, as it will comprise at least part of the glue that holds together the company's soon-to-be-unveiled Next Generation Windows Services framework. But if something is a standard, doesn't that imply "open"?
SOAP. Kerberos. What's next? If Microsoft wants to claim credit for playing by the rules when it comes to standards, it can't simultaneously be slapping NDAs and lawsuits on folks trying to implement standards.
What's your take? Is Microsoft muddying the standards waters, or acting within its rights? Talk back below and let me know what you think.