[jcifs] Microsoft releases ball and chain.

Christopher R.Hertel crh at ubiqx.mn.org
Fri Mar 29 05:58:03 EST 2002


Of interest:

  www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID=37530

Some rules...

- If you want to look at the Microsoft document, please be sure to perform
  the document extraction on a Windows system.  The document is provided
  as a .exe file.  It may be possible to extract the document from the
  .exe using something other than a Windows system, but doing so might be
  considered 'bypassing a copyright protection system' if, for example,
  the .exe were to automatically bring up a license agreement before
  extracting the documents.  Bypassing the excecutable might be construed
  as a violation of federal law (DMCA).

- It was reported to me (from someone living and working outside the US)
  that the license agreement permits reading of the documentation for
  review purposes only.  No one may implement software based on this
  documentation unless they sign a royalty-free license agreement with
  Microsoft.  I have not seen this royalty-free license agreement, but I
  imagine that it would not allow signers to release the source to any
  code they might write.

- Based on a review by someone who read the document under the
  "review-only" terms of the license, there is nothing new in the
  Microsoft document.  In fact, it may be nothing more than a polished up
  copy of an earlier document produced by the Storage Network Industry
  Association (SNIA).  Version 0.9 of the SNIA document may be found at:

    http://www.snia.org/English/Work_Groups/NAS/CIFS/WG_CIFS_Docs.html

  The SNIA document does not require that you sign any rights away to
  Microsoft.

I have not attempted to download or extract the Microsoft document, and I
have not read the license agreements myself, nor have I read the document
as released by Microsoft.  Because of the way "Intellectual Property
Rights" are enforced in the US, even visiting the Microsoft website is
dangerous.  My analysis is based on information from outside sources.

In summary, it appears (based on the information available to me) that the
Microsoft CIFS 0.6a document provides nothing new except for additional
restrictions on the freedom to exchange information.

Chris -)-----

-- 
Samba Team -- http://www.samba.org/     -)-----   Christopher R. Hertel
jCIFS Team -- http://jcifs.samba.org/   -)-----   ubiqx development, uninq.
ubiqx Team -- http://www.ubiqx.org/     -)-----   crh at ubiqx.mn.org
OnLineBook -- http://ubiqx.org/cifs/    -)-----   crh at ubiqx.org




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