Re: a fine kettle of fish

On 5/14/00, Pete Lukacs <p.z.lukacs[_at_]city.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 11 May 2000, John Lederer <johnl[_at_]ibm.net> wrote:
> >
> > So, here is the background. Kerberos is an open specification
> > (and code) for security authorization in a network. Microsoft
> > adopted Kerberos for Win2000. However, it made a slight chnage
> > so that Win2000 workstaions could only be authenticated by a
> > Win2000 Kerberos server and not by a Linux or Unix server.
> >
> > When this initially became known, people protested. Mircosoft
> > promised it would make public its changes. Microsoft did, but
> > only on condition that people signed an agreement (EULA) not to
> > divulge what MS disclosed, thereby eliminating the ability for
> > the Open Source community to mke its servers compatible with
> > Win2000 workstation.
> >
> > A fierce discussion on <http://www.slashdot.org/> ensued. In the
> > discussion posters revealed the code, ways to get the code from
> > Microsft without agreeing to non-disclosure, and ways to
> > circumvent the code.
>
> Unfortunately I think this is a legitimate and reasonable attempt
> by Microsoft to protect their copyright. I note that they are not
> asking for damages or anything, they are just asking for removal
> of messages that violate their copyright or messages that offer
> others the opportunity to violate copright restrictions.

     Will someone please clarify for me whether Microsoft is asserting a trade secret theory, a copyright theory, or both?

                           James

James Rogers
<jetan[_at_]ionet.net> Received on Tue May 16 2000 - 16:34:10 GMT