Re: a fine kettle of fish

On Tue, May 16, 2000, James Rogers <jetan[_at_]ionet.net> wrote:
>
> 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?

It appears that Microsoft is attempting to use 512 provisions of Copyright, and possibly 1201 as well, to defend a (questionable, IMO) trade secret. Questionable because the "secret" was freely distributed by MSFT, but gagged, such that recipients would be unable to publicly or privately discuss it except with Microsoft, under the terms of the clickwrap attached. A secret that everyone knows, even if they're not supposed to talk about it, is no secret.

--
Karsten M. Self <kmself[_at_]ix.netcom.com>         http:/www.netcom.com/~kmself/
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