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I'm delighted to have been given this opportunity to write for Linux User and Developer, at least until Our Glorious Editor decides I've offended too many people. So by way of introduction, I'm originally a Northern England Sheffield native (proudly from the Independent Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire) who is now a recently naturalized (notice the "zee") 'merkin citizen living and working in that great Californian contradiction, Silicon Valley. I've been here for thirteen years, and it definitely feels comfortable now (less rain than Sheffield, for one thing) and hopefully my "Englishman Abroad" perspective will make for some entertaining rants about this strange place that I now call home, and other topics of interest.
Why give him the space (or, "why you, you self-aggrandizing little twerp") I hear you ask ?
Well, I've been working on this strange thing we now call Open Source before there was such a name (which is why I'm still more comfortable calling it "Free Software", business interests be damned). I came across the GPL rather early in my career, and it immediately struck me as a rather good idea. In addition, I had the honor of one of my patches (to add position independent code support to GCC on the Sun 386i) rejected by Richard Stallman himself. It always reminds me of that great "The Onion" web-magazine headline; "God answers crippled child's prayer. 'No', says God". With a start like that. I never looked back.
I have been developing Free Software ever since. Sometimes on the company payroll, sometimes not, but that was the way of it in the "good old days". Luckily for me it's all on the company payroll now, although I must confess to still spending evenings and weekends working on it too. The Free Software I've spent most of my time on is Samba, the Windows compatible File and Print server that runs on Linux and UNIX servers.
Having said all that, I thought I'd start writing about a topic of current interest, at least in early January 2005, and that is the European Union vs. Microsoft anti-trust decision. I must confess rather more interest in this case than most Free Software authors and advocates, as I have been involved in the case from the very beginning under the auspices of the Free Software Foundation of Europe.
For anyone who has been on Mars for the past few years; based on initial complaints by Sun Microsystems and RealNetworks (both USA based companies) the EU sued Microsoft. The EU claimed they restricted interoperability information to prevent third-parties creating Windows compatible servers, and also tied Windows Media Player into the Operating System in order to ensure dominance of their Windows Media format in the on-line world. They lost the case, and the EU fined them $613 million (yes I'm afraid I think in dollars these days, not pounds) and required them to disclose interoperability information to third parties and to produce a version of Windows without the integrated media player.
Microsoft immediately appealed of course, and requested that the penalties be deferred until after the result of the appeal was known (a possible five year wait). The judgment announced recently was the denial of that request, and so surely all seems rosy in the Free Software garden ? After all, the release of interoperability information to the Samba project would help enormously, relieving us of all that nasty network packet analysis we have to do on a day-to-day basis (note, we never call it "reverse engineering", due to the nasty connotations this has in the USA, and also because that doesn't really describe what we do to create Samba). But the devil is in the details of the 91 page judgment....
The goal of the EU case was to restore competition to the "Workgroup Server" market. Note that this is different the USA Dept. of Justice Case, which was about Windows client interoperability with "middleware" (whatever that is). What the EU means by this is they want to see real competitors to Active Directory. Currently if you want to put your Windows clients and server into a "single-sign-on" environment (and let's face it, who wouldn't), your only real choice is Microsoft Active Directory. Why is this ? Well, the main obstacle is that Windows client won't log on in "Domain" mode without it, and Windows servers use information held in Active Directory to make authorization decisions for Windows clients. Enough of the protocols that the Windows clients and servers use to do this are not documented by Microsoft to make creating an inter-operable server a risky business for any commercial entity. Few have tried; Sun, with their "PC-Netlink" product was cut off from access to the Windows 2000 source code when their supplier AT&T abruptly had their contract to port the Windows source code terminated by Microsoft (thus instigating the EU case). Samba, as Free Software, is one of the few successes in this area. Sometimes not depending on a revenue stream is a distinct advantage !
The EU decision was designed to force Microsoft to unravel its undocumented web of protocol interdependence and allow third parties to create true alternative to Active Directory. On paper it looks perfect – all Server-to-server protocols must be documented, even down to the Active Directory replication methods. But Microsoft has learned much from the US Dept. of Justice settlement about sullen compliance with the letter of a court order, whilst subverting the spirit of it. Firstly, how to lock out Free Software ? This is easy to do; just require per-copy royalties on any product created from the specifications. In one simple stroke this eliminates their major competition. Now, how to make this as unattractive as possible to prohibit any commercial entities from making use of this ? Simple, limit the time allowed to use the information released to something rather less than the commercial life of a product, say five years and force any licensee to agree to acknowledge any existing Microsoft patents on the specifications. This has been so successful in the USA that a grand total of fourteen companies have signed up to the Microsoft Communication Protocol Licensing Program (MCPP); a grand success ! For Microsoft that is, not the US Dept. of Justice. None of these licensees dares to take on Active Directory. Few even have any competing products at all.
The one fading hope is that any licensing terms for the released information must be agreed to by the EU legal team. The Samba Team, via the Free Software Foundation Europe, is making our concerns known to them. However afore-mentioned devil is that the judge took the example of the USA MCPP licensing as his model for how Microsoft might be able to structure the European agreement. This is a hole big enough to drive Governor Schwarzenegger's personal fleet of Humvees through, and I fully expect Microsoft to take advantage of it.
It's been a grand ride, and I've learned much about courtroom drama, but in the long run it doesn't look like the EU case will have much effect on the Microsoft monopoly. No, it's still down to "we the people" to create our own Free Software alternatives; but then again, it always was.