[nylug-talk] are we about to lose something?

[geeknoob]

Silly question:
Even if a Novell developer made Samba work for Novell's Suse (and SLES I 
assume) - will they (MS or possibly Novell - in fear of loosing market 
shares to other distro's or in fear of repercussions from MS) allow said 
developer to open that fix/addon/patch/whatever to the rest of the FLOSS 
community?  (Regardless of the developers' feelings on the matter 
regarding what he created.) 

Or, better yet, because Novell users of Suse alone are pardoned, will he 
release it, then all the other distro's be sued for trying to use or 
expand on it?

I'm not all that knowledgeable in the area and it might sound a bit like 
a conspiracy theory, but my first guess would be that Suse will gain any 
interoperability with MS that was created in the time of the 
partnership, while all the other distro's will flounder...

(And then those additions will die un-touched by anyone else when MS, 
like any fisherman throwing out a line and letting the fish tire itself 
out, reels Novell in and puts them "on ice".)

~GN


R. Mariotti wrote:
> Gary Mort wrote:
>> Kevin Mark wrote:
>>> As a comparison, Microsoft made its smb, cifs, etc. technology.  Linux
>>> was born and started to seek interoperability. Like the 'fair use' of
>>> old, we didn't ask permission, secure a licence or pay royalties.  Why?
>>> Because they methods that we used were allowed.
>>>
>>> Now, Novell is seeking to get permisson to stuff from Microsoft to help
>>> them interoperate. None of it can be under a FLOSS license. So it does
>>> not contribute to the FLOSS collective. Sure Novell can use it for 
>>> their
>>> advantage, but its worthless to us.   
>>
>>
>> Correction IBM created smb file sharing.  
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Message_Block
>>
>> Microsoft and IBM extended it through their joint developement of the 
>> OS/2 operating system(very similiar to how Novell and Microsoft plan 
>> to be working together)
>>
>> Microsoft then took the technologies developed there and extended 
>> them further, adding various encryption routines as it was discovered 
>> that sending clear text passwords over networks was not a good idea.
>>
>> Even today, you can turn off that password encryption functionality 
>> in all the derivatives of SMB and run them with complete 
>> interoperability.
>>
>> The problem comes into play with the encryption routing Microsoft uses.
>>
>> Now, you say that Novell's joint partnership won't provide us with 
>> anything.  I disagree.  SAMBA servers on Linux have reached a point 
>> of diminishing returns.  There are some passwords that Windows 
>> clients when they encrypt them don't match the encrypted passwords 
>> the Linux SAMBA server has on file.
>>
>> With this partnership, I'll assume some Samba developer will be 
>> interested in getting Samba completely working for Novell.  So he 
>> will go out and look at the source code and discover why it doesn't 
>> work.
>>
>> Possibly, the problem is that Microsoft windows doesn't actually 
>> encrypt certain combinations of passwords.  Special charectors might 
>> get replaced with some other charector - making for a weaker password 
>> system.  Or maybe they truncate the passwords, so 
>> "thisisalongpassword" and "thisisalongerpassword" would both be 
>> truncated to "thisisalong" and then encrypted.  If it is something 
>> like this, he can make a fix for Novell, announce how the fix works, 
>> raise the security concern and the Samba community can decide whether 
>> to sacrifice security to implement the same fix in open source 
>> product.   Open Source gains.
>>
>> Possibly, the problem is that Microsoft windows uses a slightly 
>> different encryption algorythm.  So Novell Samba is born which 
>> supports this different algorythm.  In this case, since the algorythm 
>> is owned by Microsoft, we have a fork of Samba.  Those who want to 
>> use it will be stuck with Novell's Linux.  5 years down the road, the 
>> partnetship dissolves, Microsoft pulls their normal routine on 
>> Novell.  Novell, in return can say "well, all those technologies we 
>> jointly developed we both have joint ownership of.  So Novell will 
>> release ours for anyone to use for free."  And the Samba community 
>> can now use Novell's free license to incorporate the technology into 
>> the Open Source version.  Again we win.
>>
>> Alternatively, perhaps the Samba community will look at what is being 
>> done and say "this whole password encryption routine would be more 
>> secure if we did X" and provide an implementation for Samba.  Novell 
>> can incorporate it for their systems.  Microsoft can incorporate it 
>> for theirs, and we all get to interoperate.
>>
>> -Gary
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>
>
> Having been actively in this industry since BEFORE M$ I have 
> experienced what EVERY relationship M$ has entered has become.  As a 
> previous poster stated - the "new ground" Novell is breaking is their 
> grave.  I whole heartedly AGREE!
>
> Remember the "Little Red Ridinghood" story.  In this case M$ will be 
> the WOLF in gradma's clothing (er' Novell's corporate polo shirt)!
>
> I really am not a skeptical person overall, but I can't see this 
> arrangement providing ANY long-term gain for anyone but M$ and 
> especially not the consumer.  And I AM a long time die hard linux 
> advocate.
>
> bobmct
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