Passport for Linux On the Way 341
mrsam writes "PCWorld reports that
Microsoft comissioned
Ready-to-Run Software,
a small software vendor,
to port the Passport server software
to Solaris, Red Hat Linux, AIX, and HPUX. Oh, joy."
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Passport for Linux On the Way
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How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One to hold the giraffe and one to fill the bathtub with brightly colored power tools.
not surprising (Score:4, Informative)
Re:not surprising (Score:2, Informative)
They've existed for years.
Re:not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
They are rarely updated, and they often break.. From my exp FP ext's are the bane of most linux based hosting companys and cause a majority of the support load..
I once worked for one of the largest free hosting provides online, they bought out a Windows based company, The original plan was to switch them over to there linux based system, But after seeing the numbers keeping the windows servers ONLY for people that required FP was considered,
It is pretty much a known fact to anyone in the webhosting industry that FP ext's on linux are flaky to say the least
Re:not surprising (Score:5, Funny)
FP ext's are flaky everywhere. On Windows, who would notice?
Re:not surprising (Score:2, Informative)
I just provided the details, for those that do not know how bad FP for linux really is ( which I would assume to be the karma whores that posted hence )
Existed but not strongly supported, or working tbh (Score:4, Interesting)
The updates fell out of step with the IIS versions.
And so many things didn't work compared to the IIS version that we dropped the whole 'we host frontpage' idea because it was too much time in support explaining the differences to frontpage users who, quite reasonably, just wanted it to work like it says in the instructions.
And then you still have "why don't my database controls work" to contend with.
fp on Unix was a poisoned chalice as far as we were concerned.
Poison on IIS too but that's another story!
Front Page Extensions (Score:2, Informative)
Re:not surprising (Score:2, Informative)
Re:not surprising (Score:5, Funny)
Where do you want it today?
Re:not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
Re:not surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
spyware (Score:5, Funny)
No thanks.
Re:spyware (Score:4, Funny)
Re:spyware (Score:2)
Biggest part is (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Biggest part is (Score:2, Funny)
Remember folks..
Developers! Developers! Developers!
Re:Biggest part is (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why most MS releases are WORSE THAN USELESS.
To be fair... (Score:3, Insightful)
But, let's also be fair here. This is *Microsoft* and *Slashdot* we're talking about. If Microsoft BSD-licensed Windows and released the source, there'd be a ton of people on here talking about how it was an attempt to crush Free Software by making BSD licensing more popular than the GPL.
Re:Biggest part is (Score:5, Insightful)
They are fighting fire with fire, all we, as coders have to do, is to see the code, and we are now tainted, and can not legally implement a competing code base.
The same as if they use GPL code, it taints their talent pool, if we *see* their code, it taints ours.
be very careful when offered a bite of this apple.
A subtle hint? (Score:5, Funny)
E
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Proof that Passport Can Be Secure? (Score:5, Funny)
*n*x
or, but I guess that harder to remember
or (when you include more specifics)
L?[ui]n[iu]x
Fault tolerant people would definately prefer
\b(L)?((?(1)i|u))n(?(2)u|i)x\b/
But then you do not match Free/Open BSD
Oh heck, I knew that buying "Mastering Regular Expressions" would not lead to a skills at expressing myself in general.
Re:Proof that Passport Can Be Secure? (Score:5, Funny)
Passport for Linux? (Score:2)
Now will I see "how do I set up Passport" in all my favorite mailing lists? Hardly. People get flamed enough for Active Directory postings :)
Re:Passport for Linux? (Score:2, Interesting)
things are moving (Score:3, Funny)
Presumably because... (Score:5, Funny)
<rimshot>
Thanks, I'm here all week.
Seriously, though - why passport? Why not something people might want to use - like Office. Oh yeah - because then there'd be *no* excuse to stick with Windows.
Okay, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that Passport server software will now run on (some of) the unices isn't really a cause for dismay; although it may speed uptake of Passport, it also removes another reason for a web service provider to use IIS.
Any company that really *wants* to run Passport WILL. It's just a matter of what platform they run it on.
Hey (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, who is the idiot, stock photo posing, Microsoft "freelance" idiot that asked for this thing? Come on, own up to it. You can't hide forever. We know you _THOUGHT_ it was a good idea.
Re:Hey (Score:2)
Ok, who is the idiot, stock photo posing, Microsoft "freelance...
Her name is Valerie Mallinson and she certainly has me convinced that XP, and presumably Passport, is the way of the future!
Centralising security (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me or is the idea of centralising security bad?
It seems to me that a spread of security/password systems is better, since a comprise of one does not comprise the others?
Somehow the buzz to make everything easier overrules normal safety practises. Do we not get told not to have the same PIN for different credit cards?
Re:Centralising security (Score:5, Insightful)
How many computer authentication usernames and passwords do you have? (28)
Do we see the problem here yet?
Re:Centralising security (Score:2)
How many PINs do you have? (2)
How many computer authentication usernames and passwords do you have? (28)
I keep all my passwords and other info in a PGP'd file so if I ever forget one I can retrieve it in a moment.
"but what if you forget your PGP passphrase?"
Then I'm fux0red, but at least I am to blame, not another MS screwup.
Re:Centralising security (Score:3, Insightful)
How many PINs do you have? (2)
How many computer authentication usernames and passwords do you have? (28)
How many keys do you have for your house? (4: front door, deadbolt, back door, side door)
How many keys do you have for your office? (12: front door, deadbolt, back door, back deadbolt, personal office, server room, HR file cabinet, front corridor, upstairs offices, conference room, supply closet, second supply closet)
Is it annoying to have to dig through my keys for the right one? Yes. Would I get rid of some of that annoyance by having a single key for all those doors? Not on your life
Re:Centralising security (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a trade-off between better system security and user security. Single sign-on is very helpful to users. Security personnel can focus on reviewing a smaller set of audit logs, account policy can be applied once, effective everywhere, etc., etc.
On the other hand, yeah, there is a higher risk that compromising a user's account can allow access to numerous systems or services. But with good administrative practices in place and security reviews, the risks can be identified and managed accordingly.
After building a server and applying vendor patches, configuring for AD access is a snap and allows the users access without having to tell them anything more than server name.
Somehow the buzz to make everything easier overrules normal safety practises. Do we not get told not to have the same PIN for different credit cards?
Sometimes I wish I had as many credit cards as user accounts (even within the company).
Centralized security is good (Score:5, Insightful)
A properly set up centralized security server does nothing but run the authentication services and possibly the authorization services. It should not be running other services such as NFS, print services, HTTP servers, etc.
That is not to say that different applications can't use secondary passwords to authorize certain facilities, or to mandate a seperate security ticket for the duration of a special session (e.g. starting an admin tool to add new users to the application's authorization set, or changing their authorization lists.)
Many authentication and authorization services also support facilities like session limits (the place I work at right now only allows each id to be used for a single client station at a time; development and support staff are a special case.)
Centralizing security also means that you only have to deal with hardening one set of authentication servers (gotta have redundant server clusters in a large environment for something this critical!) When patches are needed, you know they've been applied because you don't have to run around to all the application, data, and web server systems. Some application/web servers might break if they aren't patched to work with the updated security server, but that is a good thing -- you don't want outdated clients being authenticated when they're running software that has known security issues.
However, there are far better products out there that aren't limited to Microsoft clients. Tools like Kerberos, Verisign products, Netware, etc. I just cannot fathom why anyone would voluntarily limit their options rather than just using a non-Microsoft product.
Re:Centralising security (Score:2, Funny)
I think you got your word order slightly askew. We are talking about Microsoft so 'is it me or is the idea of centralizing BAD security bad?' I think that is what you meant
Re:Centralising security (Score:4, Interesting)
To centralise all passwords is just plain stupid and as i pointed out above it can be solved in better ways. A smartcard with all your accounts that you use with a single password or something.
Beware of romans bearing gifts... (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you even do that to something as complex and loosely-coupled as the open source community of linux developers?
They probably just realized how large a marketshare Linux is getting on the server side and want to attain total market dominance for their worthless Passport product, lest we develop a better, more secure alternative. Hint, hint: won't work, MS. Much like Gnome, KDE and the other 10 or so windows managers, we are all about freedom and choice and will code alternatives to the alternatives to the alternatives until sourceforge runs out of disk space. Just because we can, just because we love coding and have common ideals for what life should be like: Free, especially of YOUR control.
Re:Beware of the GREEK bearing gifts... (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry for nagging, but I have to correct you here. It was the greek who built the Trojan horse...
Re:Beware of romans bearing gifts... (Score:2)
What have the Romans ever done for us?
Incredible! (Score:5, Funny)
Created and managed with... (Score:2)
Why... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not an expert in corporate tactics but could it be that they're already forseeing the flop of those ports and rather ask a small company to have the trouble, the (possible) losses, etc... ?
Re:Why... (Score:2)
Ready-to-Run (Score:3, Informative)
One good turn deserves another (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One good turn deserves another (Score:2)
Re:One good turn deserves another (Score:4, Informative)
[grin] I know it was joke, but just for future reference quite a few parts of Wine are now being developed on Windows, at it makes it easier to locate bugs. In theory, as they are recreating the DLLs, you can in fact drop in parts of the Wine project DLLs into Windows and have a semi-MS free Windows installation. Scary huh? :)
i'm sorry (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:i'm sorry (Score:3, Informative)
Liberty Alliance Project [projectliberty.org]. Sun, Novell, RSA, HP, IBM... the list goes on and on.
It's attempting to do exactly what passport does (which you may or may not like). The specs are available [projectliberty.org], and Sun have released an opensource Identity Server [sun.com].
I dunno. If you need a server to tell you your identity...
Re:i'm sorry (Score:3, Interesting)
For instance: they charge $120,000 for one level of membership (i forget which). We were told in no uncertain terms that there was no reason for this other than to keep the little guys out, and that virtually all the money would be returned. He joked they'd have to live in Hawaii or something to spend that much.
Even more worrying was that quite a few of our questions were met with "Sorry, we can't tell you that". A lot of stuff they're doing is "commercially sensitive" apparently. For instance, they demoed a true single sign in/federation demo at the conf, the open sourced reference server doesn't have any web front ends or demos like that. I asked whether I could have copy at the end - no can do, it's based on Novells own authentication engine. Maybe if we can convince the management they said. That's just great.
Finally it's worth remembering that Liberty is a group of companies each with lots of accounts. They want to "federate" those accounts to streamline their websites and business processes, to make it easier for the customer to have "relationships" with them (a common term at this conference). Hence the fact that they now refer to "Simplified Sign On", not Single Sign on. Only time will tell, but I think our ideas are better.
Isn't Making Passport for Linux like... (Score:5, Funny)
Vortran out
Re:Isn't Making Passport for Linux like... (Score:2)
I'd bet that People Eating Tasty Animals [petasucks.cc] members would love mink coats.
So what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Passport is essentially dead technology in the way that MS wanted to use it. It just hasn't laid down yet.
Re:So what? (Score:2, Informative)
I didn't see anything in the article about the Passport client being ported. MS is only porting the Passport server because people have asked them to.
Wait a minute.... (Score:5, Insightful)
But a broken, hole-y DRM/anti-privacy schema, accepted by only a few and generally looked on with suspicion, being developed with no profits in the near future to -- that, they're porting to Linux.
Uh.... HUH.
Re:Wait a minute.... (Score:4, Insightful)
They want to do two things:
i.) Establish a foothold in the linux world with their server software, so that when they DO decide to leverage their R&D, IIS is ready to roll, extensions done,
ii.) Maintain that their win32 platform is superior by toutint rethoric that linux fails and has as much downtime as win32 because look "Even our great software fails due to network overload, and those darn hackers...".
This is, in my opinion, the start of a series of last ditch maneuvers currently cooked up by the cross-breeding, pollinating executives who work in marketing and network security division, as a way to show the world that they can play nice with that "other" OS, and provide the tools to do so.
It's not going to work, if for only one simple reason: Apache. This will only push the apache developers harder to do it right, to polish 2.0 so much that it shines, and allow third party developers to create very excellent front end management software when the server market usage by Apache products explodes as a result.
Mark my words. Microsoft may think they're being cheeky, and clever, but like so many of their previous failings, this one too will come back to bite them in the ass.
Re:Wait a minute.... (Score:2)
Re:Wait a minute.... (Score:5, Interesting)
How about a simpler solution? Try this:
Microsoft, knowing that IIS isn't anywhere near as accepted as Apache for web serving has decided that porting Passport to the OSes that run the majority of web servers would help with adoption rates for the technology.
or, possibly:
Companies that want to use Passport have told Microsoft that they are unwilling to switch from their Unix based web servers to Win2K Server w/IIS just to be able to use Passport. Microsoft has listened and has decided to port Passport to various Unices so that it will be accepted.
Re:Wait a minute.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Port office to linux now and theres much fewer real reason for people NOT to switch to linux from windows
But a broken, hole-y DRM/anti-privacy schema, accepted by only a few and generally looked on with suspicion, being developed with no profits in the near future to -- that, they're porting to Linux.
Linux is a threat to Microsoft - if they can persuade people to use their authentication services, then in 5 years support can be slowly withdrawn because linux "isnt as secure" as their palladium future... Guess what? So many services use passport that people feel they have no choice but use windows
Passport being on linux isnt going to persuade people that a move to linux is viable - but it might just persuade a few linux users to sign up - which just increases microsofts power for the future
Ready-to-Run software? (Score:5, Funny)
How about using this as a migration tool? (Score:4, Insightful)
For companies that already have passport for certain things, you can setup a secure, fast, *nix server, and allow the few half-wits that use passport to authenticate. How many people got excited by the prospect of being able to do groupware, email, and calendar funtions like Exchange, but without using an Exchange server? This could be the same thing; a way for *nix admins to use their current systems, and support their users who choose to use this thing.
you know the solution... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't want to use it - don't install it. If it's installed - turn it off.
(I also encourage people not to use Passport in my academic capacity - and I tell them why).
I fail to see why MS is providng ports to platforms where the user base is so hostile to the concept of the massively insecure single sign-in
RTR is very silent on their licensing policies... (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is a blurb from their site:
Ready-to-Run provides you with software ready-to-run immediately for much less than what you would pay to acquire the same software in non-executable source form from a bulletin board. And only for a fraction of what you would pay for most of the commercial software available!
So, are they charging for service (giving us the freedom to redistribute?) Anyone knows the answers? Would M$FT's system be really free (as in speech?) S
Two words... (Score:5, Insightful)
chroot() jail
maybe its just in case (Score:2)
Of course if it doesn't work out then they will be glad that they didnt port anything else and help linux gain popularity and market share at the expense of windows.
What is gonna happen is pretty predictable (Score:4, Insightful)
How long before we see GNUpassport (Score:3, Funny)
(*) 6 months
(*) 1 year
(*) 2 years
(*) Never
(*) Coyboy Neal passport rules
One word, twofold. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why Passport?? *shudders*
Re:One word, twofold. (Score:2, Insightful)
Because Microsoft aren't going to pay people to work on their competitor?
Re:One word, twofold. (Score:2)
subversion (Score:3, Interesting)
It still comes down to ignorance.. (Score:2, Insightful)
honestly, u can use ldap with pam and smb for win authentication that will work across windoze and *nix. i love ldap and it's amazing how once company just kinda doesn't wanna push something that's a standard in light of their own crap.
it's too bad. but this is typical and unfortunately only the companies and groups that really 'get it' will ever implement things the 'right' way. this is true with probably every software solution.
i can see those guys at that company thinking this is a great idea, but it's not. bad ideas should be shot down and buried. passport has numerous problems and needs to be put in a hole.
of course, like everything m$, they won't bury it. they'll keep bolting on to it until people give in or roll it into something else (read: sneak it in the back door).
Yay! (Score:4, Funny)
apt-get install pam-passport clippy ntkernel msdllmgr mslicmgr msautopay msextraviruses mssolitaire
I so look forward to being able to read those Word attachments management keeps sending me!
Missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, the primary reason for passport logins is in order to attract customers. PERIOD. If MS can offer passport security (sic) login support across nearly all commonly used platforms, then they can potentially approach a company with large volume customer interaction such as AT&T, FedEx, etc... or even our Government and use the sell line of "XX% of the US internet population has access to Passport, and XX% of internet users already have accounts created, reducing your sign-up/registration headaches. We would like to offer you this secure (sic), unified login solution for your customers as a convienence to both you and them. We can even integrate all of your customer service functions into this login for you as part of your initial installation! We'll even support your internal *nix environment so that you don't have to change servers (!for now!)."
So, then say, FedEx says hey, that sounds great, we can integrate everything into this, and it looks like everyone already has a Passport account, and there's no change in equipment on our end, and wow this will really make it easier for our customers to login and issue shipments, track shipments... We'll take it.
Microsoft never abandons a product, period, they just repurpose it a few years later. The MSN network never died, MS is just trying to co-op the internet under their wing. They want all data to come through them so they can get on with the subcription model they have been trying to migrate to since 1995. Passport has one primary purpose, it is the login mechanism of MSN, and the leverage to get companies to chanel data through MSN, which get's more customers, then more companies, etc...
Once MS has "critical mass" on Passport, they can leverage it even harder as part of their DRM initiatives. This isn't to control what you see and here per se. Remember, MS is about one and only one thing, maximizing the profit of the shareholders. PERIOD. If every piece of data has to pass through a piece of MS technology, even a nominal toll of cents becomes a tremendous amount of money.
What do you think the X-Box is all about. It is about marginalizing the PC. Just wait till next year when the data/streaming formats that are only X-Box compatible, or X-Box first start to role out. Just wait until you can subscribe to Office on your X-Box variant... Not only does this completely elimiate anti-trust issues due to the large volume of established law supporting the rights of hardware manufactures to control the content on their systems. The consolidation of all of these technologies over the next couple of years will give MS even more leverage in pushing their protocols to prospective clients... thus feeding the loop.
DRM components on a PC may or may not ever happen, but I believe the whole discussion will be mute in a number of years anyways...
Re:Missing the point... (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting you should mention that. Apparently Passport does indeed now have a Kerberos stack (I had previously thought that would be too hard to do), and the XBox service uses it. They are cross tying their products already.
Re:Missing the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
Subscription-based *software* won't cut it, tho -- because the user CAN escape that, so long as there is some way to port their data elsewhere. But making *access* to your data a subscription feature -- THAT will lock people in for all time, unless they decide they can do without any data already committed to the system. And what's locked in can be charged on a regular basis (either per timespan or per-use, or both).
M$ understands this perfectly, and is working to achieve it.
"Once you pay the danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane." -- British proverb (ca. 600 A.D.)
The honest reason MS will be in hell (Score:3, Interesting)
> maximizing the profit of the shareholders. PERIOD.
>
Whoa whoa whoa there cheif! I hate to point this out, but you're wrong. Seriously. I know we all have the little capitialist mantra in our heads about profit. However, MS has constantly and routinely screwed their shareholders out of divedens they rightly deserve. The majority stock holders aren't interested in giving anything back and sharing their gains with the rest. Instead, any and all profit goes to continue lining their 40 billion dollar treasure chest. At this point, MS could buy and sell the world if they'd like - hell, they could stop wars, yet they're to frugal to give a penny back to their investors. And this is the REAL reason why MS will be in the very bottom of hell -- Malice toward benifactors.
Re:The honest reason MS will be in hell (Score:3, Insightful)
Yawn (Score:4, Informative)
Second point, so what? Passport has practically zero penetration, even less since the screwed over doristheflorist.com and removed the Wallet functionality (for being unnecessary bloat). Now don't me wrong, I'm sure MS will push Passport until it gets bigger and better, but at the moment that isn't an issue.
Final point, digital identity is a good idea, and the world will be an easier and more secure place for those who want it to be when we can have digital identities. So, what are we doing about it?
The PingID project is developing an open royalty free set of protocols, with an open source (though unfortunately non-free) reference implementation of the server. This will be something you can download and install onto your server for free, that will then let you sign in to various accounts that support the protocols, manage your personal document store and any authorizations you have given out (at least, in the beginning). The url is pingid.org but I'm not linking to it, because we're going to be putting up a new site that more accurately reflects the new open source nature of the project in like 3 or 4 days, so I don't want people to go look and go "huh, he was talking out of his ass". Code for v0.1 will be coming in a few weeks hopefully, I get paid to hack on it part time. Join the mailing lists to help out and track its progress. So far, this is really the only open answer to digital identity we've found, so I'm pretty glad I'm a part of it :)
Where's the alternative? (Score:2)
I have no problem with Microsoft developing Apps (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is a move on their part to start supporting Linux as a "valid" operating system, and start developing applications for it, I'm not upset with that one bit.
You can "OpenOffice" all you want, but personally, I *do* like Microsoft Word. And I like Outlook. If they started making these applications available in full form to Linux, I would run them.
Personally, I think that down the road sometime (probably not very soon) Microsoft will be developing real products for alternate operating systems. On one hand, they want everyone to use Windows. On the other hand, there is a growing amount of users switching to alternate systems, and Microsoft would love to sell you software. At some point, unless something goes horribly wrong with Linux, the community won't be able to be ignored.
Ahh well. Who cares what I think anyways.
Why not release the source? (Score:3, Interesting)
They'd better
- Release the source code and the protocol description, so that anyone can freely create Passport compatible software for every operating system.
- Keep their cash for marketing, so that people understand what Passport could bring.
Passport? (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry, couldnt resist, carry on about your business folks, nothing to see here.
Strange choice of operating systems (Score:3, Funny)
They pulled the same stunt with IE (Score:5, Insightful)
Everybody please avoid Passport for *nix when it comes out - they are in all likelihood doing the exact same thing. They will abandon you as soon as they get what they want (i.e., a monopoly position).
Ready To Run are good guys (Score:3, Insightful)
They're good folks- diehard unix people(the president, Jeff, is one of the most experienced unix people I've ever met) who have been, for years, making various open-source software easier to install/use, backing the packages with support, and folding changes back into the community. They've been doing this since the very early 1990's.
One could argue that RTR helped, in a major way, bring open source software into the corporate world. Not with Linux- but with all the commercial unixes. Solaris. HPUX. AIX. Irix. etc.
Their ReadyPaks, at the time, were practically revolutionary- with one command you pulled a full installer off a tape, installer asked you a whole bunch of questions, and boom, you got a working installation. It was exactly what many large companies were looking for- open-source software fixed up, given a good installer, and a commercial company to stand behind it for support.
Whereas you'll see other people talking about how to bring free software to the business world- RTR has been doing it for over 10 years.
So if you're going to grumble about a company- please don't grumble about RTR. Much of the open source GNU packages you use today, especially on the non-free unixes, work better(or at all) on those platforms in part due to RTR.
That said, they are a very small company, folks- please use google caches and stuff to keep from swamping their line/webserver....
WHoa! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:back to the old practises (Score:5, Insightful)
In a recent article at OSNews, I commented about Microsoft's business practices (to a degree), and the "Microsoft problem".
What we need to do is continue the big push with our own software, and develop it from medicore software to Great Software.
Does anyone remember the Insanely Great comment from years ago by Steve Jobs? It's much the same attitude and spirit that we need now, in not only the Linux Communities, BeOS Community, and more, but everywhere that is offering a choice for the end user.
We have to continously keep in mind that all of our hard work is for one target: The end user.
I cite the recent Red Hat reviews at OSNews and other places as prime examples of how we still are not quite getting it.
Please feel free to read my original comment at OSNews here:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=1951&off set=34 [osnews.com]
The problem won't go away if we play by Microsoft's rules. We need to create our own, and survive.
Limited platform support, no client support (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting how such a limited platform list is provided for servers. What about Mandrake, SuSE, et. al.? With canned commercial support, what of potential customers that want to use a different HTTP server, different patches, different languages/tools, etc.?
You also note that there is no mention of support for developing client software under the *nix platforms. It's yet another way to lock in the desktop as Microsoft-only, much as many of their "servers" already do.
Re: Clients are browsers (Score:2, Informative)
The passport client is a web browser. Works great in any mozila powered browser on any operating system, including Windows, Linux, AIX or whatever.
Re: (Score:2)
different distributions (Score:2, Insightful)
the problem is of course certification. if passport is only certified to work on RH linux, other distributions might be able to run it, but only passport servers running on RH linux will be accepted as being valid passport servers. just a thought...
maybe it's a smart move by MS to allow only passport on one specific linux vendor. suppose passport becomes the primary way to identify yourself on the net (*shiver*), it will enable MS to use their embrace & strangle policy on RH, effectively killing "commercial linux".
maybe they're just being ignorant though, thinking RH = linux. an often made mistake
Sometimes there are RedHat specifics (Score:3, Insightful)
But that is precisely the kind of problem I'm concerned about. When you are dealing with any sort of security services, you do not want server patches held off because of a package dependancy that you have no way to work around. Some of the patches that don't get along with ASE 12.5 are rather important security patches, for example.
Re:back to the old practises (Score:5, Interesting)
However, amidst the dust and noise of the current storm of PR, spin, ads, and FUD, they are also dropping support [theregister.co.uk] for several key products like NT 4, Exchange 5.5 and Win2000 pro now and in the near future. At least when Cisco is hurting, their sales team treats for lunch. Or when McDonalds jacks up the price of a coke, they run a sale on the burgers.
Microsoft appears to have been circling the ol' financial drain for some time, with shaky bookkeeping, shrinking markets, and admissions that their products cannot compete on technical merits. Perhaps this last week's media blitz is a sign that the execs have offloaded enough of their stock options for us to hear that last *glunk* and see MSFT along side EOG.
Circling the drain? (Score:4, Interesting)
Much as I would like to believe this, I haven't seen any public signs that they are hurting. Could this be true? The decision in India has to be a big blow to them, I wonder just how bad the international numbers are at this point. I know they are always trying to spread out their income and losses, but if things really are bad, at some point they will have to take a loss. Any predictions on when this might happen?
What is EOG?
Re:RTR did not disclose the details of its plans.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact that you have this thought is why you will never be a competition for Microsoft (that and I'm guessing a 100 billion dollar income difference) but seriously. Wether you use IIS or Apache is irrelevant to passport users. They don't CARE. If they signed up for passport they think that you OWE them passport support. You can say "screw those end (L)users if you want, but they are a revenue stream and that is not considered "Best practices"
Microsoft knows that by giving Linux/Unix users passport (which is probably shunned by everyone with a 'nix desktop they are catering to WINDOWS desktop users. Think about it, they are using Linux admins to cater to their clientele in the name of being 'open source' friendly.
Re:Over lunch, I discovered how Passport assign va (Score:2)