It's been a year since Microsoft's failed attempt to shrug off the EU's demands over interoperability. It's been about 10 months since Samba capitalized on that by striking a deal with Microsoft for its protocols -- and the love affair between Samba and Microsoft has since blossomed, declares Samba developer Andrew Bartlett. Bartlett even goes as far as to say that any issues of interoperability between open source and Microsoft are the fault of the open source community -- Microsoft is doing its share and then some. In September, for instance, Microsoft organized two interoperability conferences, Bartlett says.
"This follows up on documentation of over 100 protocols delivered, well over 100 requests for clarification answered, Samba code debugged and fortnightly conference calls held. ... The Free Software community still does not have perfect interoperability with Microsoft's products - far from it - but the bottleneck is our own pace of implementation and comprehension, not missing documentation or the difficult task of network analysis so often required in the past."
This declaration won't change the minds of people determined to hate Microsoft. But for IT folks looking for affordable ways to run their businesses, the happy union of Microsoft, Samba and (hopefully) the rest of the open source world is a beautiful thing.
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funny....
this article makes it seem that MS has changed it's way of thinking and now is FOSS best freind... when infact... they are BEING MADE to do it... this did not come out of the goodness of their heart but becuase of the EU trial.... and lets not forget it was not for free either... it still cost .. if i remember correctly something like $10,000 to get the specs.... let all this antitrust thing blow over.. we will see MS go back to their true nature.....
so lets put away the brown nosing and look at it from what it trully is......
yes.. call me one of those MS haters... but that is because i have been around long enough to know and not forget the actions of this convicted monopolist.. and until they do something useful without being forced to , and not just once.... i will continue to look at MS with disdain..
be fair please readers
be fair! the gist of this article is correct - Microsoft were forced to open up by law but they could still have been difficult and dragged their feet.