xml-dev - Microsoft's Role in the XML Community (WAS RE: Important: The SAX C++/C/

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

What precisely did they do wrong?  They worked with the 
MIT personnel, then they extended by implementation, then 
they required protection for the IP associated with that 
extension?  Umm... that is done every day in the CS 
industry particularly where some improvement if announced 
may a) cause others to use a half-baked plan b) give a 
competitor an advantage c) otherwise make it impossible 
to use the IP to gain an advantage.

If they asked entity to sign a non-disclosure on Kerberos, 
then they would be usurping a right held by MIT, otherwise, 
they are only protecting their own IP.  I believe they have 
that right and in fact, that obligation.  If as part of the 
agreement to work with MIT, they foreswore that right by 
agreeing that any extension immediately becomes the property 
of MIT, or otherwise cannot be constrained with respect to 
release of the information by source or schedule, then 
MIT is groundless.  You may appeal to community but that 
has only the merit of an appeal to style not redress.

They have a role in the XML (more precisely, Kerberos) 
community which they fulfilled by working with MIT on Kerberos.  
They have a role in their local community by protecting the release 
of intellectual property they developed during that work 
by the common means, non-disclosure agreement.

If they did not seek IP status on work developed jointly and 
with prior agreement to share the results of that work openly, 
what did they do wrong?

Len Bullard
Intergraph Public Safety
clbullar@ingr.com
http://fly.hiwaay.net/~cbullard/lensongs.ram

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


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