Microsoft is plac- ing a heavy focus on the steps it has taken to include the open-source software community in its recently announced openness initiative, but the legal environment surrounding interoperability between Microsoft's products and those of its open-source rivals is scarcely less murky today than it ever was. The trouble is that while Microsoft released some 30,000 pages of Windows server and communications protocol specifications for all to see, it did so not under the company's we-pledge-not-to-sue-you Open Specification Promise but, rather, under a different, somewhat twisty promise that reminds me of the "Pulp Fiction" scene in which Vincent lays out for Jules the rules surrounding Amsterdam hash bars: Me: "OK, so tell me again about the Windows protocols." Microsoft: "OK, whatcha wanna know?"
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