Spreading seeds
It's leading an effort by the standards group ECMA to make a standard version of software used to run Web services on any sort of computer. It's also backed an effort to create a version of that software for the FreeBSD version of Unix, so programmers and researchers can see how it works.
"We're releasing on FreeBSD, but there's nothing that stops (someone) from taking the source code and porting it to Linux," Tony Goodhew, the Microsoft product manager in charge of marketing the software, said in an interview. "What we want to do is standardize the technology required for somebody to build a platform that supports the...delivery of XML Web services."
Microsoft also is backing the standardization of an alphabet soup of other Web services software. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) lets different computers exchange data and commands described by Extensible Markup Language (XML). Web Services Description Language (WDSL) explains what a particular Web service can do. And Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) indexes and finds Web services.
Secret goodies
But when Microsoft assembles these bits and pieces into .Net, it plans to offer higher-level features as well that won't be available for outside programmers to dissect. Among those technologies is ASP.Net, an update to Microsoft's Active Server Pages software for creating Web pages on demand, and ADO.Net, software for database access.
Moreover, though Microsoft says people will be able to tap into .Net Web services with a large number of devices, the company is striving to make sure that the best experience will be through its Windows operating system.
But open-source advocates don't trust Microsoft, citing its modified versions of standards such as the Kerberos method of authenticating a computer user's identity.
Bruce Perens, who helped formulate the definition of the term "open source" in 1998, is among the suspicious. For example, he said the standard version of .Net that Microsoft has submitted to ECMA includes a mechanism that lets the software tap into Windows-specific features.
"There's a little peephole into Windows (that lets a programmer) start calling Windows functions," he said. "They or anyone else can write programs that are not portable"--in other words, Web services that work only with Windows computers.
Passport to trouble?
Of more concern is the Passport software Microsoft uses to authenticate those who use its HailStorm services. "I think Passport...should simply be an open standard," Perens said. "It's much harder to clone a cryptographic mechanism."
"Cloning Passport would be difficult from a technical perspective, since we have not handed the technological specification for Passport off to anyone," acknowledged John Montgomery, Microsoft lead product manager for the .Net developer platform.
But Passport isn't mandatory for .Net Web services, he said. "Passport is one of many mechanisms we could use," Montgomery said. "We give a bunch of different ways."
Given how embryonic .Net is, Illuminata analyst James Governor doubts efforts to clone it can be very advanced. He said the strategy somewhat resembles a tactic open-source fans accuse Microsoft of employing: the spread of FUD--fear, uncertainty and doubt--to undermine faith in a competing project.
"It seems to me this is like open-source FUD," Governor said.
But Perens said the stakes have never been higher.
"The broader interest is in making sure that Microsoft doesn't own the Internet," he said.
