In a document never before released outside Sun, but shared with ZDNet Australia this week, Laurie Wong, Sun Microsystems software product manager, argued that while document rights management was a positive step, Microsoft was using its rights management regime to protect its "monopoly".
According to Wong, Microsoft's adoption of rights management services would negate any positive impact that might have resulted from its decision to adopt open standards for its file storage format.
"In summary, on the one hand Microsoft claim[s] to have opened up the storage format from a proprietary binary one to XML, an open one. On the other they have locked this 'open' format up with rights management," wrote Wong, adding "Yes, a couple of deck chairs have been shifted around, but you certainly are not on a different ship.It is a vexatious issue, promulgated by the extremes of proprietary thinking".
Wong argued that Windows RMS locks out members of the community using non-Microsoft products by coupling document protection systems to proprietary features of Microsoft's latest server technology.
Windows RMS is designed to give enterprises control over their documents by specifying who can access them and how they can be used at the time they are created.
Windows RMS requires the list of restrictions attached to each document to be registered on a RMS-capable Microsoft server. The server authenticates each user and issues him or her with a license to use an RMS-protected document. Anyone without access to the RMS technology server is effectively locked out of a protected document.
When concerns about this were raised when Microsoft announced its rights management technology early this year, the company said that RMS was targeted for internal corporate use and that it could be incorporated into the Passport service for wider community inclusion.
However, Wong is not satisfied by either argument. Nodding in the direction of the global divide between the technology have and have-nots, Wong said that users shouldn't be forced to buy one company's products for the privilege of accessing widely used document formats.
Adding to Wong's concerns, Microsoft has added the capability to apply rights management to e-mails and Web pages through Outlook 2003 and Internet Explorer.
"You don't want to be the owner of 'all' the rights management for a document created by other people," said Wong.
Wong argues that RMS applied to widely-used documents should adhere to a model that uses an authentication mechanism that is "inclusive" rather than exclusive. Wong pointed to the public key authentication mechanism behind PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) for example.
"One would have imagined that it could have been implemented with or like PGP, where an "open and neutral entity" manages the authentication," he said.
Surely this is an issue for the Courts? Anything that forces people to a particular commercial product in preference to other brands of similar suitability is monopolistic. There's no problem if MS users recognize the rights of others and adopt appropriate practices in document distribution - ie. ensuring that protection is not applied in situations that disadvantage non-MS users, but traditionally the MS community is either arrogant or ignorant in this regard.
Perhaps what needs to happen is those who choose to use alternative products and are accordingly disadvantages should start taking legal action. For example, if I cannot apply to the Australian Govt. for a grant or assistance of some kind because I cannot access information their employees broadcast in MS doc. format, I surely have a legal claim for discrimination and illegal disadvantage. A few test cases of this kind might wake the community up!
There are alternatives to MS - and people need to start educating themselves and using them.
That said, Sun should blame its own management and executives for any loss of market share as a result of this move. Sun's short sighted thinking is preventing the takeup of its products. The company should be leaving MS for dead - but it ignores the fundamental principles of successful competition.
1. Deliver the benefits the opposition is delivering
2. Go play in their paddock. Don't expect their customers to cross the divide - you have to go over and fetch them across!
3. Support those who support you. There are great products from people out there working their guts out to support what Sun is trying to achieve, and Sun is arrogantly taking whatever benefit flows, charging huge fees for "partner programs" and "partner benefits" and giving nothing back.
The best technology doesn't win when you ignore your customers and supporters.
MS mastered the art a long time ago of using the community at large to promote it. Sun's executives need to learn how to do this effectively - then no amount of MS-specific document security will have any adverse impact, because only MS-users communicating with known MS-users will employ MS specific security. The rest of us will go elsewhere for technology solutions that really perform for us and allow us freedom to do what we want to do, the way we want to do it, sharing with anyone we choose to share with.