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An opening for OpenOffice.org[This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier] For years now, Linux users have had to struggle with the omnipresent Microsoft Office formats. Developers working on OpenOffice.org, Abiword, KOffice, Gnumeric and other applications have had their hands full trying to decipher the proprietary and obfuscated MS Office formats so that users could read and exchange documents with their MS Office-using colleagues. With Microsoft Office 2003, Redmond is taking obfuscation to new levels that may mean legal problems for developers who try to provide compatibility with Office, and huge fees for companies that try to adopt it. In addition to the usual slew of new features, Office 2003 Professional comes with Information Rights Management (IRM) tools. (Users of Office 2003 Standard can not create IRM documents.) Basically, IRM is just another name for Digital Rights Management (DRM), a term that Microsoft is avoiding because of the negative connotations that DRM has already picked up. IRM allows users to restrict what others can do with a document. Without the proper permissions, recipients of IRM-restricted documents will be unable to read or print them. Recipients of IRM-restricted e-mails will be unable to forward them as well. And users can set documents to expire. Naturally, these documents will be incompatible with previous versions of Microsoft Office, to say nothing of competing tools like OpenOffice.org, Gnumeric or Ximian's Evolution. In addition to the usual format obfuscation, however, Microsoft also has the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to protect it from competition. Since the format includes encryption, Microsoft will be able to threaten developers with the DMCA if they attempt to include support for IRM-restricted documents. Microsoft's IRM also depends on its server-based Rights Management Services (RMS). This means that any company wanting to adopt IRM is also forced to adopt Microsoft at the server. It doesn't preclude companies using a mixture of Microsoft and Linux servers, but it does mean that organizations that have only adopted Microsoft at the desktop would be forced to make additional investments in Microsoft software. Not only is the technology extremely restrictive, the price should be enough to give any CFO or business owner pause. To deploy RMS within an organization requires that you run Windows Server 2003. That brings some hefty licensing fees on its own, but there's more. Every user who connects to that server has to have a Windows Server 2003 Client Access License (CAL) and a RMS User CAL, not to mention the licensing fees for that user's copy of Windows XP and Office 2003 Professional. The RMS CAL alone runs $37 for a single user, or $185 for a pack of five CALs. No doubt, large organizations could get the CALs even cheaper, but it still becomes very expensive. Note that this isn't just for users who create IRM documents, but also for any user who views an IRM-restricted document. That's to use Microsoft's RMS within an organization. Companies that want to share files with users outside the organization, will need yet another license from Microsoft. According to Microsoft's pricing and licensing overview page, this license alone will run an organization $18,066 for the Windows RMS External Connector License. This fee may not be a major obstacle for large organizations, but it would certainly represent a major burden on small companies that need to share documents with clients. Believe it or not, Microsoft's new Office suite is potentially good news for the open souce community. It creates yet another opening for Linux vendors and proponents to make the case for free and open software in business. Microsoft has laid out its vision for the future of software, and it's filled with licensing fees stacked upon licensing fees -- and technologies that suck the user deeper and deeper into Microsoft's "stack" of solutions. Many organizations have been content to adopt Windows on the desktop, and other technologies at the server level. Redmond's all-or-nothing approach, attempting to force their customers to adopt their toolchain entirely, may end up driving them away completely. To use IRM/RMS, an organization would have to adopt Microsoft across the board -- and likely will require them to persuade their business partners to do the same. Few organizations can get by without sharing documents externally. Expect major levels of frustration when a company adopts Office 2003 with IRM, and tries to share documents with others using older versions of Office. Even if a company is gung-ho about IRM, their business partners may not be. If the Office 2003 strategy works, and organizations start jumping on the IRM bandwagon, it's the ultimate lock-in for Microsoft. Game over for Linux users (and vendors) trying to maintain compatibility with Windows users. This would have the potential of breaking compatibility even for reading e-mail, if you work with Outlook users who enable IRM. But it also has the potential to cause some significant backlash against Redmond when companies start tallying up the costs of switching and being fully compatible with Microsoft's document DRM. Let's not forget that most organizations are being much more stingy with their tech purchases these days. Many companies are still smarting over Microsoft's "new and improved" licensing programs and the recent security snafus. If SoBig.F wasn't enough to send companies over to Linux, Office 2003 might be the straw that broke the camel's back. (Log in to post comments)
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 1:57 UTC (Thu) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] To deploy RMS within an organization requires that you run Windows Server 2003.Oh, my... don't let him hear that. ^_^
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 7:15 UTC (Thu) by oever (subscriber, #987) [Link] I don't think that RMS will object to sharing his acronym with Rights Management System, since he really is one. Even one of the best when digital rights are concerned.
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 15:34 UTC (Thu) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] Maybe, but I don't think he'll like it when you tell him that Windows (of whatever variant) is a necessary prerequisite for deploying him. :)
Alternative? Posted Sep 11, 2003 2:37 UTC (Thu) by jamienk (guest, #1144) [Link] What does Kword, AbiWord, Ooo offer that* only allows certain people to read the document * allows document expiration * doesn't require a certain server * 0 licenses * etc...? Widespread use of GPG?
Alternative? Posted Sep 11, 2003 4:45 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] There are some alternatives that are undesirable in a free society. Consider the scene in Orwell's "1984" when the interrogator shows Winston Smith a photograph proving that some core piece of propaganda about the state is a lie. Then he burns the photograph, which is the only copy. In the Microsoft fantasy world of perfect document control, the same will be true of all corporate documents: whistleblowers will never be able to prove anything, because all the evidence will disappear at will. Try to communicate something to an unauthorized person, and your computer will rat you out. Every word's origin can be traced, until the corporate CIO pushes the "shred" button. Sounds great, right? Perfect control of all the drones. Public-key crypto can provide some degree of privacy. But to go beyond this to the Total DRM Vision, it means that people won't control their own computers any more; they will take orders from Microsoft file formats.
Alternative? Posted Sep 12, 2003 4:31 UTC (Fri) by miallen (guest, #10195) [Link] I don't like proprietary stuff like this any more than you do but the "1984" thing is a bad cliche. It's not difficult to just copy and paste the text, retype it, take a picture with your digital camera, take a screen shot, etc. The end product probably won't even work to the degree necessary to truely have control over the flow of information in an organization. This is all just spin to create something "inovative" to sell the PHBs.
Alternative? Posted Sep 11, 2003 10:21 UTC (Thu) by mdekkers (guest, #85) [Link] The question is phrased wrongly. It seems that the assumption is that "we need to do this because MS is also doing this". There is the assumption that this is a serious general requirement (I am convinced that there are some users who need this, but does that make it a general requirement, i.e. something that has to be included in the core product) and that therefore we need to produce that as a key piece of software. I personally believe this is a niche piece of software, and should be developed as an "add on".
Alternative? Posted Sep 11, 2003 13:38 UTC (Thu) by dlpierson (subscriber, #5124) [Link] It looks to me like there is a lot of overlap between this version of DRM and the nondiscretionary access control requirements of many government security systems. I wonder if any of the open source users in the goverment would be able to cooperate on an open source solution?
Alternative? Posted Sep 11, 2003 20:02 UTC (Thu) by error27 (subscriber, #8346) [Link] * only allows certain people to read the document* allows document expiration Both of those are technically impossible tasks. For example, either one could be defeated by a digital camera. I think it's a matter of what should computers do. My feeling is that computers should do whatever the owners want them to do. (So long as it doesn't endanger anyone physically). For example, if there is a document on my computer, I don't want the document to expire. My computer should transparently not let it expire. If I'm sharing a document, I might want it to expire. However that's not technically even possible. It's best not to be a pain in the arse trying to do things that aren't even possible. The best I can do is to only make it available to people I trust through encryption. Another solution would be to modify each copy of the document slightly so that tracking down leaks would be faster.
Alternative? Posted Sep 18, 2003 7:04 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] Several of these are principially impossible to do, if people, as Shamir said, "Hold the keys to their own computer".If your computer is capable of showing a document to you today, without having to go beg some central cerver for permission, then it can also do it tomorrow. If your computer can display a text for you on the screen, then it can also send the very same text to the printer. The only way to prevent this is to take away peoples control over their own computers. The computer *could* send the document to the printer, but it *won't*, even if you ask it to. Because it is obeying it's master, and this master is NOT you, even though it's your computer.
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 2:41 UTC (Thu) by fozzy (subscriber, #7022) [Link] Let us assume M$ are doing this for the best of reasons (a big assumption I know!). I imagine there are legitimate business reasons for wanting to stop documents going where they shouldn't, etc. M$ is responding to that need.My question to the community is how do we supply these "features" to users? What sort of non-lockin infrastructure could be implemented to provide this? I'm optimistic. In one sense this is really a backdoor attempt at another Passport/Hailstorm/.Net lock-in. We managed to kill that. I presume we'll do the same with this. I should say, I'm no fan of DRM. But I am pragmatic enough to realise that many would see it to be a valuable tool for stopping organisational leaks.
How does this truely keep information locked up? Posted Sep 11, 2003 4:33 UTC (Thu) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link] I fail to see how something like this truely keeps information locked up. Suppose I'd have to see an Office DRM'd document to find out.I can see how it could be made difficult to retain the page formatting, but the actual document would seem available for copy/paste unless they somehow get the OS and/or Office 2003 to prevent that. Even then, I can imagine a VB app that screen captures each page automatically and OCR's it. This DRM scheme can discourage copying, but lets face it, if the document is worth a lot of money and someone has a digital camera, they can and will spend the time to take a digital picture of every page onsecreen if anything else (if they somehow prevent screen captures). It takes less time to take a picture of every page than it does to read each page, so time expiration wouldn't prevent this. It's about impossible to secure information once you let it roam to an untrusted environment. There might be some loss of formatting, but the data presented is still presented.
Or even use VMWare, and use the Gimp to do screen capture! Posted Sep 11, 2003 8:46 UTC (Thu) by Frank.Murphy (guest, #3806) [Link] The fact that it can be read means that it can be copied. Run it in VMWare, then do screen capture. Might even be automatable.
Or even use VMWare, and use the Gimp to do screen capture! Posted Sep 11, 2003 18:00 UTC (Thu) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] Well, people have said some scary things like video signals will have to beencrypted and monitors will only be able to decode them if they are licensed. Cut-and-paste will use DRM because it goes through the operating system. Of course they really can't stop you from taking a picture of the screen or
Or even use VMWare, and use the Gimp to do screen capture! Posted Sep 18, 2003 12:34 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] Closing the analog loophole... I suppose they want to add digital fingerprints to DRM'd images, and add fingerprint detection software to digital cameras, camcorders and all the like, so that they stop recording when they see a protected image. And for sure, you can't use VMWare to run Longhorn or that like, because it will want an untampered TPM, not a simulated one... This all sounds so stupid that you can't imagine people being serious about it. But apparently they are. And don't forget: Resistance is futile. If you are a supplyer, and your customer demands you to accept IRM-protected documents, you can either install Windows or lose the contract. A lot of business works because "the customer is always right". That's a sad thing, since it applies even when the customer is obviously wrong.
How does this truely keep information locked up? Posted Sep 11, 2003 17:28 UTC (Thu) by zonker (guest, #7867) [Link] I fail to see how something like this truely keeps information locked up.Well, the system isn't perfect control -- no. It won't stop really motivated people from using a digital camera or just copying the text or whatever. It will, however, prevent collaboration with people using platforms other than Windows/MS Office, which should (IMHO) be a major point of concern for Linux users.
What's the fuss about? Posted Sep 11, 2003 5:32 UTC (Thu) by simon_kitching (guest, #4874) [Link] Why is everybody getting concerned about this?I presume that if a MS-Word user creates a document and chooses not to use DRM to restrict access to it, then DRM is not required to read it. So only those people who choose to restrict access to their documents in this way will have any problems. And given the cost and inconvenience of using Microsoft's DRM features, very few people *will* use them. In summary, for the vast majority of people, no costs are incurred, no features are lost wrt the current office feature-set, and (once code is written to handle the new file formats) non-windows tools will be able to access these documents as well as ever. This seems no more important than previous MS Office upgrades that changed data formats. Ok, for large corporates who mandate use of DRM for internal documents, that will lock non-windows PCs out, but those corporates typically don't allow users to choose their own desktop os anyway. Now, if someone can tell me that DRM encryption of documents is *mandatory* in the new office version, that would be a different thing...
What's the fuss about? Posted Sep 11, 2003 13:57 UTC (Thu) by erat (guest, #21) [Link] The changing of defaults Word settings has been a peeve of mine for a number of years. I used to work at a Linux company whose non-technical staff used Word for just about anything that didn't require number crunching (including email, if you can believe that). Whenever they sent any docs to technical folks, we'd always have to send them back and ask that they be re-sent in plain text, PDF, or an option that you'd think they'd be able to handle, Word 95 format. Just about any word processor on the planet can handle Word 95 formatted docs. Nope, they wouldn't do it, even though their doc files used absolutely nothing that required the most recent file formats. Their excuse: "Everyone uses the new version of Word. It's not our problem that you don't." Follow ups asking that they simply change their default save format were met with the same response. They just didn't get it.Once, one of our developers received a question from HR that was emailed to him in a Word file attachment. He emailed his response to HR in a .dvi file attachment. It didn't do much for inter-office relations, but screw it, they'd been doing it to us for years...
What's the fuss about? Posted Sep 11, 2003 16:28 UTC (Thu) by ericbr (guest, #5904) [Link] Exactly. If you don't want DRM, don't deploy it. If you get a DRM'ed document that you can't read, you probably weren't supposed to read it in the first place.DUH. Office 2K3 does not require DRM, Windows Server 2003, or anything besides Win2K or XP to run on. Get a grip, people. The level of apparently intentional ignorance is amazing.
What's the fuss about? Posted Sep 11, 2003 17:16 UTC (Thu) by zonker (guest, #7867) [Link] If you get a DRM'ed document that you can't read, you probably weren't supposed to read it in the first place.I disagree, heartily. I get plenty of e-mail these days from people using Outlook or Lotus with the little eight to ten-line footers disclaiming the content of the message, what can be done with the message, and so on. When one of the PHBs who demanded the footer gets the idea that they can really restrict documents with IRM, they'll be all over it. Now, if only a small percentage of these PHBs do this, we'll be okay. If it becomes ingrained corporate policy for a number of companies, it will start to become painful. Get a grip, people. The level of apparently intentional ignorance is amazing. I have a grip, thanks. I realize that a person can send documents without enabling IRM with Office 2003 -- just as people can send e-mail from Outlook in plain text rather than HTML. Just as people can save Word documents as text or HTML rather than the proprietary Word format. Just as people can send Excell documents in non-proprietary formats. But it doesn't happen that often. I still get press releases in Word format. I get tons of HTML e-mail. If IRM catches on, it won't be long before I start getting press releases from companies that have been IRM-encrypted so they can't be forwarded or so that they expire or whatever. And some clients that I work with will say "oh, sure, I'll convert that for you." Others will say "sorry, corporate policy. You'll have to use Outlook so I can use IRM." Go ahead and shrug it off if you want, but as someone who uses Linux on the desktop to do my work, I see it as a major problem.
What's the fuss about? Posted Sep 11, 2003 21:45 UTC (Thu) by Dom2 (guest, #458) [Link] Regarding email footers, I used to think like that. Then I saw Tim Bray's commentary, which opened an aspect of it that I didn't realise: the insurance company demanded it. -Dom
What's the fuss about? Posted Sep 11, 2003 22:16 UTC (Thu) by zonker (guest, #7867) [Link] the insurance company demanded it.Okay, so the PHB at the insurance company asked for it rather than the PHB at the company itself. Either way, I can see a PHB demanding that everything be encrypted with IRM. If it's the insurance company, it's even worse because that would probably leave no room for an employee to turn off IRM when they don't feel it's necessary. Even worse, I can easily see a scenario where Microsoft cuts a sweetheart deal with one or two insurance companies persuading them to require IRM to cover a company...
What's the fuss about? Posted Sep 11, 2003 18:04 UTC (Thu) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] You've never dealt with a non-techincal person from a big technology company have you?
What's the fuss about? Posted Sep 11, 2003 17:25 UTC (Thu) by zonker (guest, #7867) [Link] Ok, for large corporates who mandate use of DRM for internal documents, that will lock non-windows PCs out, but those corporates typically don't allow users to choose their own desktop os anyway.Ah, yes... but those same corporations will probably require DRM for some or all external documents -- thereby forcing freelancers, suppliers and partners to adopt Office 2003 Professional as well. If they'll be doing more than just reading those documents, they'll be forced to adopt Windows 2003 Server as well so they have authoring capabilities. (I think... I'm not sure if you can edit an IRM-encrypted document, even with permission, without the RMS stuff in the back-end.) I feel really sorry for some freelancer who has to invest in Windows 2003 Server just to send a few documents back and forth. As a writer who works with a number of publishers, I have been able to get by with StarOffice/OpenOffice thus far. I don't see any publishers requiring IRM, but I also work with companies doing bits for internal newsletters and so on -- so I can easily see a day when they want to forward documents that are IRM-restricted for me to use as background material. If you can't envision this scenario, you haven't worked with enough corporations. I don't, quite frankly, care whether other people use Windows or Mac OS X or OS/2 or *BSD -- so long as I have the ability to do my work and funtime activities using Linux. When a technology threatens my ability to choose the platform I work on, I get concerned. IRM/RMS is a major threat to my ability to choose. That's what the fuss is about.
What's the fuss about? Posted Sep 16, 2003 23:27 UTC (Tue) by simon_kitching (guest, #4874) [Link] I have worked for/with many large corporations (IBM, Hutchison3G, Orange, Vodafone, Telecom New Zealand, New Zealand Post) as both employee and external consultant, so am familiar with business practices and attitudes at these sort of corporations.I really cannot see any great incentive for managers receiving documents to require DRM. As the sender, you can send out as many copies of a document as you desire, so sending it via DRM does not guarantee that the document cannot be "leaked" by the sender, only that it cannot be leaked by the recipient. In addition, to extend your "newsletter" example, the recipient must be able to access the data in ways incompatible with DRM (copy/paste into a larger document for example), so they clearly would not ask for DRM'd documents that remove their right to perform such operations. I can see people wanting to send DRM documents; management seem very fond of "for your eyes only" type distribution. The "background material for newsletter" case is a good example. However in order for this to work:
I can't see (a), (b) and (c) being widely implemented even in windows-centric companies. It certainly violates the corporate security policy at many of the places I have worked at or with. As I said in my original posting, DRM for internal use is a different issue; it would be far easier to configure and therefore is more likely to be used. If DRM support was required of external parties in order to perform consultancy work, I would indeed be concerned. However I am far from convinced that the DRM implementation being introduced by Microsoft is going to cause that.
EU monopoly watchdogs, are you awake? Posted Sep 11, 2003 5:46 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] Microsoft's IRM also depends on its server-based Rights Management Services (RMS). This means that any company wanting to adopt IRM is also forced to adopt Microsoft at the server. It doesn't preclude companies using a mixture of Microsoft and Linux servers, but it does mean that organizations that have only adopted Microsoft at the desktop would be forced to make additional investments in Microsoft software.I think the EU competition commissioner should be very interested in this! The ongoing investigation in EU is primarily centered on the complaint that Microsoft uses its desktop monopoly to invade servers as well. This IRM idea involves precisely that. Office 2003 desktop software has features that simply don't work with anything else than Microsoft server OS.
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 6:03 UTC (Thu) by grahammm (guest, #773) [Link] The solution to the DMCA problem could be quite simple. If one of the authors of OpenOffice were to legally purchase a copy of Office 2003 pro and distribute an IRM protected document with OpenOffice then they are distributing a tool to decode a document for which they own the copyright, and therefore authorize its use. The DMCA states that it is only illegal to circumvent the protection without the permission of the copyright holder. If someone sends you a document then does that not constitute permission (from the copyright holder) to read it?
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 10:04 UTC (Thu) by zonker (guest, #7867) [Link] The DMCA states that it is only illegal to circumvent the protection without the permission of the copyright holder. If someone sends you a document then does that not constitute permission (from the copyright holder) to read it?The copyright holder here is Microsoft. Microsoft would be able to use the DMCA in the same way that the DVD CCA are using the DMCA to stop Andrew Bunner from posting DeCSS and in the same way that Adobe went after Dmitry Sklyarov -- remember, neither Bunner nor Sklyarov were accused of actually illegally copying a copyrighted work, just of creating or publishing a method of circumvention.
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 20:22 UTC (Thu) by grahammm (guest, #773) [Link] Unless Microsoft wrote the document then surely the copyright owner is the author of the document you wish to access. I don't think that the DMCA states that you need the permission of the access mechanism supplier but rather it states that you need the permission of the copywrite owner. I think that it would need a very poor understanding of the English language to take this to mean anything other than the owner of the copyright to the protected (not protecting) work.
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 22:13 UTC (Thu) by zonker (guest, #7867) [Link] Microsoft is the copyright holder of the copyright protection system in question. Circumvention of such a system is illegal according to the DMCA. See here: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html
(1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter. As I read this, it doesn't matter whose copyrighted work is being accessed -- it matters that someone attempts to circumvent the system. If I send you a perfectly legal copy of The Godfather on DVD, and you write a piece of code to access it on Linux, you're in violation of the DMCA. If the DVD CCA complains -- not the copyright holder of The Godfather, the owner of CSS -- you're in for some legal headaches. By the same token, if I send you an IRM-encrypted e-mail from Outlook 2003, and you write a program to decrypt it and view it in Pine, Microsoft can take legal issue with you even if I've given full permission for you to view that document. Particularly if you actually distribute the system of access. The developers for OpenOffice.org would be open to serious legal problems if they were to add IRM-decryption to OpenOffice.org without getting permission from MS, which is highly unlikely. Again, neither Sklyarov or Bunner were accused of accessing copyrighted material -- they were brought up on charges of creating a circumvention system.
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 22:33 UTC (Thu) by grahammm (guest, #773) [Link] Yet, section (3)(A) states(A) to circumvent a technological measure means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner The only person able to give authority to access the work is owner of the copyright of the work which is 'protected'. If I have a file/CD/DVD containing a work "protected under this title" then the supplier of the protection "measure" does not have the authority to give me the authority to gain access to the 'work. Therefore this clause must be refering to the owner of the copyright of the "protected" work, Also, the technological measure may not be subject to copyright protection, it could be a patented hardware device - which further supports my view that it is the permission of the copyright owner of the protected work which is required not that of the supplier of the protection mechanism.
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 23:49 UTC (Thu) by zonker (guest, #7867) [Link] which further supports my view that it is the permission of the copyright owner of the protected work which is required not that of the supplier of the protection mechanism.So far, your view isn't the one that has been held by the courts. Neither Adobe nor the DVD CCA showed evidence that someone had read, copied or viewed a copyrighted work without the copyright holder's permission -- only that someone had come up with a technological means of defeating a copyright protection mechanism. Now, if you write a script or something that accesses Microsoft Word IRM'ed documents and use that for your own purposes, I doubt the FBI will be bashing down your door. If you write a program that opens IRM'ed Word docs and distribute that program, I guarantee you'll be in court within six months. More than likely, you will also lose. You keep writing about one specific document or one specific instance where you grant someone else permission to read a document -- but that's not a scenario that allows someone to distribute OpenOffice.org with IRM-decryption. It's only a scenario that gives one individual permission. If that were the case, it'd be perfectly legal for Andrew Bunner to create a single DVD and distribute DeCSS so that people could view it, along with every other DVD, of course -- and I do not see a court upholding that. So far, all of the cases that have gone to court involve a third-party system, like the MS IRM system, that is used to protect other works. When you buy a DVD, it is implied that you have permission to watch that DVD -- I've never seen a DVD that says "you can only watch this on hardware sanctioned by DVD CCA or with properly-licensed software" and (if I recall correctly) the courts have thus far held that fair use rights and the obvious implied rights to view a DVD do not give one permission to distribute a circumvention system. I don't see where you'd be able to get away with the scenario of the OpenOffice.org folks buying a copy of MS Office and distributing one document with it. It simply wouldn't fly.
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 8:01 UTC (Thu) by beejaybee (guest, #1581) [Link] Guys, could you please post this article somewhere you don't need to be a subscriber to read it. I'd very much like to get this up to my management ASAP but unfortunately we don't have a corporate subscription.
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 10:12 UTC (Thu) by njhurst (guest, #6022) [Link] Then you need to wait a week or buy a month's worth of corporate subscription. LWN has to earn a living somehow.
An opening for OpenOffice.org Posted Sep 11, 2003 11:12 UTC (Thu) by cross (guest, #13601) [Link] You could also bring this up with your management using the quite detailed examination at GROKLAW Excerpted from "Why Linux Is Conquering the World", (Sept. 8th) "Then contrast Microsoft's newest offering, its Windows Rights "Microsoft Office 2003 Standard Edition users can only view RMS-protected
An opening for OpenOffice.org + [OT] suggestion Posted Sep 11, 2003 13:57 UTC (Thu) by lacostej (subscriber, #2760) [Link] What about making a Copy Paste of part of the article and pass it on to your maanagement.I sometimes do that for some friends, in order to convince to subscribe to LWN, I pass them titles ant/or extracts of interesting articles, then put the link underneath, with a mention such as "available now to subscribers, or in one week if you're not. Subcsribe it's worth it!". I would like to know what LWN think about this. Perhaps they could endorse that method with a 'refer that article' option. The user would select part of the article, and LWN would send a mail from the registered user to a specified address with a text like: <USER> wanted to share this piece of news with you. <CUSTOM USER MESSAGE> <PART OF ARTICLE SELECTED> <LINK to page>
An opening for OpenOffice.org + [OT] suggestion Posted Sep 12, 2003 4:35 UTC (Fri) by miallen (guest, #10195) [Link] That's copyright infringment! Fortunately once LWN has IRM installed on their servers you will not be permitted to do that.
An opening for OpenOffice.org + [OT] suggestion Posted Sep 12, 2003 8:47 UTC (Fri) by jwharmanny (guest, #971) [Link] Does anyone know by what license LWN articles are covered? I didn't find anything apart from the Eklektix copyright message at the end of the page. Are readers allowed to copy the content?(No, I didn't plan to copy-paste the weekly edition to slashdot. ;) I'm just curious.)
Marketing Math Posted Sep 11, 2003 11:45 UTC (Thu) by derby (guest, #2977) [Link] I've seen this line several times in other articles about IRM:The RMS CAL alone runs $37 for a single user, or $185 for a pack of five CALs. Why is the clause "or $185 for a pack of five" necessary since 37*5 is 185? Is this verbage from MS? Do they think their customers cannot do the math or is this some marketing drudge to make you feel like your getting more for your money when you buy five? I don't think I will ever understand business.
Marketing Math Posted Sep 11, 2003 13:58 UTC (Thu) by lacostej (subscriber, #2760) [Link] Maybe you have to call for each single license. If you buy five at a time, you save 4 calls :)
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