What's the fuss about? [LWN.net]

What's the fuss about?

Posted Sep 11, 2003 17:16 UTC (Thu) by zonker (guest, #7867)
In reply to: What's the fuss about? by ericbr
Parent article: An opening for OpenOffice.org

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.

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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...