Microsoft "Rights Management Service"

[Posted February 26, 2003 by corbet]

From:		Charles Cazabon <web-regletters@discworld.dyndns.org>
To:		john.leyden@theregister.co.uk
Subject:		Microsoft "Rights Management Service"
Date:		Mon, 24 Feb 2003 12:16:15 -0600
Cc:		letters@lwn.net

Greetings, Mr. Leyden,

I read your recent article "Microsoft devs Windows Rights Management Services"
with great interest.  Microsoft has finally tipped its hat as to when it will
start making sure that their software does what they (or their "partners")
want it to, instead of what the user (i.e. you) want it to do.

But the ultimate irony is in the name:  programs designed to remove the right
of the user to copy or excerpt from a "protected text" (i.e. a fair-use
right), going by the acronym of "RMS"?  There isn't a less-appropriate
three-letter acronym possible.

Was this a deliberate slap at the Free Software Foundation and its founder,
Richard M. Stallman, commonly known as "rms"?

Charles Cazabon
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Charles Cazabon                   <web-regletters@discworld.dyndns.org>
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Microsoft "Rights Management Service"

Posted Feb 27, 2003 19:55 UTC (Thu) by dbreakey (guest, #1381) [Link]

Probably not, as that would imply a certain level of native cleverness on their part; however, it's certainly not impossible.