> There must be interest in adding NTLM support, Marek asked if there are > open-source servers that support NTLM. If I could contribute patches > without losing my job, I would, but since I'll be fired if I contribute > patches to an open source project,
Interest in NTLM hs been around since the first (Microsoft) implementations of it came out. I have had interest in implementing it on the server side (in the server I get paid to maintain) since early on in NTLM's deployment. I was also interested in supporting it in a client I was developing outside of my "day job." We exchanged e-mail about this *ages* ago. > Immediately below the .DOC file that you point out is a "Get Office file > viewer" link. If you follow that link, you will be pointed to the page > that includes the stand-alone word file viewer, it runs on any Win32 > platform. Please look a little closer before you flame. And here is the rub. I don't run Windows. Therefore *any* Microsoft proprietary document format for the spec. doesn't work for me. Yes, I can chase down viewers (strings(1) works as a last resort), but that just presents walls I have to climb to get at the spec. I need to write the implementation. RFCs are written in US-ASCII in order to get around these types of interoperability problems. Even if it's not an RFC, an NTLM spec. written in a *portable* document format would go a long way towards seeing NTLM implemented in non-Microsoft clients and servers. However, even a generic portable document format doesn't help if the underlying spec. is a moving target. If NTLM is a moving target (and it may not be, but you cannot say it won't be, based on Microsoft's history with protocols and APIs), how can anyone else ship a product that claims to interoperate with it? NTLM doesn't necessarily have to be a standards track protocol. An Informational RFC documenting a snapshot would at least let the rest of us point to *something* that we can claim to interoperate with. If we are going to ship software that claims "NTLM interoperability" we *have* to be accountable to our customers when they call up and say "it doesn't work." Surely you understand that. Publishing an NTLM RFC (I hope on the standards track) does not require Microsoft to release an OSS implementation. Therefore I [1] don't see how the lawyers would need get involved at all. Publishing that RFC *does* ensure that people at least have the opportunity to interoperate with Microsoft's products. How could that possibly be a bad thing? (And I'm not implying you have any care or control over any of these issues.) --lyndon (*last* week's grumpy bugger :-) [1] Others might. I don't want to go there.
