Very Worried at MS .net

[João Miguel Neves]

On 16 Jul 2001 20:59:58 +0100, John Peter Tapsell -->

> If they gain full control of a globally and totally accepted passport scheme,
> they will control all.
> 
Most companies (the big ones, at
least) know how strategic their
client base is. Giving it to
Microsoft through the use of .NET
(and, consequently, passport) is not
something they'll do lightly.
Another problem is that european
companies won't be able to legally
use MS Passport (at least in
Portugal and in the UK). The Data
Privacy Act and others prevent a
company from giving personal data to
another company in another country
if you don't comply with european
privacy directives.

If for some reason you think only
technical people are worried about
this, check this Business Week
article in
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/apr2001/nf20010412_657.htm.

This state of things is the main
reason for the dotGNU project. As
far as I understood it, its
objective is to make the .NET
architecture independent of the MS
Passport Service. So free software
is effectively working on embracing
and extending the .NET architecture,
perhaps making a big success, but
avoiding market sominance by
microsoft.

--
						Joao Miguel Neves