Fall of the SMB Bastion

In my article on why I switched to using a MacBook and Mac OS X, I mentioned Microsoft's use of incompatible or proprietary standards as a means of keeping non-Microsoft computer systems from easily communicating or accessing computers running Microsoft operating system and software. One of these proprietary Microsoft-only standards is the "Server Message Block" protocol (SMB for short) that runs the Microsoft Windows Network. Just about everything you see under (just everything you see under "Network Neighbourhood/Microsoft Network" uses SMB to share files, printers and serial ports.

For over the past 10 to 15 years, Microsoft has been adamant on not releasing sufficient details of the SMB protocol. Developers, such as those working on the Samba open source project, faced a constant uphill struggle trying to connect with the Microsoft Network. As a result, despite their best work, the Samba team never quite achieved full compatibility and interoperability with Windows-based computers.

Things changed today.

As a direct result of a 9 year investigation and legal wrangling, the European Union Commission judged (also upheld by the European Court of First Instance) that Microsoft had abused its monopoly position. As a result, Microsoft now has to license documentation on SMB and several other Microsoft proprietary protocols to interested parties in a reasonable and non-discriminatory manner. These documents have finally been delivered to the Samba team today, enabling them to start work on writing software that will be fully interoperable with Microsoft Windows operating systems.

For more details on the long struggle of the Samba team, please refer to this webpage they have written on this topic.