[DotGNU]preventing slamming

[Ron Burk]

> Feel free to explain how proprietizing our platform specs would keep
> this from happening - as you stated in one of your last messages.  If
> there is collusion between Microsoft and Website X concerning the data
> that Website X is trusted with, how are we going to be responsible for
> that?

I don't know how to stop it, but I reason that any solution
would have to be legal rather than technical. I also reason
that more complex dotGNU efforts are also vulnerable to
slamming in some form or another.

Microsoft is not vulnerable to slamming because they are able
to offer a proprietary solution -- they own the actual software
on both the client and the server. They are able to force this
solution to be installed on practically all new clients (and with
XP, they will nearly force the end user to use it), but have
been much less able to force servers to adopt it (partly because
their server software does not enjoy the same monopoly share
of the market). They can sue for any attempts to reverse engineer
how their solution works and be compatible with it.

I don't see how dotGNU can both offer a proprietary solution
and get widespread adoption in time to catch up with Passport.
That leaves some form of legal trick that places an encumbrance
on data requested via an open standard, or at least requires
the requestor to identify something about what they are going
to do with the data (e.g., you must tell me if you are going to
store the requested data with data from many other web
sites). That would give client software implementers the chance
to warn users about the consequences of giving the information
to a particular web site.

Ron Burk
HighTechInfo.com, www.hightechinfo.com