[4986] in Kerberos
Vendor list in Kerberos FAQ
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Jaspan)
Mon Apr 17 11:57:16 1995
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 11:46:22 -0400
From: "Barry Jaspan" <bjaspan@cam.ov.com>
To: kerberos@MIT.EDU
Readers of the Kerberos FAQ:
By my understanding, the Kerberos mailing list is intended for
discussion of the design, implementation, and use of the Kerberos
authentication system. Although MIT Kerberos is freely available
software, commercial versions have come to exist and, inevitably,
questions about those commercial versions (typically, "what vendors
provide Kerberos for platform X?") get asked on the mailing list.
As an active member of the Kerberos mailing list since at least 1990,
I decided a few years ago to maintain a Kerberos FAQ as a public
service. Since questions about vendor-provided Kerberos arise
frequently, I decided to put information about those products into the
FAQ. As an employee of OpenVision Technologies, Inc., one of the
companies competing in this field, I have been keenly aware of issues
relating to the fairness of this information and to advertising on the
internet and this mailing list in particular. I do not believe that
advertising belongs on the Kerberos mailing list. I do believe it is
reasonable for companies to answer specific questions about their
products on the net, and to answer general questions about Kerberos
that their products address with a brief answer or a pointer to the
appropriate company representative.
I thought that it would be possible for me to include the sort of
brief, general product information in the FAQ that many readers would
find useful and that, by careful and consistent editing of form and
content, keep that information well below the level of blatant
advertising (a "pissing contest," as someone recently observed).
Sadly, I no longer believe that is possible: I have been presented
with too much information of questionable technical merit or about
pre-announced vaporware, and I do not wish to be used as a marketing
tool in that manner.
I have therefore decided to remove the "Added Value" and
"Availability" sections from the vendor list in the Kerberos FAQ.
This change will leave the company name, product name, contact
information, and base Kerberos version level. It is unfortunate that
FAQ readers are losing useful information, but as there are only a
small number of Kerberos vendors it will not be difficult for
interested parties to contact each vendor separately.
I expect that someone else will soon begin to collect and publish this
information. I fear that whoever does so will not attempt to be as
fair and impartial as I have, and I regret that this decision may
actually increase the misleading-advertising noise level on the
Kerberos mailing list. However, I can only take responsibility for my
own actions.
A new version of the Kerberos FAQ will be published shortly.
Barry Jaspan, bjaspan@cam.ov.com
