Responding to msg by perry@piermont.com: [snip]
The belief that companies can make more money by following proprietary solutions and imposing them on the world as standards is falling away. It is in Microsoft's interest that the standard that is adopted for commerce be open, publically discussed at length, and brutally critiqued. Losing a bit of control in exchange for actually getting something that works out for you and your customers is in your interest.
The spew through the proprietary dike on this is swelling: MasterCard's consortium yesterday and the NetManage/Cylink today both emphasize public availability of specs in counter-response to the flaws helpfully discovered in Netscape by the ever public spirited cypherpunks. Whether any of these vaunted "superior" systems respond to attacks as constructively as Netscape will be the challenge. BTW, has anyone reviewed the promised MasterCard specs supposedly released on Tuesday?