IBM and Novell on Monday are expected to announce an open-source response to Microsoft's forthcoming InfoCard identity management technology.
The companies plan to contribute to an open-source initiative code-named Higgins Project. The project aims to help people manage their plethora of Internet logins and passwords by integrating identity, profile and relationship information used across authentication systems on the Net.
The initiative also includes the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and Parity Communications, a company developing "social commerce" software that has been operating in stealth mode. The open-source project, managed by the Eclipse Foundation, is a response to Microsoft's InfoCard identity management technology, Anthony Nadalin, distinguished engineer and chief security architect at IBM, said in an interview.
News source: ZDNet
The companies plan to contribute to an open-source initiative code-named Higgins Project. The project aims to help people manage their plethora of Internet logins and passwords by integrating identity, profile and relationship information used across authentication systems on the Net.
The initiative also includes the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and Parity Communications, a company developing "social commerce" software that has been operating in stealth mode. The open-source project, managed by the Eclipse Foundation, is a response to Microsoft's InfoCard identity management technology, Anthony Nadalin, distinguished engineer and chief security architect at IBM, said in an interview.
News source: ZDNet 
If the license terms are more restrictive than the GPL, then it can not be included. I haven't read Microsoft's license on this, but I don't recall any license that they have used that is GPL compatible.
You complain about the lack of cooperation on this, and I explained why the lack.
No need to get in such a snit.
why wouldn't you be happy if MS just released the libraries to other peoepl could use it in their systems, why do they need the full source.
You are correct that it doesn't have to be GPL. I never stated so. It just must be compatible with it to be freely distributed and included in Linux distros. That is, there cannot be restrictions on copying it.
Closed source items cause license problems, too. But a closed module can be installed and used as an 'after the fact' add-in (like nVidia's video driver modules). The GPL that governs Linux doesn't disallow users to do what they want. It just requires full freedoms to copy and re-distribute (source included). So a closed-source (and even very restrictive) add-in to Linux could be written by Microsoft, and downloaded and added-in by individual users/organizations.
Infocard is different. With Infocard Microsoft does not store any information. Some of the information is stored on your system and the rest of it is stored on the 3rd party you are working with. It has the possiblity to be a good system esp since Verisign has signed on with the idea.
/sarcasm
/wiseass
And set standards
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