Embrace-Extend-Extinguish in action

I just read a post in Slashdot which pointed to this document which came out of the court case that found Microsoft to be guilty of monopoly abuse:

DOJ/Antitrust

Have a look through here for references to Kerberos and you will see the Microsoft Embrace-Extend-Extinguish in action.

1. Kerberos is an open standard attracting more interest than Microsoft's closed alternative.

2. Microsoft writes software that uses the open standard ... but extends usage of the standard to include things that only Microsoft can use (protected by patents).

3. Microsoft software will not inter-operate with software using the open Kerberos standard. People have bought into Microsoft's implementation because it's "free" and it comes with Windows. Because MS-Kerberos will not inter-operate the standard as an open medium is effectively extinguished.

Clever, eh? Microsoft adopt a popular open standard (embrace), add in their own secret changes (extend) and kill the standard in the market place (extinguish).

... and it's not only the Kerberos standard that has been a victim of this. Today, look at what Microsoft are doing to ODF.