A small software development company this week disclosed that it will soon offer prebuilt versions of Microsoft's Passport Internet-based authentication technology for the Unix and Linux operating systems.

The news follows an announcement Thursday from Microsoft that it would share some of the source code for its single sign-on service. The Redmond, Washington, software maker said that it would make available in November the code to the Passport Manager - software that links a Web site or a software application to Microsoft's Passport service, which allows users to log on to multiple Web-applications using a single password.

As it was originally designed, Passport Manager could only be installed on Microsoft server software. However, prompted by requests from large Passport customers that manage user authentication on Unix or Linux servers, Microsoft has worked with a company called Ready-to-Run Software in order to port the software to non-Windows systems.

Now that Microsoft has opened the code for the critical piece of software that enables Web site operators and software makers to link to the Passport service, Ready-to-Run said it has been given the nod to sell the software it created as a packaged product, according to Bill Saltys, vice president of the Chelmsford, Massachusetts, company.

"They're really in an interesting position because they've done some of this before and they've had access to the source code," said Adam Sohn, product manager with Microsoft's .Net platforms group.

Ready-to-Run has licensed the Passport Manager source code from Microsoft for nearly two years, during which time it was responsible for porting Passport Manager to Unix systems in use by Weather Channel Enterprises and the digital music download service PressPlay, run by Vivendi Universal and Sony Music Entertainment.

"For any customer that has a non-Windows implementation of Passport, they would have gotten our [software] from Microsoft," Saltys said.

Though it does not have a precise product release timetable, the company plans to deliver Passport "kits" for a variety of operating systems, which could include Sun Solaris, Red Hat Linux, as well as Unix OSes from IBM and Hewlett-Packard. The company has already developed versions of the software for each of those operating systems for individual customers, but has not determined which will be generally available as commercial products. It will continue to work with customers to develop custom implementations of Passport, Saltys said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.