Microsoft Finally Bows to EU Antitrust Measures 365
Rogue Pat writes "Microsoft ended three years of resistance on Monday and finally agreed to comply with a landmark 2004 antitrust decision by the European Commission. Competitors will be able to buy interface protocols for 10.000 Euro to make their software work better with Windows. Moreover, Microsoft won't appeal the 500 million Euro fine any further."
This is Great! (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe we can finally see some competitive open-source software platforms, like a better Evolution client (full Exchange capability, maybe?) or a better OpenOffice.org?
any takers (Score:5, Interesting)
<NotFlameBait>
The courts have made Microsoft make those protocols available. It will be interesting to see how many people actually pony up to buy those protocol specs - in part, that would be a measure of how valid the EU's judgement was.
</NotFlameBait>
2 questions (Score:5, Interesting)
and 2.Does the license exclude OSS/GPL or have Microsoft finally been forced into allowing GPL software to use its "secret sauce"?
Tax Euros put to work? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm all for interoperability, but it's not like I'm going to pay $10000 for half-undocumented Microsoft protocols. At least a small portion of all those millions would be put to good use, instead of it all disappearing into the black hole that is the EU budget.
Re:not good enough (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not that simple at all. Providing the complete interface spec completely free of charge imposes a huge (some might say unrealistic, even) burden on businesses. How would you feel if distribution were prohibited for every open source application that didn't provide and maintain comprehensive, correct documentation on all their interfaces and protocols? (If anyone is about to argue that open source is a moving target and such a prohibition could never work in practice, they're ducking the legal/ethical issue. If this is the case, then it's hardly fair to impose legal restrictions on businesses that not everyone is obliged to follow, since this artificially harms the ability of the businesses to do their work.)
Requiring a businesses with a monopoly advantage to provide access to such interface documentation as they have themselves internally, at no more than a reasonable charge to cover the legitimate costs of supplying that information, for the purposes of allowing interoperability, is one thing. Requiring them to provide complete specs, at no charge at all, to anyone who asks for any reason, is something else entirely.
Re:This is Great! (Score:3, Interesting)
The old exchange protocol which was nearly impossible to emulate is on its way out for a number of reasons. All newer Microsoft clients are aiming to switch from this original RPC driven protocol to WebDAV through OWA. The protocol is reasonably well documented. The parts that are not have been reverse engineered long ago. This is the "native" protocol of the current Evolution connector and the problems with it are entirely Evolution's fault.
Namely, Evolution is written in an illiterate manner from a software engineering perspective. It is a hacked together piece of bugware where most of the major components do not have proper state machines. Just look at the "new mail" notifications - they are a total joke, wrong 20% of the time.
I looked it at one point (and at least one other open source implementation. IIRC, WebDAV/OWA requires a very strict implementation of a state machine in order not to f*** it up. This is not impossible. Other opensource (fetchExc) and non-opensource projects manage to do that. Evolution should not try to blame Microsoft for failing to do that (I use it to get mail off exchange and send but I do not dare keeping it there while using it).
Place for GNU? (Score:4, Interesting)
Only one taker (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Place for GNU? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Whence the chipper tone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't get too cozy (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps. What worries me is that Microsoft recently vowed to start buying open source [slashdot.org] companies. Most of the work on standards based collaboration software and related technology that I'm aware of (e.g. Chandler [chandlerproject.org], Bedework [bedework.org], etc.) (exception: Apple's iCal server [apple.com]) is done by a few small tight groups. Are any of them going to withstand millions of dollars in cash for the sake of principle? I'm a die-hard F/OSS advocate myself, but if someone were to offer me a few million to abdicate my principles; money I could use toward my children's education and otherwise bettering my family's life - well, that would be a hard pill to swallow. I have other principles too, like maintaining my marriage for example.
I really hope a large corporation that buys the F/OSS vision (Are you listening SUN?) steps in to preempt such a hostile maneuver. If they do, everyone wins. I'd take a million dollars from SUN before taking 50 million from Microsoft any day; and I bet most F/OSS developers feel the same way. If the big players sit on their hands, we all lose, as there will never be an answer to Microsoft's dominant collaboration suite.
You can have a better OS, but you really need to hit all of the important application targets in order to present customers with a viable alternative to Microsoft hegemony.
It's not just the collaboration suites we should be worried about, BTW. Microsoft could buy UNIX IP as well (SCO is dead, but Novell is alive and well, and already getting cozy). The big F/OSS players better get their ducks in a row fast, or MS may very well soon act to back up their empty bluster with real products, real patents, and real lawsuits.
Available under what conditions? (Score:4, Interesting)
10,000 Euros (Score:4, Interesting)
Even more interesting than that, though, is the fact that the article mentions Microsoft can not use its large software patent portfolio against open source projects. I'm not sure that it was ever an issue since most European countries don't recognize software patents, but that strikes down all of the FUD Microsoft have been spreading (at least for the Europeans) regarding their trusted Linux "partners".
"work group" server (Score:2, Interesting)
The EU LOST the case!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Took long enough... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, it might be best for the world if the USA defederated and the relatively sane states joined the EU or Canada, leaving the inbred christrian fundamentalist nutter states to die.
Re:Microsoft should have payed the fine (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071022114731199 [groklaw.net]
Not if you don't want to be paying Microsoft for each copy