Documentation Compliance Means MS Can Resume Collecting Protocol Royalties

angry tapir writes "Microsoft may begin collecting royalties again for licensing some protocols because clear technical documentation is now available, according to the US Department of Justice. The change comes after the DOJ issued its latest joint status report regarding its 2002 antitrust settlement with Microsoft. The settlement required Microsoft to make available technical documentation that would allow other vendors to make products that are interoperable with Windows."

Outrageous

[PizzaAnalogyGuy]

This is outrageous, and I have two examples why. First, protocols are like food recipes. The pizza you sell is yours, but the ingredients to make it is not. Here the protocol is your ham, pineapple, salami and shrimps on a barbeque sauce large size pan pizza. You have not stolen the app from your competitor, you're just making yours compatible with theirs. Like the third party IM clients can connect to MSN network. Secondly, how would any of those open source apps pay for the royalties? But maybe this is Microsoft's plan. Let me tell you what is happening here. Microsoft is paying for the local BBQ Sauce factory to include a license agreement before you can use their sauce in your pizzas. The license agreement says you are only allowed to use their BBQ sauce on Microsoft approved pizzas. And before you know, these pizzas will be degraded. Forget your ham, forget your pineapples, forget you bacon and forget your cheese. THIS is the pizza we offer, and this will be the pizza you like.

protocols

[sopssa]

Since when protocols are something you can license? They're pretty much available for everyone, technical details available or not. Protocols really shouldn't be limited by licenses.

However on another case, Blizzard has [slashdot.org] been fighting such too [slashdot.org] against cheaters on their games.

But really, what law do you violate if you're using a "licensed" protocol? I haven't heard of such cases before.

Just in time, too!

[Weaselmancer]

And it only took them ten years. [wikipedia.org]

Funny how the government doesn't even give you ten days past the due date of a parking violation though, isn't it?

Re:Outrageous

[Shakrai]

First, protocols are like food recipes.

Which can be copyrighted and regarded as a trade secret. Or do you think that KFC should have to post their recipe online for all to see?

Perhaps you should try a car analogy instead? ;)

Re:protocols

[phantomfive]

It is extremely rare that a protocol becomes a competitive advantage because of their quality, mainly because designing a protocol in most cases isn't really very hard. Usually the only reason to keep a protocol secret is to keep competitors from interoperating with your software, which is why Microsoft was convicted of being a monopolist in the first place.

In fact I can't think of any protocol that was kept secret because it performed better at the time. Maybe some old networking protocol or something. I can think of a ton of protocols that were kept secret purposely to prevent interoperability. Here's a few:

SMB/CIFS
CDMA diagnostic port protocol
Blizzard online game protocols
IPodITunes protocol
Skype
AIM protocol
MSN chat protocol
Yahoo chat protocol

There are others. Fortunately reverse engineering a product for the purpose of interoperability is allowed under the DMCA. That is one of the bright spots of that legislation.

Re:Outrageous

[QuantumG]

If you write your recipe as some creative prose, then sure, you can copyright that, the same as any creative prose.

But when I come along and see your prose and say "man that's pointless, here's a mere list of ingredients and some straight forward instructions" there's nothing you can do about it. Copyright doesn't prevent me from making a recipe of your prose, and copyright does not protect recipes.

Re:protocols

[symbolset]

Protocols are not code. Protocols are methods of interaction between pieces of code, even if the code is methods of interaction embedded in hardware. That these methods could possibly be considered as something that should be protected by some sort of intellectual property agreement is a testament to how far we've fallen from the root assumption of Unix: that all things should be able to connect to all other things whenever physically possible.

This is the mindset that brought us DRM, all of Sony's stupid proprietary media formats, and an iPhone that won't tether.

I'm sick of it. I have enough stuff that doesn't connect to my other stuff. I'm not buying any more stuff that doesn't connect to the stuff that I already have. I'm not using any systems that require proprietary licensing to connect the stuff I have to the new stuff I buy. I'm done with all that stupidness.

Re:Outrageous

[Teun]

Because you like the taste of ass? ;)

Re:Outrageous

[bit01]

telling in what way,

You didn't respond to my main point. Dishonest.

judging by your sig maybe you think i'm paid or something - if you know somewhere i can get paid for pointing out the obvious like i am, sign me up!

Not explicitly stating you are not an astroturfer and trying to distract. Dishonest.

but seriously, are you suggesting if i come up with a protocol for transfering data between x and y, i shouldn't be able to charge people to use it?

Pretending there are no reasons why this is a bad idea. Dishonest.

---

Don't be fooled, slashdot is not immune, like most social networking sites it is full of lying astroturfers dishonestly pretending to be objective third parties rather than paid company propaganda.

Re:Outrageous

[symbolset]

RAND is a cover for non-open. It used to work before the lawyers got ahold of it. Let me school you:

There is one and only one measure of openness now: You can implement it without a license, or you can't. That's it. You want to be interoperable, or you want to control who can interact with your interface. The control is the limiting factor and it's the difference between useful and not.

Re:Outrageous

[The Cisco Kid]

You might be able to patent a *particular* implementation of the protocol, but if you think you can patent a 'protocol', you don't understand what a protocol is.

Its like patenting a language. Can you imagine someone patenting English, or French, and then in order to speak it, you'd have to pay a license fee? I'm not talking about books on learning the language, or video courses, or whatever, I'm talking about the language itself.

Re:Outrageous

[gbjbaanb]

You forgot that KFCs secret recipe is protected in order to keep them competitive against their, uh, competitors. Microsoft forfeited that right when they stopped having competitors, that's why the DoJ got involved in the first place.