More Details of MS/DOJ Deal

There are various news articles out at most major news sites, but they're all based on this press release from the Department of Justice. The actual terms of the settlement will probably become public shortly, so I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time trying to dissect this press release. Just read it for generalities. In sum: for this whole multi-year case, which you will recall started when Microsoft refused to obey its earlier behavior restrictions, we have more behavior restrictions, lasting only five years. And if MS doesn't obey those, they'll ... be in effect longer. Update: 11/02 15:07 GMT by M : Here are the promised terms of the settlement. Now you can dissect them. :) Update: 11/02 15:53 GMT by M : The states are refusing to sign on.

Comments

What do investors think?

[BillyGoatThree]

Ow, my wrist.

Re:Good news

[Rogerborg]

Hauled up from a post below, I shall now show you why this judgement means exactly squat:

• In III.A: Nothing in this provision shall prohibit Microsoft from enforcing any provision of any license with any OEM or any intellectual property right that is not inconsistent with this Final Judgment.

  III.J: J. No provision of this Final Judgment shall... Require Microsoft to document, disclose or license to third parties: (a) portions of APIs or Documentation or portions or layers of Communications Protocols the disclosure of which would compromise the security of anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights management, encryption or authentication systems, including without limitation, keys, authorization tokens or enforcement criteria

Gee, Sun, Apple and GNU/Linux guys, we'd love to give you access to all of our specs, but you see, we're so security conscious that we have security protocols at all levels. Yes we do. Or software licensing. Or digital rights management, or encryption or authentication protocols. In fact, we can't find a single source file that's free of at least one of these. So you can look, but then we'll have to kill you.

And we'd like nothing more than to let you OEM guys unininstall components, but, you see, it turns out that anything you want to unbundle will be, I mean, is central to our security and content protection system. Yes, that's right. Instant messenging, browsers, media players, you name it, it's vital.

You don't think so? OK, back to court. Is a three year case OK with you? That should give us time to get another OS out, make your case irrelevant, and insure that the penalty is another (snigger) conduct (giggle) remedy.