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Ask a Legal Expert How MS Ruling Affects Open Source
By now we all know about Judge Kollar-Kotelly's decision in the Microsoft antitrust case. The effect of this ruling on Linux and Open Source use and future development is not yet clear. For those of you who have been wondering about this, we have a special interview guest: Attorney Lawrence E. (Larry) Rosen, Linux Journal's popular Geek Law columnist, who is surely one of the best-qualified people in the world to answer questions on this topic. (Usual Slashdot interview rules apply.)
Finally, tech-based legal advice that doesn't begin with "IANAL".
Both Bill Gates and John Ashcroft talked about how the decision benefits consumers. But there's nothing really in the decision that changes the way MSFT does business. I can't call IBM and get a discount on a system without Windows installed, if I load XP onto a machine, MSFT can take it over and install software without my permission, and the APIs can be buried in MSDN, forcing OSS software developers to not only subscribe to MSDN, but also follow whatever licensing MSDN forces on users. For the most part, this is MSFT business as usual.
Where, in this decision, do the consumers benefit? If you could put yourself in CKK's shoes, what would you say?
My first feeling after reading the slashdot report of the results was that Microsoft lost. APIs and information should have to be released.
But I read amazed the press and the media in my country (spain) and all of them agree that Microsoft Wins.
Who won ?
From an analysis from the register I'd like your opinion on the committe being appointed.
Here's a snip from
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/27913.html
And it's a good thing that Microsoft helps choose the people who will police it, explains the Judge:
"...the committee will likely foster an environment of cooperative resolution, rather than one of persistent conflict and litigation. Otherwise, attempts at enforcement have a greater potential to take on the tenor of adversary proceedings, resolved in most instances with great difficulty and delay."
With Microsoft pretty much doing what they want these days, do you have fear that their Palladium project could be a real threat to Linux and other free-software projects, if MS try to force it upon their installed base ? What will be the best way to fight Palladium ?
I have heard in various other cases that if a copyright holder uses his copyright to commit antitrust, they lose the ability to defend their copyright.
Clearly, Microsoft has been found guilty of using its copyright on Windows 95 to kill Netscape.
Is is possible for a pirate to successfully defend himself by claiming Microsoft has lost its copyright? (I assume this applies to only that software specifically mentioned in the case. Not all software produced by Microsoft)
The decree permits Microsoft to avoid publishing APIs for security reasons, and permits them to release API docs on a 'reasonable and non-discriminatory' basis. How much do think Microsoft will be able to get away with concealing authentication components of protocols on the security exemption, and how much will they be able to use the RAND provision to ensure that open sourcers never see the APIs to things (e.g. filesharing, Active Directory) they need to interoperate with?
Steve
I'm all angry about the agreement giving free reign to MS, but I'm also worried about its (posssible) effects on other software monopolists. Does this case set a precedent that says: "software companies don't need to pay attention to anti-trust laws"?
In the settlement it talks about MS having to disclose information only to companies with a sound business model that meats critera set out by MS. Where does OSS fall? Can MS say OSS is not up to its standards and therefore not release the code?
Additionally what effect will MS's right to charge have on OSS? Can MS only charge for developers to see the code or are they entitled to charge royalties for the implementation of the code? (Can you legally reverse engineer a software having seen the code?)
Mr. Smoove
What is being put into place to insure that Microsoft actually hands over real code? I mean really. We've got legal consul that doesn't know jack about code trying to, possibly, enforce somehting that they know nothing to little about. Microsoft could hand over out of date code, partial code, bugged code, and any number of other variables on the "truth" and legal guys would be none the wiser.
- - - - Irony? Yes, it's life everyday. May the Quanta laugh.
The Register's coverage brought up an interesting question that I wouldn't mind seeing answered: can people who made stock deals based on the leaked decision, before it was officially posted (which of course was supposed to be after the close of markets) be prosecuted for insider trading? My gut tells me they can't, because it was the Court's screwup that leaked the decision, but the SEC might not agree ...
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I doubt it. But in about 3-7 years from now when she retires, she will almost certainly pick up a very lucrative job at MS. Look at ashcrofts daughter who works for MS. I suspect highly that Bushes friends will also have jobs at MS if wanted.I doubt highly the family will work there though. They can do much better TX or washington.
The reason for this is that we already know that Microsoft has been violating the agreement, virtually from the moment they agreed to it. This does not give me confidence in any monitoring team's ability to enforce it.
My second question (ha! snuck this one in!) is: How does this affect the ability for Open Source groups to re-implement Microsoft APIs for Windows?
Again, we already know that Microsoft has added hidden checks to verify a given DLL is authentic Microsoft, rather than a 3rd-party clone. However, with no legal requirement to modularize (and therefore legal permission to mangle things up too much to re-implement), it would be very difficult to prove in court that a given technical issue was a product of a coding error or an agreement violation.
Ok, one more question. What's to stop Microsoft from releasing a Windows+, which is "not Windows" in the same way Windows98 wasn't Windows95, thus voiding the entire agreement?
Frankly, I don't think this bodes at all well for ANY competitor to Microsoft. Too many loopholes, and too much squelching power. It's about the same as playing "Lemmings" with a high-power plasma cannon. There cannot be any realistic opposition.
(Last, but not least, if the legal expert -does- start their reply with "IANAL", I'd have a hard time being surprised. We live in "interesting times", and reality is taking a long lunch-break.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Have you ever posted on slashdot, and if so, have you ever used the acronym IAAL instead of IANAL?
Now that Microsoft has effectively gotten away with maintaining and extending it's monopoly, how do you think open source projects that are competitive to Microsoft (Samba, WINE, Crossover plugin, OpenOffice etc) are going to survive any legal assults? It would seem easier to kill off an open source project as they are typically not (officially) associated with a company, nor have any serious resources other than perhaps the goodwill of the user community.
As a friend said, there's nothing like getting away with murder to encourage you to start killing more people.
Just how much of their remaining undisclosed APIs does Microsoft have to make public? I found the judge's references to this issue quite confusing; in one place she said that MS would have to reveal all of its "communications" protocols; in another she ruled that MS wouldn't have to reveal anything that pertained to such topics as "encryption" or "digital rights management". Isn't it possible for MS to claim that existing or future new APIs for Windows would fall into the latter category, and thus allow them to keep much of it in the dark?
My followup question is: what mechanism did the judge set up for determining whether an API should be public or not?
Always look on the briight side of life! (whistle, whistle)
Other industries that expose network effects are specially regulated (e.g. telecommunications). Do the results of the MS case show that we also need sector-spefic regulations for the software industry? Is general competition incapable of dealing with these kinds of problems?
So the bigest things that I think many of us were looking for is for MS to be in a way forced to reveal and make available cratian information needed for inter-operability. Was this achived or are we still locked out? For instance can the samba team get the information they need form MS to build a better CIFS implimentation?
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
It sounds a very open ended authority that grants the judge broad powers over all aspects of the settlement. Can the judge use this provision to broaden the scope of the agreement or to force Microsoft to use a particular intrepretation of some clause, for example the security exemption or the viability clause.
Or am I just a geek grasping for straws.
As we probably all know, a clause in the settlement limits Microsoft's disclosure of APIs to only those not security related.
Is there any legal device that prevents them from, say, distributing some security procedure over all the APIs, thus limiting their disclosure to nothing?
Section J explains what the judgement doesn't intend to do. In J2 it talks about not putting conditions on Microsoft about how they'll be licensing the APIs and protocols to third parties then continues on in J2(c) say that the third party may be subject to conditions set by Microsoft that the third party:
meets reasonable, objective standards established by Microsoft for certifying the
authenticity and viability of its business
So, does that mean that they can refuse the APIs and protocols to Open Source projects claiming that they don't consider them viable business models?
In the other sections it points out the Microsoft is not allowed to be discriminatory, so which one overrides the other?
put the what in the where?
From what I read of the decision (yes, I tried to wade through a significant chunk of its hundreds of pages) Judge KK seems to justify many of her points by saying that the remedies suggested by the dissenting states do not address the fault that was established. That is, for instance, forcing MS to auction the rights to port Office to Linux has nothing to do with the fact that MS used its monopoly power to squash Netscape, etc. That is, anything not directly related to the theory that MS felt a threat from middleware with cross-platform abilities is out of bounds as a remedy. (First question then might be: Is that an accurate description of part of her reasoning?) In some instances, what she says sounds right to me and in others it seems like she needs to re-read the findings of fact.
Another reason she seems to like for rejecting proposed remedies is that they would "help MS's competitors but not competition". This distinction seems slim. If that really is required of any anti-trust remedy, then is anything other than breaking MS up even a potential remedy?
Most importantly, given the narrow ways she uses to reject the proposed additional remedies, didn't she leave open the possibility of the success of a brand new anti-trust suit that does address the other ways in which MS has abused its monopoly power? (Like for instance, wouldn't Sun's additional anti-trust suit have a good chance?) But, given how long these trials take, won't Microsoft's strategy of prolonging the process wind us right back where we are, where any remedy applied so long after the fact makes no real difference? And then if that's so, while her remedy might be legally defensible, it would also serve to graphically illustrate the impotence of our anti-trust laws, no?
BWCarver
Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
I refer to licensing designed to block usage of the GPL- and more than that, the attempts through the Shared Source license to produce a population of coders with built-in vulnerability to Microsoft legal attack (the admissions of being privy to MS proprietary information, the abandoning of patent rights etc)
How much of this will they have to immediately change because it conflicts with the Judge's requirement that they not be discriminatory? It happens to be central to their strategy, and I can't believe this discrepancy will go un-noted.
My question however, is, if you look at this decision from a Business perspective, how does it fall? Is this decision in line with existing case law when it comes to dealing with individuals and corporations who have come to exercise huge amounts of power over their various sectors of the economy? Was this decision made with the intent of strengthening the overall business climate of the US, especially given the current state of the world economy? Will it make perfect sense to the average CEO?
Your Servant, B. Baggins
What I mean by that is realizing that
1. Open Source has bound itself (willingly or not I cannot say) with Free Software. I see a fundamental difference between the two as OpenSource is more of the Scientific approach of having a peer reviewed research and development platform, where as (self admittedly) Free Software focuses on making *all* software free as a public domain/service
2. Many open source applications have been developed with the purpose of allowing those who would not normally have the skills to circumvent "IP protection measures". That is, P2P, an adopted open source initiative has Free Software ties because the "information" that P2P networks choose to distribute are for the most part Close Sourced or Copyrighted material.
3. Closed source companies (like Microsoft) and Copy righted companies (like Vivendi) Have both used the arguement that *OPEN SOURCE* software is the cause of the loss of revenue and piracy and have implemented protection schemes that *must be* protected by proprietary closed source mechanisms in order to protect the revenue stream of those coutries
4. Companies will continue to deny legitimate opensource companies access to their API because they incorrectly bind open-source develpers with Free-Software developers (while one may be the other, both may legitimately exist independently of other that is, not all oss devs are freesoftware devs and not all freesoftware devs are oss devs).
5. Legislation looms that would prohibit Open Source to be developed on any commercial level and even make it illegal to own and distribute open source based hardware *because of those who would use propietary software without paying for it* who feel they have a right to another's work without compensating the creator.
6. Those legislators (rightly or wrongly) see open source as a breeding ground for hackers and information pirates, and do not seperate law breakers from the rest of the group. eg. You never hear a *rogue* OSS developer getting arrested on DMCA charges, the same way you hear of *rogue* ceos or *rogue* scientists acting in a way that disgraces the community.
So really, is this a question of those who have steered open source away from its roots to be a campaign for free software? And how will traditionally open source companies (or) individual developers access the blueprints if MS can conveniently label them as software pirates or illegitimate institutions undeserving of access to its API?
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
If US justice fails us against the MS monopoly, how can European court take over the battle? What are the legal mechanisms Europe could use to enforce its own ruling?
Given the much harsher penalties (breakup, etc) that many people were calling for, and given Microsoft's record for behavior, do you think that Microsoft will indeed cease their monopolistic behavior, or do you think that they will take it as yet another slap on the wrist and continue to use their position to leverage an unfair advantage in the industry?
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Microsoft has a history of making settlements like this and then doing everything that can to weasel out of it. So I'm wondering if this agreement is really going to set up a framework that effectively keeps Microsoft in check. Even if the framework does support this, do you believe the justice department will be aggressive enough with its enforcement to take advantage of it?
Microsoft seems to be playing the part of the spoiled child here. The parents keep saying he's doing bad things and that he should stop, but they never back up their threats with effective action. I can't imagine Microsoft changing its ways anytime soon unless this agreement is actually setting up significant consequences for them.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Since the feds are acting in the name "of the people". This may appears to large class action suite. So citzens can request not to be part of the class... then could we:
Get a sub-class to sue DOJ & Microsoft for violating the public trust and get judgement set aside.
Group of citzens to appeal the ruling for failure in addressing the concerns of the public, supplied during public comment, by adjusting the agreement to meet those concerns.
When (other than 'never') will the legal profession (particularly judges) admit that their lack of technical expertise is doing damage to the rest of us?
I work at an ISP as technical support. I've helped several people who don't read licenses, and several more who get defensive whenever I say, "I'm going to have to change a setting on your computer."
Millions of computer users assume that they own their computer, as well as everything on it. They don't understand the concept of software licensing, and most would probably (Strange, but true) give up using a computer if they discovered they didn't own everything on it.
The whole reason license agreements have become terrible for those of us who read them is because of the vast majority who don't. Software companies have an easy time adding clauses to their license agreements, because most people don't read them. It reaches a point where what people are agreeing to, and what they think they're agreeing to, become two separate animals.
If these were physical, handwritten contracts, there'd be all sorts of legal battles citing extortion, but, last I checked, there haven't been any competent lawyers arguing that extortion is possible online.
For reference, ask an old-time geek about GIF and the LZW patents.
I'd really like to see a business demigod declare that software-licensing can become restrictive enough to be considered a "cybercrime."
A good first step? Take two graphs, both of which would be "restrictivity vs usercount" contract comparison graphs. One graph would be for some highly competitive market (like loans or mortages), the other would be for major software products like office products.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any way to graphically represent the choices for initial software that people have when they buy their computers.
What's this Submit thingy do?
Is it possible for open source individuals to argue that the nondiscriminatory clause does in fact discriminate against them if they are forced into non disclosure agreements or monetary licenses in order to get access to APIs. Since a charge or non disclosure agreement would prevent most open source software developers from gaining access to this information can it be considered to be discriminating since Microsoft Corp. understands that this will prevent open source development.
Also using the term nondiscriminatory does this mean that if Microsoft were to release API's and details to other companies that they consider to be not for general publication because of "security" reasons is this discriminatory and therefore not allowed as well. In other words can Microsoft allow some but not others access to "security" API
s and information?
Does the wording on non-discriminatory licensing to OEMS mean that I will finally be able to purchase most laptops without having to pay a microsoft tax for software I delete as soon as I get it?
(Unix on the desktop is here, for those of us that want it. I've been running entirely in linux and BSD on the desktop for years now).
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
--I have a few questions....
Mr. Rosen--
Are you aware of why a RICO suit wasn't pushed against microsoft execs given the scuttlebutt of the strongarm tactics they used against various hardware manufacturers as regards bundling and pre-loading alternative OS's? Last I knew, extortion was a criminal and not a civil crime. To me that was a more proper venue and focus for this case, with wider ranging ramifications. Comment?
This ruling boils down to a repeat of "bad microsoft, go ahead and keep doing what you were doing more or less". so--what's next? How can the average person who's had his security threatened by their exclusionary polices leading to insecure systems in not only the private market but in the public sector react to this and in what manner? What practical recourse is left? Say you have already stopped using microsoft products. Well, big deal, I want to know when they will be removed from my tax supported government, as they are A untrustworthy and a national security risk, and B, products produced by known felons who have been allowed to skate after using illegal activities to promote and profit from flawed products, a double crime in essence. What's a next step to take, for an individual? Is there ANY sort of practical recourse to take with such a vague but clear threat from mass continual useage and deployment of their products?
thanks in advance
This is a really easy one to answer. If you look to history you can find many instances where this same problem has come up before. The short and sweet answer is: It never works.
The slightly longer answer is: Even monkeys avoid pain. Thus, as will be shown, the longer the committee is around, the less they will do to monitor Microsoft and the more they will adamantly state that they are complying with the court order. In this way they can misdirect any and all probes to find out exactly what they are doing.
Basically, the judge is incorrect. You cannot have someone monitor themselves because they will be saying they are doing what you've asked them to do when really they never do.
Ask yourself this: We recently had a string of murders committed by two people. Should we give them back their guns and set them free? We should. Let's just tell them not to shoot anyone else - ok? I'm sure they will do as we ask. After all - they've promised not to do it again and are willing to report in anytime we ask them to do so. You believe them? Don't you?
I didn't think so. So now, change the word "gun" to "unlimited funds" and "shoot anyone else" to "harm any other business [like make them go out of business or do anymore FUDs and such]" and you basically have what's going on with this case. Oh yes, I almost forgot, change "murders" to "business fallouts/forced foreclosures/buyouts/takeovers/whatever" and "two people" to "Microsoft". Why! It reads the same. Bless me!
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Standards aren't about picking one product only and having to use it and nothing else in order to interoperate with others. Standards are about defining a behaviour that products should follow to work with each other, so that companies are ENABLED to compete. There are standards that help the auto industry, for example, about how wide lanes on roads are, what the chemical mixture of gasoline available at the pump will be like. There are standards to make sure everyone is on the same page with regards to safety conventions (for example, the convention that an automobile's turn signal must operate by blinking either an amber light, or the red taillight, on the side of the turn, one in front and one in back.) These sort of standards don't stifle companies. They allow them to compete fairly in a situation where there would otherwise simply be a de-facto standard of "whatever the hell Ford happens to be doing, right or wrong, will the the standard since they have the most cars on the road (at the time these sorts of standards were being concieved.)"
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I remember this issue coming up back when Phoenix cloned the IBM BIOS. But it has been so long that things have almost certainly changed due to the DMCA, etc. And in light of this anti-anti-trust ruling, I would love to hear from an authoritative source the answers to these questions.
What methods exist to create a program which is interchangeable with another, copyrighted program? Are there different rules that apply to file formats? What about network protocols, can I simply sniff my ethernet card and whatever I can deduce from the output is fair game?
What is the current legal status of 'reverse engineering' and 'disassembly' of a copyrighted program in order to create an interchangeable replacement program or alternately a program which interoperates compatibly with the original copyrighted program?
How many parties must be involved and what steps are required to reverse engineer a program? Must the party who writes the specifications be outside the U.S.? What ramifications are there for that party, i.e. can they ever write new software that competes with the program they reverse engineered without tainting the ownership of the new software?