DOJ Calls EU Microsoft Decision "Unfortunate"

ogma writes "This one is especially ironic after the recent slashdot story on more of Microsoft's underhanded actions coming to light. It seems that the DOJ thinks Europe was too hard on Microsoft in its anti-trust ruling.. According to Assistant Attorney General Hewitt Pate, the fine 'may send the wrong message about antitrust enforcement priorities'..." Open Council writes "The Register points out that the EU has provided Microsoft with a major victory over its Open Source rivals because it will now be allowed to pursue royalty revenue from the APIs it publishes. Jeremy Allison says that the projects such as Samba, which he jointly leads, may face a prohibitive hurdle. The size of the fine is peanuts to MS but will be a bargain if it can lock out Open Source projects from using its API's."

Comments

Register overreacting a bit

[0x0d0a]

The decision states that "to the extent that any of this interface information might be protected by intellectual property in the European Economic Area, Microsoft would be entitled to reasonable remuneration".

Interfaces and formats aren't protected, which is why WINE and Samba can and have been using them for years. I remember Microsoft getting in a tiff over WINE using the same header files, but backed down.

This doesn't seem to grant anything to Microsoft that they didn't already have. No biggie.

Re:Register overreacting a bit

[0x0d0a]

Okay, of the types of IP there are (at least in the US -- I don't know European law, unfortunately):

* Patent law. This is probably Microsoft's best bet, but it's terribly thin. You patent a process, a way of doing something. Even software/algorithm patents get a lot of criticism, though they're still a process. An API is static. There are not changes involved, nothing to patent.

* Trademark law. Well, Microsoft *might* requre people not to call their "DirectX" implementation "DirectX", but they can't go any further than that.

* Copyright. You may be able to copyright the specific representation of the API that you put out -- but you can't copyright a list of facts (like what values need to be passed to what functions) -- just the presentation. If someone types up their own API docs/headers, they're in the clear.

* Trade Secret. Won't work. Microsoft already tried doing exactly this with the Kerberos-in-CIFS attempt earlier -- trade secrets need to be *secrets*. They can't be published and handed out and still recieve trade secret status. If the EU forces Microsoft to publish their APIs, Microsoft automatically loses all trade secret protection on those APIs that they might potentially have had. (There are other reasons this might not work, like reverse engineering IP exemptions, but I believe that this is enough to blow away their protection already).

Re:The Wrong Message

[Tassach]

Microsoft licensing the APIs is irrelvant to Samba -- all the samba work is based on specifications which were either released publicly or which were independently reverse-engineered.

As long as Samba continues to base itself on untainted specifications, Microsoft can't do jack.

Senator Patty Murray is deeply troubled

[Anonymous Coward]

Patty Murray's statement can be found at Murray Statement on EU Ruling Against Microsoft. Here are her contact information: http://murray.senate.gov/contact/

Re:Senator Patty Murray is deeply troubled

[geoff313]

And that wouldn't have anything to do with her having received approximately $180,000 in campaign contributions from Microsoft in the past 6 years now, would it?

Don't believe me?

Check out her top contributors:

1998

2000

2002

2004

Follow the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly surprising, giving R. Hewitt Pate was one of the men who imposed MS's wristslap by the DoJ. I wonder if there might be a conflict of interest here.

Note : Allowing your senior DoJ / government lawyers *cough, Ashcroft* to be in hock to major corporations might not be a very wise idea.