Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft's European License Dissected

Posted by timothy on from the in-the-name-of-science dept.

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has published a step-by-step explanation of Microsoft's proposed server interoperability license, which was just rejected by the European Commission. The EC said the license excluded open-source vendors and charged unjustifiably high royalty fees -- all bad for business."

8 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Two lines.... by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Two lines sum up the entire article:

    Can I trust that?
    This is Microsoft.

  2. Open source software will never benefit by jhdevos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The European commission has said that the royalties MS asks are 'excessive'. That means that they don't think it is unreasonable to ask for royalties at all. And asking 'per-user' or 'per-server' royalties effectively makes it impossable for free software to get such a licence.

    Obviously, the rest of the licence is ridiculous -- MS getting all your code, you having to implement any DRM they choose to put into it, audit-trails, very excessive royalties -- so MS has a lot of room to get closer to what the EU wants without having to let OS benefit as well.

    Jan

  3. Re:Here is a question by lachlan76 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because Microsoft are a monopoly, and as such, forcing secret APIs bars most competition out of the market.

  4. Re:Here is a question by jhdevos · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The reverse engineering clause seems to cover SAMBA and so on - they don't have to pay a license fee because they haven't seen all the secret stuff.
    The licence effectively says: if you never ever look at anything this licence covers, then this licence does not apply to you. Sort of like some country having a law that anyone who never sets foot in that country or has any sort of dealings with it, does not have to adhere to that countries laws.

    That seems pretty obvious to me. In other words, whatever this licence has to say about SAMBA is moot -- since SAMBA has nothing to do with the licence in the first place.

    Jan

  5. Re:Here is a question by Scarblac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it reasonable to force Microsoft to produce a license that is royalty free - or are people concerned about the cost here.

    Remember that this is a punishment for a crime. It's supposed to hurt.

    --
    I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
  6. Re:Here is a question by ciroknight · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I understand you are a Microsoft apologist, but I'll explain things in simple terms for you.

    Microsoft broke the law. They've repeatedly shut out/down other competing products that do the same thing, either by changing APIs to break compatibility, or releasing their own product that forces the general market to break compatibility (in the case of Open Standards). By forcing Microsoft to release the simple documentation of the APIs, they are asking Microsoft to standarize themselves.

    Look at it this way. With the APIs remaining "secret", and engineers reverse engineering them for compatibility, all Microsoft has to do to change compatibility is to change a bit, or shift a few bits around, or some other nonsensical thing. Open Source projects /may/ be able to keep up, but if a company were developing a closed source solution, this could slow down their release time by months, if not years.

    Forcing Microsoft to release their API information basically puts a standard on the table for other companies/programmers to conform to. They don't lose any market dominance. They don't lose any time. They simply are forced to be compatible. And if that's unreasonable, then Microsoft has won, and Open Source is all for naught.

    --
    "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
  7. Royalties for some servers, but not for others... by OwlWhacker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do you have to pay royalties for accessing a Web server?

    Does the Firefox team have to pay royalties to Microsoft because the browser could access an IIS server?

    Do you have to pay royalties for creating an e-mail client that collects via POP3 from Microsoft Exchange?

    No.

    So why should anybody be expected to pay in order to develop an application that accesses a file/print server?

    I believe that it's in the best interest of the end-user that such servers should have open protocols and APIs.

    This would certainly help prevent illegal monopolies from maintaining their anti-competitive actions.

    --
    Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
  8. Re:Here is a question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > In a free market,

    Stop right there. The U.S. is *not* a free market, it's a regulated market that is somewhat free.

    To be a free market, the U.S. would need to get rid of:

    * Greenspan and the FED
    * All federal regulations
    * All intellectual property laws (copyright, trademarks, patents)
    * corporate law (Corporations no longer have special status over fly-by-night lone vendors or individuals. There would be no limitted liability for companies either.)

    Do you *really* want a free market? I sure don't. Given that the U.S. market is not a free market, such regulations are perfectly justified.

    Ironically, if you read Adam Smith, you'd realize that he was in favour of regulating Monopolies precisely because when monopolies become big enough: they essentially become their own governments able to make their own laws (contra the free market) and charge their own taxes against competitors (contra the free market) to shut them out.

    In essense, an unregulated free market inevitably leads to Oligarchy, which is contra-free market. However, there is a sweet spot where regulated free markets are sustainable, and this, in Adam Smith's words, is what we should be striving for.