Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's European License Dissected
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."
the question is...why does it have to be secret in the first place?
Because they broke European law and this is supposed to make up for their infraction. (At least thats how I understand it)
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
". The EC said the license excluded open-source vendors and charged unjustifiably high royalty fees -- all bad for business."
,Though it is not made up of total idiots.
,you dont start acting like a 3 year old who has had their crayons taken away for drawing on the walls.
The EU Gouvernance may be highly flawed in several areas
I do belive MS really needs to fire its consultants and contract lawyers as Really they should have known this one would get them in trouble.
If you get orderd by a court to comply with an order
This is exactly what MS tried to do , basically they are saying "Honestly Mother i wont draw on the walls anymore , i will stick to painting on the floor"
""And this is the same Microsoft whose chairman Bill Gates recently lectured the industry that boosting interoperability "will be the only way for companies to make customers' lives easier"?
The very same."
He was telling the truth , but i doubt he cares about making our peoples lives easier , only making the proffits and market share larger
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
One.
Why fees? Why any? This is not something Microsoft is fucking selling. This is a legal judgement. What, next will Ken Lay be charging hourly consulting wages for the time the government keeps him in jail? By what right can Microsoft even consider this? Is the law that illogical?
Two.
They say this is incompatible with open source. How could it not be? The GPL is very plain; no encumbrances, period. If there are any limitations on how this information can be used, it's incompatible with the GPL. If it's incompatible with the GPL it's incompatible with almost all important open source out there. Microsoft can't put licensing restrictions of any kind on this information and still claim compatibility with open source.
---
So what now? If Europe doesn't want this, what would they accept? Would they accept something that something BSD-ish can be used with, but not the GPL? Would they accept licensing fees if they were smaller? Would they move from Microsoft's anticompetitive actions being an unconvicted illegal action to a legal tax Microsoft may put on open source in exchange for compatibility with SMB? Will they settle for forcing all of open source to adopt some new bizarre unique license which offers the rights of the GPL except for the tentacles of Microsoft's NDAs still reaching through? What does Europe want, what will they settle for? And will they accept the next license? Can we expect hundreds of licenses, all just ever so slightly superficially more giving on Microsoft's part but all still specifically engineered to keep SMB out of SUSE, rejected over and over until a year and a half from now the EU gives in and just accepts whatever Microsoft handed them the week before?
Someone explain to me.
The EC said the license excluded open-source vendors and charged unjustifiably high royalty fees -- all bad for business
Hmm. If the royalty fees were not "unjustifiably high" would this still be found to be "bad for business"?
Probably the european union is going around this in the wrong way. Instead of having Microsoft publish their interfaces to the public, which arguably contain trade secrets important to Microsoft, waranting them to ask for a license fee, they should have imposed on microsoft to comply with a set of open standards (which should be royalty free) that allow for the same kind of interoperability.
Make them share printers using ipp, files using NFS v4, authenticate users using ldap, without extending those standards in incompatible ways.
In such a way, interoperability with microsoft servers could be guaranteed. As an added bonus, Microsoft gets the burden of implementing the interoperability, instead of the third party having to comply with every funny requirement Microsoft chooses to add.
In my opinion APIs may never be closed.
MS lawyers have to be the nectar of law schools dude. Either I'm not understanding this thing or this utter BS. I think this is the first time in my lifetime that I've seen a result like this :
"And now it's looking to make more money for breaking the law? So surely Microsoft must be flush enough to give the open-source guys a break? Do they have to pay royalties too?
No."
Can I get sued like that so I can become rich too?
"Microsoft has proposed a royalty fee of 5 percent of your company's net revenue obtained from a software product that has used Microsoft's file and print protocols, and 2.5 percent if the protocols are used for an embedded product."
WOW just wow...
You're assuming that the API/file formats/wire protocols are freestanding items. Two things
1) They change the APIs within major versions. Anybody remember how everything except MS products broke with NT SP3?
2) They don't have an unblemished record for publishing *all* the API
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
Yes.
I guess that there could be a lot of GPL code inside Windows and they don't want to get caught. Therefore, if the GPL dies then they can breathe a big sigh of relief.
Imagine the scale of the damages if they got caught like this. $x for the infringement and $y for each copy of the software sold. If they sufficiently pissed off the Judge (Who Me Surely not says BillG) it could make their stock become Junk. The Judge could even order it all opened up for inspection by interested companies(Now where have I seen that before. Yep SCO) so there is a precident for this type of order. Then watch the numbers of law suits escalate. Naturally, this is just speculation and guesswork and I have no evidence that this is true but...
This is Microsoft...
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
You gotta love the US of A.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
I wouldn't ever count myself as a free-market capitalist type, but it pisses me off even more that people who are don't even understand what it means.
I'd be inclined to suggest that the economic situation in the USA is too free, with the continued consolidation of media companies etc remaining unopposed.
Too many people on Slashdot seem to think the be-all and end-all reason for corporations is to make money. As if money was inherently useful in itself. Businesses are only useful if they benefit society; otherwise they destructive.
the layman's guide to computer science
The main reason they don't is that they're shit scared that they don't have the best product, and won't have the best product in future. Therefore they need to retain control of Win32 and its associated protocols and APIs, because if Linux because fully win32 compatible overnight suddenly there'd be much less need for them.
No. They broke the law and are now planning to profit from the judgement against them. If they don't like it they can piss off out of Europe, I certainly won't complain about their stuff not being sold here.