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Microsoft Accepts Most EU Demands, But Not Over Source
JoeGi writes "Microsoft sent a letter to EU regulators Monday accepting 20 out of the Commission's 26 demands. According to BetaNews, 'The remaining stumbling block to full compliance is source code licensing' as Microsoft is refusing access to open source projects. Microsoft officials told BetaNews they are trying 'to find a way that companies can implement these technologies in code that would get distributed with open source products, but the source code wouldn't be published itself.'"
No shit,
Saying Microsoft would pull out of Europe, other then in jest, has to the most stupid thing to say.
Yes, you are. MS is trying to prohibit ANY open source project from providing code for any parts of 'their' technology. It is NOT about MS's source code, it's about everyone else's.
If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
All these problems are leading to a head I think. The EU is becoming a pain to just about everybody and isn't really helping anything at all. By forcing Microsoft to water down their products which retailers then have to stock, they will drive many customers away from local retailers to online markets where they can get the full versions of Windows and Office.
These problems with not making some of their code available to open source groups is just about as stupid as the problems they were having playing media natively with WMP removed. It's their source, they wrote it, they paid for it, they developed it, they should not have to share it with anyone they don't want to.
The EU is a farce.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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so you think all IT systems in europe would grind to a halt if MS stopped selling it's products there? i'm trying hard not to insult your intellegence here. if they did that, people would just migrate to another platform, and instead of spending billions on shit software, admins like me might be paid some of that cash to maintain IT system's that WORK. good i fucking hope MS pull out, it'll be the begining of the end for them if they do.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
What the EU is doing to Microsoft of disgusting. They are doing this because they can, because MS is such an easy target.. American target and because EU knows MS has money.
Its one thing to lay a fine and require the unbundling of Media Player from the Operating System , I don't believe its right, but its liveable and doable. Its a completely different matter to force MS to give up its property by forcing it to relicense it under Open Source. This just seems so wrong for a governing body to do.
Besides I think the Microsoft monopoly is crock. Maybe it was true 10 years ago, but not anymore. If MS jacks up the price of Windows to $2000, you will see a lot of people switching to Linux. Linux can do all the essential tasks just as well as Windows, sometimes better, sometimes cheaper. People aren't switching (or switching but not as fast as some slashdotters would like to) because they don't really want to.