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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.'"
I wasn't aware Microsoft had a choice regarding which demands they would accept and would not accept.
As an act of goodwill Microsoft has decided to open source minesweeper.
Government agency tells Microsoft "You've been bad. Here is your punishment." Microsoft tells government agency "Your punishment is bad, yes. But we do not accept your punishment. Instead, here is what we'd rather the punishment be." Government agency tells Microsoft "No, you will comply." Microsoft gives some money to the government agency. Government agency says "Aaah. We've reconsidered. Microsoft has actually chosen a very reasonable punishment for itself."
fifth sigma, inc.
Licensing the source-code does not do much, a much better solution would be to require them to open the patents and specifications up for their drm and media formats. This gives their competitors a firm standing to enter the market with them. It would also allow opensource implementations of their media formats on linux with full drm support.
RTFA. The dispute has to do with licensing Microsoft's proprietary code, and whether or not they were locking open-source projects out of the licensing agreements. MS probably was, out of fear that if their code was incorporated into an open-source project, it would be open-sourced. The EU is not requiring MS to open-source their code.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
The other option is for Microsoft to just stop selling and supporting software in the EU. I honestly believe the EU would recant if MS pulled something like this.
I take it you failed both math and law classes in high school?
No one walks away from 25 billion in profit a year to avoid being fined 1.4 billion. No one with any brains creates a giant new market for their competition. No one in their right mind refuses to comply with the people who direct the army and police.
If Ballmer tried this he'd be fired by the end of the day. If the board of directors all went insane and did not fire him the EU would direct MS Europe to split from their parent company and comply with the orders. If they still refused they'd toss the European director in a prison and tell the next in command to comply.
MS may have some pull but get real.
The problem is, MS doesn't view it as 25 billion in profit. They genuinely think that by opening up their source, they make *all* of their profit, worldwide, vulnerable. If they think it'll lose them the US and Japan to stay in Europe, they will *absolutely* walk away from the EU.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
MS' code being out there would cause nothing but SCO style problems anyway. What is needed is to force (full) disclosure of (actual) protocols and formats. The last thing we need is accusations of improperly using MS' own implementation.
Other people's code isn't necessarily good documentation and usually won't drop into another project's tree anyway. Why is there such emphasis on code? Should we be talking about specifications?
open formats/standards? They should force Microsoft to use the .odf format that KOffice and OpenOffice now use as default?
If they would just take away Microsoft's virtual monopoly on the office document format it would make it easier for users to switch to open alternatives.
I have always said that switching people to open software on Windows is the first step to switching people to open software period.
To me the lack of forced open document formats and standards compliance is the only thing keeping open software from grabbing large market share from Microsoft.
The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
As far as I can see, in theory, full and accurate specifications of the APIs and protocols ought to be sufficient to allow interoperability and prevent Microsoft from having an unfair advantage over competitors. The problem is that nobody trusts Microsoft to publish full and honest specs and adhere to them. They are known for having undocumented interfaces and for departing from standards. Forcing them to publish the source would let others determine the actual APIs and protocols by inspection, and we'd know whether the source they published was real because its behavior could be compared with that of Microsoft's binaries. However, this doesn't require that Microsoft license its source under the GPL. People can perfectly well implement Microsoft's APIs and protocols with their own code. What it does require, other than publishing the software with terms that do not prohibit use of the information gleaned in GPL-ed software, is freedom from patents.
Insofar as Microsoft has been convicted of monopolistic behavior, I don't think it has a choice if publishing source code under the GPL is the only way of adressing its improper behavior. It's not like something that is insufficiently in line with capitalism is "cruel and unusual punishment". If Microsoft really doesn't want to publish its source, it seems to me that the only thing to do is to force them to stand behind their specs by imposing significant penalties for differences in behavior between their software and the specs. This could even be a way of diverting the efforts of some crackers - finding discrepancies would be a thrill, and could even be remunerative if a percentage of the fine were awarded as a bounty.
I don't see why Microsoft should have to turn over their source code without any kind of compensation. They did develop the product, and it seems to me that they should be able to profit from it. In my opinion the demands of the EU are in this case unreasonable.
It's because they broke the law. It's a punishment that attempts to correct some of the damage they did. It's like this a guy mugs and old lady takes the cash in her purse and bets it all on a number in roulette. He wins big then the cops nab him. The judge just said, "the money he won goes to charity as part of his punishment."
This has more information than the BetaNews article - full AP Text.
Microsoft says it will meet most EU demands
By ALLISON LINN
AP BUSINESS WRITER
Microsoft Corp. says it will meet most demands by European Union regulators on making software blueprints available to competitors, including lowering licensing fees, but is seeking further talks on some issues.
Microsoft said it delivered a letter to EU regulators on Monday detailing its intentions.
The EU last month threatened new fines if Microsoft doesn't make it easier and cheaper for competitors to see the blueprints, known as source code.
Brad Smith, Microsoft's top lawyer, said the Redmond, Wash.-based company told the European Union it isn't opposed to licensing the code to open-source developers as long as it's assured that its intellectual property will be safeguarded.
Open-source programs led by the Linux operating system pose perhaps the most serious threat to Microsoft because their code is freely shared, while Microsoft closely guards its source code.
Click Here
Smith said Microsoft also wants clarification on whether concerns that view its source code can develop and distribute software outside of Europe.
EU spokesman Jonathan Todd said Monday afternoon that he could not yet confirm that the Commission received Microsoft's latest letter, but said "We have received a letter in response" to our questions that Microsoft sent before Easter.
He said the EU was "studying it carefully." He gave no further comment on the content of Microsoft's letter or on Monday's announcement
The EU compelled Microsoft, in a March 2004 antitrust ruling in which it fined the company 497 million euros ($640 million dollars), to share the source code with competitors who make server software so their products can better communicate with Windows-powered computers.
European regulators also ordered Microsoft to produce a Windows version minus its multimedia player to provide a more level playing field for competitors such as RealNetworks Inc.
Microsoft has complied with that order but says it will only make the software available in Europe. Dow Jones Newswires reported last week that Dell Inc., a leading computer maker, would not offer the stripped-down Windows version as an option.
Company officials would not provide The Associated Press with a copy of the letter they submitted to the EU on Monday.
But they listed these changes that they said they had accepted in the server source code reviewing procedure:
-Microsoft will customize licenses for developers who want to pick and choose from source code rather than buying a preset package.
-The company will give competitors a price break on reviewing source code and more time to decide whether they want to license it - charging 500 euros ($645) a day for up to eight days instead of allowing a maximum of two days at 3,850 euros ($4,965) for the first day or 5,390 euros ($6,950) for two days.
Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said the company was working on a new set of prices for licenses to address the commission's concerns that previously proposed fees of $100 to $600 (77 euros to 465 euros) per server were too high.
Desler would not elaborate on any details of the new royalty fee structure.
Andy Gavil, a Howard University law professor who is co-writing a book on Microsoft's antitrust battles, says the company has good reason to try to elongate the process, especially given its plans to appeal the March 2004 order.
Microsoft has been ordered to comply with the ruling even as it seeks an appeal.
Gavil said Microsoft is concerned about losing the freedom to build new features into its operating systems and that sharing too much with competitors will weaken its business.
"In a sense, they're trying to define a software philosophy and a business strategy," Gavil said.
Smith emphatically denied that the company has any interest in slowing down the proces
I honestly believe they'd pull out before opening their source. Yes, they will try evey other option they have first. Yes, one of those options is bound to work and allow a mutually agreeable solution. But the threat of pulling out may pull some of the bite out of the EU's ferocity. How long do you think the careers of a politician who "forced" MS out would be with their constituency being companies, government agencies and private individuals being forced to switch to an alternative? I guess it depends on how deeply imbedded the EU is with MS software, but in the US with Windows being on the desktop of just about every person in power... MS has a lot of leeway. Switching over would be a large expense for some organizations, especially ones with custom software and documents in proprietary formats.
Yes, it would prove that they are a monopoly. It would also prove that there isn't anything anyone can do about it.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
IBM walked away from the India market this way in the 1960's. It was a delicious moment for those of us who despise government bureaucrats bearing demands.
As is often the case, the press is completely misreporting the issue. The EU never demanded that Microsoft release their own source code. What MSFT is required to do is license their network protocols and provide sufficient documentation to licensees so they can create their own implementations. A similar condition was part of the US antitrust case.
The license that MSFT offered is (1) expensive, and (2) specifically prevents licensees from releasing the source code to their own implementations. The EU is mostly upset about the cost, and is therefore completely missing the point. The only effective remedy would be to require that MSFT publish the protocol specs and allow anybody (e.g. the SAMBA team) to implement them.
Some would say that such a compulsory license amounts to the EU stealing MSFT's intellectual property. Bullshit! Do you believe that making them pay a fine is stealing their money? You can oppose the whole concept of antitrust regulation on Libertarian grounds, but that battle was fought and lost, the argument is over, and antitrust is settled law. The EU has the right to set antitrust rules and punish the violators.
The key sequence to access my Slashdot bookmark in Firefox is Alt-B-S. I don't believe this is a coincidence.
Not to insult *your* intelligence, but modern Windows OSes *do* work. I work for a web development/hosting division within a large multinational, and almost *all* of our problems relate to networking and third party software issues; it's very rare indeed that we have a machine go down because of an OS problem, and that's true for the Linux, Solaris and Windows machines.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
there is nothing - NOTHING - stopping superior alternatives from being adopted, if they are sufficiently better.
That's the key if they are sufficiently better. Microsoft has ensured through anticompetitive tactics that that threshold is far, far higher than any benefit. Find that BeOS is significantly better a desktop than Windows? (It was, BTW) Well, not only will you not be able to read any of the Word documents they've worked so hard to obfuscate, but you won't be able to read any of the websites whose standards they've co-opted, or run any of the applications whose API's have been intentionally hidden. You won't be able to buy this from a vendor who has one of Microsoft's patently illegal forced exclusivity contracts. And of course you may get sued from a pretty explicitly Microsoft-funded umbrella corporation who claims rights over your OS. Because Microsoft forbade, again illegally, non-Microsoft software to be placed on the desktop after sale, the compatible competitors were forced off, so you can kiss a lot of the open standards goodbye.
A real open market with competition would have a reasonable threshold above which people would switch to a better system. There is no indication this is how the markets around Windows or Microsoft Word or Exchange Server are functioning, and there is plenty of evidence as to why this is the case.
there is nothing - NOTHING - stopping superior alternatives from being adopted, if they are sufficiently better.
Dr Dos was superior to DOS in every way. It was significantly cheaper, faster, more stable, and 100% compatible with MS Dos. Because of this Microsoft re-wrote Windows 3.1 to randomly crash if it was run on top of DrDos. They then promoted "awareness" that DrDos was unstable and would crash Windows 3.1. That's not competing on features, that's using something you sell in one area to irrecoverably damage a competitor's product in an underhanded fashion. They were, BTW, convicted of this.
there is nothing - NOTHING - stopping superior alternatives from being adopted, if they are sufficiently better.
OS2Warp ran Windows applications better than Windows 3.1 did. It multithreaded and multitasked, and was pretty stable... an impressive feat for a Dos-based system. What did Microsoft do? They charged all of their system manufacturers based on how many systems they sold, not how many systems with Windows they sold. In other words, if you were a mixed house and wanted to sell OS2 Warp-based systems, each system you sold with OS2 Warp would cost you one OS2 Warp license you used and one Windows license you didn't and could never use. Thus, Microsoft used their position very directly to prevent competitors from getting on shelves, in a fashion completely illegal. They were, BTW, convicted of this.
there is nothing - NOTHING - stopping superior alternatives from being adopted, if they are sufficiently better.
You can't engage in illegal anticompetitive behaviors and still represent something as an even playing field. Period. I'm sorry if this sounds patronizing to you, but it's a pretty easy concept. If there was a way I could explain it that was complicated and difficult I would.
Not all Monopolies are evil or behave in an anticompetitive fashion. While Intel's hands aren't squeaky clean, it did decide to largely compete based upon power and marketing when rivals appeared. Google has a near-monopoly on search activities, and it hasn't abused that position. I can only think of one example of outright sabotage of interoperability with a competitor's parts from Shimano. But with Microsoft the list of abuses is very, very long. They even did a lot of anticompetitive stuff that failed, like bundling Messenger into every copy of Windows, refusing to allow it to be uninstalled, and if it found that you did uninstall it, the bloody OS would reinstall it. Or their attempts to corrupt Java (which, BTW, they were convicted of). Or their attempts to patent-en
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