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Microsoft's Slap at Samba

Posted by timothy on from the thumbwrestling-with-satan dept.

Rollie Hawk writes "Microsoft's latest attempt to reconcile with the European Commission's antitrust rulings against the company may result in another victim. It seems their offer, if accepted, will strike a considerable blow at a leading competitor in the realm of file and printer sharing. The popular open source suite Samba stands to be the recipient of a backhanded slap from Redmond if the offer stands and the European branch of the Free Software Foundation is taking it personally. Though Microsoft is offering to make some information regarding interoperability available to competitors, it's only under the condition that implementations are not open source. According to FSFE president Georg Greve, "the proposal specifically precludes the information from being used in a free software implementation, such as the Samba workgroup server software." How is Samba being specifically targeted? Greve argues this is because "Samba is the only remaining major competitor of Microsoft in this market.""

5 of 406 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Admiration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    No fucking kidding. There are some moderators around here who should have the genitals removed, and then sent off to be Afghani play things. I'm serious. The above moderator is worthless no good piece of MS-apologist shit. I sure hope Ballmer wears a condom made out of sandpaper when he starts fucking this mod up the ass.

  2. Sure by The+Bungi · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    And maybe The US government can talk to Airbus about releasing some of their proprietary secrets to Boeing. Sounds like that would be a good deal.

    Whatever else, this stupid meddling and back and forth by the EU (give us your netowrking protocols, IP be dammed! no, you can't ship an OS with a media player, RealNetworks will get an ulcer! we rock!) is going to come back and bite them one of these days.

  3. Re:So what? by goldspider · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    And whose rights is Microsoft violating? Are people/companies free to release their code under whatever conditions they please, but only as long as they placate those who feel entitled to a portion of the profit?

    You just go ahead and try to take someone to court based on a breach of an ambiguous, un-written, un-signed "social" contract. I wish you luck with that.

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
  4. docommunist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    there is somthing fundamentally wrong with dotcommunists setting up foundations which are supposed to be not for profit in order to compete with for-profit businesses.

    this is an abuse of the charity system by little dotcommunists and should be banned

    how would you like it if someone came along to replace your job by offering to do it for nothing on the basis of "community interest"
    and "giving back"

    this is classic socialist bait and switch. lead with some high ideals and promises of a better life for all then convince you that this noble ends must be met through evil means, in this case an abuse of the charity system.

    foundations set up to compete with business should be deregistered and made to pay taxes and normal business costs just like everyone else.

  5. Admiration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Samba a major competitor to Microsoft, You guys just keep telling yourselves that if it makes you feel better. Why would anyone want samba when they can get the real thing? Oh, security? Not a problem when YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!!! Oh, it's free! Remenber, you get what you pay for!!!