Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Set To Be Fined $2.4M a Day
Nexum writes "The BBC is reporting on a European Union threat to fine Microsoft up to $2.4m a day for their non-compliance with the European Commission's demand that Windows be opened up. Back in March 2004 Microsoft was ordered to open up its Windows operating system by way of making documentation available that would assist work on interoperability with other systems, specifically: 'non-Microsoft work group servers [should be able to] achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers'. According to the article, Brussels has found MS to have not complied with the ruling, and, sounding somewhat exasperated, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes has given MS a 5 week deadline before the $2.4m/a day fines begin."
Bet you wish it was just another pie now, dontcha' Gates!
Would MS even feel a $2.4M/day pinch?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
I wonder how they will wrangle their way out of this one?
How about a 24million a day fine!
The trick is to bleed the giant slowly. If the fines are too big, Microsoft goes home and the EU is stuck with Linux crap that's unusable for anyone with an IQ under 130. But with little 2.4million a day fines, Microsoft stays in the game and EU bureacrats get new Paris offices.
I'm not pro-microsoft in everything...but this is just stupid.
If i was microsoft i would say "ok...well see you later Europe."
shanegrant.com
Back in March 2004 Microsoft was ordered to open up its Windows operating system by way of making documentation available that would assist work on interoperability with other systems, specifically
Can they by law do that? That just seems fraked up to me. IMO M$ should have no obligation to release anything unless they wanted to.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
M$ sux
This is just dumb, they shouldn't have to force microsoft to pay fines. If they don't like the fact that they don't provide the documentation that they want, they should not buy their software in the first place. Microsoft never said (that I know of) that they were required to use Windows.
--
Get your Free MacMini here
Imo a fixed number for fines is all wrong. large companies can afford to pay it because actually playing by the rules is more expensive for them :/
it should be % based on their global income, that way it would "hurt" both large and small companies equally in terms of how badly they are affected by it.
still, should provide a bit of insentive for ms to hurry up and comply
Just how can the EU make Microsoft pay this?
Pwn3d!
Is today pro-Microsoft or anti-Microsoft?
I left my cheat-sheet at home...
"Microsoft Set To Be Fined $2.4M a Day"
That's what those bastards get for shutting down New York with that transit strike.... Oh, wait...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
And M$ will predictably wait until the last minute to provide documentation. I'm sure the documents that M$ provides will be bare minimum in scope just to get off the hook. Nothing to see here. Move along...
My humor is probably your flamebait
and they could 'recalculate' the fine to be 2.4 dollars a day.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
That's it. I'm moving all my servers to Samba. This afternoon. Period
Register the editry.
The EU should stay out of our business.
Ad Astra Per Asper
And people wonder why the continent's economy is slipping into oblivion. Socialist policies like this never help economies, they destroy them.
I agree completely. Then again, 2.4 million per day comes out to $876 million for the year. Even MS would feel that and it wouldn't do much for the stock price either. Even then, I'd like to see the EU collect. That would REALLY be interesting!
How long before we see the 'Microsoft disclosure documentation of non-Microsoft work group servers for dummies' book?
"they have to respect the laws and governments of that market, no matter what those laws may be"
Next you'll be saying Presidents aren't above the law. That Vivendi can't push a French law through at Christmas making sharing a copy of music track with your mother a Euro300000 fine and 3 years in prison offence. Or that the *wife* of the CEO of Vivendi, can't push a similar law through the EU parliament at short notice.
The positively Un American and anti-corporation and therefore probably illegal.
Article 22 of unwritten law says Corporations can do whatever the fuck they want, as long as they claim jobs will be lost. Microsoft will simply invoke Article 22, say "Jobs will be lost in Europe because of this ruling" and it will be dropped.
This is about as asinine as suing an open source company for making their code public...
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
MS is closed source software company. on what ground do Euro have the rights to ask them to open up their software? that's like asking Coke to give away how they make their soda.
Is this another Henry VIII? Are they trying fo fund the OS of England?
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
It's all been said, it's all been done... :)
Enough said.
Okay, now that we have established that we should fine companies for their monopolistic practices, who's next? Airbus? Itunes? Wine & Cheese? And if Microsoft refuses to pay the fine? What could they possibly do? They can't uninstall Windows.
They should have a caption contest for that photo of Bill Gates.
Mine would be: SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Is it file formats? Kernel interfaces? Network protocols? Or are we looking a lot more low level?
Go ahead, mod me flamebait or overrated. But keep in mind that I administrate and work with both Linux and Windows for a living, and I actually have much more Windows experience and education under my belt. That being said, if I had a choice in the matter the servers I work with would be 100% *nix.
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
Good Job EU... At 2.4 million dollars a day it will only take 40 years (and some change) to deplete their funds entirely.
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
So does this mean that I can declare myself a sovereign entity and leverage fines on Microsoft too? I mean, just because they've been around for years before me doesn't mean that I can't make some new laws for my new governing body and then fine the hell out of them!
Seriously though, the EU has no credibility at all, and I don't see why America and companies put up with so much crap from them.
The best incentive for any organization is an exponentially increasing fine.
for(Fine=$1; OrganizationObeysTheLaw() = false ; Fine = Fine*2) {
WaitOneDay();
}
I'm not a fan of Microsoft either... but keeping this information to themselves is something that has been done in the computer industry since the beginning. I can't believe the EU would be so fascist as to compel Microsoft to release this information... and with a fine post-dated to Dec 15!! Microsoft should suspend all sales of Windows and Office until this is resolved. Europe is much more heavily dependent on windows than the US... they would most definitely feel the pinch. Hell they might be able to talk Apple into joining the boycott...
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
So does this mean - as a precedent - that the model of proprietary code is "over" ?
I'm not at all comfortable with that decision being handled by "extra market forces" - aka government. AKA, men with guns.
If the market wants MS to open up, the market should decide it. In the long term, I believe this is exactly what will happen - MS will have to adapt and compete or die off. Part of this adaptation will be better interoperability; but I would doubt that the proprietary model would end altogether.
As another take on this, many here claim that open source code is the equal to freedom of speech. And I agree with that. But then, what does that say when you advocate forceable openness of code? Does that indicate the reverse of the analogy: no private speech?
In summation, as bad as MS is, the government is worse.
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
mod parent up!
The EU and/or individual EU members could ban Microsoft from its/their markets without anyone having to uninstall windows. Like in China everyone would be able to continue to have their windows-y goodness. Local contractors and companies would still be just as available to provide support... and you can be sure nobody would check for windows' authenticity.
The only one that loses out is some insignificant American company, Microsoft. Because of course the European branches will pretty much have ceased to exist by then--and the microsoft hackers will have all found lucrative jobs with lignux distro makers.
Akarsz Magyar Gentoo fórumot? Akkor
Word is they hired direct TV's telemarkers as a collection agency since Microsoft was already on the do not call list.
First the French legalizing file sharing, now this. Someone pinch me please...I think I'm dreaming.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
I hate Microsoft just as much as the next guy, but come on. The US needs to start fining France I guess now for legalizing file sharing. Let's fine China manufacturers cause they are exporting too many goods.
Let's fine European car manufacturers $5 million/day because their steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car.
This isn't a problem with the OS not playing well as much as it is a political response because they don't like losing a ton of money on exports toward a piece of software they don't feel is worth it.
There are about 100 OSs out there. Are they going to fine all of the ones that don't have a "feature" or documentation that they don't like? What's next? Applications? If Windows doesn't let you do something that is important for your group, THEN DON'T USE IT!
All of you morons who advise MS above to simply stop trading in the EU are simply insane.
Aside from the US (im assuming you idiots are Americans)the next major service industries full stop are in EU and yes the EU is actually a very very big place for both people and business numbers.
wake the hell up and get your American head out of your American Ass.
Hehe.. we slashdoted bbc ;-)
why the EU has this kind of power over Microsoft? I thought that Microsoft is a U.S. based company that must obey U.S. laws. Anyway, not that I'm a Microsoft fanboi or anything, but while I do see a tremendous upside to Microsoft providing documentation to enable (better) interoperbility with other Operating Systems, I also see a huge downside. A downside where it's even easier to create viruses and worms that cripple Windows, given an intimate knowledge of it's propritary inner workings. I am just playing devil's advocate here. I would be all for Microsoft to share some knowledge with us, as it could make the computing world that much nicer, but I don't think it will ever happen.
Of course if you did that then you'd be lynched by your shareholders straight away. Europe is a huge market and for a company that mostly relies on a monopoly to boost competitors out, and for a company whose products don't interoperate at all with other products of the same class, even Microsoft wouldn't last very long without Europe
*cough* China *cough* India *cough*
In a few years, neither the US nor Europe will matter that much to the bottom line.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Everyone mark your calendars:
Dec 22nd
Different People Have Differend Opinions On Slashdot Day
Celebrate responsibly.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
If the EU works like the US, a government finding of a public sector problem opens the floodgates for numerous lawsuits against the company in the private sector. That is, if the US gov't were to say "Microsoft is evil", then, a thousand lawyers would pop up, saying, see, "the gov't says MS is evil, give us some of their oney".
As it is, I would still expect that some enterprising lawyer in the USA would probably have the cahoneys to site EU actions as precedent in a US court.
This is my sig.
Anybody contemplating giving any money to the EU needs to be aware that their auditors have refused to sign-off the EU's accounts for last 11 or so years because the organisation is so corrupt.
Microsoft should tell them to stuff it.
NOBODY has to pay MS anything. EVERYBODY in the EU has to pay towards the bunch of theives in Brussels.
The rules tend to change when you hold a virtual monopoly of something as important economically as an operating system. If other companies are going to be allowed to conduct business in areas that need to somehow interface with Windows, then they need some basic information (especially since they are trying to outlaw any form of reverse engineering). Otherwise you end up in a situation where Microsoft is the only company that can even provide other forms of software.
How will judge (and how, when) if the documentation is sufficient? I can easily see MS giving some ultra-thin documentation just one day before fine-day. Then waiting for an evaluation and getting a new order to re-write a more descriptive documentation. Repeat this forever. I am from Greece and this is the tactic followed by the government when we are fined for not doing something according to EU rules. Extend, extend, extend... (I am not saying this is a good thing. I am just saying that it works in the slow framework of the legal system)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
aller la France!! Aller!
Microsoft didn't abuse their monopoly with Windows Server systems. Period. The abuse was when the bundled Internet Explorer and Media Player. This is absurd as saying they abused their monopoly to get Office at the top, they did not.
This is equal to a habitual speeder getting pulled over for the 10th time in a month, and the penalty is his wife can no longer work. The justification; she makes allot of money and bought him the car. Should we tell MS that they can no longer sell Office unless they give Open Office their source code too?
MS server api/code being required to be exposed is border line criminal in my opinion. This is MS IP (good or bad it's theirs), and forcing an Open Source model on the world is a dangerous road... regardless of your opinion on OSS.
This is an attempt to throw a bone at competitors of Microsoft (e.g. Novell, various Linux distros, UNIX, etc.), but it doesn't help the companies that were hurt by the monopoly abuse (e.g. Netscape and Real, of course they settled out of court). The fact that the foes of Microsoft resort to beating them on the server front like this just goes to show you that MS really has made a good product with Windows 2003. This decision may help the Linux community play ball in a windows world, but that punishment has nothing to do with the crime.
The cold hard truth is that this has very little to do with MS or monopolies. The EU is just trying to hurt the US economy by hurting the largest American company. They fined them about a billion dollars already, XP N, and various other penalties.
Again, Microsoft did not abuse their monopoly with any version of the server systems (not to mention they charge allot for it). They got big market share quickly because the small to medium sized companies were ignored by Novell and Sun (major players at the time). NT 3.51 and NT 4 gave MS a large market share because they targeted a group that needed the systems, but had been ignored until then. Small companies get big, and when they did they already were using MS... so they stuck with it. It was a good strategy, and not illegal. Novell's bad business moves aren't Microsoft's fault.
Flame me if you want, but this is a bad ruling.
They could stop selling XP and only sell Win 98 ME, and open up that. Or they could make a special version of XP for Europe without the features they're being compelled to open up. They could call it Win FU.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Someone Give Microsoft legal chief Brad Smith some mints.
The Shit coming out of his mouth is horrid.
Just the picture of Gates makes it worth-while to at least LOOK at TFA...
Microsoft gives out more that just a punny 876 million a year in settlements. Last year they paid out over 4 billion just on settlements?
I think the EU is just using this as a cash cow.
N
Odd thing, for some reason a lot more people then a few percent seemed to be able to work with Linux long before Windows ever made an appearance. Of course they called it unix in those days but what's in a name?
Earlier computer systems were even more primitive and being operated NOT by MIT graduates but by a girl promoted from the typing pool. For that matter how do you think the earliest word processors and such worked? Point and click? Nor were they being used by harvard graduates. Just girls with barely a diploma in home economics.
Nah, linux is easy. It is just called hard by the amazingly lazy who do not want to be bothered having to relearn their leet button clicking skills.
In the real world, people have used all kinds of systems and continue to do so. You would be suprised how many companies still run their essential software via ancient telnet terminals that make you wish you were running DOS (oh okay maybe not DOS).
Here is a tip for succesfull management of your employees. Do not hire people with skills if office package X (and that includes oOO). Hire people with an average intelligence and tell them I pay your wages, I choose the software, here is a manual. Any person with a IQ above room temperature will get the hint.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I suppose "FreeWindows" might be something unheard of, but perhaps in the future it might happen.
Clicked pie.
Paris released a memo saying they would fully support MS, and whatever decisions they made if the replaced the MS Word paper clip with a rendition of Jacques Chirac.
... or "You're a peon."
"You're right, I did lose 2.4 million dollars yesterday. I expect to lose 2.4 million dollars today. I expect to lose 2.4 million dollars tomorrow. You know Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of 2.4 million dollars a day, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years"
</citizen_kane>
Shades of Grayden
Micro$oft buys Europe, details at 11!
Thats only 876mill a year... thats chump change for billy. Stupid fine none the less.
IQ does not correlate perfectly with IQ performance, specially at the high end of the curve.
And you're kidding right? The only time early UNIX machines were approached by people with IQs bellow 140 was when they were being transported from one place to another, and that's only when those people were idly standing near the truck - other than that even the truck drivers and the janitors who cleaned the rooms they were stored in held at least one PHD.
If Internet Explorer was locked-out, or it was made extremely difficult to operate with Apache, there would be an outcry.
If Apache was closed-source and used a proprietary protocol, Firefox was closed-source, and Apache and Firefox were developed by the same company - providing seamless integration between the two - and if Microsoft was given no help to allow its browser to operate with Apache, I'm sure that Bill Gates wouldn't just sit down and say "Ah well, fair's fair."
Microsoft has had plenty of time to address similar issues that it has brought about, and the company knew of the consequences.
What's to complain about?
What other option does the EU have?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Sad sad day. Europeans are pretty spun to think this is freedom at work. This is government coercion at it's finest. First it's MS then it's you..
For anyone who hasn't read the article, click on the link just to see that stunned look on Bill's face. It is priceless!
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
While it might be the most visible one, at least in the press, Linux is hardly the only OS waiting in the wings to fill the Windows vacuum. Some organizations would be quite happy with Solaris on the desktop, for example (the airline I used to work for was already doing that in a few areas anyway), and even platforms like eComStation or FreeBSd would have a shot at winning a certain percentage of the market.
Since there isn't a monolithic "Linux" out there, and since there would be tremendous incentive for various parties to create a user-friendly Linux desktop in the absence of Microsoft Windows, I suspect the "Linux is hard to use" syndrome wouldn't last very long. It isn't all that hard to use now, anyway -- remember that usage != administration.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
The EU wants MS to open up their protocols and fileformats to allow fair competition. Aren't open standards what everyone here wants in the end? This 2.4M/day fine is just because MS isn't listening, the EU has fined MS before. This is the EU's way of saying: open up your protocols, your fileformats and your system or we'll force you to. Fines and legislation are the only way the EU can slowly force MS into accepting this fact.
I can't wait for the day that MS publishes actual complete documentation on implementing NTFS or communicating with an Exchange server. That is the day that we, the people, say that we won't stand for closed standards anymore.
This sig is intentionally left blank
I really knew it all along, but it is not nice to rub it under people noses. So thanks again for making me feel smart, I'v been using linux exclusively since 1999.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Tell the EU that if they don't reconsider, that you will pull every license from every computer with an MS application or OS on it, from every country in the EU, and start suing people who don't comply with the terms of their license.
No one should have to open up anything because of some short-sighted, idiotic politicians.
After all, it only cost them hundreds of millions to develop these things, but to ensure the interoperability of all drugs, we need to know how to do this. Don't worry, no one will copy.
MS would just as well buy Europe instead of paying fines.
why the EU has this kind of power over Microsoft? I thought that Microsoft is a U.S. based company that must obey U.S. laws.
Of course you have to obey the laws of the country you do business in. Let's say a hypothetical company in Fuckmenistan is allowed to kidnap and murder their competitors at will, according to Fuckmenistan's laws. Now are you saying that they should be able to do this in the U.S. too, because they are a "Fuckmenistan based company"?
A downside where it's even easier to create viruses and worms that cripple Windows, given an intimate knowledge of it's propritary inner workings.
Well, intimate knowledge of inner workings of Linux is available freely, but not many viruses and worms seem to be roaming around. Maybe more openness could be a good thing, if MS is willing to improve their products based on criticism? Also, this is probably not about the inner working of the OS, but communication protocols.
so microsoft is a monopoly eh then the simple thing for them to do is pay the 2.4 mil a day and just up the price on their products to work out at 3 mil a day extra profit a day simple if you ask me...
Microsoft, no matter how many people hate them, should not be penalised for being a sucessful business. There are plenty of alternatives to their product.
I mean, whats next?
Lets fine apple for making people with ipods (a monopoly) download itunes, which now comes with quicktime.
Lets fine sony (or X,Y,Z) for not playing songs downloaded by itunes.
Lets fine apple for not allowing other mp3 player play songs downloaded by itunes.
Lets fine KFC for not telling us the secret ingredient in the batter for the fried chicken, as some little take-away next door is suffering.
As I've said before here, Microsoft owes at least part of its tremendous success to the fact that IBM was under the Federal Anti-Trust microscope at the time that the MS-DOS contract was signed with IBM.
If MS-DOS wasn't bundled on so many IBM PCs, where do you think Microsoft would be today?
If IBM was free to operate as it wished, do you really they they'd permit another company to write such a simplistic OS for its desktop systems? I'm sure that it could have produced a similar piece of software in a few months at most.
What goes around comes around. Microsoft knowingly hedged its bets by behaving in a manner known to be in violation of existing anti-trust law, and there is usually a price to pay for going out of bounds during a game.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
No it is just that some of the Americans on here have started to thing of this as an EU vs. US. Which is frankly dumb but is the only way of explaining their new microsoft rules attitude.
P.S. I am an American but can still see that MS is still acting like idiots.
Would you like to:
-Lod
From http://www.eurunion.org/news/press/2004/20040045.
Politicians screwing with technology is not unique to Europe. Here in the US dottering old men that after hearing a term like BIOS would think its some for of S&M. They are are incharge of creating laws that to almost any technicly minded person sees as ridiculous.
Both OS/2 2.x and PC/GEOS (Geoworks Ensemble) used the right mouse button heavily (for context menus and for file dragging) well before Microsoft thought about using it for anything other than ESC.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
How can the EU "demand" that the code be opened up? The windows code is essentially MS' bread-butter. If they released the code, *anyone* (ok, not EVERYone, but you get the idea) can start writing Joe Windows or Larry Windows.
I just wonder that EU went too far with this 'demand'. I can see Bill and Steve sitting in their office laughing - "They want our code? Sure! Would you like fries with that?"
Could MS actually pull Windows from all EU countries? Then they wouldn't be subject to the fine, right? That would be fun! CatFight!!
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.
Similar to language specific adaptations that have to be made to the tests, the norms itself are different over here. Since we have no village idiots playing rolemodel, the testers did not feel the urge to lower the the standards so that their headmonkey would not fall too far of the scale (on the left side). You have to specify which standard you are referring to, so you'd get either 100 EUR-IQ or 130 USD-IQ. :-)
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
First the idea that any manufacturer should be forced to open up their proprietary product design and second this dopey issue of bundling.
This idiotic idea that splits hairs over whats to be included in an OS is just absurd. So who gives a rats ass if MS chooses to include a Media Player or Internet Browser? Why is that different than a car manufacturer including windshiled wipers or a car stereo? Its not!
Its just the idiotic argument that it violates some sort of ethic or even law although no law exists restricting product bundling in this way, at least until anti-captialist/leftist, translation anti-american market forces get it legislated.
When it comes to Microsoft and the global market, meaning EU and Asia, they are all just piling on and taking their cues from these same "interests". Open Source in many ways is just a front for other "interests" that can't beat the giant so they choose to litigate him literally to death and all under the guise of public interest?
Then when the giant is dead, they will break off and form their own capitalist enterprises and market the same wares under some phoney ass altruistic banner.
I see some altruism in going against a giant that is tough to compete and dominates a market but if I use other examples like, I need a manufacturer A's component to fix Manufacturer A's product, there is no crime, bottom line.
So why is it a crime when you need a MS solution to support your product of the same?
Its only a crime when its Microsoft, everyones favorite token Capitalist Effigy to be burned in protest in the streets.
Apple stands in direct contrast, making a family of products that makes Proprietary the new religion but I dont see or hear and protestation on that one.
Thats what give you away, your blatant hypocrisy!
The EU just wants to stick it to ANY USA company
. html ) If another operating system cannot read and write to a Windows Server like the ruling says then the EU administrators are not doing their job. We have *nix, and windows servers here that all clients (windows, apple, Linux (5 flavors), and sun workstations all read and write to daily without any problem. MS doesn't make the hardware (besides keyboards and mice) so what is next fining Segate for hard drives, Plextor for CD/DVD drives?
.doc, .rtf., .txt, .html, what ever word perfect is I forget)
In many markets European companies are loosing or lost to foreign companies. Take the wine industry, European (France for the most part) was the world leader. When foreign (US and Australia) got better what happened? Laws were imposed saying that unless the wine was made in that region, you could not use that name. So the type of grape used was what is the type of wine instead of the region it came from. France stuck it to themselves with all their screwed up laws regulating the wine industry.
Now the EU sees MS as being too big for any EU computer company to compete. Make a better operating system and let the public (people everywhere) decide if they want to use it.
The basis of this is interoperability (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/I/interoperability
If the EU says I want to use ABC word processor to read and write to that MS word file that is a different story. But that is NOT what the ruling says. The ruling says Windows Servers NOT the office product. The EU wants all of the windows source code to write open source based ways of doing the same thing. Hell they'll just probably just recompile it in GCC then be done with it.
Having alternative to Windows.. wait there are alternative to Windows products, use them if you want to. Get people to save with alternative formats in office (they are in there, use something other then
That or the anti MS people are running the show and want the source code to hack it apart faster then they do now.
GO VIRUS writers GO!! Get your hands on windows source code!!
Are you aware that you're suggesting that European businesses operating in the US should be able to break the law and go unpunished?
Didn't Microsoft do just that just a few years ago?
Seriously.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
If they don't and they simply treat this penalty payment as an additional tax, the EU, will start doing more painful things.
Would Microsoft like:
1) Their assets (IP rights, buildings, stock they own, etc.) being put on sale, or (worse) frozen? (you might want to add bank accounts to the list if this happens).
2) Crimminal prossecution for upper management?
3) Trade in Microsoft shares being frozen?
The shareholders won't like any of these.
Trust me, if Microsoft doesn't change its behavior after getting this pennalty payment, they're in for a world of hurt... and the damage from that may very well be irreversible.
Yes I read the article, no I am not fully informed on the situation. However from the article I read that MS has some software in the EU. There are some regulations in place, I don't know when they were put there. MS has been around longer than most Software laws.
But as has been posted, why are they asking for MS to open up? Why does it stop there? What about car engines, Fax Machines, Medical equipment, Calculators, etc. From reading the article something just seems out of place here. I dont think it is a ploy to make money, but if this were to happen in the US I would say it was a political move for power. As there is no way the EU can enforce this and they know it.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
the EU is doing what the usa should have done in the start. Microsoft is breaking tons of monopoly laws. I'm glad someone is doing the right thing.
Some software money can't buy. For everything else there's Micros~1
Each day they are fined they should stop support operations in EU countries. Just send all those people home for the day and stop answering the phones.
They want to play who blinks first? OK let's do that.
So should Apple be forced to open their Fairplay DRM? Should Google be forced to open their search algorithms so competitors and/or websites better "integrate" their search results with Google? The thought that everything should be open standards is foolish. Some level of ownership and proprietary knowledge is required as incentives for innovation. Simply b/c you or the EU "believes" that some aspect of technology should be open defeats the very basis of an incentive-based economy.
Parent post has nothing to do with the story.
Well there is no point just giving the money to the EU so they can have new offices, extra caviar or whatever. What would be better would be for the EU to then donate the money or a portion of it to F/OSS companies (like Ubuntu) or Mandrake or whatever. Also that would hurt MS even more because things like Linux distros would get even better because they could hire more developers and buy more licenses for not open source programs. That would allow them to compete with MS on a much fairer ground, which would make MS much more likely to open it up as they would be basically paying for thier rivals and competitors to expand and become better.
Michael-m.co.uk - Home of Michael Mulqueen
The following was posted by a student of an American university who was endeavoring to deride the educational standards of "socialist" nations (granted, it is the work of a student at the University of South Carolina, but judging at their president's own MENSA-level standards, USC qualifies as " a institute a higher learnin' ") :
Good think this is the EU and EVERYONE has IQ over 130. No retards in the socialist utopia of EU, since education is perfect there.
Or was that Canada, I get so confused.
Even when applying mere grade-school grammar level standards, one can easily spot 6 errors in a mere 3 sentence-like constructs (as taught at first grade level, a sentence starts with a "big letter" and ends with a "dot", but as taught later, there are additional requirements that have been missed). Note that the use of capital letters for emphasis, while child-like, is not grammatically incorrect.
Yes, Mr. American-educated genius, your "survival of the richest and meanest" based educational system is obviously vastly superior to ours. By the way, my native tongue is not English, but even to me it is apparent that your educational systems has failed you. Then again, in fairness to you, your native tongue is also not English - it is American.
By the way, it comes as no surprise that you cannot tell Canada from Europe since you are American-educated.
I mean, subscribe to MSDN or log into Microsoft's Knowledge base. It's all there. Maybe not spelled out phonetically as the technology challenged EU seems to imply is necessary when trying to understand technology.
If I was MS, I would tell them to go screw themselves. Does Apple provide full disclosure of how to interoperate with their servers? I have yet to find a decent Windows tool that allows me to access Apple's HFS+ file system as easly as Apple offers NTFS access. Also, through Apple I can more easily connect to a Windows machine then I can from Windows to an Apple computer. Seems to me that at least Apple has figured out how to interface with Window's networks properly.
What is left is all the Linux and Unix gurus that probably are more intimately familiar with Windows networking then even Windows software developers. They are, after all, mimicking everying Microsoft does in an effort to make the Linux platform user friendly.
Lastly, consdering that 90%+ of the machines out there are running Windows, why should MS bend over backwards so the other 10% can more easily communicate with them.
Someone should sue the EU for being just plain idiots when it comes to their constant bias against MS. I guess MS didn't given them a big enough discount on bulk licenses for Windows, so now the EU is all bent out of shape about Windows.
What I think MS should do, simply, is pull Windows off the shelves in Europe. Lets see how quickly Europeans scream to the EU to drop their constant barage of lawsuits against MS and let them be able to choose which OS they prefer to run once again without government interference.
Finally, MS should charge EU with slander as the EU isn't targetting other platforms for the EXACT SAME issues MS is being charged with. Apple comes pre-installed with Safari, media and contact management. Linux comes installed with countless gnu sharware, whether you want them or not. Windows offers a fairly decent media player and suddenly they are the only evil company out there? Get real. If EU doesn't start applying the same restraints on Apple and Linux distros, then its fair game for MS to counter-sue for bias and prejudice.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
RTFA. In fact, just RTFA summary on this page. They do not want M$ to open the source to windows, just provide open documentation so that other companies can make compatible software. This has always been one of the more insidious things things that M$ does. They keep the Windows API closed so as to keep competing software always a couple of steps behind what M$ puts out.
Then, when their software becomes dominant, it can stay dominant by virtue of their closed file formats in which everyone's files are saved, making it even more difficult for competing software to keep pace. But that's really not what this article is about. Sorry for getting OT.
my pet machine
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do? reference=IP/04/382&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN &guiLanguage=en
It's remarkable that so many of you don't seem to acknowledge, let alone accept the fact that in Europe, European law applies. Microsoft may be a US corporation, but as long as US marines aren't occupying our cities, we'll make our own laws here, thank you very much.
That being said, I should add that the EU we have now is a bureaucratic, undemocratic Moloch, and I voted against the proposed EU constitution last June (here's why). But the idea in itself of Europe imposing European laws on anyone (and any corporation) doing anything at all in Europe seems sound and fair to me.
And maybe, who knows, Microsoft having failed to bribe the EU authorities justifies some optimism regarding the democratic potential of the Union. I seem to remember that in the US, nailing Microsoft for unsavoury business practices turned out to be rather difficult.
The solution is to pack up, and discontinue selling software in the E.U. Simply put, if the E.U. really thinks Microsoft's solutions are harmful to business practices, they should welcome microsoft's removal from the market. Microsoft shouldn't allow its business practices like opening up code to be determined by third parties.
Of course, the E.U. really doesn't want them to. Instead they want to collect fines or exert power over how the business runs. The same thing that the U.S. government wanted. The U.S. government got its money. Only a matter of time before the E.U. does.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Finally someone that is ready to make things less monopolistic and take a stand against giant. A price per day is a bit low, I would say 10 000 000 $ would do the trick, 70% of which would go to charity.
Sure, sounds like a hefty fine. But IIRC the US also fined MSFT 1M a day during it's noncompliance period, and I don't believe they paid a penny of it. The outstanding bill will just become another negotiating point--likely along the lines of MSFT agreeing to concede to the other demands if the EU forgoes the fine.
So I wouldn't spend that money until it arrives.
--
$tar -xvf
I work for a company that sells hardware and software, and the demand for more Linux support has gone up dramatically from overseas - and we're responding with success.
I personally think that their Linux requests are a bit out of spite (they have MS contracts, the project managers involved are just sick of Microsoft) -- but whichever way you cut it, Microsoft should probably begin playing nice because that's where they're going to lose customers. And Korea.
Berto
I know my math sucks but... 2,400,000 x 365 = 876,000,000 thats not "over a billion" Even if you add the "it already starts out over 100 million." its 976,000,000, still 24,000,000 short of a Billion.
I can't help but wonder if Open Source software is a big reason for this. I can see this kind of demand increasing in the future because Windows is constantly compared with Linx and Open Source software where the file formats and protocols are all open. If OSS wasn't around then it'd be much harder to make a case for opening things up simply because there wouldn't be anything to compare with. It'd be like the bad old days where everything was closed and everyone would think that's the way it ought to be. If so then this is a victory for Linux simply because of the change in what the way things ought to be.
Perhaps the original mathematician was thinking about the possible interest that could be made on sums such as that. I think that the interest might put it over 1 billion. Never mind negative press.
In my opinion, that is one of the single biggest reasons why Open Source software has not been able to capture the market. Even though the software *may* be superior (it still is up for debate), if I have to re-learn where everything is *every* single time I go somewhere else, then usually it isn't worth my time (which is more important than money), to utilize the few reasons why it *may* be superior, and so I will stick with Windows for now. For example, the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced was with the icons in Open Office. I started out with OOo 1.0, and I had to re-learn what all the icons were (because they are different from MS Office). Then I decided to upgrade to OOo 1.1 and then they changed the icons to something slightly different, and I had to re-learn everything. And then I upgraded to OOo 2.0 and they changed the icons again! and I had to re-learn everything. Consistency is key.
"Never underestimate the power of the Slashdot!"
I think EU plays dangerous game, what if MS decides to make a show out of it and closes, effective immediately, all MS products sale and support in EU? It will cost billions to EU economy to switch to alternatives, educate customers and fix alternatives to the point of being usable by average user. Complying with EU's decision will have a lot more effect on MS than just EU market, the will get more direct competition everywhere and that not what they would want.
I think that it is very important with open standards and that I hope Microsoft will open up some specification and use open standards. I hate closed down things.
But on the other hand, I think the EU dont give a fuck about open standards, they just want a reason to milk some money from Microsoft.
$2.4m/a day fines
How many chairs a day does it make in Redmond?
Who modded this as troll?
Come on... step up. You know who you are.
Ok your here. Now let me explain something to you.
SLASHDOT USERS ARE SARCASTIC. READ IT BEFORE YOU MOD IT.
Understand?
Having worked on old computer systems I wonder whether MS really CAN document their systems. It wouldn't surprise me if much of code just worked, and the people that originally wrote it aren't with the company any more, or don't want to go back to documenting it. Given that it is much harder to reverse engineer functionality than write in the first place, and Windows is the product of 1000s of programmers over 20 years, Windows may simply be undocumentable.
OK - so not all of the system needs to be documented. But exactly which bits of the system effect interoperability? That could require detailed analysis. Network protocols may be much harder to document than GUI because so fwe people know exactly how things work. NO place I have worked has adequate documented there systems. To misquote, it might not be a conspiracy, it might be "incompetancy" (kind of). MS might be acting reasonably and still supply what many would regard as inadequate docs.
That's not to say supplying docs would fill MS with joy. I'm sure they would prefer not to. But it is very difficult to judge the situation from the outside.
Why does Microsoft have to comply with this ruling?
[%] Cingular Ringtones
...Linux crap that's unusable for anyone with an IQ under 130...
I failed a semester in school and released a custom bsd distro at the same time.
Coincidence... I think not.
MS has to pay because Europeans are computer newbs? That's just plain ludacris. If you think Windows is 'hard' to work with, don't buy it.
Many have already mentioned it, but what would really happen if Microsoft decided to just give up and pull out of the EU?
i.e.
- Stop shipping Windows operating systems to anyone in the EU.
- Pull all Microsoft products from store shelves. Windows, MSOffice, etc., etc., etc.
- Invalidate all EU software licenses.
- Cut off support for all EU customers.
- Close any MS Offices located in the EU, laying off all the workers.
- Stage the worlds largest media campaign blasting the EU publicly and stating any nations that pull out of the EU will be instantly re-instated and trade will begin anew.
This would cost Microsoft hundreds of millions and would effect their stock price, but they would recover and would still be making good money. The subsequent public backlash against the EU would be enormous and would hurt the EU economy much more then it will hurt Microsoft. Suddenly all businesses in the EU will be stuck not able to get updates or even patches and zero support. It is not realistic for the EU businesses to migrate to Apple or even Linux. Seeing that Office for the Mac would also be pulled, the only choice being OpenOffice which is not a great choice yet.
There is no law that states Microsoft has to bend over and take it in the EU. There is no law that states they must sell product to EU nations.
Personally, I hate Microsoft, but I hate the EU even more! Were any other company treated the way Microsoft has been treated by the EU; they would have left a long long time ago. As much as I hate Microsoft I hate liberalism, socialism, multi-culturism, and large government even more. I would love to see MS smackdown the EU, it would be an enormous event. What good is Monopoly power if you are not willing to use the power?
Isn't that precious... (apologies to SNL)
Obligatory Simpsons ref: Mr. Burns is hauled into court for dumping nuclear waste in the city park. He's fined $3 million. He whips out his checkbook and says, "I'll take that statue of justice too!"
IF they were made by the same company, as you propose, nothing would be wrong, as there is nothing wrong in this case, here (AFAIK in the US. IANAL). But the truth is Apache and Firefox are made by two different companies. Two different companies teaming up and not allowing a third vendor in is wrong, at least here in the US. If Firefox was allowed to "buy in" to the protocols of Apache to allow flawless integration, Microsoft must be allowed to do so too, at the same going rate.
Difference in this case is Microsoft owns all products in question, they can have proprietary protocols between their own software. If they make protocols available to outside companies, they have to make the entry barrier the same for everyone.
-everphilski-
MS should fight this most vigourously... for all of us.
Seriously. What if MS isn't just stonewalling because they don't want to have to play on a level field? What if they actually cannot comply?
I have seen some hints that MS doesn't have documentation of some of this stuff. They aren't choosing to just keep it for themselves; they don't have it at all.
My guess is that, for far too long, MS just kept cranking out features, because that's what sold. They "didn't have time" to document it, even internally. The code was the documentation.
And now, it bites them. "Give me features, now, at any price" turns out to have a high price indeed.
I think Microsoft should just pull out of the EU market. My guess in that in 3-6 years, the EU will be begging Microsoft to sell their products again.
"Microsoft *is* a convicted monopolist, that is why they are being fined. "
Oh, NOW you all pay attention to American law. MS was convicted IN THE US.
Do not get me wrong, I do not like MS. I hate their products (most of them) and avoid them as much as I can.
But this is a joke. They have a product, that can be bad, faulty, unsecure or whatever, but it is still their product and they do whatever they want with it.
Does not work with whatever else? Well it is a different issue. Do not use it. Or use the "other product". Explorer sucks? Do not use it.
I think it is ridiculous to force a company to make their product interoperable. If they think it is good for them, then let them do it. If their mail server or collaboration server does not work with anything, they will loose customers (and force others buying it so they can e.g. work together with a company.
I do not think they need a ruling. I think they have to realize that if they do not fix their protocols and document formats (etc etc...) they will loose market share on the long term.
Not that they lost a bunch of money on me, but I am sure they are loosing money everyday, when someone advises customers against an exchange server or other products based on terrible interoperability experience.
just my 2 cents. Europe is getting aggressive, and I am sure some people are enjoying any punishment on MS here, I think this time this should not be enforced like this. People should instead stop buying the crap, terminate support contracts until protocolls are open and usable X-platform.
Last time I checked, they had $40 billion (yes, billion with a "B") in liquid assets just sitting in the bank. When you scale Microsoft's amazingly massive wealth down to that of the average American working stiff, that $2.4 million is equivalent to about $2/day in fines. The EU is fining Microsoft less than the price of a small cup of plain coffee from Starbuck's every day. Don't hold your breath waiting for them to change their business practices over this...
0 1 - just my two bits
If they presented Microsoft with a fine that followed the Indian fable of rice and the chessboard that would certainly get their attention!
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Building park benches? or what?
And so it was that half the EU was wiped off the map with the hidden thermite that comes standard as part of Windows TCP/IP - Terrorist Controlled Protection for Intellectual Property.
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
The EU is threatening a manuever that will hurt an existing corporation in hopes of helping other corporations in the long run. This is completely unnecesary. If government must gets its filthy little hands involved, why not support other initiatives to fill the hole in the market instead of attempting to balance it out? Help the little guy help themselves, don't punish the big guy for getting big.
I my opinion, there seems to be a huge market for companies to provide products that manage Interoperability between various platforms. Instead of trying to make Microsoft provide these services, changes that would be what Microsoft wants not what the customer wants, why not support some entrepruerial spirit to provide the desired products and services? Or are the rumors I hear about Europe true that the European worker is a lazy cog in the wheel of the man with no desire or incentive take the risk of running starting ones own business true? I don't know myself, but that is the word on the street in the US and Asia.
Ehh...this is the life we chose.
This is complete, utter B.S. This EU antitrust ruling is for documentation of *server* protocols. Microsoft is NOT the "800-pound" gorilla in the server market. Their share is around 50%, which does NOT constitute a monopoly. Once upon a time, Sun had an even greater market share and was the 800-pound gorilla, but they failed to ride the commoditization of the PC industry to cut costs until recently.
If the server market wanted to buy "open" alternatives (as vague as that term is), they would do so. There are plenty of well-established server providers out there, Linux companies included. (Server has always been the traditional realm of Unix.) But whenever companies pick Microsoft anyway, people here on Slashdot (and apparently in the EU too) cry "monopoly". After all, it's easier to litigate than compete.
Linux adoption is NOT slow because "The Man" (Microsoft) is illegally trying to keep it down. Linux does a fine job of slowing its own adoption by shooting itself in the foot all the time.
who is John Galt?
Oh, I suppose there's a price to be paid for having a monopoly.
On the other hand, i don't like the EU decision, although personally I am in no way affected by it. At least not at this time.
If the decision was taken by an US court I would say: yeah, they are right, but being the EU it doesn't seem right, it's like picking at the success of a foreign company that knew how to take an opportunity and got rich while their own companies were too much behind to do anything. Now they want the short way out of it.
From the submission: Back in March 2004 Microsoft was ordered to open up its Windows operating system by way of making documentation available that would assist work on interoperability with other systems ...
According to Another CNET article from late March of 2004,
Unless the deadline was extended, their time actually ran out around July.
I don't read Slashdot to hear people admitting their own faults, and getting along. Stop it! Get back to misunderastanding, and calling each other names!
Is this the same EU that's been pushing so hard for software patents? Isn't it the purpose of software patents to create/enforce monopolies? Wouldn't it make more sense to heavly restrict software patents, or simplt strip M$ of and patents pertaining to the protocols in question. There are already companies that have figured many MS protocols out, but they still have to pay M$ licensing. A judgement restricting or assigning MicroSoft's protocol specific patents to public domain would probablly do more to open or level the playing field. Especially if thos restrictions / assignments applied to patents files for the next 5 years. my $0.02 2.4 Mil/day seems steep so I'm assuming the kind of arrogance and lying that M$ applied to the US courts did not impress the EU judges at all.
Gone to my happy place.
It's my opinion tha they could do the *very best they possibly could* to release the specifications for their APIs, and while it would help, it still wouldn't give anyone much more ability to interoperate than they currently have, because the documentation will be wrong.
Microsoft has a huge incentive to get their developer's documentation correct, and yet MSDN is rife with errors and omissions.
The EU demand IS unjustified and idiotic. Why should anyone be forced to provide information about their system? For those who say, 'MS can just not do business in Europe'.. well... who is forcing anyone to use Windows? If you don't like Windows, don't use it.
What if instead, the EU said, "We don't like MS's policies, we will refuse to buy their software". That would make a lick of sense. How much does the EU spend per day on MS products? Can anyone find that info? No doubt they have a big fat volume discount.
Socialism never works.
[I'm not pro MS, but I don't have Karma to burn]
Mis-labeled cans of meat is people!
If MS did something like that you'd see every nation in the world move *away* from MS software to avoid the same problem. We'd see a nearly immediate move to open standards, standards compliance, and open source.
Required reading for internet skeptics
All MS has to do is stop selling Windows and support in Europe. :)
Then people and companies in the EU will struggle and beg MS to come back.
Why?
1. Apple - ha ha
2. Linux - stable, secure, but definitely not for your average user. Imagine explaining to someone who is computer illiterate how to install something from source by unzipping, untar-ing, and compiling (with dependancies). It won't happen. Well... unless they use Fedora and go yum-crazy.
3. More apps run on Windows than anything else (unfortunately).
The bottom line is that regardless of whether you like MS or not, this whole thing is pretty ridiculous.
1. If the EU decides to use unlicensed copies of MS ware, how will they get support/updates for said wares? 2. How can the EU force MS to pay the fines? 3. How many of you really think you know how deep/perverse the relationship between MS and the US government is? Do you really think the US gov. will allow its's largest company to pay out monies to another country's bank account rather than to it's own? Hmmm... Let's think really hard about that. And let's not try to think about the way things should be, but rather the way they really are and will be. Thank you.
"Patience is not a virtue, it's a waste of time."
MS *does* have European assets that could be seized
Try getting any corporations to invest in the EU-playground after that...
It's the same old socialist europe cry-baby game -- we want to be treated like adults (capitalism) but we cry when things don't go our way (socialism).
This brings to mind one of my favorite quotes:
"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money"
-Senator Everett Dirksen
The EU can't pick up and use a different OS, so they try to bully MS into doing something they don't want to?
I'm not exactly for anti-competitive business strategies, but how about the EU stop doing silly things like this, and just use a different OS? They exist.
I'd say the worst case is that Microsoft uses a backdoor to permanently crash every machine in Europe and kill the economy. Is that at all plausible?
going to denounce this fine?
The competitors are naturally disadvantaged because they don't have the inside knowledge into the protocols supported by Windows on the desktop. They have to waste time and/or money on reverse engineering.
This is bullshit. This is Europe trying to manipulate the market to give domestic countries the advantage. This is an activity every nation engages in, Europe is just particularly aggressive about it.
If Microsoft were a European company the EU would merrily encourage these same practices and ensure that it would continue to thrive indefinitely.
The consequence of a free market is that there's a risk of one company growing too dominant. I'm all for legislation where necessary. I don't think it's necessary with Microsoft.
Microsoft doesn't prevent anyone from installing a different operating system on their machine. You can have a single machine booting Linux and Windows, with no problem.
Within Windows you can install whatever the hell you want. I can use IM instead of MSN Messenger, Quicktime instead of Windows Media Player, or Firefox instead of Explorer. And the Windows applications aren't going to harass you over it. Try that with a Mac. I still have Mac OS preview and Apple's Quicktime trying to open files they dont even support. I still Macs own email program occassionally popping up. And I have to go into Apple's Safari to set another application as the default. Imagine if Apple were the dominant platform, we'd see far more strict control of our PCs than we do under Windows.
If you don't like Windows develop a damn realistic alternative. Everyone wants their own special version of Linux but no one knows how to organize the movement into a true replacement to Windows. One that doesnt require the average user to understand the intricacies of an operating system or to hunt for specific drivers for every damn device they've got.
Actually, there is a realistic alternative which may actually even be popular. Mac OS X. But no one has managed to convince Apple to produce a PC version.
So who's fault is this? It is Microsoft's fault for being successful? Microsoft may have done some despicable things, and their software is bloated and fraught with problems. However, what they do they do well; they've been able to effectively address the needs of many users.
Let's not be naive here, Microsoft hasn't done anything that most other companies, European, Asian or American haven't done, or wouldn't do if they were in the same situation.
Windows will be replaced by something else eventually. I just hope its because a better product has come along, not because governments have forced a crap alternative on us thanks to their idiotic anti-competitive legislation.
What's funny is that the over-zealous anti-Microsoft people are the very same people would would be anti-Linux if that had been the standard.
I say let msft keep their code closed. Who cares.
Coercive monopolies are in a privileged position to reap economic benefits by restricting output and raising prices, without fear of competition. However, Thomas Woods asserts that the industries most frequently accused of holding a coercive monopoly position in the late nineteenth century were neither restricting output nor raising prices.
The Results of "Predatory pricing": Commodity Prices from 1880-1890
Steel Down 58% Zinc Down 20% Sugar Down 22%During the 1880s output of monopolistic industries grew seven times faster than the overall economy, while prices in these industries were generally falling--even faster than the 7% rate of decline that occurred in the economy as a whole.
Free market economist Milton Friedman states that he initially agreed with the underlying principles of antitrust laws (breaking up monopolies and oligopolies and promoting more competition), but came to the conclusion that they do more harm than good and that therefore they should not exist.
Critics also argue that the empirical evidence shows that "predatory pricing" does not work in practice, and is better defeated by a truly free market than by anti-trust laws.
Thomas Sowell argues that even if a superior business drives out a competitor, it doesn't follow that competition has ended:
In short, the financial demise of a competitor is not the same as getting rid of competition. The courts have long paid lip service to the distinction that economists make between competition -- a set of economic conditions -- and existing competitors, though it is hard to see how much difference that has made in judicial decisions. Too often, it seems, if you have hurt competitors, then you have hurt competition, as far as the judges are concerned.[3]Alan Greenspan argues that the very existence of antitrust laws discourages businessmen from being productive for society, out of fear that their business actions will be determined illegal and dismantled by government. In his essay entitled Antitrust, he says: "No one will ever know what new products, processes, machines, and cost-saving mergers failed to come into existence, killed by the Sherman Act before they were born. No one can ever compute the price that all of us have paid for that Act which, by inducing less effective use of capital, has kept our standard of living lower than would otherwise have been possible." [4]
First of all, vendors are free to ship their own network filesystem protocols for Windows. Nothing is stopping them. In fact, these vendors can even write their own file system redirectors to make this protocol work exactly like CIFS/SMB, integrating into the standard filesystem. Why won't they do this? Because it's hard work, and it would be easier for them to reverse-engineer the way Microsoft has already implemented it. Then they don't have to write the client side stuff themselves, because it's hard to do.
Second of all, Windows has used one variant or another of the SMB protocol ever since the Microsoft Lan Manager shipped in 1987. The LAN Manager client software was included as part of the Windows 3.1 back in 1992. At the time, Novell and Banyan had their own proprietary systems which were just as popular, and eventually as Windows gained popularity, Novell shipped its own proprietary client for Windows for years. Insinuating that these protocols are some kind of "monopoly tool" added by Microsoft to increase its Server share is ridiculous because they didn't have a desktop monopoly when they were added!
Bingo! I think you nailed it on the head. These companies want a free lunch. They want to use Microsoft's networking client for their own servers without writing their own. It all boils down to that. They *could* write their own client-side networking stack using their own server protocols of choice, but that's difficult to do. So, rather than doing this work, they litigate instead! The EU court system, full of people who don't like big business (particularly American big businesses), is happy to oblige them. Now they'll be able to use Microsoft's client as if it were their own.
Microsoft vandalized Manhattan by placing 16,000 static-cling posters throughout the island. If I remember correctly, they were faced with a $50 fine for it, paid it, and got lots of free advertising out of it. Drop in the bucket, huh?
MS wouldn't dare no pay the fine, the loss of a large market would make;
a) Their shareholders go mad
b) lose of huge, huge amounts of revenue
c) Make the US-Govt/Courts to take action if they pull off a stunt against another union like that
MS is not stupid, they will comply, they have no other choice. It might be the case that the EU has got it wrong..But frankly Microsoft is uncontrabbly a monopoly that dominates everything and its about time that some regains control of the OS market.
Are there undocumented APIs microsoft is being asked to document?
Undocumented file formats?
Undocumented network protocols?
Disk formats like NTFS?
If I ran Microsoft, I would null and void all EULAs in Europe, and not do business with them anymore. If you were using Windows at ALL, it would not allow you to use a european internet site, or even an ISP. Take the system that you created back if others won't use it. Why should Microsoft, an American company care about Europe anyways? What would Europe do if MS decided to do the above situation? That's right. Tails between the legs, and begging to use a "closed" operating system once again...legally.
And that's the trouble. Government shouldn't be forcing business to give away its IP.
Now if EU had said: We will not buy any product that has closed file formats & protocols ... and we encourage our citizens to do the same! ... well, then I would have been completely in agreement.
.. MS will bow down and the EU will make a deal.
qz
What Microsoft should do is:
1) pull all MS OS software from the EU market to avoid fines
2) slap together a VERY limited Windows UI on-top of FreeBSD
3) sell the software at current full price and charge 5k for access to source of limited FreeBSD/Windows OS (retaining copyright of code preventing redistribution of blatant copies)
4) watch in amazement as the FreeBSD/Windows OS becomes more popular than existing MS OS's
I might even be interested in trying a FreeBSD/Windows OS.
Slightly offtopic, but ...because Sony has a monopoly on what, that they have abused how?
I would never suggest that have monopolies on corporate idiots, but somehow they certainly have managed to hire a lot of them lately, and they should be abused, daily. Also while Sony designs and builds fine hardware they also have the knack for picking standards that die. Anybody else watch what standard Sony is pitching and betting on the other prime contender? Maybe this DRM fisaco will wake up or clean up the boardroom. It is a shame to see some of the finest design and engeering people in the world have their work abused and rendered useless by clueless management.
Matthew
Can someone from Microsoft please post an anonymous yes/no/maybe about whether the documentation that the EU wants to be published actually exists in a canonical form that we (the community outside of the Microsoft world) expect them to publish?
:)
I mean how many programmers out there really like documenting what they're doing before hand? And if you do, does it stay up to date? Look at how many "bugs" there have been and issues that the likes of Samba have had to discover and work around.
Maybe Microsoft can't write the documentation that's expected - or at least not as quickly as desired ?
But please, I'm not trying to defend them, just trying to understand them
Investing in China under its current regime is immoral in so many ways it isn't even funny, with the possible exception of investments that promote China's peoples' ability to communicate independent of the Party censorship.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
A statement directly from the microsoft web site (on a page which confounds direct linking):
Common Internet File System
The Common Internet File System (CIFS) is the standard way that computer users share files across corporate intranets and the Internet. An enhanced version of the Microsoft open, cross-platform Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, CIFS is a native file-sharing protocol in Windows 2000.
thus claiming that SMB and CIFS are the native Windows file sharing protocols, and are "open".
So surely server vendors would want to be using these protocols when supporting Windows, and make use of the client-side networking stack that the desktop users have already paid for.
But what is this missing documentation that the EU is now requesting, if Microsoft say it's already open and standard?
The EU has currently 450 Million inhabitants, and this number will increase to 500 Million in 2 years, when Bulgaria and Romania join (increasing the number of members to 27). If you haven't got the memo, the EU is currently the biggest econonmy on this nice planet. Oh, and Turkey is not part of the EU (yet).
Keep open minded - but not that open your brain falls out...
...because that's where they're going to lose customers. And Korea.
In Korea only old people still use Windows.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
You should never let factual information get in the way of a good joke. Or one of my jokes, for that matter.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
In this case I have beef with European law. Don't get me wrong, I think that if Microsoft should act in according to the law in whichever country it operates in. However, I don't think its right that the EU is coercing Microsoft into opening its standards.
1) No one is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to use Microsoft's operating system.
2) No one is forcing Company X to make a contract with Microsoft and no one is forcing consumers to buy from Company X.
"B-b-b-but its not faaiir, 'non-Microsoft work group servers [should be able to] achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers'."
Build your own operating system, or find another one that'll suit your needs. Don't like it? Don't use it.
"B-b-b-but there are no other good ones!"
Too bad. Here's a tear --> *. Personally I'm running Suse 10 and I'm quite pleased. But that's besides the point, the point is that if you don't agree with how a product is made.. Don't buy/use it!!
That's the problem I have with most Windows people. They complain that Windows is closed source, but don't stop using it... They act like someone is holding a gun to their head and is forcing them to use it..