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Microsoft Source Code Still Not Enough for EU?
wjsteele writes "The BBC is reporting that Microsoft's offer to allow rivals access to its software blueprint may not be enough to prevent European Union action." From the article: "Its offer to open up its software blueprints 'underscored its commitment' to meet the European Commission's demands, Horacio Gutierrez associate general counsel for Microsoft Europe said in a statement. However, Brussels has warned the offer may not go far enough. 'It would be premature to conclude that offering access to source codes would necessarily resolve the problem of compliance," said EU anti-trust spokesman Jonathan Todd.'
No, they're trying to stop MS having an unfair advantage. If the US government had any balls when it came to MS, they'd do the same.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
The EU didn't ask Microsoft to open up it's source code. It asked Microsoft to open up it's protocols! Thats not the same!
:-)
Upon Microsofts declaration that it selflessly "overfulfilled" the EUs demands someone of the EU stated explicitly that Microsoft has no say in when the demands are fulfilled. The EU has. Right they are.
Someone trying to implement an interface to Microsoft products after seeing Microsoft's "opened up" source-code could face severe legal problems. Heck, even Microsofties are not allowed to even look at free software (be it GPL, MIT or BSD licence).
So I suggest we move along. Nothing interresting to see here... yet.
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
I don't agree with any company having to give out its secrets. I mean, what if Europe demanded to know the secret ingredients to certain food products. That may be a bad comparison, but Microsoft or any other company shouldn't have to give out its top secret source code.
They were not asked to divulge thier code, they were told to provide accurate and thorough documentation on the multiple API's in the Window's OS that are used and documented internally but not provided to competitors.
Rather than provide the documentation requested - which would make anyone capable of understanding an API and writing code to interact with it, they opted to instead offer to provide the source-code - liscenced for a reasonable fee, and with heavy restrictions - as an equivalent solution.
Two things I really have a problem with:
1) Free Documentation on APIs != expencive liscence on code I have to spend weeks trying to understand
2) what the heck is a [reasonable fee] to a company with an operating buget of more than the GNP of half the countries on the planet?
Do the right thing. The thing you are asked to do.
Read: Free Software Foundation Europe: "Microsoft offers poisoned apple" - "Praises premature in hindsight"
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
As far as fining them, I seem to recall something about a two million per day penalty, which I believe MS is ignoring as usual, or stalling with this source code business that no one asked for in the first place.
What people here seem to forget is that this same thing should be happening here in the US if the court rulings were fairly enforced.
The courts have already given MS way too much leeway on this, IMHO.
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Actually, the U.S. government's balls were TOO big.
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Seriously; the original decision against MS was to break up the company.
Why was it reversed?
http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,44902,
I quote:
In stentorian language seldom heard in discussions of a fellow jurist, the appeals court unanimously condemned Jackson's "rampant disregard for the judiciary's ethical obligations," and said he'd no longer be permitted anywhere near this case.
Remaining silent were Jackson's fans in the Washington establishment, who cheered the rotund jurist last year when he was denouncing Microsoft chairman Bill Gates as unethical and compared him to a "drug trafficker" and Napoleon.
Jackson repeatedly cut Microsoft attorneys short during cross-examination, while treating David Boies, who argued the case for the government, with visible deference. He appointed Larry Lessig, a prominent liberal law professor and Microsoft critic, as a special master over objections from defense lawyers.
He ordered a dismemberment of the largest software company in the world without holding one hearing on the topic, a move that seemed to shock the appeals court. Most antitrust trials of any substance take years to prepare: Jackson gave Microsoft six months.
Microsoft's adversaries were left fuming on Thursday, insisting that if Jackson had held his tongue, the breakup order would have remained intact.
"I wish he hadn't spoken out of turn the way he did because I truly believe that if he had exercised better judgment, we wouldn't have seen his remedies vacated," said Norm Hawker, a research fellow at the American Antitrust Institute, which advocates aggressive use of the antitrust laws.
"He essentially pulled the carpet out from under his own findings," Hawker said.
In fact, the district appeals court said the following:
"Although we find no evidence of actual bias, we hold that the actions of the trial judge seriously tainted the proceedings before the District Court and called into question the integrity of the judicial process," the judges wrote.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/june01/micros
Judge Jackson originally tore Microsoft a new asshole. If he had not gotten so caught up in the case, Microsoft would be well on its way to a breakup (or already broken up right now). He was overzealous, and in an effort to restore judicial impartiality, other judges implemented far meeker punishments. The system overcorrected, but make no mistake; the original judge and the prosecutors were out for blood, and they blew it because they went too far.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
All the EU has asked for the APIs in Windows to be documented and available to other developers. MS continues to try doing everything but providing what the EU is actually asking for.
If MS has a problem with that, they can take their business elsewhere...
In a word: yes.
The EC didn't *want* the source code, they were even smart enough to explicitly mention they only demanded documentation, not source code (look it up if you don't believe me). Apparently Neelie Kroes, the commisioner for competition, is as surprised as you and me about why Microsoft suddenly offer *this* as an anti-competition remedy. I just hope she's adamant to stick to the ruling of march 2004 because that actually made sense. Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer nor an economist. Can anyone think of a reason why opening up the source code can be regarded as a remedy, instead of just publishing the interface documentation??
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Except that if you have to sign an NDA to view the source code, then you can't implement the same protocols in your software because of the NDA. The EU didn't ask for the source code, what they want is them to open the protocols !
Actually people who want to implement theses protocols have to stay away from the source code as much as possible, or they could be accused of copyright infrigment. With this, MS try to prevent people from writing software using the same protocols, which is actually the opposite of what the EU wants.
wtf.n0x.org
Has to comply??? Source code is not documentation of the specification! They have to comply with any government's demand if they want to do business in that country. The EU didn't demand source code, they required adequate documentation.
Is MS saying their protocols aren't specified anywhere, and the only way to interoperate is to reverse-engineer directly from source?
A lot of the F/OSS folks won't want to touch that for fear of later legal claims of plagiarizing, even if they had the 50K license fees available.
What they were *asked* for, and owe the EU antitrust folks, is a complete protocol spec for others to work from. They don't *want* the source, they don't care; they're quite capable of writing their own code, thanks, if they know what to work to.
Mainly they want full specifications of the protocols and interfaces used in windows by MS, including any "secret" APIs, to be made available on reasonable terms to others. There is also a EUR 500 000 000 fine.
Crippled windows would be of no benefit.
They're not interested in cheap windows directly, but the idea seems that if someone can make "cheap windows" components, they should be able to do so without MS stepping on them (that's what the APIs are for).
Sure, they did. The problem is that the one time fine is only part of their punishment. MS could comply simply by paying EUR 2 million a day forever, but it would be crippling to MS and also not useful in solving the openness problem. Since opening the protocols as the EU is saying is very bad (cheap windows parts) MS does not want to comply. Hence the negotiation going right now.
Maybe you're not getting bitten right now, but proprietary protocols bite whenever you're weak. What are you going to do in a few years if you try to get away from MS apps? I'm getting bitten right now by active directory myself.
I think you really want an OS, a browser, a media player and a text editor. Them coming with the OS is just a convenience, unless it's not the ones you want (like IE) and you cannot remove them. I also like these apps in my machine, but I like a way for me to choose what I want (SUSE and Debian in my case). Anyway, you're using OS X, you're not being precisely locked in. What would you say if you were stuck with outlook and IE?
GPG 0x1B479C78
Jackson actually is a rock-ribbed conservative, but he doesn't have the pro-business blinders on that his opponents at the Appellate level have. Microsoft was an abusive monopoly that lied to his face and showed his court doctored evidence. The obvious solution under antitrust was to break them up so that the abuses would stop, given that their history in the field and in his court showed that they had no plans to knock it off.
I agree, however, Jackson should NOT have made the comments he did. He was justified in saying them, and given that they were flaunting his rules, I can understand his anger.
However, his mouth got him in trouble, even if the reason he got in trouble was opponents taking advantage of him. He should have kept quite, and gone ahead with the trial, and then have quietly thrown the book at MS.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
The EU can't find it in their hearts to switch to Linux, but feel that OSS is the right way to go. The solution, force MS to publish their source.
Are you a complete idiot, intentional obtuse, an MSFT employee, or all of the above?
The EU never, ever asked MS to publish sources. The EU asked MS to provide documentation for interfaces, protocols, and file formats.
MSFT responded by publishing source.
The EU replied that publishing source doesn't necessarily mean that they've complied with the documentation requirement. This is true. The EU may find that they have complied, but are currently trying to determine if the supplied source is enough for competing companies to use it to build interoperable inferfaces, protocols, and file formats.
At no point did the EU request the source, they actually requested something entirely different, and something much more limited. They are trying to give MS the benefit of the doubt, and say that publishing the source is equivalent to providing documentation. Frankly, in terms of interoperability, source is much less useful than proper documentation.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
From Europa Rapid Press release ...........
Document IP/04/382 24 March 2004
"The European Commission has concluded, after a five-year investigation, that Microsoft Corporation broke European Union competition law by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems (OS) onto the markets for work group server operating systems(1) and for media players(2). Because the illegal behaviour is still ongoing, the Commission has ordered Microsoft to disclose to competitors, within 120 days, the interfaces(3) required for their products to be able to 'talk' with the ubiquitous Windows OS. Microsoft is also required, within 90 days, to offer a version of its Windows OS without Windows Media Player to PC manufacturers (or when selling directly to end users). In addition, Microsoft is fined 497 million for abusing its market power in the EU."
IP/05/1215 5th October 2005
"The European Commission has appointed Professor Neil Barrett, a computer scientist, as the Trustee who will provide technical advice to the Commission on issues relating to Microsoft's compliance with the Commission's 2004 Decision "
IP/05/1695 22nd December 2005
"The European Commission has issued a Statement of Objections against Microsoft for its failure to comply with certain of its obligations under the March 2004 Commission decision (the "March 2004 Decision", see IP/04/382). That decision found Microsoft to have infringed the EC Treaty rules on abuse of a dominant position (Article 82) by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems onto the markets for work group server operating systems and for media players. One of the remedies imposed by the decision was for Microsoft to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. The Statement of Objections indicates that the Commission's preliminary view, supported by two reports from the Monitoring Trustee (see IP/05/1215), is that Microsoft has not yet provided complete and accurate specifications for this interoperability information. After giving Microsoft an opportunity to reply to the Statement of Objections, the Commission may impose a daily penalty."
"Since the 24(1) Decision, Microsoft has revised the interoperability information that it is obliged to disclose. However, the Commission takes the preliminary view that this information is incomplete and inaccurate. This view is supported by the report of the Monitoring Trustee, which concludes that, "any programmer or programming team seeking to use the Technical Documentation for a real development exercise would be wholly and completely unable to proceed on the basis of the documentation. The Technical Documentation is therefore totally unfit at this stage for its intended purpose." The report also states that, "the documentation appears to be fundamentally flawed in its conception, and in its level of explanation and detail... Overall, the process of using the documentation is an absolutely frustrating, time-consuming and ultimately fruitless task. The documentation needs quite drastic overhaul before it could be considered workable."
Professor Neil Barrett, the Monitoring Trustee, is a computer science expert appointed by the Commission (see IP/05/1215) on the basis of a shortlist of candidates submitted by Microsoft. He provides impartial technical advice to the Commission on issues relating to Microsoft's compliance with the Commission's March 2004 Decision."
MEMO/06/49 25th January 2006
"The European Commission will study carefully the announcement made by Microsoft on 25th January once it has received the full details.
The Commission is looking forward to receiving, no later than 15th February 2006, Microsoft's reply to the Statement of Objections sent by the Commission on 21st December 2005 (see IP/05/1695). The Commission sent the Statement of Objections because of Microsoft's failure to disclose complete and accurate interface docu