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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.'
Is this really news, or is this an organization saying "no comment" until there's been due process?
Source code is nothing, look at all obfuscating source code contest out there ! What this code look ! I know more than one programmer that will encrypt his code to keep his job !
And what is the license that will go with it ?
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
With respect to any offers by Microsoft to share their super secret Windows code at an affordable price, I'll believe it when I see it.
I haven't RTA yet, but isn't the purpose of the EU's request to promote interoperability? If that's the case, the issue is that anyone trying to write code that talks to Windows has only the (possibly cryptic or even obfuscated) source code to go on, and even that is subject to change.
What I want to know is this: how do the EU's requirements differ from Window's APIs that are already out there? What exactly are they asking for?
Is it too far-fetched to suggest that the E.C. actually wants MS to remain out-of-compliance, so they can continue to levy fines against them? i.e. Why do criminals rob banks? Because that's where the money is.
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
It's pretty clear that the future of software in government will rely significantly on Open Source and/or Open Standards with emphasis on acessibility, availability and interoperability. (I'm beginning to sound like a certain pointy-haired boss I fear.) But that said, to allow Microsoft to stipulate the bar for access to essentially to lock out the very parties that may need access to it. Microsoft says "yeah, you can have the source code... for one trillion dollars!" and calls that a compliance offer. Yeah... that's just not in the spirit of the court order I think.
My guess is Microsoft flat out cannot comply. I believe they DO NOT POSSESS documentation in the form of a full specification. Their only documentation IS THE CODE. The EU said, "Provide documentation of your APIs." Microsoft said, "Here's 15,000 pages of docs." Then the EU said, "That documentation is incomplete and horrible and just plain crappy...and that's putting it nicely. Try again." So Microsoft said, "F*** YOU! That documentation was all put together by reviewing our code. Our code is our only documentation. You want fully documented APIs...fine. Here it is, you figure it out."
Of course, in order to look at Microsoft's source, you'll probably have to sign away your first born and you might as well give up the idea of ever writing any open source implementaton of anything you figure out from looking at that code or you'll be getting a call from Microsoft's lawyers asking you if you'd like to play a nice game of global thermonuclear war.
"Want to do business here? Then abide by our laws and terms. We're not forcing you to do anything."
And even if you somehow still think it's unfair for the lawfully elected represtants of the people to bully poor innocent monopoly-convicted private foreign corporations into undoing the devastation of the software-industry then we have different notions of morality.
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
Why would I back a company that is trying to screw a the European Nations out of compliance with the law, like it did here in the States...
Sorry, but they saw what happened here and are trying to put a leash on MS.
Good for them
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
The EU asked Microsoft to release documentation of their protocols. What MS offers is to license their source to people already using MS products.
But that's not what the EU asked for or what the EU wants.
Even worse, if MS licensed their source to a competitor and that competitor produces a product using some of the protocols used in Windows, MS could sue them for copyright violation.
But it's a clever idea of MS nonetheless, IMHO. Luckily the EU didn't fall for it.
The problem is, once you've seen their code, you're no longer allowed to re-implement it, as Microsoft surely would be quick to "point out" (i.e. lawsuit) that you've infringed their copyright. So what would need to be done is to have a team of people inspect the code, write up a specification of what it is supposed to do, pass that specification to another team, who can then actually implement it.
This error-prone, time- and resource-consuming and thus won't help much to re-enable fair competition. It's not that much better than doing the same thing with a packet sniffer instead of the source.
Microsoft most likely do have accurate specs, (or at least more accurate than what a bunch of reverse engineers could come up with) they're just trying to get out of, or at least delay publishing them.
~phil
SCO is a bit odd because no one has yet been given the opportunity to remove the offending code (leading to the logical conclusion that it didn't exist to begin with). It's going to happen eventually. You know someone's going to do it. The problem is that it's a one-sided process, because no one knows what's inside closed source, and the last I checked, getting the courts involved isn't supposed to be the first resort.
Whether the competition made mistakes or not is irrelevant to this discussion. The fact is that MS has been convicted of illegally using its monopoly position.
Free trade can only exist where anti-trust laws are enforced. Creating a government monopoly to replace the Microsoft monopoly does not allow free trade.
API specifications are not and should not be protected IP, especially when MS has already been convicted of deliberately and illegally sabotaging their competitors.
Nobody wants source code for windows, it's probably unreadable anyway.
Changa hates change.