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EU Fines for Microsoft Approved, Off the Record
mattaw writes "The Register is carrying a report that all 25 member states of the EU have found Microsoft guilty of non-compliance, off the record. Microsoft is in line for a fine of $2.51 million per day backdated to December 15th 2004 for failing to meet the terms of the EU commission's ruling."
1. The fine has to be big enough to sway the company receiving it. A billion dollar fine would be overkill for most companies, but MS isn't most companies. Consider that they made much more than this from the European Market in the meantime.
Well, I guess parking and speeding tickets should be based on how much money you have, too. That's how some countries do it, but do you really want to get fined $30,000 for parking at a hydrant?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Flamebait? It's meant to be funny. A billion is a thousand million not a million million.
So they gave microsoft some time to prepare documentation that would be available to competitors.
They also refused to clearly define what documentation they wanted. In so much as they refused to put any of it in writing, for fear that their demands could be used against them in court.
For a fee. With no recommendation to give it away, or how much to charge for it.
That the EU must approve.
And to this today - microsoft has not yet complied, and are still working on documentation for an OS that was written a couple of years ago.
To this day, Microsoft has produced over 12,000 pages of documentation that DID NOT EXIST a year ago. The EU refused to state WHAT specifically is inadequate about this documentation, rather they just say it is unusable. What measure did they choose to decide the usability of the documentation? They gave someone with no background in the relevent technology a week to implement everything required to add a user to a domain from scratch.
Every developer worth their money has pre-project documentation, code documentation, end user documentation (for things such as api's and libraries).
What leasd you to believe this sort of documentation meets the EU requirements?
And - most of windows is documented in such a way if said libraries and api's were ever intended to be used by someone out of microsoft.
The functionaly being documented was never intended for use by non-Microsoft software or programmers.
Sorry - as far as i know they didnt comply, had well over a years time and are still arguing about their case.
As far as you know they did comply, and the EU commission is doing its best to "make sure" that they didn't.
But this is slashdot, you're a linux "fan", and all that matters to you is that Microsoft is punnished for shipping a media player that isn't as shit-tastic as Real.
If they were really afraid of being noncompliant, they could probably just release the source for the various implementations in lieu of specifications
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THEY DID. The commission rejected it.
Microsoft has only set it self an impossible task because its business model requires it to ride a razor's edge between giving out too much information (and giving up the home-court advantage that Microsoft's internal developers enjoy) and not enough (and facing the ire of the regulators).
Microsoft didn't set itself an impossible task. A 3rd party did. And the 3rd party set an arbitrary deadline to complete the work. And the 3rd party won't put in writing what specifically it wants done.
I'm sure the E.U. would be satisfied with the actual source
They weren't: "The Windows 'source code was never asked for nor indeed welcomed'". ( http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/492
No, the non-compliance wasn't about Windows Media Player so much as it was interoperability with other networking software.
I can run a mixed Windows and Linux system in either a flat TCP/IP network or a Microsoft style Active Directory. I can even use a Linux box as the DC. How exactly does that not mean "interoperability"?
As for Media player, let's not forget the oh-so-popular "XP E" version - No bundled crap, and no one wanted it. Most people buy software because they just want it to work, which MS gave them. They don't want to buy some dirty hippy's philosophy along with the box, and have to find an additional 27 programs merely to do the day-to-day tasks they consider fundamental to using a computer.
And as for "Open" formats...
MS's attempts at compliance were deemed inadequate even though they protested that it was "too hard" to comply to the degree that the EU wanted.
Yeah, because offering a peek at the goddamned source code didn't go far enough, right? And the recent shift toward open XML-based formats doesn't amount to nothing short of rolling over on their back and exposing their bellies to the pack?
I hate this topic, because every time it comes up I, a die-hard Linux fan who uses Windows only when required (ie, my desktop machine at work), get accused of either trolling or fanboyism. But it digusts me to see people falling for this "enemy of my enemy" crap.
Microsoft abused their position 5-10 years ago (though, until deemed a monopoly, they hadn't done anything any other comapny wouldn't also do if given half a chance). Not only does it appear they stopped when caught, but MS has since started moving to open formats (though I'd call the issue irrelevant once the government says "okay boys, you can reverse engineer it without fear of legal action" - In the absence of strong encryption, any coder worth their salt can reverse engineer a binary file format).
But now? We have the third most corrupt pseudo-government organization in history, the EU, making backroom deals with one another to slowly bleed Microsoft, which represents the most recent of the great American capitalist successes. For those not paying attention in 2nd grade, that doesn't count as "fair". It counts as - Whaddya know, pretty much the exact same behavior that got Microsoft in trouble in the first place, abusing their position of questionably-attained authority to squash a competitor.
... but f**k the EU. Its not that i'm a big fan of MS, but when foriegners(sp?) start doodling with American companies, it kinda upsets me. Not to mention, I'm sick and tired of Europe telling us how much our prez sucks, our culture sucks, etc.. etc.. etc.. Although the majority of applications written today is for Windows, many people can get away with using Mac or Linux. Both are very usable, its not like Windows is the only player in town, like it use to be. Thank you.
Europeans have an enduring/mind-altering lust to tax Americans. They have so over-taxed their own capital-base that it resembles a 2CV with a Bentley's options. Thus their quest to tax Americans. But how? Kyoto looked good. They cut themselves out of the tax by dating CO2 emissions to 1994, just before East Germany's old industries collapsed and some coal-fired English power-plants were closed. They let the rest of the world off the hook by calling it "developing". The entire Kyoto tax was meant for the United States. Call George Bush what you will, he put his chin on the line with this and Kyoto is l'histoire. Now the Europeans are at it again. $2.5 mil does not sound so big, except it is per day, back-dated to 2004. Their inability to find more to tax in Europe - ever gas a car there? - inevitably leads them to want to tax US. We need to tell them to get a life.