Slashdot Mirror
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."
i actually talked to them about this work. apparently there are 150 seperate
protocols including CIFS, and tens of thousands of pages of documentation,
which are terribly inadequate given their culture. they were talking about
a spec-writing team of 50 to do part of that work in a 6 month period of
time. many of the other people involved were the engineers who did the
original implementations and are now the only source of information.
they dug themselves a really really big hole. getting out is basically
impossible.
Is that like double secret probation?
I do think some aspects of what Microsoft does will have to change, the fine is not just backdated but also continues every day until Microsoft compiles. Yes Microsoft has a lot of money but that's a lot of money to bleed every year and shareholders will not like it at all.
I do not know what will change, but it's a situation that cannot stand - not to mention that if Microsoft simply coughts up the fine indefinatley it will be raised to an amount they cannot ignore as easily.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
To me it's a sad day for America when we have to rely on other countries to police our corporations for us. Of course, I wonder if the EU would have been as hard on Microsoft if it were based in, say, France?
"Microsoft owns what, 95+% of the global desktop OS market? How exactly do you shut down or prohibit a company from operating when they have that type of a market share?"
Easy. Refuse to honor their IP. All MS copyrights in europe become public domain, all patents are invalid. Done deal.
evil is as evil does
Another possibility is the team was assembled to give the impression that they were trying to comply without the intent to comply. Perhaps they just underestimated the probability that they would be fined.
There are very few business models that can compete with an entrenched, unrestrained monopoly.
It's not really fair to judge a business model when that's what you're putting it up against. That's like saying that a machine gun is inferior to a flintlock musket, if you make the start condition one where the musket is pressed to the head of the machine gunner -- it doesn't have to be superior in order to win, it just has to barely work.
Any business model that can even keep itself alive when in direct competition with a firm as aggressive as Microsoft would probably do very well in an actual free market.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Well it's a corporation. You can't jail it so you have to fine it.
... but one building has all the server farms, and the other building has all the presentation boardrooms ... so they just walk back and forth like it's a regular day at Microsoft. Perhaps they mutter under their breath about the wastefulness of the court's judgment as they go.
Ahh, but there is an alternative punishment - something we can do to corporations that we can't do to people. Cut them in half!
However this raises an immediate question: How do you ensure that the resulting two (or more) entities don't just collude and price-fix their way along as if they were still whole?
It's easy to imagine - two big campuses in Redmond, one given the MS Office suite, one given the Windows codebase - each told by judicial decree that they can no longer cooperate
This is why I wish that as part of a Windows interoperability and documentation settlement, the EU had the authority to say, "Okay, Microsoft. You know that corporate branch you have in Mountain View, where you run all the hotmail services? They're a separate company now, and THEY own MS Office. Expect a phone call from the department chief down there in about a week, asking for all the source code. I'm sure he'll want to establish a relocation package for all your Office coders, too. By the way, the new company is called Officesoft. Play nice with them."
You'd be amazed what a difference physical separation can make in terms of corporate attitude... Unfortunately, the opportunity for a remedy like this for Microsoft withered down to nothing in the first year of Bush Jr(tm)(r)(c)'s reign. Now innovation on the OS front has been STALLED, for 95% of the world, for the past FIFTEEN YEARS. >:(
And > 1 billion hardly seems to be a fair amount to charge for not documenting your software properly
Because that is NOT what they are being fined for.
Microsoft was convicted of breaking the law, and the court levied NO punishment - I repeat *NO* punishment for that crinimal behaviour. The court merely ordered that they stop engaging in that criminal behavior, and ordered a remedy merely to stop the damage to the market from continuing. The remedy specifically being an order to permit a version of Windows with Media Player unbundled, and to document the protocols to permit competition in other software markets on an even footing. (Note that the US anti-trust conviction of Microsoft was purely remedy and carried no punative component either.)
So why is Microsoft being fined well over a billion dollars? Because they did something else illegal!
Microsoft is being fined for willful contempt of a lawful court order! The conviction and cort order was long ago. Microsoft deadline for compliance with the court order was over a year and a half ago! And like an overdue library book, Microsoft has been racking up a daily fine for their willfull disreguard with a lawful court order.
Microsoft has drawn out this battle for so long that Microsoft gets to reap the rewards of their illegal behavior, and any remedy to terminate that particular illegal behavior becomes null and void. By the time this fight ends, Windows Vista will be just about to hit the market. Any documentation for working with previous operating systems becomes pretty well moot. Microsoft is using an illegal delying tactic to defeat the court order - to defeat the court itself. And delaying and refusing to comply with a court order carries a very specific penalty at law. That illegal behavior carries a signifigant $ daily fine. And that fine is entirely under Microsoft's control. Microsoft has chosen day after day to continue violating the law. Microsoft has chosen day after day to increase the fine they have to pay. Microsoft could have gotten off with $ZERO fine had they complied a year and a half ago.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
To be fair, actually using Microsoft products tends to increase my hatred for the company one click at a time.
Contemplating their business practices merely inspires loathing.
i honestly see this as a money grab more than anything else
You need to clean your glasses. This is not a money grab. This is Microsoft CHOOSING to give away money.
Microsoft was convicted of breaking the law, and the fine and penaty was ZERO. NO FINE, NO PENALTY. This is like you break a storefront window, and the court orders you not to break any more windows and to clean up the broken glass all over the storefront and to replace the window you broke. The court requires you to stop breaking the law, and to remedy the damage you did. You (and Micrsoft) get the chance to away scott-free with NO PUNISHMENT for breaking the law.
But then you do something really stupid. You replace the window you broke, but you willfully act in contempt of court and refuse to sweep up the broken glass all over the sidewalk in front of the store. The court gives you a week to sweep up the broken glass, and still you refuse to comply. The court then levies a contempt of court fine of $X per day. And then for the next YEAR AND A HALF you still refuse to sweep up the broken glass. And you call it a "money grab" when you rack up over a year and a half of fines?
Microsoft was given ample tiome to comply. Microsoft CHOSE day after day to willfully act in contempt of a lawfull court order. Microsoft CHOSE to rack up a dailly fine. Microsoft basically CHOSE to give away money day after day. Microsoft could have gotten off scott-free with $ZERO fine.
they'd refuse to pay it
Are you STUPID? Do you seriously think that you can hop on a plane, set up shop doing business in some other country, that you can BREAK THE LAW in that country day after day, and that you could get away with simply refusing to pay court ordered fines?
No, you do not go into some country and dick around with the government like that. At first the courts are nice and simply ask you to pay the money you owe. If you are a moron and attempt to refuse to pay a lawful debt to the government, then the government simply orders the banks to seize and turn over the owed debt from any accounts. And the government can simply order customs to seize any imports/exports from the territory to pay the debt. And then the government can simply order the police to physically seize any physical assets and any and all buildings and land. And if you really piss off the government they can order the police to start physically arrest and imprison the individuals stupid enough to persist in disobeying the law and disobeying lawful court orders.
watch the uproar that would ensue when it became illegal to sell Windows in the EU
Oh, that one is my favorite part! LOLOL!
Let's assume that Microsoft somehow managed to empty all of the money from all EU bank accounts and had no future payments due for collection from EU companies, so that the courts could not simply order banks to hand over the money owed. And let's assume that Microsoft somehow magically owns no offices and owns no seizeable assets and property anywhere in the EU. And let's assume that all Microsoft employees manage to flee the countries and are unarrestable for noncompliance with the law. And let's assume that the courts in the US and Japan and the rest of the planet decline to honor debt collection in cooperation with the EU courts and decline to locally seize any bank accounts and assets.
Let's assume ALL of that. Let's assume that Microsoft could successfully play a game of "Nya nya nya you can't catch me!" with the EU legal system.
Then it gets REALLY fun! Because if Microsoft dissess the entire EU court system and cuts off all contact with the EU legal system, then GUESS WHAT! Then Microsoft cannot avail themselves of benefits and protections of the EU court system. The EU courts can refuse to accept any cases from Microsoft attempting to sue for enforcement of copyright or patent or trademark infringment. The EU courts can effectively null and void all of Microsoft's copyrights and patents and trademarks. All of Microsoft's software would effectively become public domain.
So rather than "illegal to sell Windows in the EU", in fact it could ultimately become perfectly legal for anyone and everyone to copy and modify and sell any and all Microsoft software at will.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Except that the European Patent Office (EPO) claims that they are not regulated by the EU. They say that they were formed before the EU (as we know it today) and therefore they only have to report to individual countries instead of reporting to the EU. And since these countries cannot agree on a common action against the EPO, then the EPO can keep on using their weird interpretation of the patent treaty: according to the EPO, software as such cannot be patented but it can be patented if that software is running on a computer.
-Raphaël
Or, less WIPO-unfriendly, just mandate a switch away from Windows everywhere. And when I say everywhere I mean everywhere. EU-wide legislation that states that until 2010 all governments, agencies, schools etc. are to switch away from Windows would hurt Microsoft like hell. As would the adoption of ODF as the new document standard, with Microsoft's offer not being accepted anywhere.
The EU has countless weapons in stock, from migration plans to subsidies to large-scale grants. If Microsoft pisses off the EU enough Brussels might just decide to pump a couple hundred million Euros into Mandrake in order to develop an alternative to every product Microsoft sells, including the XBox controller. Or they make a law that keeps Microsoft from bribing institutions with free licenses. This is a big game of Nomic and Microsoft is not allowed to make up rules. The EU is.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I do hope that everyone here realizes that the reason MS is fighting so hard to keep their APIs locked up is a direct result of their original halloween paper, in which MS states "Linux can win as long as services / protocols are commodities". Which means, quoting a well known review of the halloween paper...
"Linux can win if services are open and protocols are simple, transparent. Microsoft can only win if services are closed and protocols are complex, opaque."
So here is proof that the closed APIs are not necessary for MS software, as they might state, but a preplanned way to make war with Linux.
And to all you unenlightend peope that will say that MS isn't making war with Linux, that is just the price of doing business, I will direct you to another portion of the same document.. "Long term credibility exists if there is no way you can be driven out of business in the near term. This forces change in how competitors deal with you."
and the translation of that into understandable language..
"Note the terminology used here driven out of business. MS believes that putting other companies out of business is not merely collateral damage -- a byproduct of selling better stuff -- but rather, a direct business goal. To put this in perspective, economic theory and the typical honest, customer-oriented businessperson will think of business as a stock-car race -- the fastest car with the most skillful driver wins. Microsoft views business as a demolition derby -- you knock out as many competitors as possible, and try to maneuver things so that your competitors wipe each other out and thereby eliminate themselves. In a stock car race there are many finishers and thus many drivers get a paycheck. In a demolition derby there is just one survivor. Can you see why Microsoft and freedom of choice are absolutely in two different universes?"
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?