EU Gives Microsoft 8 Days Until Fines

kaysan writes "European Commissioner Neelie Kroes has presented Microsoft with an ultimatum: Before Thursday next week, Microsoft must hand over all secret information on Windows protocols to its competition. Should the company choose to ignore this demand, it will be severely fined. Microsoft's history with EU fines so far amounts to approximately Euro777.5 million. Both linked websites are Dutch, but then again, so is EU commissioner Neelie Kroes."

Comments

I don't get it, who does this help?

[dada21]

While I know that what I say might come off as a troll or a Microsoft-fanboy (I am neither), I really don't understand the State in this situation at all.

First of all, the State creates laws which give some companies preferential treatment over ideas or the way a person can use their hands and mind to create something. We call these useless laws "copyright," "patent" or "trademark." The State is the only way to enforce these laws which govern how you think and use your body, it is impossible to cover these restrictions without force or the threat of force.

So companies go out of their way to try to protect their easily-distributed-and-duplicated resources. In a free market, if a widget was hard to make and reproduce, but everyone wanted one, it would be very expensive. If someone else discovered a way to mass produce widgets to outstrip demand, the price would plummet down to near $0. This is why software and music and content has a very small value compared to future work -- once the product is produced, it falls to worthless except for the law.

These companies that create content also know that even with the law, it makes sense to try to keep competitors from discovering how their products work. If I invent a new engine, I'd want to obfuscate the operation enought to keep my competitors from duplicating it, at least until I've made it more efficient. This is how manufacturing works -- you want to be the most efficient, but you also want to fight off competition who wants to be more efficient than you. This is why the market is great -- people work hard to make more efficient products.

Now, we have various competitors that are locked out of a market because the State decided to give preferential treatment to certain companies (in this case, Microsoft). Copyright, patents, trademarks can all be used to keep other people out of a given market long enough for a company to grow to a size that makes it hard to defeat. This is not what happens in a relatively free market (I'll say most deregulated). If Microsoft didn't have the backing of idiotic laws like the DCMA (in the US), overextended copyright, overencompassing patents, and overbearing trademark laws, other companies would have had access to compete many, many years ago. Microsoft itself was able to get into the information market from the start by developing products and acquiring products before the laws became unbearable in terms of the barrier to entry.

Microsoft is not a monopoly, it is just able to use the preferential treatment of the law better than their competitors. If you voted for the State, you are part of the reason that Microsoft has grown. Sure, some will say that they violated anti-trust laws, but those laws have enough loopholes to let any big company get around them.

Let's look at reality here. The State wants these fines to pad their own accounts -- they same laws will exist, and the same problem will repeat itself. This is basically a legal form of asking for bribes, and Microsoft will be happy to comply. Any changes Microsoft makes will only be enough to make the State happy, and the next run against them will be strictly for income for those making new laws. That income helps provide for more loopholes and better preferential treatment for the companies that can afford it. Microsoft is being forced to hand over "secrets" but those are past secrets -- not future ones, right? They'll just make new secrets, or obfuscate the old ones in new ways so that anything they share isn't useful in the long run (everything changes every 18months right?).

The problem isn't in the bribe money, the problem is that you all are voting for the State to be more and more powerful, which means that it can do more and more damage to your freedoms.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[tomstdenis]

If it's easily distributed than it's not of value.

Scary thought ... isn't it?

The value isn't the bits, it's the process.

In the ideal world, people would invest in a software product, then the product would be free to download and use. The release would be dependent on achieving some level of investment. Then each revision follows it, e.g. Product version 2 will wait until another $X dollars are invested.

That's the REAL way to do it. Not by selling copies of bits that are of NO VALUE.

As for the anti-trust issue, it's because MSFT is doing things that are AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF THE CUSTOMERS all in a guise to raise their vendor lockin (through no valid technical need) to raise profits. Prosecuting anti-trust violators is about giving the customers freedom of choice, so they can decide how to invest their money. e,g, sure I'll run Windows, but I'd rather use Lotus, not Excel, etc, etc....

Tom

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[uwnav]

haha, I was gonna say dada, you did it again. holy geez. anyway, you're a good read, so I'll go ahead and not complain

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[chill]

Microsoft is not a monopoly...

They are in the United States. They were legally convicted of being such in a court of law.

All else stems from that -- the rules are different for a monopoly.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Rogerborg]

> Microsoft is not a monopoly

Oh, beg to differ. Microsoft is a convicted monopoly abuser. And down comes your pretty house of cards.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[gid13]

I am not necessarily agreeing with you, but you answered your own question: According to your post, this helps the State (they get more power and income), and to some extent MS (they can continue to pay the bribe for preferential treatment). Yes?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[dada21]

As for the anti-trust issue, it's because MSFT is doing things that are AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF THE CUSTOMERS all in a guise to raise their vendor lockin (through no valid technical need) to raise profits. Prosecuting anti-trust violators is about giving the customers freedom of choice, so they can decide how to invest their money. e,g, sure I'll run Windows, but I'd rather use Lotus, not Excel, etc, etc....

How so? The customers have about 20 different developers for spreadsheets, word processors, databases, browsers, etc. All my customers use Microsoft because the software is easy to use and is stable enough for their purposes. In fact, we haven't had one service call for thousands of desktops for a Microsoft add-on application in about 2 years, other than installation. We have repeated calls for OpenOffice mostly because of memory problems and a reboot is enough to cure it.

The basis of the anti-trust lawsuits or threats is unfounded. Did Microsoft promote vendor-lockin? I can say surely they did. So what? I can't think of any company that doesn't offer discounts for promoting that company's product over others -- everyone does it, and it is usually better for the customer in terms of price. You don't have to buy from vendors that are "locked in." Jiffy Lube gets a discount for promoting one oil over another, but there are many oil change places that provide many products. You can also do it yourself, as you can with Linux and other OSes.

My business has a vendor lockin process, too. For companies that buy our PCs and use our network infrastructure, we offer a huge deal on long term contracts (almost 70% off our hourly rate). Is that lockin? Sure, but the customers love it because everything is covered. Everything works out of the box, too, including very proprietary systems that tend to be difficult to install and maintain.

I don't see how this is anti-trust if you remove the State from the picture. The various governments created laws that allowed for this to happen -- it wouldn't happen in a significantly less regulated market because in such a market, various preferential treatment or paternalistic laws wouldn't exist, and companies that use those laws to their advantage would have to compete rather than distort the market.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[UbuntuDupe]

First of all, the State creates laws which give some companies preferential treatment over ideas or the way a person can use their hands and mind to create something. We call these useless laws "copyright," "patent" or "trademark." The State is the only way to enforce these laws which govern how you think and use your body, it is impossible to cover these restrictions without force or the threat of force.

Okay, but you could say the same thing about physical property rights that you just said about "copyright," "patent" or "trademark." (Usefulness is a matter of opinion.)

You believe that physical property rights are different in that "people naturally respect them anyway". But I'd say there's the same general respect for the principle of "don't copy without permission".

Don't get me wrong -- you and I agree about physical property. I'm just saying that your attempt, quoted above, to differentiate between physical and intellectual property fails to do so.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Silver Sloth]

So if Ford created a car that would only use Ford tyres, only burn Ford petrol, etc. you would be OK with that? This parallel is not trivial. Over her in the UK there was an attempt by motor manufacturers to claim that new car warranties were only valid if the cars were serviced by authorised (read overpriced) dealers. The EU stopped that in exactly the same way as they are attempting to stop Microsoft from trying to prevent, for example, Open Office from reading MS Office documents.

So, who does it help? Me, the EU citizen. I may not be the greatest EU fan but they've got this one right.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[darkchubs]

Excellent points.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[dada21]

Okay, but you could say the same thing about physical property rights that you just said about "copyright," "patent" or "trademark." (Usefulness is a matter of opinion.)

You are right about that in some ways, but the way I see it, there are vast differences between physical property and intellectual property -- in fact, I'd say they're not even on the same level.

My belief in physical property rights comes from the thought of being able to better that property and maintain it. I find land that is unused, I develop it in some way (farm, natural resource, home, office, whatever) and I maintain it. That is my land from a physical property stance. I have my body, I have my tools, and I have my land. If I use my mind to channel those 3 physical properties to make something that duplicates what you've done, the new physical product is something I can sell. Also, if I have techniques to make your physical property better, you can hire me to maintain it.

But intellectual property means mind control, plain and simple. If I have a certain way to mow a lawn, or a certain way to design a toilet, or a certain way to put musical notes together in a certain order, all those are covered by thinking and action. If you can't mimic my actions more efficiently than I can, you can hire me to do it for you (mow your lawn, create your toilet, produce music). If you CAN mimic my actions more efficiently than I can, why should you hire me? Just do it yourself -- unless the State says you're not able to think or act that way because I have a right to those thoughts or actions, dig?

If I create a series of musical notes and put it on a disc, you can buy that disc if it is more efficient than you making those notes yourself, or discovering another copy of my disc and using your mind, hands and tools to duplicate the disc. The cost is the labor, not the initial creation. The guy who mows the lawn had to learn how to mow the lawn, but you don't license that lawn mowning -- you pay me for future labor or current labor, not past labor. Mowing a law, installing a toilet, and writing music or software are the same actions in terms of labor. No one cares what you know or what you did in the past as long as you can do something more efficiently than they can TODAY.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[tomstdenis]

Why must the file formats be secret?

Why must the tools avoid standards in their respective fields? (typesetting, ISO C99, proper W3C XHTML...)

Why must the tools only work in Windows?

etc, etc, etc....

The problem with Microsoft is that it creates these tools which only serve to further insider goals (e.g. Visual Studio only exists to sell Windows) then pumps it with shady deals and the like. Why must I get Windows with my Dell Laptop? Why can't I get a discount to go with a blank HD? (note: I think Dell is a lousy anti-trust violator too)

In a truly free market, you'd see Visual Studio (which is an awesome kit) that runs under Linux/BSD and can be bound to other compilers (e.g. Intel CC, GCC, etc). In a truly free market, you'd see Office work in Linux/BSD and use well documented file formats so people could create 3rd party tools for working with the data... In a truly free market, Windows would strive for UNIX/POSIX compliance underneath so that programs written for it (under the GUI level) would be more portable, ...

In short, Microsoft writes software that looks shiny, attracts users (usually by first taking away choice, then motivation), then locks them in with tools that are not interchangeable or portable.

I'm sure if the PC revolution occurred WITHOUT Windows being forcefully bundled with EVERY SINGLE PC we'd see a different history here.

And for those who say people can buy their own parts and build a PC, imagine if every car was bundled with an engine that only ran with Shell fuel. Sure you could build your own car, but is that really realistic?

Tom

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[dada21]

So if Ford created a car that would only use Ford tyres, only burn Ford petrol, etc. you would be OK with that? This parallel is not trivial. Over her in the UK there was an attempt by motor manufacturers to claim that new car warranties were only valid if the cars were serviced by authorised (read overpriced) dealers. The EU stopped that in exactly the same way as they are attempting to stop Microsoft from trying to prevent, for example, Open Office from reading MS Office documents.

This example is problematic, because Ford and other automakers get significant support from the State (in terms of tariffs, embargos, subsidies, and anti-competition laws for their industries). If the auto industry was less regulated (significantly), it would be open to more competition. Heck, the auto industry has a huge regulation in the States through vehicle safety requirements. When lamps are made, they're tested by independent bodies who make sure they don't catch fire. When cars are made, you need the State's (expensive) stamp of approval to sell the vehicles. This keeps small competitors completely out of the market.

If someone wants to make a fully proprietary product, they should be able to, and customers should decide if the product has value for them. Once the State gets involved in that market, it distorts the competitive atmosphere -- such as what happened with auto makers.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Trelane]

So if Ford created a car that would only use Ford tyres, only burn Ford petrol, etc. you would be OK with that?

I would be fine with it. The problem comes when they do that and are super-dominant (aka "are a monopoly").

In the presence of real competition, there are many other cars that run just fine and do the exact same thing or (more likely, since it'd decrease overall costs for everybody concerned and only takes one producer to do it to get the ball rolling), the competitors would be more interoperable, and so Ford would be committing corporate suicide. Heck, there'd be a whole add-on market to convert Fords to Chevys and back and forth (provided they each tied you to their own platform), since there would be a large market for each car and hence a large demand for interoperability.

But when a single player is super-dominant, they are practically immune to market pressures. If they make their car uninteroperable, the add-on market would be tiny, since there would be little demand from the drivers to switch car vendors. Sure, there'd be some, but not very much at all, and they'd be struggling to make a living. The other cars could interoperate as much as possible, but nobody would switch to them, because they'd be more expensive (economies of scale), and not able to interoperate 100% with the superdominant competitor (e.g. Excel macros in OpenOffice). Sure, they could maybe get up to 99% compatibility, but reverse-engineering the proprietary interfaces would require a huge effort, while (again due to their small market size) they're still strugging to survive. And since they're superdominant, almost all gas stations, roads, and service stations would only work with the superdominant competitor (the "ecosystem" built around the superdominant competitor), further excluding cars which don't comply with their proprietary interface 100%.

The real kicker, though, is this: to the driver, who Just Wants to Go Somewhere, is familiar only with Fords, and has learned all of the quirks of his/her current Ford, will find any competitor annoying due to its differences and (however minor!) incompatibilities, and will blame the competitor for the market situation!

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[UbuntuDupe]

Pardon me, but I don't think you answered my question. All you did was explain the implications of your position on property rights, when I was looking for the justification for your distinction between physical and intellectual property. The closest you came was in alleging that IP is mind control, which appeared to be more of a scare tactic than an actual distinction.

I discuss this distinction frequently on the mises blog where I post as "Person". Here is the most recent thread.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Kenja]

"In a truly free market, you'd see Visual Studio (which is an awesome kit) that runs under Linux/BSD and can be bound to other compilers (e.g. Intel CC, GCC, etc). In a truly free market, you'd see Office work in Linux/BSD and use well documented file formats so people could create 3rd party tools for working with the data... In a truly free market, Windows would strive for UNIX/POSIX compliance underneath so that programs written for it (under the GUI level) would be more portable, ..."

No you wouldn't. You'd see software written for the platform that had the best chance of a high return on investment.

You'd see people wanting to protect their work so that outsiders couldn't take it and undersell them by not needing to recover devlopment costs.

What you're talking about is the oposite of a free market, where people are forced to support everyone and everything despite what the market demands.

Microsoft is a buisness, it exists to make money. If there was a market demand for Microsoft products on Linux/BSD they would exist.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[tshak]

I really don't understand the State in this situation at all

It's called extortion.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[homer_s]

And as we all know, once the state says something, that is the truth. There cannot be another opinion about it.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[ajs318]

Notice that little star alongside the username?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Hijacked Public]

A company can't be 'convicted of being' a monopoly in a US court because there are no laws that make being a monopoly illegal.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[tshak]

In a truly free market, you'd see Visual Studio...run on Linux...

No, in a truly free market MS is free to do their own market research and determine what platforms to support. In an idealists market a company would be forced to create products or alter products in ways which do not benefit the company.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[ThosLives]

If it's easily distributed than it's not of value.

I think what you mean is "If it's easily copied than(sic) it's not of value."

Distribution doesn't have anything to do with it, except that changes how much the distributor is willing to charge you for bringing said thing from wherever something was made to wherever you are; that 'value' is in terms of how much you're willing to give up to go fetch said thing for yourself. For things like recorded information, distribution and copying costs are almost zero - because they are the same physical phenomenon. Material goods, however, cannot be duplicated by transfer; this fact is often overlooked.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Dunbal]

Why must the tools avoid standards in their respective fields?

      Because if you're big enough, and you change the rules of the game often enough by ignoring standards and "innovating", then you force people along the golden, never-ending upgrade path that lines your pockets forever.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have to be, but it is the State that creates these secrets, not the company. Without ridiculous laws against reverse-engineering, and ridiculous patent laws, anyone would be able to dissassemble any file format and then write software to use that format. Your State prevents you from doing this and entering the market, hence prices go up and service goes down, dig?

That is NOT true in this context. I quote http://scientific.thomson.com/free/ipmatters/sbm/8 180036/ (yes it's a bit dated, but it shows the EU Comission's standpoint on reverse engineering, and i couldn't find a better source now in a hurry):

Further, the Commission was anxious not to extend its patent proposals into the field of copyright, which protects computer programs as 'literary works'. The Commission states that it wants to preserve and ensure the continuation of the copyright provisions whereby software developers are free to reverse engineer another's program without infringing copyright.

So somehow your libertarian logic is not entirely correct in this case; For some reason I fail to see software written using e.g. the Skype-protocol...

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[gravesb]

Legally, under the doctrine of claim preclusion, it is the truth, and there cannot be other opinions of it. If it comes up in court again, it is assumed that for the time period covered by the trial, MS was an abusive monopoly, and that can never be challenged.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Hijacked Public]

If I can improve your property even more than you can, should I be able to take it from you? Or maybe more accurately, should the State be able to take it from you and give it to me, since it was the State that gave it to you in the first place?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[PHPee]

I agree, dada21's posts are well-written and usually informative or insightful, making for good reading. He explained how he manages to get his lengthy first posts just the other day.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[PhysicsPhil]

And as we all know, once the state says something, that is the truth. There cannot be another opinion about it.

In the U.S., the state said that Microsoft was an abusive monopoly, and eight federal court judges (one trial, seven appeal) agreed. That's good enough for me.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Shawn is an Asshole]

Why must the file formats be secret?

Vendor lockin.

However, Microsoft seems to be getting better about this. The new formats for MS Office 2007 are fairly open and very similar to OpenDocument. The file formats have been submitted to ECMA. Microsoft is funding an open source OpenDocument plugin for Word 2007. The open source project also includes a converter to going back and forth between OpenDocument and Office Open XML. Part of the Microsoft/Novell deal includes adding Office Open XML support to OpenOffice.

The converter and plugin require .NET 2. Hopefully it will be possible to run it under Mono eventually.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[jedidiah]

You have just stumbled upon the very real notion of adverse posession.

So the answer to your question is YES.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[dada21]

That's an excellent question and I'll be honest -- I'm not sure.

I do agree that there seems to be need for a State just in deciding what is considered "enough maintenance," especially in high-demand property. I can see this existing solely at the local level, though, and not at the federal or state level. I'm self-debating your question now (and have been for months) to come up with a free market answer. Thanks for reminding me :)

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[ThosLives]

I'll give answering your question a whirl:

'Physical' property rights govern economically scarce items. 'Intellectual' goods are not economically scarce. I made a long post a while ago about how what is scarce in the 'intellectual' field is those posessing the intellect - not the fruits of their intellect. The reason for this: what is the opportunity cost to the producer of an idea of more people having access to that idea? There is no direct, immediate reduction of the ability of an idea producer to produce more ideas if someone else knows a fact (granted, there are secondary and other side-effects, like who gets resources to continue developing ideas, but that doesn't have any bearing on the 'protectability' of any given idea).

I think the GP is quite insightful when he talks about a specific 'more efficient' means of, say, mowing a lawn. Reductio ad absurdum is actually a quite useful tool in this case, I think.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Ogrez]

And where is it you purchase your Microsoft electricity from? Where do you get your Microsoft computer cases from? I guess i could just say your analogy sucks... a better and more appropriate analogy would be ... What if Ford created a car and you had to use a Ford starter in it, or if you had to use Ford door pannels. Oh.. wait... you do. Yes there are aftermarket parts not made by ford, but those parts were made by a 3rd party who reverse engineered them. Parent post is correct, its laws that our lawmakers make like the DMCA that makes it illegal to reverse engineer most software. In the words of my hip and cool friends... dont hate the player, hate the game.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[eno2001]

This is why the market is great -- people work hard to make more efficient products.

This is also why the market tends to fail miserably once certain people (Company X) have a lot more money than anyone else. Instead of working hard to make their product more efficient. They work HARDER to make the perception of their competition's product appear less efficient by playing with numbers and spin. If you've got money and really great PR, you can make people buy shit instead of shinola.... Which means that the capitalist marekt falls victim to the same exact flaw that communism did: Some pigs are more equal than others. In this case it's the pigs with the cash instead of the pigs with political power.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

And as we all know, once the state says something, that is the truth. There cannot be another opinion about it.

This is a strawman.You made this argument, not the previous poster. The fact that the US and the EU and several other countries all ruled that MS is a monopoly does speak to the fact that experts hold this opinion. More importantly, however, is they do wield enough influence in the market, to disrupt free market action as demonstrated repeatedly. Thus the reason for antitrust laws (regardless of whether you want to call them a monopoly of something else) applies directly to them.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Foofoobar]

Speaking as someone who works in a mixed environment, everytime SAMBA makes any progress, Microsoft makes major changes which effectively locks peope out all over again. Being able to get your MAC machines and LINUX machines to be able to fluidly talk to your Windows machines would be a nice thing. As is, Linux and Mac make it very easy for other machines to talk to them but Microsoft deliberately hides, and obfuscates its technology making it difficult to interface with if you are not also running a windows machine.

Aside from that, Microsoft has gotten in trouble in the past for using SHADOW API's. They tell competing vendors one way to interface with the machine and then use a better way themselves so all Microsoft's products run super fast and vendors products run slower and not as well.

These are all things that the EU is talking about and has been talking about. Getting our machines to play well together shouldn't be something that should have to be enforced. As engineers, it should be the obvious choice. So when you say you dont get it, maybe you don't understand why machines should talk to each other or share data with each other or work together. However working in a mixed environment, I'd rather not have to force our designers off MAC and our servers off LINUX merely because Microsoft can't play well with the other kids on the playground.

It's sad to think that a multi-billion dollar company like Microsoft still needs to be babysat.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't that the goal of every company (and truly nearly every individual) if you could achieve it? You wouldn't create something so that someone else can copy it and drive you into the ground after you put your heart and soul into it, would you? I am not saying Microsoft did, but their ultimate goal is the same as everyone else's. So why do they get beat up over it so much?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Si]

Well, yes, since the term 'monopoly' is a legal definition, those who define it get to decide who meet its criteria. So yes, I would have to say while you are free to hold your own opinion on what constitutes a monopoly, the state does in fact, in this instance have a somewhat more valid one.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[bertramwooster]

Microsoft is not a monopoly, it is just able to use the preferential treatment of the law better than their competitors. If you voted for the State, you are part of the reason that Microsoft has grown. Sure, some will say that they violated anti-trust laws, but those laws have enough loopholes to let any big company get around them.

Even its supporters do not dispute that Microsoft is a monopoly. Moreover, Microsoft has been convicted of abusing its monopoly, which means that it has gone over and beyond using "preferential treatment of the law". Surely breaking the law is not the same as taking advantage of it.

What is the state then to do? Fining Microsoft is an option which it has pursued. The poster contends that the step is useless because Microsoft will make the minimal number of changes to comply and that is useless. But he doesn't suggest an alternative form of punishment. In the same post he states that Microsoft is not guilty of breaking the law and that the punishment is useless and serves no purpose.

I really wonder how it got modded "Insightful". Is it because the poster also says that DMCA and copyright laws are idiotic and also proclaims that he is not a Microsoft fanboy or a troll?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[abigor]

"Without ridiculous laws against reverse-engineering, and ridiculous patent laws, anyone would be able to dissassemble any file format and then write software to use that format. Your State prevents you from doing this and entering the market, hence prices go up and service goes down, dig?"

Reverse engineering of file formats is legal. It is a very difficult process, particularly for highly complex binary file formats like Word and so forth. The reason why .doc compatibility sucks has nothing to do with "the State". Please stop trying to wedge everything into your paranoid political mold.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Weird_one]

2. Monopolizing trade a felony; penalty

Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.

I beg to differ

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[dada21]

As is, Linux and Mac make it very easy for other machines to talk to them but Microsoft deliberately hides, and obfuscates its technology making it difficult to interface with if you are not also running a windows machine.

Network protocols are easy to monitor and reverse engineer with the right equipment. Why can't people reverse engineer the interfaces and duplicate them in their own software? Oh yeah, the State says it is illegal.

Aside from that, Microsoft has gotten in trouble in the past for using SHADOW API's. They tell competing vendors one way to interface with the machine and then use a better way themselves so all Microsoft's products run super fast and vendors products run slower and not as well.

Software hacker/cracker teams can reverse engineer any API including hardware key ones. Why don't competitive companies reverse engineer Microsoft apps to discover these shadow APIs? Oh yeah, the State says it is illegal.

It's sad to think that a multi-billion dollar company like Microsoft still needs to be babysat.

It doesn't. The multi-billion dollar company became that way because the State protected their growth through passing laws that prevented competition from beating Microsoft down from the start. You, the voter, are at fault.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Marillion]

a few points:

Microsoft was convicted of being a monopoly

You keep saying "the State." There are more than one. The actions of the EU are not at all similar to the actions of the US.

Also, I don't subscribe to the idea that governments see fines as revenue. There may be odd small town that pays for it's police vehicles from speeding tickets, but I feel this is the exception rather than the norm. Fines are economic sanctions designed to coercively change inappropriate behaviour.

As far as inconsistent government behaviour goes, remember that governments usually strive to find balance between conflicting forces. A purely free market would be dreadful. Governments that prop-up one economic aspect have a duty to make sure it doesn't tip too far the other way. The obvious and topical discussion, if a government grants a limited monopoly via patents, copyrights and trade secrets, that government must and should be alert to growing abuses of patents, copyrights and trade secrets.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[UbuntuDupe]

Hate to burst your bubble, but I've heard that argument about six thousand times at this point. I already knew the premise, I was just getting him to reveal it. If you go to the link I gave, and the other thread my post references, you'll see my response to this. I'll summarize it here.

The economic good of "being able to use this new lawnmowing method" is indeed non-scarce. But what about the economic good of "being able to determine who may use this new lawnmowing method"? If I may decide who uses the method, you may not. There, scarcity exists. Now, before you jump at me, I agree there are reasons to reject such a claim -- but lack of scarcity isn't one of them. In fact, this is precisely the same kind of scarcity arising across physical goods. For example, what if I said, "I have the right to sleep in your cornfield at night, because you're not using it right now and it doesn't impede your intended use (growing corn) and therefore is not scarce in the sense I want to make use of it" ? You probably wouldn't be too impressed. Or what if I took a small enough amount that you never noticed my presence?

I consider the attempt to dismiss IP claims on grounds of scarcity to in fact be a category error. At its root, it's essentially trying to say, "you can't complain about my copying because it doesn't affect you, nya nya nya" But if they're complaining, it *must* be affecting them!

And to fend off another potential attack, I actually don't have a position on IP. I consider EITHER side to be riddled with severe problems. I focus on indentifying which arguments are in error.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[eno2001]

They don't have to be, but it is the State that creates these secrets, not the company.
Total BS. The state creates laws like the prohibition of reverse engineering because the state serves business far more than it does the people. And THAT'S because companies have been allowed to grow unchecked in terms of money and political clout. In an ideal situation, business should have NO political power at all. Governments should have no incentive to create laws in exchange for various favors from wealthy companies. And, realisticaly, there should be limits automatically imposed on the size and wealth of a company to prevent them from becoming more powerful than government. Either concentration of power in is a problem, but I'd still trust government to do the right thing before I'd EVER trust a private business. Currently the only reason for being in business is top make money. It's not to improve the quality of life for customers no matter what a company claims. They could start out that way with well intentioned people, but once they grow to a size where they are publicaly traded, the good of the customer is replaced by the good of the investor. The customers then become the product that the company is selling to the investors in the form of ever increasing profit. Even if there is a realistict limit to how profitable a company can be, the investors will always demand more or else they'll drop the investment. And THAT is the true problem. What it forces many business to do is find ways to make more money with no regard for how they operate in terms of ethics. Don't blame the government for the problem. It's a complex mix of interrelationships between business (the more powerful entity) and government (the more desperate entity) being driven in the end by the investors (the ignorant entity in terms of what's happening unethically behind the scenes to benefit them). Oh, and Ayn Rand was a knob.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[No Expert]

Why must I get Windows with my Dell Laptop? Why can't I get a discount to go with a blank HD? (note: I think Dell is a lousy anti-trust violator too)

In Britain, at least, you can

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[dada21]

This is also why the market tends to fail miserably once certain people (Company X) have a lot more money than anyone else. Instead of working hard to make their product more efficient. They work HARDER to make the perception of their competition's product appear less efficient by playing with numbers and spin. If you've got money and really great PR, you can make people buy shit instead of shinola.... Which means that the capitalist marekt falls victim to the same exact flaw that communism did: Some pigs are more equal than others. In this case it's the pigs with the cash instead of the pigs with political power.

You're missing the point -- companies become big and powerful because they use laws that most of us can not afford to take advantage of (either in cost to prosecute violators, or cost to defend ourselves). As they become bigger, they make new laws that protect their growth, giving them the added advantage over others who want to enter that market. Then they become bigger and bigger, and make more and more laws.

The problem isn't the market, it is the State which has too much power.

Most neoliberals and neoconservatives want to restrict money to the State, but it isn't the money that creates the power, it is the power that attracts the money. I say let people give as much lobby and bribe money to the State as they want, just restrict the State to a tiny tiny sliver of power than can never be extended. Problem solved.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[richlv]

...or should the state be able to copy your property, thus not depriving you from it, but enriching the other person ?
i guess this is the biggest difference in the end.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[ajs318]

I don't think the distinction should be drawn between physical and intellectual property. The distinction needs to be drawn between Scarce goods -- which are diminished by the act of sharing -- and Plentiful goods, which are not diminished by the act of sharing. For example, a pie is an example of Scarce goods. If I bake a pie, and give you half of it, I only have half a pie. The view of the London skyline is Plentiful -- it doesn't get any less beautiful the more people are looking at it. If you light an unlit candle from my lit candle, my room does not get any darker.

Before IR1, we lived in an age of Scarcity, because the cost of labour used in manufacturing anything outweighed the cost of the raw materials from which it was made. Mass production should have ushered in an age of Plenty, as the cost of labour was reduced to next to nothing (it's a lot less effort to apply a few drops of oil to a machine and maybe tighten up a few bolts every now and again, than to make the same goods by hand as that machine is used to make). Instead, sometime between then and now, some people got greedy and decided to create Artificial Scarcity. Goods are manufactured very cheaply, and designed to fail so we have to buy more of them. Sometimes manufacturers even produce more goods than they can sell, then destroy the surplus to inflate the selling price.

Cars can be made to fall apart after a few hundred megametres of driving, boilers can be made with heat exchangers that fail after a few years of heating, fridges can be made to slowly lose their refrigerants, and so on; but software can be made to run indefinitely, just by changing the computer. There is no way to provide built-in obsolescence in software because software is inherently Plentiful: once it has been written, it exists forever. So software vendors who want to sell more software have to resort to dirty tricks: change the saved file formats with every new release, so anybody still using the old version won't be able to read files saved by anybody using the latest version, and will have to buy the latest version for themself. But this relies on keeping the operation of the software secret, which is nothing but anti-competitive behaviour. And EU law specifically requires a competitive marketplace, on the basis that competition benefits consumers.

Actually, the "competitor" giving Microsoft the most trouble isn't the Open Source community, or any closed-source software company; but Microsoft themselves. There are plenty of old, yet still perfectly-usable copies of Microsoft software in existence -- and EU law means Microsoft cannot legally force anybody not to use old software by tying it, through a licence agreement, to specific hardware.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Dunbal]

But isn't that the goal of every company (and truly nearly every individual) if you could achieve it?

      Yes it is. Economics tells us that human desire is unlimited. No matter how much you have today, tomorrow you will want more. This is not necessarily good for the human, though. It generates waste, at the expense of others.

      If you force people to endlessly cycle through the latest iteration of your deficient products, instead of making a solid product - and at the same time find yourself in a position to immediately buy or crush any real competitor, then you force people to waste their resources to fund your corporation's growth. These resources could have been used for something else. It's the broken window paradox all over again.

      Yes the author of an innovative work/machine/process or whatever should be rewarded. But a monopoly tips the scale the other way. Bill Gates has been rewarded enough - his great great grandchildren will still be very rich people. But there's no reason to keep funding the corporate nightmare that is Microsoft especially when they're not really coming up with anything NEW anymore. Whoopee, DRM. Unbelievable - trusted computing and virtual machines - now someone can pwn your computer and you'll never be able to tell. Great, new colours and shiny windows. Fantastic, an iPod copy does exactly the opposite to what we said it would do. Oh and Flight Simulator X, where we actually managed to make the program run slower on better hardware, without adding all that much new stuff. Oh but you can just buy a couple more cores, right?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[rcw-work]

Over her in the UK there was an attempt by motor manufacturers to claim that new car warranties were only valid if the cars were serviced by authorised (read overpriced) dealers.

They tried that in the US too. The result was the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. 15 USC 2302 (c) puts the onus on the manufacturer to prove that a problem was caused by a third party.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[lawpoop]

"Network protocols are easy to monitor and reverse engineer with the right equipment. Why can't people reverse engineer the interfaces and duplicate them in their own software? Oh yeah, the State says it is illegal."

This is false. It is legal to reverse engineer software and network protocols. It is also legal to duplicate them in your own software. This is what the samba project, the wine project, amongst many others, are based on.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[jZnat]

Judging by how USC is typically interpreted, something tells me that you need to read the rest of Title 15 (at least chapter 1) to find any exceptions to the rule that Microsoft might be using.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Shawn is an Asshole]

Network protocols are easy to monitor and reverse engineer with the right equipment.

It takes time and skill to be able to do it properly. There are many variables involved.

Why can't people reverse engineer the interfaces and duplicate them in their own software? Oh yeah, the State says it is illegal.

It's not illegal to reverse engineer a protocol or file format. If it was, how would the Samba developers be able to continue? How would the OpenOffice developers be able to continue? How would the Wine/Codeweavers/Cedega developers be able to continue?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[dada21]

I'm not a lawyer, but can you explain the following:

1. Successful lawsuit against bnetd for reverse engineering Battle.Net?
2. DVDCCA successful lawsuit against DeCSS.
3. Sega successful lawsuit against Accolade for reverse engineering software interface.

These are off the top of my head, but I am sure there are others I could list with time. How can you backup your opinion?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[lawpoop]

"You believe that physical property rights are different in that "people naturally respect them anyway". But I'd say there's the same general respect for the principle of "don't copy without permission"."

I disagree. People generally have respect for personal property -- you can't take something that doesn't belong to you. You wouldn't want somebody taking something that belonged to you.

However, digital copies, in the popular mind, work pretty much like knowledge, information, or word of mouth. You are pretty much allowed to repeat anything you hear from anybody to anyone you want to, at any time. People are chatty; we live in information rich cultures, where we are always talking, sharing, updating people, telling stories, gossiping, teaching, giving opinions, complaining, etc.

Contrary to the physical nature of personal property and ownership, sharing information benefits you. When you share information you don't lose it, and it costs very little to talk. Participating in an information-sharing culture gets you access to much more information than you could ever obtain on your own, for very little cost.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[evil_Tak]

Reverse engineering of file formats is legal.

Apparently you haven't heard of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[UbuntuDupe]

Then you'd have a tough time explaining why all IP hasn't already been abolished.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why must the file formats be secret?

Non documented != secret

Why must the tools avoid standards in their respective fields?

Yeah, and everybody else always adheres to every single standard? They've built their own OS, and are solving problems their way. Don't like it? No one's forcing you to buy or use it. IE having a shitty rendering engine is because their code sucks (the one they bought) and they haven't put enough work in to make it work right. It's a sucky browser, that's all there is to it. Basically what you want is for Windows to do everything the Linux way, but not being Linux, it's not gonna happen.

Why must the tools only work in Windows?

They're selling an OS. So they make their stuff work for it, not their competitors - just like Apple doesn't port most of their apps to Windows (itunes and quicktime being the exceptions, like IE and office for Mac), as it would make no sense.

Claiming Visual Studio should run on Linux is stupidity. It's made using Windows-only (win32) specific stuff, and it's meant as a dev tool for their own platform. And since it's also a compiler suite for several languages, there's no reason to go out of their way make it work with competing compilers.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[eno2001]

You're looking at it too simply. The power on the part of the state and the money on the part of business makes each one attractive to the other. But either side, depending on which one has more power or more money respectively, is going to be the one running the show. The key is to make sure that businesses never make too much money and governments never have more power than they need to control business and the population. If governments had very little power over business, then business would run roughshod over every consumer. In other words, who protects us from the will of the corporations? You KNOW that businesses when they are driven by profit are never going to take into account every negative impact they have on others. It's just not profitable. And in the end I think that the corporations would wind up owning the public anyway. So really it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. The main difference being that businesses NEVER do anything positive for the public. Governments have been known to. Take a look at public libraries for one thing. If a business were to make a contribution to a public library it would come with strings attached. Ideally strings that benefit the business. If a government allots money from taxes to a library, it's coming from the people and going back to the people. Sure it may not get allotted perfectly, but at least there are few if any strings attached. That is why I side with the government before I side with business.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I guess i could just say your analogy sucks... a better and more appropriate analogy would be ... What if Ford created a car and you had to use a Ford starter in it, or if you had to use Ford door pannels.

I agree his analogy sucks and so does yours. You both miss the same thing everyone misses when they make analogies in these monopolist threads. They always make an analogy, except they don't include a monopoly in said analogy. Neither you nor the parent included one. The reason for this is simple, monopolies are rare in the US.

So lets try this again, what if Ford was the only supplier of cars in the US and if you wanted a car you pretty much had to buy a Ford. Now, ford decides it wants to move into the fuel market. So they switch all Ford cars to use only Ford fuel.

Parent post is correct, its laws that our lawmakers make like the DMCA that makes it illegal to reverse engineer most software.

The parent poster does have a point, but it is really stretched. For example, the Samba team has done a fine job of reverse engineering and have not been stopped by the DMCA. Their main hurdle is not having access to the documentation for weird edge cases. You can argue our copyright laws are broken, and I'd agree. You can argue that the government should revoke MS's copyrights and I'd disagree. Copyright needs to be applied equally across the market. Making a special case is a bad idea, especially when laws on the books already deal with the general situation of monopoly abuse.

Enforce the antitrust laws against MS, just as they were enforced against other abusive monopolies. Copyright reform is a separate issue.

In the words of my hip and cool friends... dont hate the player, hate the game.

But that's just the point. The laws are not being applied to MS the same as they are to everyone else because MS has not been punished for their illegal actions. Even the EU fines are tiny compared to the abuse. The only real solution has to come from the US for political reasons and it should be to break up MS the same way the telephone monopoly was broken up. Give at least two companies complete rights to all MS's existing copyrights and trademarks. Forbid them from collusion. Competition will be restored in short order and everyone will benefit.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[jazman_777]

Grammar Inquisition!

...to fluidly talk ...

Split infinitive.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[LinuxIsRetarded]

In a truly free market, you'd see Office work in Linux/BSD and use well documented file formats so people could create 3rd party tools for working with the data...

By your same argument, you'd see GM parts work in Hondas. So why don't they? And why aren't hefty fines levied against GM for not producing parts to meet all possible auto specifications?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[morgan_greywolf]

I'm sure if the PC revolution occurred WITHOUT Windows being forcefully bundled with EVERY SINGLE PC we'd see a different history here.

Yeah, we'd be about a decade behind where we are, because each manufacturer would have to either create their own OS and applications, or they'd have to spend 10x as long developing compatibility with dozens of OSes.

I doubt we'd about a decade behind. If DOS and Windows after it hadn't have been forcefully bundled, some other operating system would have become the 'defacto standard'. Probably CP/M or maybe Unix or some variant. Who knows?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Foofoobar]

You, the voter, are at fault.

If voting changed anything, it would be illegal. Though, if I had as much money as Microsoft to lobby congress and donate to presidential campaigns, I'm sure my vote would count for something.

It's easy to blame the voter in a corrupt system. But why not blame those who perpetrate the behaviour rather than the average voter who isn't an engineer and doesn't understand what is at stake.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[rs232]

"No you wouldn't .."

How do you explain commercial Open Source then?

If there was a market demand for Microsoft products on Linux/BSD they would exist

If Windows users could get Office on Linux then there wouldn't be a Microsoft as we know it, it would just be another software company. That's why you won't ever see msOffice for Linux.

was Re:I don't get it, who does this help? (Score:5, Mod troll)

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[dabraun]

If Microsoft didn't have the backing of idiotic laws like the DCMA (in the US), overextended copyright, overencompassing patents, and overbearing trademark laws, other companies would have had access to compete many, many years ago.

These are not the reasons that Microsoft has such a dominant position:

- The DMCA (not DCMA) came about well after Microsoft became the dominant player they are and it has been used mainly as a protection for Music and Video materials. Microsoft employs technical hurdles and legal means to prevent 'piracy' but this is nothing new since the DMCA came into being.

- Copyright: Little or none of Microsoft's IP has aged beyond the original terms of copyright. The little that has is obsolete and it would harm Microsoft very little if it were to become public domain.

- Patents: Microsoft has used their patents only as a form of defense in virtually all cases. Even on Slashdot this is fairly well accepted as fact. There are patent-crazies out there and they have hindered Microsoft as well as many other companies ... but patent-craziness is not what brought Microsoft into its current position.

- Trademark: What, if other companies were able to use the word "Windows" on it's own to describe their product then they could better compete with Microsoft?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[1u3hr]

Let's look at reality here. The State wants these fines to pad their own accounts

Bullshit. If governments want money from anyone or any company, they don't drag need to manufacture a court case, they just write a law to tax something they do. Much simpler, little bad publicity, and the tax collectors are very efficient in getting their money. I'm sure MS has cost the EU millions already in legal manhours in investigating and arguing this case.

voting for the State to be more and more powerful, which means that it can do more and more damage to your freedoms.

Bullshit again. This is about Microsoft taking away consumer's freedom to use competing software by locking their data up in proprietary protocols.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Trelane]

dont[sic] hate the player, hate the game

If someone who's winning is lording it over me, running up the scoreboard in the final minutes, and otherwise behaving like an ass, and the game itself sucks, I can do both. They're not mutually exclusive.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Silverstrike]

I'm going to respond to a lot of things I see scattered throughout this thread, not just in the parent post. Let's start with "reverse engineering is illegal"

In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act exempts from the circumvention ban some acts of reverse engineering aimed at interoperability of file formats and protocols, but judges in key cases have ignored this law, since it is acceptable to circumvent restrictions for use, but not for access.[4] Aside from restrictions on circumvention, reverse engineering of software is protected in the U.S. by the fair use exception in copyright law. [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering/

No, it's not. Not in the US anyway, the DMCA actually leaves a loophole. That's that.

Now, can we please stop slinging around "State" like 1960's hippies saying "The Man"? It sounds idiotic. You need the state, whether you want to admit it or not. If you don't think you need the "State", go take a year long hiatus in a central African country. Once you see bands of militia marauding around, murdering and raping at will , with absolutely no resistance from anyone, come back and talk about how much we don't need the "State".

That is not FUD; that is very real. The human animal is a frightening creature, for it is capable of incredible acts of justification, especially when operating as part of a group. Almost any horrifying act can be justified, in the absence of rational discourse.

The State's entire existence is rooted solely in a simple premise: we give up freedom, in exchange for protection from each other, from nature, from everything. In this case, the "State" is protecting its people from a corporation's economic abuse. Fine, do away with government, maybe the market would shake out the monopolies somehow, but exactly what interest would a market entity have in keeping you alive, when the guy down the street decides its in his best interest to smash your skull in and take your TV? Certainly not your money, the guy down the street has it now, and can spend it just as easily as you could have. And certainly not your life, any two morons with 2 minutes of free time can produce more of that.

Alright, so we need the "State". Back to Microsoft, they are not propped up by any sort of governmental conspiracy that keeps them as the market leader. They hold that distinction by producing a good product.

Now, scoff all you want, mod me down to, but the Windows desktop, until maybe a few years ago, was the ONLY operating system viable for a "desktop" computer. Ubuntu Linux and OSX are relative newcomers to the party, and they are making good inroads so far, but lets not pretend that Microsoft is successful because they made an awful product that was only profitable because of government subsidies. Windows was (still is?) the be all end of Desktop operating systems for the average user, and Microsoft did earn that distinction.

However, and here's the rub, as the market leader, there MUST be some sort of check on their power. As we've seen, they are able to employ all sorts of nefarious means to keep their power. It's like any other monarchy, the power of the monarch must be checked, otherwise you end up with an autocratic despot only interested in increasing his own power, the people be damned.

They are not being fined to "pad" the EU's pockets. That is an absolutely absurd notion, since any business Microsoft does in their territory, is subject to tax. The EU gets their cut, fine or no fine.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[robinvanleeuwen]

"See my answer to your first question -- because the State made it that way, not Microsoft. They were only taking advantage of what you, the voter, wanted." And who should i vote for if i don't want this?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[j0sephlew1s]

I agree. I just hope that the EU goes after Nintendo and Sony next. I think it's so unfair that I'm forced to buy their game systems in order to play their games. I should be able to play them on my Mac! Sounds stupid, so does your argument! Why can't someone in the Linux community create an application similar to Visual Studio? Basically because they would starve. Your gas analogy is flawed. If you compared Windows to a type of fuel, let's say regular gas, then Linux would be diesal and OS X would be E85.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[absorbr]

What if a company got to be super dominant simply because it had a better product? Such as the Ford car that burned only Ford petrol but maybe it got 100 mpg? Or a Word application that could dictate your thoughts to text but stored them in a closed file format?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[1u3hr]

The customers have about 20 different developers for spreadsheets, word processors, databases, browsers, etc. All my customers use Microsoft because the software is easy to use and is stable...

Doesn't this smell just a little bit like Saddam Hussein's election results? 100.00% vote for him, therefore he was the democratic choice.

Everyone uses MS because everyone uses MS. Even if one of the 19 competitors, by some fluke, were to write better software, they can't get any traction because no one wants to be incompatible with MS files. I personally am forced to use MS Word to deal with files from my clients who have no idea that any other format is conceivable. 15 years ago there was a healthy competitive market: Lotus, WordPerfect, WordStar, etc. All provided feature rich applications. All had to be interoperable. MS leveraged their knowledge and control of Windows to hobble the competitors and made bundling deals to make choosing alternatives punitively expensive.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[dada21]

If voting changed anything, it would be illegal. Though, if I had as much money as Microsoft to lobby congress and donate to presidential campaigns, I'm sure my vote would count for something.

It's easy to blame the voter in a corrupt system. But why not blame those who perpetrate the behaviour rather than the average voter who isn't an engineer and doesn't understand what is at stake.

The voter votes in order to try to change something that the market hasn't had time to cover. Instead of giving the market a chance (which could sometimes take a few years but makes life more efficient for everyone in the end), the voter gives power to the State to force SOME sort of change -- usually creating a law that few can afford to take advantage of, but that stifles future market creations because it exists.

I love to read old laws that are still on the books -- and still enforceable if the wrong person goes against the State -- and I see how the market worked around those laws to provide for what the market wanted. It took a bit longer than the strike of a gavel, but it worked better than what the State created. Laws create a standard that never goes away, and if it does, it usually goes the way of those who were able to take advantage of the law first to create a monopoly based on the law's strict definition.

Voting is the worst thing you can do, except when you vote for none of the above and let your vote be counted as a person who is against ALL intrustions on rights.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[ThosLives]

An interesting concept, making the ability to decide who can and cannot use something scarce...I don't think that answers the question of what is scarce or not. In your example, what is scarce is permission, not the thing which the permission controls. That, I think, is the fundamental issue with curent IP law: it artificially adds a layer of scarcity to otherwise non-scarce resources.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Foofoobar]

Still blaming the voters for allowing Microsoft to perpetuate their monopolistic practices is like blaming the butterfly in china for the hurricane in florida. Voters are uninformed as far as technology is concerned and they no vote was ever cast where the individual voter was allowed to choose whether Microsoft was a monopoly or not so this is a moot point.

Sure they could have voted for representatives that would have represented them in this case but this assumes that all the voters are informed in all topics and also that representatives wil always do what the voter wants them to do and not the lobbyists filling their pockets. So again, this is a stupid point to even begin with.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[lawpoop]

You are moving the goal post.

Your claim was that it is illegal to reverse engineer software and network protocols. I offered evidence ( samba, WINE ) that contradicted your claim. If you are debating fairly, you must either explain why the instances of samba and WINE are not cases of reverse engineering software or network protocols, retract your claim, or provide a more nuanced argument ( e.g. reverse engineering is not illegal in certain situations, and samba and WINE are instances of one or more of these situations ).

I'll be happy to provide an explanation of your cases, but by rights, you must respond to my evidence first, because I asked first. If you are not going to debate fairly, I will not continue this particular thread with you ; )

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[UbuntuDupe]

But then is the cornfield scarcity artificial? There, the scarcity occurs across a permission rather than the permission's referent as well. Remember that with your cornfield, your intended use does not actually conflict with my use(sleeping in it), yet still you demand I leave. Is that scarcity artificial as well? Remember, scarcity there only arises because you *chose* to exclude an otherwise freely available thing (and in fact, for which my use did not impede another's use).

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Trelane]

What if a company got to be super dominant simply because it had a better product?

Then it shouldn't start tying in new crap. Academic what-ifs aside, most products do not rise to prominence when they require a wholly separate economy. Rather, a product rises to dominance and then starts tying crap in to take over new markets.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[lawpoop]

Because the laws are written by IP owners, not the people.

You know, if you are in a band and you do a cover of a song at the bar on Friday night, you are supposed to pay into some union or organization that gives money to song writers. However, very few people pay in, and we have plenty of cover songs. In short, people are ignoring the law. People continue play songs that they've heard and that they like, just as they have for thousands of years. Just like they re-tell stories they read in books, etc.

People don't care about law, they just go ahead and ignore it. They play cover songs freely, and download music freely. Until jackbooted thugs start cracking down on average citizens, the law will stand.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Timothy Brownawell]

Then you'd have a tough time explaining why all IP hasn't already been abolished.

Because a large number of large businesses (that spend a lot on lobbying) have chosen business models that depend on it. Also because it provides a very clear way for entities to profit from information work (of course, there are other less-clear ways that don't rely on these restrictions), which has been though to outweigh the harm caused by restricting access to the results of all information work.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[testadicazzo]

You're confusing two issues here, that of excessive state power, and that of Microsoft's monopoly.

I consider it a truism that "that government governs best which governs least", and I suspect we are in agreement on that. However this is not the same thing as "... which governs not at all". Government, and in particular democratic institutions, are vital tools in protecting the public from the ravishes of private power. Of course if a government takes too much power for itself, and in particular if a government becomes too unanswerable to its people, this is harmful. But if you think about it, it's the same thing as public power being usurped by, or transformed into, private power. It's also true that on occasion the masses can behave very badly indeed, leading to abuses of public power, but let's face it, these are far less common than abuses of private power.

But, NONE of that applies in this case. In this case Microsoft is incredibly harmful and belligerent monopoly which has been egriously and criminally abusing it's monopoly powers. It has been convicted of monopoly abuse in the united states, but took advantage of our unfortunately weakened and corrupt democracy (c'mon guys, lets try to make it better! no I'm not being facetious!), and had the charges dropped by donating vast sums of money to the most corrupt presidential campaign ever. Their practices are bad for IT, they are bad for the consumer, and they are bad for the EU, and through some mechanism I don't understand, they were unable to buy off the EU. Go figure.

In short, this is a case of public power acting to keep private power in check. In other words, it is one of those rare and beautiful cases of democracy doing what it should do. I have no doubt that there are a bunch of corrupt bastards involved in the process who are motivated by greed, but it doesn't change the fact that what they are doing is good. It's good in many ways. They wan't Microsoft to open their API's. This wouldn't hurt Microsoft's OS business at all, and probably won't hamper their Office suite business at all. It will however weaken their ability to abuse their monopoly. Great! Perfect! It also will make it easier for open source developer and small business to do innovative things. Wonderful! Finally, they are saying to Microsoft "look, we're a bunch of old Europeans, and we are used to dealing with abuses of power. But you have to exersize a modicum of discretion in these things". About time!

I always worry when seriously responding to these kinds of posts is the poster is just astroturfing. But I suppose it's most necessary in thos cases to resond...

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Brother Dysk]

And apparently you haven't realized that the EU is not subject to US legislation.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[UbuntuDupe]

Because a large number of large businesses (that spend a lot on lobbying) have chosen business models that depend on it.

I doubt it. If it's really this unpopular, new politicians would sail into office on a campaign against IP. How did it go a week ago?

Also because it provides a very clear way for entities to profit from information work (of course, there are other less-clear ways that don't rely on these restrictions),

Could you please describe these ways in detail, and give examples where they have played out? Exclude all that rely on charity or non-profit tax status.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[MORB]

"Microsoft is not a monopoly, it is just able to use the preferential treatment of the law better than their competitors. If you voted for the State, you are part of the reason that Microsoft has grown. Sure, some will say that they violated anti-trust laws, but those laws have enough loopholes to let any big company get around them."

It is a monopoly. The quality of their product is not a factor affecting their sales because of it.
Free market strives to achieve balance by pitting every company against each other and encouraging each of them to be as combative as possible, but this system does not yield a perfect, stable balance. It is bound to be chaotic. So sometimes, it tips in favor of a single company in a particular market.

When a company manage to upset the balance, then whether they like it or not, they have to obey some specific laws so that they won't extend this counter productive unbalance into other markets.

The mission of the state is not primarily to ensure that companies can do all they want, all the time. It is to ensure that free market works, and while it involve letting it work itself most of the time, it also involve intervening when the randomness of it all endangers its primary purpose, which is to have a diverse and balanced marketplace.

They don't have a problem with windows being an OS monopoly. They have a problem with leveraging that monopoly to prevent other companies to compete in other market than operating systems.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[lawpoop]

Is he really an astroturfer? Who is paying him?

I thought he was a self-motivated libertarian.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[testadicazzo]

Wow, the discourse on this topic is always so painfully stupid and emtional. None of this anything to do with Microsoft vs Linux. It has to do with monopoly abuse, which is always harmful. Having a defacto standard is a good thing. Things like vendor lock in are obnoxious, but less harmful when there exists a viable competition. GM doesn't have a monopoly on automobiles, so there's no real point in levying anti trust suits against them. If GM, Honda, Daimler Chrysler and Volkswagen and whatever other major manufacturers out ther get together and do price fixing, this fucks up what little pretense of a free market we have, and screws everyone over. So we've made laws against that kind of behavior, because experience has taught us that this kind of this is just so goddamn bad for our economy. That's all.

Even if it had happened by accident, which it didn't, the monopoly would be harmful. Microsoft could have attempted to be a benign monopoly, and set things up so that other people could at least compete with them on NEW APPLICATIONS, but they don't even do that. They set things up so whatever becomes the next big thing, they are in a position to dominate it, because it's so damn hard to get interoperability information from them. And it's getting worse with Vista. It's not enough that they have the incredibly huge advantage of their monstrous cash flow and brand recognition, not to mention the expertise of the programmers who developed their software in the first place. No, they have to result to tactics which are plainly and openly illegal, preferring instead to subvert democratic processes. It blows my mind that people defend them.

I want to propose a new figure of speech, and I want credit for it: The "Microsoft Syndrome". Like the Stockholm syndrome, where victims of a kidnapping begin to sympathize with their kidnappers, the Microsoft Syndrome describes that process where victims of a corporate monopoly are so brainwased by that monopoly's marketing they sympathise with and defend them.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[ThosLives]

The scarcity with the cornfield is that there is only one cornfield in contention: it can be used for sleeping or not for sleeping, but not simultaneously. That is why permission is required - to choose between exclusive states.

When it comes to ideas, they can be used (or not) simultaneously, so there is no need for arbitration between states.

That is the difference between "hard" property and things like ideas, or music - one has 'exclusive' use (you can divide up the field into all kinds of little smaller segments, but the argument still holds for each part) where ideas do not have 'exclusive' use - there is nothing inherent to an idea which limits simultaneous usage. Only "records" of information are scarce - the actual media on which an idea is recorded. That's why I don't have a problem with fundamental copyright - because it protects the copies, not the information on the copies (even though I think the current system has a different view; as soon as copyright became "you cannot do this activity" it is no longer protecting a physical property but is limiting behavior).

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[absorbr]

So the real issue is what do you do when you can't get people to use a perfectly good FREE product, or relatively cheap one, when the whole world is paying for something that won't talk to the free tool, and when that interoperability is necessary for getting benefit out of the fruit of that tool.. Yeah, with population levels as they are now, that's a tough one. The mandate would have to come from Congress to make a philosophical change like that, where you say "when software becomes free, then people making money off of that kind of software have to stop making money off of it" or "that standing in the way of adoption of the free thing must be removed." wait, OpenOffice is free right? I was just making that assumption based on the name.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Gyarados]

Thank you for explaining something which you obviously have absolutely no real understanding of.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Trelane]

So the real issue is what do you do when you can't get people to use a perfectly good FREE product, or relatively cheap one, when the whole world is paying for something that won't talk to the free tool, and when that interoperability is necessary for getting benefit out of the fruit of that tool.. Yeah, with population levels as they are now, that's a tough one.

No, The problem is what to do when a superdominant company begins tying and taking over new markets due to their superdominant position. The solution is anti-trust with teeth. Get the specs out to competitors so they can finally compete on even footing with the superdominant company. Break up the original company into different, competing parts. Restrict the superdominant company from taking over further markets or further abusing their position. Basically, do what needs to be done to re-establish competition amongst equals

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[jaweekes]

I would even say that people vote for a number of reasons, and until these issues are put forward in a referendum you can not say that the voters voted for it. Your argument about it is faulty at best, and you do not seem to realize that the EU is in Europe and not in the USA.

The reason MS is being fined is because, like the USA, the EU took MS to court and found them to be maintaining and using their monopoly illegally. The EU is only following through on that judgment and MS is dragging their feet in complying with it.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[eldorel]

As I see it, the problem with your argument is your implication that big business and government are on opposite sides. Currently big business has the money, and government has the power, and both want what the other has to offer. The consumer/citizen however has neither money, nor power, and as such is unable to influence either directly.
Limiting the power of the government simply means that the businesses will fill the void, while attempts to limit the income of big business will simply cause them to throw more money at the government.
This isn't an either/or solution, it's all or nothing.
What is needed are checks and regulations preventing collusion between the two. The government needs to be forced to use it's power to limit business, and business need to be prevented from using money to influence government.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Coryoth]

I believe the other posters point is that property can indeed be used simultaneously as long as the uses are orthgonal an don't interfere with one another. His cornfield example is quite reasonable: his sleeping in your cornfield for a night has no impact on your simultaneous use of growing corn (presuming, of course, that he doesn't damage the corn, which presumably he is assuming is the case). Thus the cornfield can indeed be used simultaneously - it just can't be used for conflicting purposes simultaneously.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[StormReaver]

You're all missing the point. Microsoft is not in trouble because it has a monopoly. Having a monopoly is perfectly legal (though how Microsoft acquired its monopoly is a whole other ball of wax). Microsoft is in trouble for using that monopoly (desktop operating system) in an attempt (some mostly successful) to gain a monopoly in other markets (browser, server, document processing, etc.).

The EU is punishing Microsoft by requiring it to provide interoperability documentation (not actual code) for one market Microsoft is illegally attempting to monopolize. Failure to comply results in a small (relative to Microsoft's net wealth) daily fine.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Nevyn]

Did Microsoft promote vendor-lockin? I can say surely they did. So what? I can't think of any company that doesn't offer discounts for promoting that company's product over others -- everyone does it, and it is usually better for the customer in terms of price. You don't have to buy from vendors that are "locked in." Jiffy Lube gets a discount for promoting one oil over another, but there are many oil change places that provide many products.

This is not rocket science, and has been explained several times on this site. One has to wonder if you're just trolling or a paid MS shill. Please pay attention this time.

Product bundling is not illegal in itself, it is illegal in certain situations though. For instance if Jiffy Lube was the only place to get oil changes, it would be illegal for them to tie that product (oil change) with a different product (Jiffy Lube Oil). While you could argue that it might be cheaper for the customer in the short term, the problem is that over time there would be much less competition in the second product category which hurts the customer. In the same way microsoft are being punished for illegal product tying, due to them owning the desktop OS that 90% of people use and are forced to continue to use.

The two other "big" cases where that has been stopped, Standard Oil and AT & T, it was obvious after the fact that it was not better for the customer. In a similar way, I find it very hard to believe that MS pricing is realistic of a competitive market.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[absorbr]

Does it really get down to this -- that everyone is entitled to compete for what's currently deemed popular, or in demand? The other side of me was the one saying if you can't get into what's in demand, go make something else.

If I'm born yesterday, do I have the right to go make lightbulbs? aren't there patents on lightbulbs? It seems that I can't get into that business. Already I'm not on equal footing. right?

BTW I am having trouble putting linefeeds into my comments. I'm trying plaintext now, maybe that will work?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Strudelkugel]

That's good enough for me.

You might want to read this before claiming the infallibility of judges. Did you ever read the Jackson findings? From a technical perspective, his findings are completely misguided. This Slate commentary offers a history of the appellate court thinking, which overruled much of his findings. I was once party to some hearings where a panel of distinguished judges had their ruling overturned by an act of Congress because it was so poorly formed. Believe me, judges can make incredible mistakes. Most of the time they don't, but when you have a political body levying fines against a foreign enterprise, there is a huge conflict of interest. This is a money grab by the EU. No doubt about it, unfortunately.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[kimvette]

If Commodore execs were less interested in embezzlement and instead gave both R&D and Marketing departments the funding the sorely needed, the Amiga would likely be dominating the market today. Would processor speed and networking capabilities have matured as quickly were that the case? I doubt it, but on the other hand, the HTPC would have truly arrived by the mid-90s, whereas with PC video technology multimedia was its Achilles heel, making the HTPC a low-performance curiousity until the turn of the century.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[fitteschleiker]

that is so damn true! haha

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Trelane]

Does it really get down to this -- that everyone is entitled to compete for what's currently deemed popular, or in demand?

Where is this coming from? We're talking about anti-trust, which was created in order to help the citizenry from the abuses inherent in a natural monopoly situation, namely the entrenchment and further encroachment of a superdominant company. It's not in the long-term consumer interest to have such a superdominant company; read any basic economic textbook if you disagree with this premise. It's not about the "right to compete in a pwned market" or any such gibberish. It's that the citizenry is best served by competition amongst (approximate) equals. Pure capitalism breaks down in the presence of a superdominant company; the company is essentially immune to ordinary market pressures and simply takes over more and more and more of the market, drives prices higher and higher, and gives the consumers less and less.

[...]do I have the right to go make lightbulbs? aren't there patents on lightbulbs? It seems that I can't get into that business. Already I'm not on equal footing. right?

That is patent law, not anti-trust, and it's not the topic at hand, which is anti-trust. To answer your question, yes. You are not on equal footing. This is temporary (expires in 20 years in the US), and theoretically in the general interst of the public (i.e. the increased income will stimulate increased research and development). Whether or not patents and copyright adequately serve their purpose is even more tangential to this thread, so we will drop it here.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Anne Thwacks]

Hang about - we are talking about Europe here. In Europe, contractual clauses forbiding reverse engineering are considered unethical and therefore unenforcible! We may not have the same rights as the USA, but sometimes we are actually better - we also do not have software patents.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[ThosLives]

I agree that there are 'orthogonal uses' which are possible, but I don't think that has anything to do with property rights. My point was that 'property rights' should be structured to only apply to situations with exclusive states, and that when it comes to ideas there are no 'physically' exclusive states and so property concepts do not apply.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[fitteschleiker]

Network protocols are easy to monitor and reverse engineer with the right equipment. Why can't people reverse engineer the interfaces and duplicate them in their own software? Oh yeah, the State says it is illegal.

why do you keep repeating that? "The State says it is illegal" there is no single entity known as "the state" and obviously you refer to US laws, but this article is about the EU fining microsoft not the US. You need to realise there are many governments in this world besides the US, each with their own sets of stupid, yet different laws.

Legal systems do not even work the same way in every country with this "common law" stuff and bizarre US civil law. get over it.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[timeOday]

"Truly free market," what does that mean? With total freedom there would be no Microsoft, because as soon as they released a product everybody would copy it to each other, without paying Microsoft. More generally it's impossible for me to imagine a market without laws to institute ownership of property, to enforce contracts, etc. It is law which restricts freedom and thereby creates markets. (And please don't assume I think that's bad). Markets are not creations of nature.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[timeOday]

The reason why .doc compatibility sucks has nothing to do with "the State".

Without "the State," we would hardly need compatibility because we could copy Word to each other freely, without paying Microsoft. And for that reason there would be no profit and therefore no Microsoft or Word in the first place. But if there were, there would be nothing to stop a disgruntled Microsoft employee from emailing the Word source code to a million of his closest friends for them to copy and paste into OpenOffice. Except there would be no Internet and hence no email. Anyways you get my point; your view is exceedingly narrow.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Coryoth]

And my understanding of the other poster was that he was trying to point out that, using that logic, non-conflicting uses of physical property should be equally legal. As long as I'm there while you're out and clean up after myself thoroughly I should be able to come and use your pots, pans, dishes and cutlery to cook and serve myself a meal: you're out and everything is as you left it when you get back so its a non-conflicting use.

Note that I am not actually advocating such a philosophy, merely pointing out it is a reasonable inference from your arguments so far.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Malc]

"In a truly free market, you'd see Visual Studio (which is an awesome kit) that runs under Linux/BSD and can be bound to other compilers (e.g. Intel CC, GCC, etc)."

Why? Do you think that porting VS.Net to Linux/BSD will be profitable enough for MSFT? And can't the Intel Compiler be integrated?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

So you denying the fact the they're a conviced monopoly abuser?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[tshak]

With total freedom there would be no Microsoft, because as soon as they released a product everybody would copy it to each other...

A free market economy is not synonymous with anarchy. From the Wikipedia:
"In an absolutely free-market economy, all capital, goods, services, and money flow transfers are unregulated by the government except to stop collusion that may take place among market participants. "

That is, no one is forcing a company to make their product work with other products. Obviously this wouldn't be a market if people were allowed to steal.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[fbjon]

What's the conflict of interest?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[absorbr]

I'm afraid I don't have time to get further into this right now, but I do believe that what's good for the people is subjective -- read some of the other comments that aren't getting mod'd up (I'm not necessarily saying that I don't think you are). I detect questions about just what is best for everyone else from a lot of the ones who are questioning that MS is doing anything wrong. What's more important, to convince people that one argument is right, or to figure out why people disagree and tackle that? And I do think patent law is relevant to the discussion, both regarding physical resources and IP. Anyway I suspect that what's taught in economics classes is shaped partially by politics and different philosophies. If you really want to convince someone you can't tell them to go read a text book :) Sure I know the basics but when it comes to what is best for everyone... good luck!

sorry I have to go, I've been avoiding deadlines

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[tomstdenis]

There is a difference there. They're not monopolies. There are plenty [even often common] games for each platform.

What I have a problem with is them going after homebrew folk. But that's another story...

Tom

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[tomstdenis]

Well it couldn't hurt and I think enough professionals who happen to use Linux would go for it.

Remember, not all of us are anti-proprietary nutcases. While I like GNU/Linux and the host of tools I have, I wouldn't mind running VS on my box. I imagine many others would be in the same camp.

What it does potentially hurt are Windows sales. But why should the VS group care about that? They want to sell more copies of VS not Windows. ... oh yeah ... THEREIN LIES THE WHOLE PROBLEM!

Tom

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[PhysicsPhil]

You might want to read this before claiming the infallibility of judges. Did you ever read the Jackson findings? From a technical perspective, his findings are completely misguided. This Slate commentary offers a history of the appellate court thinking, which overruled much of his findings.

From the Slate article:

If Microsoft won the day, the Justice Department won some moments. The court upheld the monopoly maintenance claim against Microsoft, finding that the company did in fact possess monopoly power and that it willfully maintained that power by playing nastily with the other kids.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Microsoft is a buisness, it exists to make money.
I think we all understand this, but the problem being addressed by the EU is Microsoft's abuse of it's position as a monopoly. The reason Windows + MS stack are used by 90_whatever_percent of users is because there is no viable alternative; the reason there is no viable alternative is due to MS locking out of competition.

Rather than speculating about what _might_ happen if there was a "free market" lets just take and existing example of MS Word; this is a word-processor that commands a remarkably high price for something that is, in this day and age, commodity software. By rights, all PC's should ship with a decent WP, but they typically don't (if MS Works is bundled, it is still an additional cost to the consumer).

The only reason MS is able to continue to charge the same high prices for the same software, year on year, is because they lock everything else out.

Just to be fair, I do understand _why_ they do this; they're a business (a very successful one at that) and in order to grow market share, they will do things to impead their competitors. But consumers _do_ suffer, thus the state (in this case the EU) is attempting to take steps level the playing field and allow fair competition.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[UbuntuDupe]

Thanks -- you're explaining my point very well. I was going to add the possession reductio (the point about using others' pots when they're not in use), but couldn't phrase it understandably at the time I made the post so I left it out.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[ThosLives]

Hrm...I thought I did a pretty good job of indicating that I thought the conflicting uses were "you use it" versus "it's not being used", not "you use it" versus "I use it"...that's the key sticking point I think. So, hopefully this will clarify a bit for our faithful readers ;)

I think the key is my use of the phrase "simultaneous states" over "simultaneous uses" because I think that's a key difference; physical objects can only have one state at a time, while 'idea' objects can have multiple states simultaneously. I would say that there are three basic 'Characteristics' of an entity, and I'll call them 'use', 'location', and 'cohesion'. 'Use' can take the value "being used" or "not being used" - where "being used" may indeed encompass several sub-uses (for instance, growing corn and sleeping in the field) but you can't have a pot being used and not used at the same time. For 'Location' I'd say the two values are 'at location A' and 'not at location A'. Again, a pot can be on the stove or in the cupboard, but not both (for most common sizes of pots, and for stoves that aren't in cupboards, eh?). And for 'Cohesion' I'd take that to be 'Intact' and 'Broken' (or maybe 'pristine' and 'damaged')- so you can have a pot that is a pot, or just a collection of metal fragments (which means it's probably not a pot any more).

However, for 'idea' objects, they have no conflict between any of the state characteristics - ideas can be in multiple locations at once, they can be used in one location while not being used in another (or even at the same location!), and you can have both a complete and incomplete set of information simultaneously.

Again, I don't think we need arbitration on simultaneous uses (what happens when something is "in use", but only on the three Characteristics that I mentioned - basically arbitrating between transitions of the states of each Characteristic. I don't see how any of those limitations apply to information, so I don't know how any "property rules" can reasonably apply (without social constructs, that is).

Anyway, this has actually been a very useful conversation from my standpoint as far as working out some kinks in my ideas regarding property. I thank everyone participating in this thread for the input and counterpoints to keep the brain cells working.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Coryoth]

Perhaps I should clarify that I am not trying to argue that ideas are property or should be treated like such, just that if you wish to try and make that argument axiomatically rather than pragmatically then there's more to consider, since the axiomatic argument you're proposing has implications not just for "intellectual property" but also for physical property. I'm neither claiming those implications are good or bad, merely exploring the results because I think they're interesting to observe. We end up with, instead of physical property laws, laws providing constraints on use.

In other words I'm pursuing this thread because I think it is interesting.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Timothy Brownawell]

If it's really this unpopular, new politicians would sail into office on a campaign against IP.

Eh, except such laws appear to be fairly easily ignored (so far). I expect that this should be starting to change as DRM and such force people to take notice.

How did it go a week ago?

There were other, much more important issues there. Like people being annoyed about going to war and such.

Also because it provides a very clear way for entities to profit from information work (of course, there are other less-clear ways that don't rely on these restrictions),

Could you please describe these ways in detail, and give examples where they have played out? Exclude all that rely on charity or non-profit tax status.

Produce custom software that's only intended to be sold once (a number of people here have talked about doing this)? Provide support (Red Hat, etc)? Do live performances rather than rely on selling CDs (I seem to recall hearing of a few bands that consider CDs/downloads as basically advertising for their live performances?)?

Basically, anything where you do specific work for each customer instead of generic work that customers could as easily share as buy.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[mtaff]

What about the cost of fuel to cook your meal? The soap and water to clean up (you did use soap, right?)? What about the wear and tear of the appliances, pots, cutting board, etc?

When it comes to physical property, it is *nearly* impossible to use it without degrading it in some way, thereby depriving the owner of that portion of the property. With information like software, music, etc, making and distributing a copy on your dime still allows the creator 100% use of the original (assuming the copying process is non-destructive).

I agree that there are many cases where orthogonal uses may benefit society and have limited negative effects on the property and the property owner. I submit however, that the fact such cooperative possibilities exist doesn't impair the right to exclude other uses on physically scarce property.

That said, I also think we have a reasonable expectation to privacy in our homes, and that expectation isn't dependent on property rights (in the US, see the 4th Amendment). That doesn't apply to your whole argument in general, but it does to your specific example.

Mark

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Strudelkugel]

Sure, the appellate justices prevailed with the definition. But I personally never had a problem loading another OS on a PC, and I was never forced to buy Windows with any of the whitebox PCs I purchased. So my personal experience was counter to the notion that Microsoft was or is a monopoly. If Microsoft is a monopoly, the Google and Intel surely are as well. The difference is that Intel settled with the DOJ when threatened, and Google hasn't been sued, yet. But Microsoft was foolish to battle with the DOJ and lose, since it created the opportunity for all sorts of litigation, including the shakedown by the EU.

Someone once told me that when an industry becomes large enough, it attracts the attention of the political set. Once that happens, strategies have to change from basic market considerations. Back in the early 90s, the PC software business became big enough to attract attention.

When I saw Windows NT at COMDEX, I made one of my better calls and guessed that Microsoft would be sued on anti-trust grounds. Not that I thought they deserved it, but rather that with a 32 bit OS, they would gain enough market share from the fragmented competition that someone would file a complaint. It wasn't hard to predict. Neither is the EU action. They will continue to come up with reasons to extract money (or technology to confer advantage to domestic industries) from Microsoft on all sorts of grounds. That's what governments do and that's what trade agreements are supposed to mitigate. Just check out the examples of agricultural trade sanctions.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Coryoth]

Sure, use of physical property has some effects - however one could very reasonably argue that the constraint should be to cover the costs of these minor effects rather than an absolute bar on use of property. As I said elsewhere I am neither trying to promote or condemn this particular philosophy, just trying to properly explore the ramifications of arguing against intellectual property on an axiomatic basis.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[UbuntuDupe]

Eh, except such laws appear to be fairly easily ignored (so far).

So where are the private theaters advertising pirate opening-weeking movies?

There were other, much more important issues there. Like people being annoyed about going to war and such

It doesn't matter. If it were REALLY that big of a defiance of public opinion, it would *become* an issue. The more plausible hypothesis is that it's not just big corporations that agree with the concept of copyright.

Produce custom software that's only intended to be sold once (a number of people here have talked about doing this)? ...Basically, anything where you do specific work for each customer instead of generic work that customers could as easily share as buy.

Is this an admission that without IP, it wouldn't be profitable to make software that's use-able off the shelf? And that that would be a good thing?

Provide support (Red Hat, etc)?

Money from support is a return to providing support, not a return to the production of the intellectual work. 99% of the software written for Red Hat was written by someone else as charity.

Do live performances rather than rely on selling CDs (I seem to recall hearing of a few bands that consider CDs/downloads as basically advertising for their live performances?)?

Which venture capital-funded record company overturned the industry by drawing artists with this model?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[TempeTerra]

>> In a truly free market, you'd see Visual Studio (which is an awesome kit) that runs under Linux/BSD

> No you wouldn't. You'd see software written for the platform that had the best chance of a high return on investment.

No, you wouldn't. You'd see software ported to EVERY platform where the return on investment made it worth while.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Mr2001]

Reverse engineering of file formats is legal. It is a very difficult process, particularly for highly complex binary file formats like Word and so forth. The reason why .doc compatibility sucks has nothing to do with "the State".

That process would be a lot easier if you could reverse engineer the software that writes those files, rather than looking at the files themselves as mysterious binary artifacts. Although I don't agree with all the anarchist "anti-State" rhetoric, I do think copyright is largely to blame for the opacity of these file formats.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[jayp00001]

What the EU doesn't comprehend is that turning over the so called "secret" documents only serves to show how you can't connect to Microsoft servers because the protocols and technology behind them has been invented and or bought by and the patents owned by Microsoft. IE you could force GM to give up the blueprints to the corvette but the minute you built one you'd be violating any number of copyright and trademark laws.

If I were Microsoft I'd publish it all and get the lawyers ready to bury anyone foolish enough to even think about using it.

For the record Microsoft has had Posix compliance since NT4. The Posix documentation is so crappy you can't get any app of moderate complexity to run on any 2 out of 3 unix kernels with posix compliance, let alone the windows version. That why SFU was invented and ultimately included with R2.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Malc]

I used to be an anti-proprietary nutcase, you insensitive clod! ;) Then I stopped being so naive and started focusing on what made most business sense to my employer.

I love VS.Net. Not just because it is one of the best IDEs (whose quirks I'm used to, unlike Eclipse that annoys me every week). But also because of the integration with other MSFT products and tools. I can step through a client web page in, and then on a call step through the IIS server code and right in to the stored procedure in SQL Server. It's simple, it works really well, and it's just not available elsewhere. Can you imagine the cost and effort to do that beyond MSFT products? I just can't see the ROI being there for MSFT. If that means I have to work on Windows, fine. It's not so bad. It doesn't really effect my life in general ;)

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[aussie_a]

See my answer to your first question -- because the State made it that way, not Microsoft. They were only taking advantage of what you, the voter, wanted.

We also wanted anti-trust laws so when circumstances that we don't like come along, we can get rid of it. Checks and balances dude.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[aussie_a]

How so? The customers have about 20 different developers for spreadsheets, word processors, databases, browsers, etc. All my customers use Microsoft because the software is easy to use and is stable enough for their purposes.

Keep that koolaid away from me. Your customers are also largely using Microsoft products because everyone else is and they need to be compatible with everyone else. Sure they might believe those other things, but to discount that factor is dishonest.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[aussie_a]

Tell that to open source companies.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[UbuntuDupe]

I appreciate your interest in the point I have advanced. I have argued it back and forth on the mises.org blog with the "authority" on refuting IP, Stephan Kinsella, who wrote this case against IP. The following may interest you:

Here is a typical thread from about a month ago, that got pretty long, and here is a more recent one. In those places I try to present the same argument, but it's excruciatingly difficult to get the point across there. I also from time to time question their claims about non-IP related ways to profit from intellectual works.

I post under the name "Person" because Stephan Kinsella is a sociopathic admin who has revealed his willingness to release users' personal information to get back at those who back him into a corner in an argument. Your posts there would be much appreciated. Not because you agree with me (since I'll admit it's hard to form an opinion on this), but because you seem to actually listen to the point I tried to make.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[ShimmyShimmy]

Um, actually, in a truly free market, remember there are a relatively unlimited number of suppliers. This would mean that there would be a relatively infinite number of firms producing software identical to Visual Studio, and the buyers would be indifferent to the brand, because the PRODUCTS ARE ALL THE SAME.

    However, the concept of the free market fails in certain situations (Adam Smith himself admitted it). This frequently occurs when there are large barriers to entry (ie, the millions of dollars you'd to dump on lawyers to settle your inevitable patent lawsuits), and when there are large startup and infrastructure costs compared to the unit costs (with software, 99.9% of the costs are up-front for marketing and writing the software, and the actual unit cost is negligible, save burning CDs and putting them into shrink-wrapped boxes.

    Now, despite the tendency of such a market to be toward few suppliers, let's just assume there are at lets a bunch of companies writing development software. they would not write it for the platform that had the best chance of a high return on investment. Seems your freshman-level finance classes could use a bit of a brushing up. Actually, they would write software for every platform that had an *better* return on investment, than any other project in that risk range. Now, let's say a company like Microsoft didn't *happen* to have ~80% market share, and most operating systems were relatively interoperable (ie, FreeBSD and Linux). This is somewhat conceivable. In this case, writing the software for *any* operating system would be expensive, but porting it to other platforms would be extremely cheap, and you would likely see the software available for just about every operating system out there.

    Don't be so hasty with you +1, Insightful points on parent. There is no +1, Shortsighted.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Lorkki]

I find land that is unused, I develop it in some way (farm, natural resource, home, office, whatever) and I maintain it. That is my land from a physical property stance.

By your reasoning, your ownership of the land is essentially control over the minds and bodies of anyone else who goes through it. If I want to do something with the land you own, I'll have to gain your permission, regardless of whether you still actually use or maintain that piece of land in any way yourself. It's a legal grant of authority - not a natural right, or a direct compensation.

Copyrights, by their intent, are there to ensure compensation for someone whose work isn't a craft directly related to the physical reproduction of an object. The labour for an artist, musician or software developer is the production itself, which requires an expertise all of its own - reproduction of a piece, especially when talking about digital media, is an entirely different process. Indeed, all manner of problems present themselves if you forcibly tack the two together.

All in all, it's quite simple as long as you talk about persons in singular. The real problems we currently face come from groups of people getting together and forming big social and financial entities, which we like to call corporations. They grow, and while the artists remain valuable to the whole, the value of their work does seem to get closer to the effort involved in its reproduction. As such it would seem useful to keep a tight control over the means of reproduction, as opposed to making the works themselves more available. The rest of the mess is mainly legal word-twisting and blatant use of over-abstraction.

I'm quite singularly against century-long copyrights and the DMCA. However, it still wouldn't be much use being an artist in a world where art is worth nothing.

Patents are a somewhat different matter. They were devised with the intent that inventing things and making them available can be a good idea. Your private lab creates a new kind of electric light or a combustion engine? Great - patent it and you get exclusive rights now, but you'll have to publish the details and grant public use later. However, an electric light or a combustion engine were clearly new kinds of product, both representing a significant development effort. "Intellectual" patents, on the other hand, forbid you the use of certain specific tools of creative production, and in that way counteract the entire purpose of the system.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[drsquare]

That's the REAL way to do it. Not by selling copies of bits that are of NO VALUE.

If the bits are of no value, why do you want them?

If for instance, a copy of Windows is worthless, why do you want to use it, why not write your own operating system?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Alsee]

This is a money grab by the EU. No doubt about it

I keep seeing people repeating that, but it is absolutely untrue.

Lets say you break a store front window, and you end up before a judge in court, and the judge orders you to pay for the broken window and sweep up the broken glass by a certain date. You pay for the broken window, and the proceed to willfully CHOOSE to ignore the lawful court order and decline to sweep up the broken glass. At this point it has absolutely nothing to do with breaking the window. The judge then calls you in and tells you you are in violation of his court order and that you still need to clean up the glass, and sets a new compliance date and tells you you need to sweep it up by that date and get no fine, or he will start fining you each day you choose ignore the court order.

The court is not making some "money grab". The court expected you to comply with the court order in the first place and not rack up these fines at all. The court ordered and expected this to be $0.00. But you knowingly chose not to sweep up the glass, and you knew it would rack up a daily fine, and you willfully chose to go month after month after month after month racking up fines.

These fines have absolutely nothing to do with monopoly abuse or anti-trust law. The Microsoft is now facing are by Microsoft's own choice. Microsoft is being fined for dailly willfull contempt of court.

My guess is that Microsoft has done a cost-benefit analysis and explicitly decided that breaking the law and paying the fines is worth it dollar wise. Like deciding that $75 is an acceptable fee for the "right" to park in handicap parking spaces. That violating the law and paying the fee is a profitable choice, to be able to protect and drag out their current market strategy until Vista comes out... at which point complying with the court order pretty much becomes a moot point.

-

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Millenniumman]

Why must the file formats be secret?

Why must the tools avoid standards in their respective fields? (typesetting, ISO C99, proper W3C XHTML...)

Why must the tools only work in Windows?

Because they are Microsoft's. Microsoft makes them, and people willingly buy/use them. Microsoft can do whatever they want with them. If the consumers don't like it, they can not buy/use the product. There is no need for regulators in need of an ego boost to come in and try to "fix" things that are none of their business.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I don't get sued for "reverse engineering" their stone steps, I get sued for entering a market and competing with the unfair advantage gained by reverse engineering in a direct attempt to gain market dominance over their pre-existing established business. I can reverse engineer to my hearts content, but if those what did the original work start losing money because of me, they will cry foul.

Get the difference?

Please continue. So, OK, my steps are cutting into your steps business. So, what? That's competition. If the judge acknowledges that my steps are very much like their steps, on what basis can he award damages?

If I am violating a patent, copyright, trademark - OK, it's illegal to do those things. But if I'm not doing something illegal I'm just a competitor.

Judges can't award damages for out-competing, can they?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[j0sephlew1s]

Success does not equal monopoly. I know many, many "homebrew folks" who became millionaires when big bad Microsoft bought them up. And check this out, many of them stayed on by their own choice. Please don't think I'm a Microsoft fanboy, because I'm not (fyi: I'm typing this on a Mac Pro and encourage people not to use Bootcamp), however for the EU to blackmail them they way they are is criminal. Do I agree with Microsoft, no. But it was the computer companies that signed the OEM contracts with them, is it their fault, that they didn't have the foresight to think a head. Also Microsoft has attempted to comply with the EU, but it wasn't enough.

Quick question, who are the "homebrew folks"? Adobe, Netscape (they did themselves in through pure greed), Firefox, Lotus (IBM merged them away), Real Networks (their product sucks and they're greedy), Apple (iTunes is one of the top players out their and let's not forget Quicktime), Corel (greed, again).

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[mbvdk]

"Microsoft is not a monopoly,"? I guess it just uses it's largely dominant position in the Personal Computer's Operating Systems (over 95%) to give other parts of their business an advantage against competitors in those markets. I am no lawmaker, but I imagine that the European Commission's specialists have disputed this and come to a decision where, in order for "anyone" to have a fair chance at building a word processor on MS-Windows, Microsoft has to provide some (or a lot) of the links which the word processor can use. Today the debate is not about whether MSFT or the E.U. are right or wrong, but about abiding to the law; when you get fined by the authority, you pay. If you don't, you go to jail (ever tried not to pay a parking ticket?). Microsoft has been fined $800 million and they are obviously not paying. What is the authority to do? Let go because Microsoft is too big a fish? Will Microsoft threaten Europe to pull out all their operations from Europe? The real unfair part is that Joe Schmoe would never get away with any fine. Justice for all? Mike.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[julesh]

Microsoft is not a monopoly, it is just able to use the preferential treatment of the law better than their competitors.

Irrelevant under European law. The relevant EU competition law states:

Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the common market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the common market in so far as it may affect trade between Member States.

Such abuse may, in particular, consist in:

(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions;

(b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers;

(c) applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;

(d) making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts.

The emphasis is mine, and shows the relevant parts. The EU comission has interpreted MS's lack of production of adequate API and network protocol documentation as "applying dissimilar conditions" by making it harder for competitor's products to interoperate with their operating systems than for MS's own products. It makes perfect sense to me. MS *do* have a dominant position, and the market *should* be protected from any predatory practises they decide to use because of it.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[julesh]

All of these things occurred in the US. This topic is about EU law. In the EU, reverse engineering of software for the purposes of compatibility is a specifically protected right, enumerated in the copyright directive and the implementing laws of member states.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[julesh]

if I'm not doing something illegal I'm just a competitor.

Judges can't award damages for out-competing, can they?

No. But there's nothing to stop your competitor from suing you anyway, other than the risk that if they actually get as far as a court case and lose the judge will decide the claim was vexatious and give you a costs award. But they'd be betting you'd fold before you got that far.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[julesh]

In a truly free market, you'd see Visual Studio (which is an awesome kit) that runs under Linux/BSD

Why would you? The development costs are likely to be substantial, and the takings fairly small, given that most Linux/BSD users are apparently happy with the tools they have there already.

and can be bound to other compilers (e.g. Intel CC, GCC, etc).

Err... it already can be. I've used Intel's compiler from within VS6 and it seems to work fine.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[ookaze]

As for the anti-trust issue, it's because MSFT is doing things that are AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF THE CUSTOMERS all in a guise to raise their vendor lockin (through no valid technical need) to raise profits. Prosecuting anti-trust violators is about giving the customers freedom of choice, so they can decide how to invest their money. e,g, sure I'll run Windows, but I'd rather use Lotus, not Excel, etc, etc....

How so? The customers have about 20 different developers for spreadsheets, word processors, databases, browsers, etc. All my customers use Microsoft because the software is easy to use and is stable enough for their purposes

You're such a funny guy ! So all your customers use MS because the software is easy to use and yet, they have 20 different developers for spreadsheets, word processors, database,s, browsers, ... ? Even worse :
Did Microsoft promote vendor-lockin? I can say surely they did. So what? and My business has a vendor lockin process, too.

Such a funny guy. So why do you and MS have a vendor lockin process if your customer use MS because it's easy to use and stable enough ? Do you mean the alternatives are easier to use and more stable ?

In fact, we haven't had one service call for thousands of desktops for a Microsoft add-on application in about 2 years, other than installation. We have repeated calls for OpenOffice mostly because of memory problems and a reboot is enough to cure it

Now I don't understand, all your customer use MS because it's easy to use and stable enough and yet, they use OOo that causes problems ?
Something doesn't compute here.

The basis of the anti-trust lawsuits or threats is unfounded

You're so confused you couldn't know if it were founded (which it is).

You don't have to buy from vendors that are "locked in."

Riiight. So you expect joe user to build its white box, that's what you think ?
The rest is so clueless that it's a waste of time commenting it.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[tomstdenis]

Yeah, well when you're all grown up and in the workforce you'll see how stupid your comment is.

Except for really small companies it's hard to avoid using MSFT tools because at some level people [re: customers] really really need that .doc file not .pdf, etc, etc....

Personally I'd just be happy with having companies like Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, etc, not forcefully bundling Windows with their computers. That'll also require they stop using random "upgraded" chipsets so that OSS drivers can have a chance to work...

Tom

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[vandan]

First of all, the State creates laws which give some companies preferential treatment over ideas or the way a person can use their hands and mind to create something. We call these useless laws "copyright," "patent" or "trademark." The State is the only way to enforce these laws which govern how you think and use your body, it is impossible to cover these restrictions without force or the threat of force.

I'm right there with you so far :)

Copyright, patents, trademarks can all be used to keep other people out of a given market long enough for a company to grow to a size that makes it hard to defeat. This is not what happens in a relatively free market (I'll say most deregulated).

Actually, this is precisely what happens under capitalism. The so-called free market is a myth ... a fairy-tale that capitalists tell us, including tales of great competition and freedom. In reality, competition never ever even approaches the lofty freedom we are told about, and any competition that does exist is transitory. A idealistic market, with lots of competitors all striving to produce a better product gives way to a smaller and smaller number of corporations, who become less competitive and more co-operative. Smaller players are bought out or driven out, and the large players ( if there are more than 1 left ), divide the market up amongst themselves and form a cartel. They use ALL the dirty tricks in the book, including copyright law, patents, etc, to keep the market to themselves. This is not a revelation. It's simply what we see around us every day. Fanciful theory on free-market economics and competition has no place in our reality.

Microsoft is not a monopoly, it is just able to use the preferential treatment of the law better than their competitors.

I think you'll find that anti-trust law defines Microsoft as a monopoly. This, again, is no revelation. Anti-trust law was introduced to attempt to hide one of the contradictions between capitalist theory and reality. On the one hand, as you point out, the state allows corporations to use intellectual 'property' as a barrier to entry ( where it most certainly should not be allowed ). But without antitrust law, nothing stops one corporation from rising to the top, at the expense of every other competitor, and of course society. Therefore, to keep a lid on anti-capitalist sentiment and attempt to maintain the myths of capitalist 'competition', the state steps in a attempts to prevent absolute monopolies. It's a contradiction in their policy, for sure.

The State wants these fines to pad their own accounts

There are easier ways to pad your accounts. This is a semi-serious attempt to maintain some competition. It's not working that well, but being in contradiction with the rest of their free-market policies, you have to expect some problems.

This is basically a legal form of asking for bribes, and Microsoft will be happy to comply.

Again, there are other, easier ways to do this. Keep in mind that the people actually pursuing this are themselves talking of downsizing the state and 'freeing' the market. They have other reasons for pursuing Microsoft and other monopolists.

Microsoft is being forced to hand over "secrets" but those are past secrets -- not future ones, right? They'll just make new secrets, or obfuscate the old ones in new ways so that anything they share isn't useful in the long run (everything changes every 18months right?).

Of course, that the way Microsoft will choose to see it. But a decision against them here sets a precedent, and if Microsoft get cute and create new 'secrets', the case against them will be a lot easier to make the 2nd time around. They will also likely get slapped with larger fines next time.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[chthon]

This 'Microsoft Syndrome' is even already fairly old. I remember someone being really angry at me for wanting to upgrade her dekstop with DR-DOS 5.0 or 6.0, instead of MS-DOS 5.0 at the time (1992-1993). She knew nothing about computers, but was already completely indoctrinated that MS was the only true way.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[geraldartman]

Monopolies do not exist in free markets - fundamental economics. If capital is able to freely move, then it will seek profitable applications. Indeed, MS may have market share, but in order to have a monopoly, it has to prevent others from entering the market. It doesn't, there are alternatives available. I can run many Windows apps without even having windows. MS has the market share they have because of their investment in products and advertising. Product manufacturers can install other OS's and sell them based on their desired profit model. Some do, Apple has OSX, a number have *nix offerings. Others tried and failed in the market place- CPM, BEOS, NEXT. Someone could be developing the next OS now as we speak.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Kynde]

In a truly free market, you'd see Visual Studio (which is an awesome kit) that runs under Linux/BSD and can be bound to other compilers (e.g. Intel CC, GCC, etc). In a truly free market, you'd see Office work in Linux/BSD and use well documented file formats so people could create 3rd party tools for working with the data... In a truly free market, Windows would strive for UNIX/POSIX compliance underneath so that programs written for it (under the GUI level) would be more portable, ...

Wrong.

In a truly free market there'd be nothing but Microsoft. PCs would be manufactured by them, as would be also the case for the chair you sit on and the electricity that powers your computer.

The only balance in free market are monopolies. That was gruesomly discovered late 19th century when trusts emerged with their sole intent being the creation of monopolies. Without rules, regulations, anti-trust laws and what not the free market would simply wind up being "one company market".

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[manthrax3]

Great, a random judge (who was later removed from the case by the court of appeals) decided arbitrarily that MSFT had broken a law written in 1890.

Monopolies can't exist in this post-modern global economy. Those of you who want the government to save us all from Microsoft forget that OS X and Linux exist (even as you struggle to run them on your own systems with your dual boots and /etc folders).

The reasons that OS X and Linux have not overtaken Windows are many, and most of these reasons aren't related to monopolistic practices.

Stop looking for handouts and beat MSFT the old fashioned way.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[eno2001]

Well you're not far from right, but... you imply a third party (not in terms of political parties), who has the ability to control both government and business and put limits on both. Ideally that third party SHOULD be the average person. But how? The voting system clearly doesn't work. Neither does investing unless you have a LOT of money and your pullout would be dmaging to the company. The construction of any third system of oversight for government and business is a chilling thought since the question arises... who would control them? The reason I see government and business as separate is that one exists purely for economic reasons (business) and the other exists purely for fair regulation in society (government). Both are severly broken today. Business is driven so hard to constantly make increasing profits rather than just being operationally profitable, that through various levels of obfuscation, they do VERY bad thing to many powerless people. The obfuscation ensures that the people who work in these companies are kept unaware or only vaguely aware of the negative impact their business has on others. This allows them to work "guilt free" feeling that they're doing the right thing and anyone opposing them is just plain evil. In terms of the government, the system is broken because the same cutthroat business approach has been applied to government and politics by career politicians.

In my state (Ohio) this past election, there was an "Issue 3" on the ballot that would have allowed limited gambling in my state (slot machines among other things). But the publicity made by the supporters of Issue 3 was HIGHLY dishonest. Every piece of literature that I saw had pictures of young, happy people from grade school to college standing in nice looking surroundings on sunny days. The young adults were wearing mortar boards. The little kids were on school playgrounds. All of the imagery meant to connote better schools and education. There was little mention of that in the text though. The test only alluded to that as a small side benefit of the passage of Issue 3. The main benefit that was touted, which is especially nasty considering the number of lost jobs here, was that the passage of Issue 3 would create several thousand new jobs. NONE of the literature made mention of the "limited gaming" at all. The signs plastered EVERYWHERE simply said "YES! On Issue 3" with a graphic of a mortar board. If the races were done properly, these tactics would be illegal. It was a highly deceptive campaign and fortunately one that the religious right (who I NEVER normally side with) was highly opposed to, so it didn't pass. But it's just one example of people who want to game the system for their benefit. Someone (I suspect local organized crime), really wanted this to pass and was dumb enough that they felt that the average person would fall for these tactics. But, there are other similar tactics employed at other levels which DO fool the public into supporting the wrong things. And that's why I say government control BY the people is damaged as well.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Agreed - so was the grandparent post just a long way of saying, "anybody can sue you anytime for anything," or did I miss a concept?

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Millenniumman]

No one is forced to use them. The fact that they are popular does not make them a monopoly. The fact that that popularity pressures people to use them does not make them a monopoly either.

People could stop using Microsoft software if they cared. There is simply no suitable reason to in most circumstances. If there was, they could. In a monopoly situation, they couldn't.

What does forcefully bundling Windows matter? Wipe it from the hard drive the minute you get it if you don't like it. The thing is, most people want it, so making a few without Windows would probably cost more.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[plantman-the-womb-st]

I was attempting to dispell a myth, but basically yes. I grow tried of the fractured logic that is often used around here that if someone got sued then (insert whatever reverse engineering/file sharing/flying cyber-monkeys) is illegal. Law suits have nothing to do with whether or not something is legal. I was merely trying to illustrate the difference.

Though judging for the moderation, I seem to have failed.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[tomstdenis]

Um actually, being popular does have something to do with it. A monopoly is simply a business which dominates significiantly the market. Monopolies are NOT illegal. Abusing them is because it violates the trust we put in them to act in our best interest.

Microsoft has a monopoly on the OS market. That's not a secret. When they start playing tricks that lock out 3rd party vendors for no reason other than they can, they're violating our trust in them. Why is it in my best interest that the .doc format not be documented? Why is it in theirs?

Tom

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Millenniumman]

A monopoly is simply a business which dominates significiantly the market.

No, it's not. It is a business which controls a market completely and without competition. Microsoft does not.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Though judging for the moderation, I seem to have failed.

Oh, around here the clueless moderate the clueful. :) You're fighting the good fight.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[tomstdenis]

ok, your business has to use .doc files. GO! [.xls, etc...]

Oh wait, nothing in Linux manipulates .doc files properly. Whoops.

And you were saying?

Tom

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Ogrez]

And what... exactly... is it that microsoft is the only supplier of?? Software usable by the masses? Maybe.... Desktop OS? wrong. Server OS? wrong. Yes Microsoft has been found guilty of anti-competitive practices and monopolisitc practices, but they are in fact NOT a monopoly, there IS competition. By saying that my analogy is wrong because it doesnt include a monopoly means that you believe Microsoft IS a monopoly, in which case I would have to ask you why you dont feel that open source software can compete with Microsoft. Why do you feel that Mac cant compete with Microsoft???

So lets try this again, what if Ford was the only supplier of cars in the US and if you wanted a car you pretty much had to buy a Ford. Now, ford decides it wants to move into the fuel market. So they switch all Ford cars to use only Ford fuel.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

And what... exactly... is it that microsoft is the only supplier of?

They were found guilty of having monopoly influence on the market for desktop operating systems. This is not to say they are necessarily the only supplier, merely that they have enough influence in that market to bypass normal competitive forces.

Maybe.... Desktop OS? wrong.

Interesting. Congratulations you've been promoted to the position of CEO ate Gateway computers. In building your computer systems you need to acquire an OS to pre-install if you're going to get any sales. What choices do you have that won't (put you out of business / get you fired)? That would be Windows.

By saying that my analogy is wrong because it doesnt include a monopoly means that you believe Microsoft IS a monopoly, in which case I would have to ask you why you dont feel that open source software can compete with Microsoft.

Yup Microsoft is a monopoly, that has been pretty well established in courts around the world by now. In building computers Linux is not a viable option because most software won't run on it, people can't use their old software on it, and most ISPs won't (support it/hook it up).

Why do you feel that Mac cant compete with Microsoft?

We're talking about the OS market, not the computer system market. Apple won't sell their OS to Dell or Gateway, so they are not in that market. Instead they maintain a complete vertical chain of supply and compete in the computer market.

I don't know why you copied a chunk of my post and put it at the end of yours without any comment, but whatever. Did that clarify anything for you? Arguing that MS is not a monopoly is about 5 years out of date. They are. Courts around the world have agreed. Every respectable economist agrees. Give it up.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Millenniumman]

No, it doesn't have to. That might be the only reasonable option, but it does not have to by any law or force. If you really want to, you can not use it.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Ogrez]

Yeah... your right... It has clarified alot for me. I guess ive been reading slashdot to much, and have in the last few years started to believe that linux WAS commercially viable, and MIGHT be able to compete with Microsoft... but I guess in the end we must just take in stride the fact that there is no commercially viable option for replacing windows.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Monopolies do not exist in free markets - fundamental economics.

Umm, where did you go to school? In a free market there is a tendency towards more and more monopolies until the market is no longer free. that is why almost every capitalist country regulates their capitalism by restricting the actions of cartels and monopolies.

Indeed, MS may have market share, but in order to have a monopoly, it has to prevent others from entering the market.

In order to wield sufficient influence in the market to bypass normal market forces, they only need the vast majority of the market, not all of it. This allows them to introduce artificial barriers to entry in that market to maintain the monopoly by making the best interests of the people be to buy the monopolized product even if it is "better" only because they control the market.

It doesn't, there are alternatives available. I can run many Windows apps without even having windows.

And you've just provided a demonstration that shows you don't know the market were talking about. Microsoft sells a desktop OS, which is one component of a computer system. Their purchasers are computer vendors and large companies/organizations. The people who buy boxed copies of Windows are so small a portion of their sales as to be insignificant. The proof of whether or not they are a monopoly is not whether you can run Windows programs, but can a major PC vendor buy a differnt OS to pre-install and survive in the market.

MS has the market share they have because of their investment in products and advertising.

It doesn't matter how they have a monopoly, only if they have that influence on the market. They do, as all the courts to look at the issue and every respectable economist has ruled.

Product manufacturers can install other OS's and sell them based on their desired profit model.

Really, who sells computers in volume with anything else?

Some do, Apple has OSX, a number have *nix offerings.

Apple maintains a complete separate vertical chain of supply and makes their own OS, which they don't sell to others. They are not in the OS market, but the PC market. No one else is in the desktop OS market (sells them). In fact, Apple making their own and not selling it is a classic warning sign of a monopolized market.

Others tried and failed in the market place- CPM, BEOS, NEXT.

Yes other companies tried to compete with MS and they all went out of business. They didn't take a small chunk and survive they actually died. They did this despite having (in most experts opinions) created a superior alternative. BeOS, for example, died because MS pressured computer vendors to cancel all pre-install deals under threat of price discrimination.

Someone could be developing the next OS now as we speak.

But they won't. What capitalist acting in their own best interests would fund such an uphill and uncertain battle when for less they could get greater return by competing fairly in a non-monopolized market? To enter the desktop OS market you need to simultaneously enter the hardware, services, and applications markets as well, trebling your risk for no added return. Even if you have significantly innovative products, superior to Windows you're still not likely to win, as their lock-ins will prevent you from gaining critical mass.

Capitalism relies on people acting out of greed and self interest. Monopolies make greedy, self-interested people go elsewhere where they get more return for less risk.

Sorry, but MS is a monopoly. It is about as clear cut as an economist could hope for as an example. Worse yet, they are an abusive monopoly. They used their monopoly in one market to monopolize secondary markets and gain unfair advantages in still other markets. If you're in denial about that, you're living in a fantasy world

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[maeka]

Adverse possession is the actual (physical), visible (known), hostile (with intent)(in most jurisdictions), exclusive (keeping out title holder), possession of a piece of real property for a long enough time to claim title.
You are thinking of eminent domain wherein the state reappropriates and redistributes title for the public good.

English article

[Aphax]

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,194 8086,00.html

Re:English article

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

I'm tired of this chic always complaining for more documentation. Anyone want to pitch in with me to just bite the bullet and buy here a MSDN and Technet subscription?

Re:English article

[TheLinuxSRC]

And where exactly are the line level protocol descriptions for such network protocols as SMB (a.k.a CIFS) provided by MSDN and Technet? We are not talking about MFC Classes and their respective APIs here; we are talking about something MS has never publicly documented anywhere, to subscribers or not.

Re:English article

[Dion]

Unless you can come up with a link to the complete Exchange server protocol then STFU, NOOB, thanks.

Re:English article

[KlomDark]

Hmmm... I have an MSDN subscription, and can't seem to find any such documentation. Now what do you suggest I do now?

MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[elrous0]

Bill Gates responded "Okay, we'll just use our auto-update feature to turn off all Windows copies in every EU country. Hope you all know how to install Linux, fuckers!"

-Eric

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[Alioth]

Which would be extreme wishful thinking on the part of Bill Gates. Microsoft would be crucified by their shareholders if they did anything to even slightly endanger their existence in the European market - which has a population of almost twice the United States. Indeed, the shareholders could easily sue Microsoft's board if they were to take such an ill-advised act. Not to mention, the rest of the world would be scrambling to migrate away from Microsoft products so they don't get extorted in the same manner.

It would also demonstrate to the EU the urgency of which Microsoft's monopoly would need to be broken - so even the rumour of such a threat would be severely damaging to the value of Microsoft as a company.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[Phil246]

as has been mentioned lots and lots of times beforehand, such a move would do microsoft more harm then actually complying with the law would.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[elrous0]

Microsoft would be crucified by their shareholders

How do you think their shareholders are going to react to the options of either giving away all their valuable IP or being fined 3 million Euros a day? MS should simply call their bluff and cut Europe off completely from MS products for a few months. EU businesses would scream bloody murder and governments across the EU would be in chaos. I suspect, within a month or two, Neelie Kroes would die in a surprisingly convenient car accident, which British MI5 would call "A terribly tragic thing...Yes, very tragic, that." and the EU would back down.

-Eric

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[A beautiful mind]

Every time this comes up on slashdot I'm happy to remind you people that the EU is Microsoft's biggest market.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[Shawn is an Asshole]

Currently, the EU is smart enough to not have software patents. That probably wont last forever, though.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[lisaparratt]

Wow, you Septics really don't understand the European mind set, do you?

Even your bestest friends the British don't actually like you, and the Europeans proper despise you even more.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[hey!]

Bill Gates responded "Okay, we'll just use our auto-update feature to turn off all Windows copies in every EU country. Hope you all know how to install Linux, fuckers!"

Splendid! We can add that to our collection of "words to regret for every occasion":

• Hijinks with your drunken pals: "Hey, watch this!"
  
• At the traffic stop: "If you're so smart, how come you're just a cop?"
  
• Lost in the hood: "Which way to Denny's, boy?"
  
• In the board meeting: "They're the government. What could they do to us?"
  
• To the judge: "I'm not going to and you can't make me."
  
• To the high government official: "Yeah, you and what army?"
  

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[A beautiful mind]

Sorry, but you're living in a dream world.

giving away all their valuable IP

There is no such thing as Intellectual Property. Europe does not recognize software patents, and as for copyright: it has a very narrowly defined (and abused) goal in law: to provide incentive. MS blocks that effort by monopolizing.

MS should simply call their bluff and cut Europe off completely from MS products for a few months

A few things would and wouldn't happen: first of all, existing installed Microsoft products wouldn't stop working. MS hasn't got a global off switch. Second: MS would still have to pay. If they would refuse to pay, they'd get all their assets seized in Europe. Third: Copyright treaties and law allows the government to free something from copyright if it's something of a national security interest. They declare MS's copyright void in the EU. That'd alone kill MS.

Even if that wouldn't happen, Europe would have an accelerated migration OFF Windows, which, as the biggest union in the world in terms of GDP and having the Euro as a better alternative to the dollar, would cause a cascading effect in all businesses reducing the demand/marketshare for Microsoft products worldwide.

This would be nothing short of complete suicide on behalf of Microsoft. They are not that stupid.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[Knuckles]

How is properly documenting their APIs and protocols "giving away all their valuable IP"?

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[bampot]

Well, if it's good enough for Gerald Ratner !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doing_a_Ratner

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[A beautiful mind]

Microsoft is an American company with (primarily) American shareholders. We see things differently and (in a lot of cases) don't agree with how Europe sees things. This could be a good way to spark change.

Sure. Go ahead and tell that to an european judge. I'm sure he will appreciate your american arrogance.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[micah_hainline]

even the rumour of such a threat would be severely damaging to the value of Microsoft as a company.

What are we waiting for then? Let's start spreading some rumors! :)

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[Phil246]

Im scottish. way to presume things

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[TheLinuxSRC]

That is an incredibly broad brush you paint with. May you someday be judged by the same criteria.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[apeeira]

"MS hasn't got a global off switch" ...Not that we know of....(click)

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[apeeira]

Same Old Europe....When it's others is arrogance, when it them it's reaffirming their cultural 'values' and way of doing things, in other words European arrogance

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[Panoramix]

MS should simply call their bluff and cut Europe off completely from MS products for a few months.

I can't believe you are serious about this. The notion of Microsoft pulling out of Europe is just too bizarre, even as a thought experiment. I mean, thought experiments are not as fun when they are that disconnected from reality.

I don't think Microsoft can just "cut off" Europe in the way that's been suggested. Not unless they are prepared to refund every company and individual who would be left unable to use the operating system they paid for. I don't know how many copies of Windows could be "shut down by autoupdate", but I guess the amount Microsoft would have to refund would be quite large. Good luck convincing your shareholders that diverting a big chunk of the company's cash to refund people (or to pay for litigation) is preferrable to having to document some protocols.

A little less outlandish, though not even close to realistic, would be for Microsoft to refrain from selling any more products in Europe, and convincing the court to let them skip complying with the previous order on that grounds. But I don't think that would be a very smart choice by Microsoft either. It would cause them to lose a huge market, and all that, but there's something even more important...

EU businesses would scream bloody murder and governments across the EU would be in chaos.

Microsoft has had great success imbuing in the minds of people this weird feeling of dependence of Windows. That prediction of yours is a prime example of this. Even in the face of steep prices, defective products, vulnerabilities and all, people just think they need Microsoft to use their computers---it's almost like an addiction.

Now this really puzzles Mac and Linux users, because they know for a fact that there are perfectly serviceable replacements for most of Microsoft products. Not only serviceable, but in many cases technically superior, cheaper, or both. But people at large shun those and go along with Microsoft, out of fud, herd mentality, or whatever---I don't claim to know how that happens. But I do know Microsoft would not even consider forcing people out of their addiction to its products. Force Europe to switch to Linux or whatever, and that many people will find out that there really is no need to pay Microsoft for anything. I submit that would be much worse for Microsoft than losing the European market. In fact, I think that would be the end of Microsoft's dominance worldwide.

I suspect, within a month or two, Neelie Kroes would die in a surprisingly convenient car accident, which British MI5 would call "A terribly tragic thing...Yes, very tragic, that." and the EU would back down.

That's just disgusting.

Anyway, back here in reality, I think Microsoft will "cave in" and document the stupid protocols. Really, they have no choice. It will be harder for them to keep their monopoly, having fewer ways to lock-in people and all, but at least it won't cost them their entire business. Not immediately, at least.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[ghjm]

I'll match your nuttery and raise you one moonbat:

1. Microsoft announces pull-out from European market.
2. European businesses scream bloody murder.
3. European governments nationalize Microsoft offices located in Europe and seize their assets.
4. EuroSoft Windows released under GPL.
5. ...
6. Profit!

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[arkhan_jg]

And the EU courts and governments say "That'll be a billion euro a day fine, we're confiscating all your european assets to pay for it and oh, we're cancelling your copyright on Windows and Office. Anyone want to host the website where people can download free copies and get copies of the updates?"

Remember, Microsoft only exist because of government-backed copyrights. They can and have nullified copyrights, or extended it to perpetuity, in individual cases in the EU....

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Bill Gates responded "Okay, we'll just use our auto-update feature to turn off all Windows copies in every EU country. Hope you all know how to install Linux, fuckers!"

That would be so funny. Bill Gates would be out on his ass about as fast as they could arrange an emergency meeting of the board of directors. I wonder if the shareholders would take time away from apologizing to the EU long enough to hire someone to kidnap Gates and slowly torture him to death for the hundreds of billions of dollars he just cost them.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[julesh]

EU businesses would scream bloody murder and governments across the EU would be in chaos.

And by the time MS could reverse what they'd done, we'd all be using alternative systems. They'd kill the market.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[everphilski]

I didn't say **I** agreed with what I said, I merely said your eurocentric view did not necessarily jive with corporate shareholders. This thing is a lot bigger than you.

Re:MS gives EU 8 days until no Windows

[Alioth]

Giving away all of their IP? What are you somking? This is about a handful of COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS - not copyrighted code, source code or anything else. Things like a specification so others can implement something that interoperates with Active Directory without needing to reverse engineer Active Directory.

Website TRanslations

[oscartheduck]

http://www1.worldlingo.com/SH0gfCf2o9dP9D6Mf0Gbs_1 Xz7f6YuCsH/translate
http://www1.worldlingo.com/SH0gfCf2o9dP9D6Mf0Gbs _1Xz7f6YuCsH/translate
If anyone can help these poor folks out with a mirror so we don't melt their servers, I'm sure they'd appreciate it.

Slashdot: Now in Dutch!

[NineNine]

Slashdot continues its editorial nosedive towards irrelevance as they now ignore their own FAQ!. I wasn't aware that there is a significant portion of the American Slashdot reading public that could understand Dutch. Interesting.

Re:Slashdot: Now in Dutch!

[Tribbin]

RTFA

Re:Slashdot: Now in Dutch!

[Rik Sweeney]

I wasn't aware that there is a significant portion of the American Slashdot reading public that could understand Dutch.

I can't read Dutch, but I can read Japanese*, and can tell you that Slashdot Japan not only rotate their polls more reguarly, but they're also more interesting.

*This is a complete lie. I have no idea what's going on, something about spam and something that's probably funny on some level...

Re:Slashdot: Now in Dutch!

[at_slashdot]

At least now we have a reason for not reading TFA.

Re:Slashdot: Now in Dutch!

[Barsema]

De Nederlanders veroveren het internet ! en we zijn begonnen bij deelteken punt!

Re:Slashdot: Now in Dutch!

[IdleTime]

Ik kan ja het lesen, maar ik ben niet Hollands.

Re:Slashdot: Now in Dutch!

[suitepotato]

There's enough junk Dutch in it to be read just barely by Americans who paid attention in high school English and History classes where the history of English is concerned. If it was proper Dutch, then it would be much harder.

Re:Slashdot: Now in Dutch!

[goarilla]

i wouldn't mind that because then for once i can be the spelling and grammar nazi!

Re:Slashdot: Now in Dutch!

[thewils]

Slashdot Japan

I went there and voted in the poll. Not certain what I voted for, but I assumed it was the "SamuraiNeal" option.

Re:Slashdot: Now in Dutch!

[merauder]

Dutch is to English as Italian is to Spanish.. very close, if you can figure out the root word meaning, then you are usually correct.

Re:Slashdot: Now in Dutch!

[mmjcon147]

I wasn't aware that slashdot was 100% american, and it cant be, cuase im here. so get up off your highhorse

Why the Dutch?

[spellraiser]

A simple Google News search turns up a whole lot of items on this story in English.

Re:Why the Dutch?

[TommyMc]

"There are two kinds of people I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch."

Re:Why the Dutch?

[Luctius]

"As a final touch, God created the Dutch"

Microsoft Will Prop Up Europe In the Face of...

[geoffrobinson]

declining birth rates.

On a serious note, it would be interesting to see the level of fines Microsoft is willing to bear. This would show how much value they actually place on their protocols.

Re:Microsoft Will Prop Up Europe In the Face of...

[oscartheduck]

Try reading the title of the post then the remainder. It's an annoying habit to have a title that is actually part of the post, I agree, but it's not unintelligible.

Re:Microsoft Will Prop Up Europe In the Face of...

[Kadin2048]

Seems like it would probably be worth staying in business, as long as the fines don't drive their profit into negative numbers.

I suppose at some point you'd get to a shutdown condition where they would be better off liquidating their assets and invest the capital elsewhere, rather than continue to do business under heavy fines, but they would have to be a lot heavier than anything that's considered right now.

In short, I think the Europeans can squeeze Microsoft a lot harder, before they'll decide to take their ball and go home.

Re:Microsoft Will Prop Up Europe In the Face of...

[PeteDotNu]

"On a serious note, it would be interesting to see the level of fines Microsoft is willing to bear. This would show how much value they actually place on their protocols."

I'd like to see it done chessboard-style: the fine is one Euro on the first day, and it doubles each day after that. After a month, it would be starting to hurt.

What-EVER!

[overshoot]

Well, it looks like Bill is going to have to turn over some pocket lint.

Face it -- the fines aren't even petty cash. MS expects the Court of First Instance to rule in a few months, and it would be stupid to turn over information that can't be recalled before then.

At absolute worst, the fines are worth less than the ability to hold off competition for the same period; it's just part of the cost of doing business.

Re:What-EVER!

[timbit]

This just in: EU stock is on the rise as analysts raise their fourth quarter earnings predictions. The European Union's main income generating machine, Microsoft, is widely expected to hand over another large chunk of cash on top of the 750+ million euros already deposited in the coffers...

Re:What-EVER!

[Fujisawa Sensei]

It is chump change. M$ make more than a billion in profit each month.

potentiial conflict of interest...

[krell]

" so is EU commissioner Neelie Kroes."

But what about his cousin Mie Kroes Offt?

Re:potentiial conflict of interest...

[ishpeck]

But what about his cousin Mie Kroes Offt?

Her cousin. Neelie is a girl.

Re:potentiial conflict of interest...

[tsa]

A woman, I would say.

I know how Microsoft can score BIG here . . .

[mmell]

simply stop marketing Microsoft products in the EU marketplace. No, no . . . hear me out . . .

Think about it - if Microsoft doesn't market Windows et. al. in the EU, the EU has no standing to impose fines on Microsoft. European customers will be obliged to purchase Microsoft products in the USA and to find a way to get their shiny new copies of Vista home (as I've never heard of a way to force a company to do business in a given geographic region). The EU will be forced be economic pressure to either 1) cave in to Microsoft, or 2) subsidize the vast number of businesses in Europe which will have to endure the nightmare of migrating their enterprises off of Windows onto some other solution. Even if the EU were more economically powerful than it is, I doubt that it could afford option #2, especially once the US government catches wind of things and slaps an export tax on it (which you know they would).

Of course, they could start running their businesses using OLPC laptops! That'd show those bullies at Redmond who's boss!

Re:I know how Microsoft can score BIG here . . .

[Slashcrap]

Even if the EU were more economically powerful than it is, I doubt that it could afford option #2

Before assuming that the EU is a relatively insignificant part of Microsoft's market which they could easily do without, you may want to work out the total population of the EU. Then calculate what percentage of the developed World's population (i.e. the people who actually pay for expensive operating systems and office software) it makes up.

Of course, being American you will probably first want to find an atlas and work out what country the EU is in.

Re:I know how Microsoft can score BIG here . . .

[Der PC]

What exactly would the U.S. government be putting tax on ?

Windows ? Nah, the E.U. isn't buying Windows according to your plot.

Linux ? But Linux isn't "Made in U.S. of A.".. They'd just buy SuSE Linux, or go ftp://ftp.funet.fi

Methinks the EU wouldn't actually be in such a bad shape, even if Microsoft really would stop shipping Windows to the EU. The already sold licenses are still valid ( although they'd be a virus trap on the scale of O(n$) once the patches stop appearing in the EU :) )

There would be a transition period, but business would recover soon enough and domestic solutions to POS, banking, TAX etc would appear. ( Although not an EU country, Iceland would suffer only for a brief period of time if Windows was banned. Banking and Tax returns are already multi-platform capable due to good back-ends, clueful programmers and a good browser

The EU might actually gain something from having Microsoft taken off of the market. Although it's only speculative, I think there's a lot of domestic tech-job-opportunities here :)

Re:I know how Microsoft can score BIG here . . .

[ledow]

Option 1: If it happened, it's not good for the EU at all (to be seen as toothless would let any monopoly run rampant). The EU is more than just a single unit, it's a collection of lots of countries - most of whom have absolutely no interest at all in seeing an MS monopoly. Plus, the chances are that it will end up costing an awful lot of "important" people in an awful lot of countries their jobs. Plus, currently, the financial incentive to the EU alone is worth continuing pursuing the case, even if it takes years and years to appeal.

Option 2: The MS software they had would not spontaneously explode, they would have at least until the end of support for XP/2003 (which is still a few years away) in which to migrate. The enormous inertia of dozens of countries migrating simultaneously will make this no more expensive than any other option (who's going to say no to doing one country's IT if they have sites in other countries that they can reuse their creations?) - sheer demand will mean that it would be worth creating an OS completely from scratch with real funding at a fraction of the money that they would STILL be making from MS's fine. And the final target would be complete independence of any company to prevent a future re-occurence. Even if expensive, that will save a lot more money in the long run.

If MS do decide to pull out of the EU (unlikely given the figures - at least 50% of their revenue comes from there), then the EU has already stated that it would be perfectly happy to say bye-bye to them. Nobody is MAKING them do business in the EU. However, they would still have to resolve prior, historical trading issues. So annoying the EU at this point will just mean a harsher perspective on issues that are still in front of them (and will be for several years yet, no doubt). Pulling out now doesn't cancel all the legal problems that they've generated in the past and this case itself dates back to at least 2004 (and relates to affairs from a while before that).

If MS pulled out, the "vacuum" created by absence of a product to replace MS stuff would generate a lot of easy revenue - the various governments, companies, institutions would look at replacing everything NOW rather than wait until they hit problems. They'd do it right to prevent a reoccurence and they'd (ironically) be using MS's own money to fund the replacement. Unix/Linux/Apple companies would make a killing overnight.

Re:I know how Microsoft can score BIG here . . .

[hxnwix]

Remember the energy crisis? While the US went on to become even more dependant on middle eastern oil, Europe realized that the mid east had them by the short and curlies. France replaced their fossile fuel power plants with nuclear systems and Norway tapped into its undersea oil and natural gas fields.

I posit that word documents are less addictive than midddle eastern petroleum and that, should Microsoft force the EU's hand, Microsoft software shipments to Europe would be as common as crude shipments to scandinavia.

Re:I know how Microsoft can score BIG here . . .

[MeNeXT]

You don't need Microsoft to run your business.

There are business today which run completely without computers let alone Microsoft.

Your solution would hurt Microsoft more than the fine. Once business starts realizing that other less expensive solutions exist the migration will accelerate.

Re:I know how Microsoft can score BIG here . . .

[arkhan_jg]

You've missed option 3. EU governments cancel copyrights on Microsoft software. They become perfectly legal to download, share and modify to remove IP region-based windows update crippleware inside the EU. Thus leaving Microsoft having given up all income in an economic area with a higher GDP than the US.

The government gives copyright protection, and they can and have taken it away in individual cases in the past. Microsoft might be wealthy and powerful, but they don't get to write their own laws in the EU.

Re:I know how Microsoft can score BIG here . . .

[ookaze]

Think about it - if Microsoft doesn't market Windows et. al. in the EU, the EU has no standing to impose fines on Microsoft

Of course they have. The fines are not for future behaviour, but for current ones.

European customers will be obliged to purchase Microsoft products in the USA and to find a way to get their shiny new copies of Vista home (as I've never heard of a way to force a company to do business in a given geographic region)

And EU won't do that. Very few companies and people in the EU will cope with an OS that is not in their native language.
That also means no more preinstalled Windows on any computer in the EU : MS is toast then.

The EU will be forced be economic pressure to either 1) cave in to Microsoft, or 2) subsidize the vast number of businesses in Europe which will have to endure the nightmare of migrating their enterprises off of Windows onto some other solution

BS !! The EU court doesn't have to cave to anything. That you can't get Windows is not their problem at all. And the EU is not even responsible for which OS businesses use or any of the software they use. So they don't have to subsidize anything. The only responsible for this would be MS, not the EU. Business have a contract with MS, not with the EU. I don't know by which logic you came to these bogus conclusions.

Even if the EU were more economically powerful than it is, I doubt that it could afford option #2, especially once the US government catches wind of things and slaps an export tax on it (which you know they would)

As your options don't make sense, this doesn't either.

Of course, they could start running their businesses using OLPC laptops! That'd show those bullies at Redmond who's boss!

And why not use normal laptops and desktops !?
Try to get a grasp of reality first : you're mixing comic wishful thinking with reality.

Re:I know how Microsoft can score BIG here . . .

[Rezell]

By assuming that being an American automatically precludes you from having any knowledge of the large world outside U.S. borders you are essentially proving yourself as ignorant as the post you replied to. It's been modded funny, it's not, it's equally baseless.

Re:I know how Microsoft can score BIG here . . .

[ccp]

The MS software they had would not spontaneously explode, they would have at least until the end of support for XP/2003

It's true that the last Windows I've used was Win98, but unless they put a really radical innovation in XP, I'd guess it will not explode even then.
This meme about the end of support implying the death of the software baffles me.

Cheers,
CC

Re:I know how Microsoft can score BIG here . . .

[ledow]

For the average home user, you are correct. However, big business, schools and government departments do not see it that way. End of support from manufacturer is end of product in their eyes, even if they have twenty tech staff who write patches for it day in day out. And rightly so, or they'd be swimming in a bunch of unofficial hacks to keep vital services running - hacks that probably won't work tomorrow, or on other hardware etc. At least if they have a support contract with the manufacturer, they can use their pushing power to get stuff fixed.

Time to apply for patents.

[Short Circuit]

Time for Microsoft to apply for patents on anything and everything described by these protocols...Otherwise, they're up a creek.

Re:Time to apply for patents.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Time for Microsoft to apply for patents on anything and everything described by these protocols...Otherwise, they're up a creek.

Well, since for the most part these protocols are intentionally broken copies of preexisting open standards, I don't think it likely they will be patentable. Also, since this is an antitrust abuse case, they would be forbidden by law from exercising any such patents or possibly even using patented protocols at all between their desktop and server since that would be a violation all by itself.

Re:Time to apply for patents.

[A beautiful mind]

apply for patents

They better lobby the EU to consider those patents valid aswell, otherwise they are useless.

Re:Time to apply for patents.

[Der PC]

That doesn't even suffice, as there are still countries outside the EU but within Europe that do not allow software patents.

Icelandic patent law is extremely clear on the matter ( as I wish the american law was ):

The first clause of the Icelandic patent law reads:

Helstu nýjungar, sem ekki verða taldar til uppfinninga, eru ær sem eingöngu varða:
1. Uppgötvanir, vísindakenningar og stærðfræðiaðferðir.
2. Listræn verk.
3. Skipulag, reglur eða aðferðir við hugarstarfsemi, leiki eða atvinnustarfsemi eða forrit fyrir tölvur.
4. Miðlun upplýsinga.

Loosely translated, it reads:
new things that will not be considered inventions are those that are based only on:
1. Discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods
2. Work of art
3. Patters, rules or methods used for work of the mind, games or commerce or software for computers
4. Distribution of information

That means that any software implementable methods are non-patentable.
It also means that any hardware implementable methods and algorithms are ALSO non-patentable, IF they can be considered software in any way, OR if their application in the grand scheme is to distribute information of any kind.

(Some) Other countries have very similar patent laws. These patent laws are very good. And, these patent laws are one of the few things of my heritage that I will defend with teeth and claws. (bringem'on)

Re:Time to apply for patents.

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Or MS could play on a more level playing field? To be fair to MS, some of their products are quite good. People would still buy MS products even with compeditive products available, but MS would likely be constrained in their pricing.
Net result, likely consumer/small-biz software would be cheaper, but I think larger businesses would still be paying much the same (product support costs money even if you supply FOSS).

Wonder what they'll tell us this time

[badger.foo]

The last time the EU demanded that Microsoft produce usable documentation (as in, sufficient specs to program at least a working prototype implementation of the relevant network protocols), they kept insisting that the EU had demanded that they hand over all their source code. And of course large chunks of the press believed them.

I wonder what story they'll try to feed us this time around.

Re:Wonder what they'll tell us this time

[Keeper]

They never said that. They said they had documented everything, and if that still isn't sufficient you can license our code. The EU said that code wasn't sufficient documentation.

Newflash! MS to pay up!

[pair-a-noyd]

They will ignore the demands and accept the fine.
Then they will say they will pay with vouchers for MS software.
Same shit, different day..

Re:Ridiculous.

[Richard Steiner]

While I am like most of Slashdot in that I think that Microsoft has a very tight grip on the computer market, I still will never understand why the EU is so against Microsoft.

The US would be seen that way as well if it actually had the balls to enforce its own anti-trust laws.

Awesome!

[Phoenix666]

I'm rooting for the EU to crack the back of this beast. It's high time that multi-national corporations learn that they are not above the law. Arthur Andersen doesn't seem to have been enough of an example, because corporate officers and billionaires in this world still play like they think they're masters of the universe.

Re:Awesome!

[Creepy Crawler]

Why bother?

Linux is already just as good, and we can get work done just as well. All that really matters is that some people use MS apps that arent compatible with much, BUT many of those apps also have export to standard data types.

What I worry about is the customer backlash when they fuck over their media collections with default-DRM on Windows. That will pissoff more people than ANY EU or US judgement.

Having ravaging hordes of pissed off cusomers is bad for any business, let alone when there's a viable alternative.

Re:Awesome!

[hummdinger02]

Blah Blah Blah. Big corporations have done far more for you than the small businesses. You want to bash corporations and yet suckle the teet they provide. I call FOUL! If you do not like corporations then get off your computer, get off the internet and move to a country without corporations. They will love you and your insight in the third world.

Re:Awesome!

[dkleinsc]

learn that they are not above the law

Stephan Seagal, did you hear that?

Re:Awesome!

[Eivind Eklund]

80+% of people work in small businesses, and 80+% of innovation is done in small businesses (which are then bought by the large businesses). What were you saying, again?

Re:Awesome!

[iBod]

>>some people use MS apps that arent compatible with much

Some people?

1) The overwhelming number (like 99.87%) of businesses use the MS Office suite, and expect others to do the same, just so they can do 'business' with each other and stuff.

2) The things that MS apps aren't compatible with == nobody gives a shit!

Whether you like this situation or not, it is the status quo.

No amount of wishfull thinking, bitching and moaning or fantasizing is going to change it.

Re:Awesome!

[hummdinger02]

Corporation is not equivalent to small business. Small = size description while Corporation = Legal Status. If you go by common definitions of "small business" and remove all of those with incorporation status you end up with far fewer than 80% of jobs. At the same time you end up with jobs that provide lower average wages, more costly average healthcare and yet generally higher prices to the public for both durable and non-durable goods.

As far as "innovation" is concerned I am not sure how you measure that so I am not going to argue that. So go ahead and champion the Smaller, lower paying and more expensive businesses. I choose larger, better paying business that provides lower cost goods and services.

Re:Awesome!

[Creepy Crawler]

I wasnt wishing, dreaming or fantasizing anything. There's other formats better suited for distribution. It's called a PDF. If someone needs a copy of something I have, I go into Open Office, and export PDF. Works well, and a bitch to modify.

And PDF works on a hell of a lot more platforms than 1.

Nonfree markets

[Mateo_LeFou]

... can result from State *or private actions. Discuss.

Not Ridiculous at all

[gzunk]

For the umpteenth time. Microsoft was tried and convicted in Europe for Anti-Trust violations, just like they were in the states. Part of the remedy was to document the protocols to allow comptetitors software to interoperate with Windows servers.

Microsoft refused to comply with the remedy as decided by the court. The court then decided to fine Microsoft. Microsoft refused to comply with the remedy and refused to pay the fines. That's where we are at the moment.

So the EU isn't against Microsoft because it's American, it's against corporations that break the law, get convicted then ignore the punishment that has been decided by the court.

Now do you see?

Re:Not Ridiculous at all

[stinerman]

This is the same thing. I would love to see a giant world wide trade war. Oh, it'd be painful for a time. But the US has more than enough engineering left to be self-sufficent, and think of all the millions of tons of carbon which would be saved by not moving chinese plastic crap back and forth.

Haha! And then China calls in our debt and we turn into a third world country overnight. Of course, we could always get congress to repudiate it, which would surely be followed by a shooting war.

Re:Ridiculous.

[PjotrP]

if your best try is to blame it on xenophobia im not sure you're trying to understand...

Reality?

[wev162]

What power does the EU ultimately have to enforce the fines at this point if MS simply doesnt pay the fines: Are they prepared to ban the importation of MS products and quit the MS Windows habit cold turkey? I can't see many businesses appreciating being deprived of a standard business environment/tool such as Windows or Office. I'm fairly ignorant of EU politics but is there enough strength in the political system to push an embargo though and make it stick?

Re:Reality?

[Dunbal]

Are they prepared to ban the importation of MS products and quit the MS Windows habit cold turkey?

      Never mess with a government. Whoops, Windows and Windows PC's have a new, special "tax" of $150 until the fine is paid. Computers from OEM's that have Windows now have a new "tax" as well. Oh dear, all of Microsoft's assets in Europe have been seized REGARDLESS of whether the fine gets paid, etc... They've gone right up to the very limit with this one. Microsoft is a big big corporation, but they still have to play by the rules. It's going to be fun to see who gets bribe^H^H^H er what happens next.

Re:Reality?

[Scarblac]

They're the state; they can simply claim ownership of Microsoft assets, like bank accounts et cetera, until the fine is paid, presumably with extra fines on top.

Re:Reality?

[DragonWriter]

What power does the EU ultimately have to enforce the fines at this point if MS simply doesnt pay the fines:

Most governments give some agency the power to enforce judgements by ordering the seizure of property that is within their jurisdiction in order to satisfy the judgement: while that obviously applies to things like bank accounts held in banks subject to the government in question, and real estate, it also can extend to tangible personal property and to intangible personal property like, say, intellectual property.

If for purposes of EU law, the the EU itself was the copyright owner of all previously-published Microsoft software, or that Microsoft software was in the public domain, that would be a pretty serious penalty for Microsoft.

Re:Reality?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

What power does the EU ultimately have to enforce the fines at this point if MS simply doesnt pay the fines...

They can confiscate MS property and assets in the EU, and they can throw corporate executives that fail to comply in prison.

Are they prepared to ban the importation of MS products and quit the MS Windows habit cold turkey?

There is no need to do this. They could simply confiscate MS's copyrights if so inclined.

can't see many businesses appreciating being deprived of a standard business environment/tool such as Windows or Office.

That's not going to happen. MS broke the law to hold businesses hostage, the EU is not going to let them suffer for MS's crimes and there is no reason to do so.

I'm fairly ignorant of EU politics but is there enough strength in the political system to push an embargo though and make it stick?

Again, there will be no embargo. The commission does have the clout to throw people in jail, and eventually they'll get far enough down the line so that someone will comply. In a worst case scenario they will order MS Europe to be formed from the assets, personnel, and funds MS has in the EU and grant that company the copyrights within the EU. The EU cannot afford to let a big company flaunt breaking the law or they will lose credibility and power and they know it. They have the authority and the guns and they will use them if they have to, but they won't.

MS will comply with the EU, even if they are slow about it. They would be idiots to walk away from the huge revenue stream that is the EU, in order to save a tiny portion of that in fines. It would also necessitate a huge new competitor to fill the space, destroying their stranglehold elsewhere. Do you want to buy Windows Vista from MS USA or Windows EU (with the same features) from MS-EU? Which will lower their price the most?

Speculation is fun and all, but really, this isn't going to happen.

Re:Reality?

[d_strand]

sigh... *every* time there's a blurb about this subject people chime in with the parents ideas.

Really, I shouldn't need to point this out but here goes: the EU is not a petty market, they might have a small military compared to the US but thats it. The EU market is huge, and more importantly, if push comes to shove, the EU will not ban MS products, they will simply:

1) confiscate every single asset the MS holds in Europe. All their offices, all their bank accounts etc. etc.
2) The MS board will be wanted criminals in the EU, which might be irrelevant if they are all from outside EU and have no intention of ever going there but still, it'll probably be slightly annoying for them at least.
3) MS will have all their "intellectual property", patents, copyrights etc. revoked in the EU which means anyone will be free to pirate Vista or whatever MS product they feel like.

1) and 3) will hurt MS substantially.

Re:Reality?

[apeeira]

Have you all forgotten that Microsoft is an American corporation, and an embargo against MS is an embargo against the USA?.....I don't know why but the word "retaliation" comes to mind....

What exactly is microsoft being asked to give up?

[jonwil]

Can someone give me some examples of microsoft propriatory data formats, network protocols or APIs that:
A.Would be covered under what the EU is asking MS to release
and B.Would actually be benificial to competitors of Microsoft (including open source)

Re:Ridiculous.

[KiltedKnight]

Remember: they bought the software, Microsoft didn't bash down their doors screaming "YOU WILL BUY OUR SOFTWARE!!".

That's not entirely true. Microsoft did make the deals with the PC OEMs to include a Windows license with their computers. Once upon a time, you actually had to purchase the PC operating system separately. Once Microsoft made these deals, OEMs were forced to install Windows on the machines. Based on recent experiences, the OEMs are not allowed, contractually, to sell the computers without Windows installed.

So they didn't exactly bash down the consumers' doors and force them to buy their software. They forced the PC OEMs to force it on them.

And you are correct with some of the xenophobia. Basically, the EU nations do not want to be purely beholden for this type of thing to a US-based company.

Re:I don't care what happens to Microsoft

[peragrin]

I don't know about that. Walmart doesn't pretend that it's a nice place to work. Walmart doesn't pretend to be anything more than a minimum wage shop. Walmart is a discount house, and really doesn't try to be anything different.

MSFT pretends to be open and standards following, and caring company, who you then partner with(playsforsure) and then stabs you in the back(Zune).

A simple fact, Outside of MSFT's monopoly their products are at best average and rarely long term profitable. Walmart while Evil, doesn't have all their eggs in one basket, and isn't a convicted monopolist.

Fine European Wine

[Eco-Mono]

Does anyone else see this as an incredible boost to projects like Wine and ReactOS? Given that up until now they've had to use Chinese Walls and so forth to figure these things out, it seems to me that this court order is going to save them a *lot* of effort.

Never happen.

[Kadin2048]

Yeah, because nobody in Europe knows how to get around Windows' auto-update features and run it as a pirate copy. Nope; only Americans and Asians know the secrets to that.

All that would happen if Microsoft did something (clearly insane) like that, would be that the European governments would have to invalidate Microsoft's copyrights over Windows, effectively legitimizing pirate copies. People would continue to use Windows, they would simply no longer pay for it.

It would actually be terrible for everyone concerned. A free-as-in-beer Windows would erode one of Linux's major advantages, while also denying Microsoft revenue, and starting a cat-and-mouse incompatibility game between various versions of Windows used in different markets.

In short, such a scenario isn't worth talking about, except as a fun mind game, because it will never happen.

CAP

[Savage-Rabbit]

Euro 777.5 million

That's quite a sum. To put it into perspective, the CAP budget for 2005 (CAP=Common Agricultural Policy, think of it as a big black hole that eats money) was €43 billion.

Re:Ridiculous.

[close_wait]

I still will never understand why the EU is so against Microsoft

Its nothing to do with that. Some companies went to the EU complaining that under EU law, Microsoft was a monopoly that was abusing its monopoly positition. The EU courts ruled in their favour and imposed conditions on Microsoft, which they have not complied with.

The reply from Microsoft...

[Dunbal]

next week, Microsoft must hand over all secret information on Windows protocols to its competition.

      But, but, your honour - we don't HAVE any competition...!

Re:The reply from Microsoft...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

But, but, your honour - we don't HAVE any competition...!

An amusing aside, but in truth they're talking about competition in the server OS market, not the monopolized desktop OS space.

Translation and Original Story

[smooc]

quick translation:

New Ultimatum for Microsoft bu the EU

LONDON - The Eurpean Union has issues a new ultimatum against the American software giant Microsoft: before next Thursday the company has to turn over all (bdb: information about the) secret protocols in its Windows-OS to its competitors.

If Microsoft does not comply with the demands, the company risks more fines, threatened EC Neelie Kroes in Wednesday's edition of the British newspaper the Guardian. "I do not live forever" Kroes said about the tightened pressure.

Accoriding to her Microsoft has not given all relevant information yet. She compared it to a puzzle from which certain pieces are missing.

In March 2004 the European Commission already fined Microsoft by an amount of 497 million euros in alledged abuse of market power. In July an additional fine was set which can go up to 280,5 million euros.

original story in the guardian: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1947759,00 .html

Re:Translation and Original Story

[lintux]

Completely off-topic, but could you *please* remove your home page from your profile? It seems to be hijacked by some link farming asshole now. :-(

Re:Translation and Original Story

[smooc]

Fixed.

That was something from the old ages...

Some nice offices in the UK for a start

[gzunk]

I'm sure the various Microsoft subsiduaries in the EU member states have some nice assets like bank accounts and property that could be seized.

Mod up!

[Eco-Mono]

Translation of the story was sorely needed, and here it is.

Fines != bribes.

[LWATCDR]

This is not a criminal offence. It is a civil offence. Fines a valid punishment for such an offence.
I don't really see this as a problem. Microsoft is as everyone has pointed out a convicted monopoly.

Re:Fines != bribes.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

This is not a criminal offence. It is a civil offence.

Are you certain? In the US, antitrust abuse is a criminal offense. I'm not certain about the EU, but I do know the laws are very similar.

Re:Fines != bribes.

[LWATCDR]

I don't know for sure but even for Criminal offenses fines can be used as a form of punishment.

As I said I don't see this as being really evil. I am not a fan of the EU in general but just like Hitler and the Volkswagen, just because I don't like their politics doesn't mean every action is wrong.

Re:Fines != bribes.

[ClosedSource]

"In the US, antitrust abuse is a criminal offense"

Nope.

Re:Fines != bribes.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

From the Website of the Antitrust division of the DoJ: "There are three main ways in which the federal antitrust laws are enforced: criminal and civil enforcement actions brought by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, civil enforcement actions brought by the Federal Trade Commission and lawsuits brought by private parties asserting damage claims... What Kinds of Cases Has the Justice Department Brought? - Because of the harm that cartel violations cause, the Justice Department's number one antitrust priority is criminal prosecution of those activities. "

Antitrust violations are covered by and prosecuted under criminal law, although in recent years civil actions have been more common. That does not change the fact, however, that it is a criminal offense.

Re:Fines != bribes.

[ClosedSource]

The unqualified statement "antitrust is a criminal offense" is wrong. As indicated in the passage you quote, it can be either criminal or civil.

Re:Fines != bribes.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The unqualified statement "antitrust is a criminal offense" is wrong.

No it is 100% accurate, although maybe not as complete as you'd like. It was especially accurate in that it was rebuttal to the statement "This is not a criminal offence. It is a civil offence."

As indicated in the passage you quote, it can be either criminal or civil.

Antitrust laws in general can be civil or criminal offenses and sometimes the criminal offenses can be handled by the civil process via some weird voodoo in the law (in the US). The particular action we were discussing, however, was the tying of Windows desktop and server via secret protocols, which in the US was prosecuted by the DoJ and the criminal courts.

Re:Fines != bribes.

[ClosedSource]

MS has never been prosecuted by the DOJ under criminal law. Look it up.

Re:Fines != bribes.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

MS has never been prosecuted by the DOJ under criminal law. Look it up.

Well, according to the DoJ Web site they were in 1995, with regard to different monopoly abuse... but for the most part you're right. The main case was the DoJ suing MS in civil courts for breaking criminal law, using the aforementioned voodoo.

Re:countdown

[donotdespisethesnake]

Predictably, many (US) Slashdotters trot out typical US hypocrisy and double standards. Spamhaus, a UK company, gets no sympathy in the US because "they should abide by the laws of the US when doing business in the US / jurisdiction of the US courts". OK, fair enough. But now a US company doing business in the EU is asked to abide by the laws of the EU - "no fair!" they cry.

We see this time and again, whether it's steel imports, GM crops or democracy. "We can impose tariffs, but you can't". It's the US way, or else.

I would have hoped that us nerds would be a bit more clued up on the world, and aware of being played like political pawns. Is it really too hard to pull your head out the sand and see the double standards that the US applies? This site is "news for nerds", but that often seems secondary to "knee jerk reactions by American patriots".

I don't get it, did you forget to take your meds?

[betterunixthanunix]

Vast corruption in the EU, spanning both legislature and judiciary? Government officers only wanting to make money by prosecuting large corporations?

Or did somebody not take their meds this morning? Let's review:

1. Microsoft is a monopoly, they have used their monopoly position to stifle the competition and deliver lower-quality products to the consumers. As a result of this monopoly, consumers have little freedom of choice in their software, and the security-deficient nature of the software has allowed an entire era of viruses, worms, botnets, and spyware to begin, when better designed software such as BSD would have made such things significantly harder to design (and as a consequence, prevented the "viruses happen" mindset that has now set in).
2. Microsoft got its start as a small PC software company that marketed its products to hobbyist users. Back then, the big monopoly that spread FUD was IBM, which maintains the largest patent portfolio in the US. Microsoft earned themselves a place in the monopoly hall of fame by jumping on the IBM bandwagon, in an effort to out-do Apple. Deregulation had nothing to do with it; Microsoft insisted, even back then, that software should be bought and sold and that hobbyists who copied software were doing a terrible thing (think back to those old magazines, where Gates claimed he was making less than $4/hour...).
3. "The State" has not given Microsoft preferential treatment. Microsoft has received the same treatment as all other corporations have, including the legal requirement to seek a profit, as well as the same IP protections and restrictions than Apple, Sun, IBM, the FSF, etc. have to endure. In fact, Microsoft has had a longstanding rule that its employees are not to even observe Linux or other FOSS, for fear that they might be forced to comply with the GPL, potentially annihilating their efforts to remain proprietary. For their open source lab, where Windows Services for Unix originated, Microsoft followed the terms of the GPL. There was no government preference there, nor has there ever been -- the problem was a lack of government action in the late 80s and throughout the 90s, when Microsoft was cementing its monopoly position, screwing over its partners, and crushing its competition.
4. I assume you are referring to an automobile engine, and obfuscating its design would make your product technically inferior -- which makes it less competitive in the ideal case.
5. I agree that patents do the opposite of what they are intended for, and that we should do away with them. I do not believe that patents are the reason Microsoft became such a problem, because while Microsoft has a large patent portfolio, there are companies that hold much larger patent portfolios that are not in a monopoly position.
6. 
   
   It's not that I support Microsoft, or that I think they haven't done anything wrong. But the government shouldn't be done away with to prevent this from happening again; more regulation is needed, and loopholes can and should be closed.

Impact on Wine?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will these docs help out the Wine project?

Re:Ridiculous.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

While I am like most of Slashdot in that I think that Microsoft has a very tight grip on the computer market, I still will never understand why the EU is so against Microsoft. Is it because it is produced in a foreign market? I know many European countries have unhealthy feelings of xenophobia...

While I, like most people on Slashdot understand that Lee Boyd Malvo is a good shot, I still will never understand why Virginia is so against him. Is it because he is black and Virginians hate blacks? I know a lot of Virginians are Clansmen...

Microsoft broke the law. The EU has enforced this same law against numerous companies that are both European and based in other countries. What's so hard to understand?

Remember: they bought the software...

Do you even know what this case is about? The whole point is that because everyone pretty much has to use Windows on the desktop to get software they need to do business means it is illegal for MS to force them to buy their server OS as well by tying the two together with secret protocols that make it hard to use a different server with Windows desktops. Since doing so is clearly against the law both in the US and the EU and MS was convicted of it both in the US and EU, I don't really see where refusing to fix the problem by providing a level playing ground for Linux and Solaris and everyone else as far as their interactions with the Windows desktop is concerned is in any way confusing.

Listen, I know MS publishes a lot of FUD about this and tries to confuse the issue, but it just isn't that hard. MS built their business model around breaking the law. They knew from the outset what they are doing is illegal and why and they just figured they'd make more money by breaking the law then paying any fines than by obeying the law. So far they've been very right. Even assuming they pay the fines they've acquired they're still right. They're not going to stop unless someone makes them with a bigger stick than this. Stop buying their marketing FUD.

Let's apply some real MS tax

[moria]

Why give them another 8 days? Isn't it a long time since the last "warning"? The whole give-you-another-two-year thing is stupid. Look at what happened in US. If they do not cooperate, apply *heavy* tax on every windows sales. This is another way to give advantage to competitors. When MS is trying to kill competitors and refuse to cooperate, you can *help* competitors to effectively reverse the situation.

Re:Let's apply some real MS tax

[1.000.000]

Yeah lets make the customers pay for Microsofts mistakes...

Re:Let's apply some real MS tax

[Xuranova]

And if MS opted to say "Screw you guys" and gave the copy away as opposed to selling it and just suffered the tax, you'd still be complaining about something.

Idealism

[Tony]

Unfortunately, in even such an idealistic free market, big companies can game the system. There has to be *some* regulation, just like there has to be laws against murder, and theft, and placing weasels down your trousers for the purposes of gambling. (Ahh, Chief Wiggum.)

Just as true communism is a wonderful idea that will never work on a large scale, so is a truly unfettered market such as you describe. Now, we certainly could come closer to the ideal than we currently are, but in truth, copyright isn't such a bad thing for creative works (which add no real value except the enjoyment they bring), in which I would include software. But, suppose we get rid of copyright, even. Software companies would then be forced to provide draconian DRM-type schemes, and enlist hardware vendors to aid them. This they *would* do. They are already twisting EULA into de-facto contracts, and that is exploitable as well. I don't imagine you are denying the importance and validity of contracts, so correct me if I'm wrong here.

Already, you don't purchase the software, you purchase a contract which allows you the right to use the software. At least, that is usual terms of the EULA. Software companies have *already* sidestepped the currently lenient copyright laws. In a world without copyright, that is the course they would pursue anyway.

It's not like Microsoft would be in a different position now than they would be in the world in which you describe. Their obfuscated protocols would still be a barrier to entry. They would still have their exclusive contracts with hardware vendors, locking out competitors based only on negotiated contracts.

In the long run, Microsoft doesn't have to rely on copyright as much as it does on licensing (that is, contract law). They would've had technical measures in place to substitute for copyright law enforcement.

That's the problem with companies the size of Microsoft. They create their own regulations, and force others into line using nothing but market pressure.

Re:Idealism

[dada21]

Unfortunately, in even such an idealistic free market, big companies can game the system. There has to be *some* regulation, just like there has to be laws against murder, and theft, and placing weasels down your trousers for the purposes of gambling. (Ahh, Chief Wiggum.)

Laws against violating someone's body, physical property or tools I can understand (even if I don't support them)> Laws preventing how I use my tools, on my land, with my hands, are ridiculous. Laws preventing how I think are also wrong. Copyright and patent laws are both laws against you using your land, your tools and your mind.

It's not like Microsoft would be in a different position now than they would be in the world in which you describe. Their obfuscated protocols would still be a barrier to entry. They would still have their exclusive contracts with hardware vendors, locking out competitors based only on negotiated contracts.

That's completely NOT true. Software is a tool to produce labor. We want to pay for software, correct? The way we pay for software that we use is in the maintenance stage, not the initial stage. Let's say that copyright and patent protections were gone -- who would develop software if it was free to duplicate? Initially, we'd see the consultants who install and maintain the systems providing software through cooperatives. I want to work on your PC for a long time, so it is in my best interest to find software that meets your needs. Closed software generally meets the least needs, but Microsoft Windows is definitely NOT closed software if you look at all the third party applications available for it, which I would estimate is two orders of magnitude more in number than any other OS (I made that number up). We, the consultants, would want the best for our customers, so it would be in our best interest to continue buying Microsoft support contracts in order to be the first in line to get their official software. We could wait for it to be duplicated, certainly, but it would increase our costs because of the waiting time, the risk of getting infected software, and the loss of supporting a company that supports our needs. Also, many non-consultant direct customers will want to purchase Microsoft's official CD just so they continue supporting the company AND so they get (possibly) some direct support from the company.

Music is the same way. The CD is just a form of advertising for a band so that they develop fans who want to support their live shows. Give the CD/music away, and generate more interest in your tour -- this means bands get paid for work they do, not work they've done. Some fans will want to buy the band's official CD because they know they're supporting the band. Some bands might give their fans who buy CDs access to their member's website with frequent updates (which could be bootlegged as a secondary market by those who don't want to support the band directly).

Re:Idealism

[Tony]

I'm not saying that's not the way things *should* be. I'm just saying that people always game the system to their best advantage. What you propose is a fantasy. Nobody would create software that way if they could use the system to their own advantage. I agree with your idealism. That'd be great. But it's also not the way it would be.

I'm never quite sure where I fall on copyright law. I write, and I know how hard it would be for writers to make a living without copyright protection. But, like you, I feel the prohibition against the free exchange of information is also wrong.

I used to be dead set against software patents, because I felt that software was too much like mathematics. Then I realized I'm dead set against any and all patents.

I don't know enough about trademark law to have any opinion, but I do know that trademark laws are abused.

And that the problem: any system that allows any behavior will result in exploitative behavior. The arguments in favor of a free, unregulated market (that is, "let the market decide") always remind me of vigilantism: if someone murders, let the family of the person murdered punish the murderer. An unregulated market would result in the larger corporations using their market force to regulate the market, and the citizens will never get much of a say.

Laws against violating someone's body, physical property or tools I can understand (even if I don't support them)> Laws preventing how I use my tools, on my land, with my hands, are ridiculous. Laws preventing how I think are also wrong. Copyright and patent laws are both laws against you using your land, your tools and your mind.

I agree completely.

There was an interesting case recently in which a company created a meta-jig. This meta-jig was used for constructing other, perfect jigs. You could even use it to construct another meta-jig.

To purchase this meta-jig, a person had to agree to what amounted to a contract, swearing they would not use this meta-jig to create other meta-jigs.

That's the loophole that would be exploited by software companies and others in place of copyright and patent laws: trade secrets (currently not covered by copyright or patents, and the focus of the EU's orders against Microsoft) and contracts.

They *would* do this. They already do this to gain more control than copyright or patent law gives them currently. Yes, we should certainly strike down patent laws, and perhaps even copyright. But that won't change essentially destructive corporate self-interest. When the corporations control the market (such as IBM did years ago, and Microsoft does now), they warp the market to their own favor. They will do this no matter what laws exist or do not exist.

Re:Idealism

[dada21]

I'm not saying that's not the way things *should* be. I'm just saying that people always game the system to their best advantage. What you propose is a fantasy. Nobody would create software that way if they could use the system to their own advantage. I agree with your idealism. That'd be great. But it's also not the way it would be.

I write for two reasons: to gain insight from people's replies (which would be VERY costly to do if I hired them to reply, even the emotional ones), and to promote some free market thoughts as people work the problems back to their source: the lack of freedom under a State that wants to regulate and restrict everyone but those that can afford to bribe the State.

I'm never quite sure where I fall on copyright law. I write, and I know how hard it would be for writers to make a living without copyright protection. But, like you, I feel the prohibition against the free exchange of information is also wrong.

I write, but I repudiate copyright entirely. Everything I have ever written -- books, blogs, music -- and everything I have ever designed -- art, photos, machinery -- I let others copy freely and even use their own name on it with no attribution. I find that this increases the demand for that given market, which eventually helps me if I find a way to be the most competitive against others who are also in the market. I love competition, it has ALWAYS helped me. I've helped my own employees start competitive businesses against me, and I've still grown as more customers come into the market. I see no reason for "protecting" my thoughts or actions against mimicry.

And that the problem: any system that allows any behavior will result in exploitative behavior. The arguments in favor of a free, unregulated market (that is, "let the market decide") always remind me of vigilantism: if someone murders, let the family of the person murdered punish the murderer. An unregulated market would result in the larger corporations using their market force to regulate the market, and the citizens will never get much of a say.

That's a good opinion, but I'm not sure how true it is. Without a tyranny in the State, a company producing a product or service would have competition -- no matter how big that company is. Even billion dollar chip manufacturers have competition, because millions of individuals invest to try to compete on that level. The only thing the State changes is that they sometimes create an infinitely high barrier to entry through copyright and patent laws. Getting rid of that infinitely high barrier to entry may leave us with a high barrier to entry, but high is easier to jump over than infinitely high.

They *would* do this. They already do this to gain more control than copyright or patent law gives them currently. Yes, we should certainly strike down patent laws, and perhaps even copyright. But that won't change essentially destructive corporate self-interest. When the corporations control the market (such as IBM did years ago, and Microsoft does now), they warp the market to their own favor. They will do this no matter what laws exist or do not exist.

But while they're trying to maintain control through force, they'd have dozens if not hundreds or thousands of competitors nipping at their ankles. Eventually, all it takes is one bacteria to take down a giant. It has happened through all of history, and it would continue to happen unless the company in power was able to truly stay more efficient or cheaper or produce a better product. Competition never goes away in a less-regulated market.

Re:Ridiculous.

[Tribbin]

... I still will never understand ...

If you previously would never understand, doesn't that already say that, forever, you would not understand?

Yesterday I installed Ubuntu for a roommate. I left her Windows partition just so she can video-chat with her MSN buddies.

So she actually needs a Windows license ($$$) only because MS did not open it's protocols.

I don't believe the EU has something agains Microsoft; I think that now, for example, linux is by far enough developed that closed standards become a real issue for many people that might switch. I think it's about fair competition.

You might not agree, but do you understand now?

Crazy Talk

[gentimjs]

No, actually, the problem is that the state(s) dont have enough .. coljones .. to break-up big guys like microsoft anymore, the way they did with standard oil "back in the day".

Your anarchocapitalist (most decidedly NOT free market) dreamland would create more, not less, big monopolists. Especially if you combined the situation where the state didnt have enough power to break up abusive monopolies with very loose "defend yourself" crime/firearm laws, we start to run into problems simmilar to the street wars the bootleggers had back in the prohabition days. But I digress.

Yeah, just what I always wanted... nothing in place to stop microsoft from just suddenly and more intentionally than they do now breaking compatibility with all non-MS systems. As it stands, what do you think is the ONE AND ONLY thing that stops them from doing this now? I'll give you 2 hints, it has nothing to do with customers and begins with an "s" ....

Explain to me again how less controls over abusive business practices somehow helps auntie joan's cookie shop and not wal-mart?

Re:Crazy Talk

[dada21]

No, actually, the problem is that the state(s) dont have enough .. coljones .. to break-up big guys like microsoft anymore, the way they did with standard oil "back in the day".

You must be new here :) I've been over the Standard Oil debate for years. The State didn't break up Standard Oil, competition did. Standard Oil was no monopoly, they provided cheaper and cheaper and cheaper prices for consumers for their entire history. The competitors were unhappy because they couldn't compete at the price level. The competitors who did compete, Standard Oil bought out in order to acquire their technology -- which led to more oil and lower prices. See this article.

The media that wrote about the Standard Oil "problem" were people who were related to the competitors who wanted paternalistic laws to be written on their behalf. Also, those against the "robber barrons" were just friendly with the State, not good competitors. See this article.

Standard Oil lowered prices for their entire history. Today's State-priviledged oil companies do the opposite. Which is worse?

Re:Crazy Talk

[gentimjs]

You've got to be kidding me? You actually think that modern day oil companies that rape us at the pumps for 400% profits somehow wouldnt be doing this if they were deregulated? To cite a famous futurama quote; "Oh man, I think that hippie is starting to kick in.." Lets say you sell widgets. Lets say you even have some competition, 2 other companies sell widgets. You sell them for $1 per widget, and so does the competition (give or take a few cents on different models). You tolerate the competition, which keeps your prices at a mostly set state, because you have too. You are prohobited by "The State" from abusive anti-trust tactics which could bully widget retailers to only sell your widgets (lets say you had the clout to bully them) thus creating a monopoly on widgets. Lets also assume in this magic land that "the state" actually had the gumption to enforce said laws. Suddenly, "the state" deregulates the widget market. Explain to me without making me laugh what your rationale would be how this would benefit anyone but you, the only widget maker with the clout for bullying tactics..... Explain to me without too many fallacies how "the state" preventing a widget monopoly is a bad thing somehow.

Strategic moves

[5thforce]

Or to put the other way around, what if microsoft decided not to deliver Microsft software to the EU? What might the government of America do, if their biggest economy engine has to hickup large amounts of money? I guess Microsoft has a pretty strong lobby case.

Instead on complaining about Microsoft, it would be better to ensure EU's "Free software first policy" in the practical reality. It would be best if Nelie Kroes wouldn't have to use microsoft products and the same time asking them for money. Anyway it's nice to see someone that knows how to deal decisively with Microsoft. Now it would be intersting to se some Eu commissioner that knows how to deal decisively with Free Software, like Linux.

Re:What exactly is microsoft being asked to give u

[jimicus]

CIFS, for a start.

Don't get me wrong, the Samba project's done a fantastic job of reverse engineering SMB, but they're miles behind domain management - you can't run an Active Directory domain with a Samba backend, the best it supports is an NT 4 domain.

Work is afoot to support AD domain management, but realistically the release of something like that would probably give it a huge boost.

That may be why MS aren't too keen to release anything...

Why increasing the pressure?

[janwedekind]

N. Kroes answer (according to Volkskrant article): "I don't have the immortal life."

Re:Why increasing the pressure?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

I've not had a chance to RTFA, but I can't help thinking that giving MS nine days to come up with the answer to immortal life and document their API's is a little harsh!</sarcasm>
;)

I was after something like "+3 Funny"...

[mmell]

How I ended up with anything else is beyond me . . . so my apologies for not checking facts first. I guess I gotta start using <HUMOR&gt& tags!

Like I said elsewhere . . .

[mmell]

somehow, I managed to miss that "+x Funny" rating I was after and scored "Interesting" instead. Mea culpa.

Re:I don't care what happens to Microsoft

[Liselle]

Walmart doesn't pretend that it's a nice place to work.

You've never worked for Wal-mart, I take it. They spin as much or more than Microsoft, to the extent that they have posters in the employee break room that attempt to justify the crummy wage they pay you by scraping up every tiny benefit they give you and assigning an arbitrary money value to it.

Wal-mart is just like Microsoft and every other large corporation in that they are professionals when it comes to making a shit sandwich seem like free candy. In some ways Wal-mart is even worse, since they bone their employees on top of all of the other underhanded things they do to customers, distributors, etc.

Viruses and Screwing Everyone.

[twitter]

Everyone knows that Microsoft is a pitcher, not a catcher.

Except when it comes to Malware, where they are both. Too bad they can't be fined for the damage their crappy OS does to the internet every day. If they were made to bear just 1/10th the cost of spam filtering and DoS attacks launched from their platform, they would have been out of business long ago.

Re:What exactly is microsoft being asked to give u

[Xiph1980]

I would reckon .doc, .xls, NTFS protocol etc etc etc, But I'm far from sure about this :)

So leave.

[nobodyman]

Hmm... seems you're ignoring the FAQ, too. The faq doesn't say that they *wont* do international stories, just that they they will be predominantly US-based. Furthermore, given that MSFT is a US-based corporation, one could argue that this story is relevant as a US-based story.

If you don't like a site anymore, just stop clicking. Last I checked, there we're lots of other websites. It reminds me of people that "hate" Howard Stern, yet listen to his show more regularly than his fans.

Re:Newflash! MS to pay up!

[A beautiful mind]

Yeah except it won't work. Remember, the EU bitchslapped the pharma industry before too, which is at least ten times as big as MS is...

Re:what he said

[jedidiah]

Data formats are NOT trade secrets.

If anything, the Microsoft corporate officers should be jailed for misapprpriateing the private data of it's end users. That is effectively what it does when it choses to encode that data without being willing to document the manner of that decoding. They're holding everyone hostage. It's just that people have finally wised up after being duped for years on end.

So the task of telling Microsoft what to go do with itself is not as simple as it should be.

Re:Ridiculous.

[DragonWriter]

While I am like most of Slashdot in that I think that Microsoft has a very tight grip on the computer market, I still will never understand why the EU is so against Microsoft.

The EU is so against Microsoft because Microsoft is so against obeying the law in the EU.

Re:Newflash! MS to pay up!

[TheChromaticOrb]

They will ignore the demands and accept the fine. Then they will say they will pay with vouchers for MS software. Same shit, different day..

There's an interesting use for those Novell SLES coupons...

Re:What exactly is microsoft being asked to give u

[PatrickThomson]

NTFS? Samba? wmv?

Seize Microsoft assets?

[Lonewolf666]

Such as the copyright on Windows?

I don't know if this would be allowed by EU law, but if yes, warezing Windows could suddenly be legal. That would allow EU businesses to bridge the time until Linux replacements for their tools are available.

Re:Coca Cola..

[pato101]

The next thing EU will do is tell Coca Cola to share the formula with the competence.
It is not like to share the formula. It is like to know the ingredients.
And yes I *must* know that coca-cola has sugar if I am diabetic.

Re:What exactly is microsoft being asked to give u

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I would reckon .doc, .xls, NTFS protocol etc etc etc, But I'm far from sure about this :)

This applies only to interactions between Windows desktops and servers, so file formats are unlikely to be included. This should include Active Directory, Exchange protocol, and Group policies. I'm not sure if it includes any others.

Glad you asked that question

[overshoot]

What power does the EU ultimately have to enforce the fines at this point if MS simply doesnt pay the fines: Are they prepared to ban the importation of MS products and quit the MS Windows habit cold turkey?

Oh, I can think of one or two other possibilities.

For instance, has it occurred to you that Microsoft's whole business is built on having a State-granted monopoly?

Let me put it this way: MS files suit against Georgii Porgiov for cranking out 30 million counterfeit copies of MSWindows and selling them in the EU. GP's defense is that Microsoft is outside of the Court's jurisdiction (as witness this case) and thus doesn't have standing to bring a case before EU Courts. The Court finds for GP.

It used to be called outlawry: you were, literally, outside the law. Anyone could do anything to you and you couldn't rely on the legal system to defend you because you'd placed yourself outside of its authority.

Beyond that, there are actually mechanisms for getting a European court ruling enforced against properties in the USA.

Re:Glad you asked that question

[tokul]

Let me put it this way: MS files suit against Georgii Porgiov for cranking out 30 million counterfeit copies of MSWindows and selling them in the EU. GP's defense is that Microsoft is outside of the Court's jurisdiction (as witness this case) and thus doesn't have standing to bring a case before EU Courts. The Court finds for GP.

Even when Microsoft does not do business in EU, Berne Convention still applies.

Re:Glad you asked that question

[Lonewolf666]

If something along this lines happens (still not sure if it is realistic), I'd expect it to follow another logic:
-MS refuses to pay fines
-EU seizes MS assets, including copyrights
-EU releases Windows into the public domain

Note the difference:
Instead of simply ignoring the Berne Convention, the EU delares the intellectual property forfeit as punishment. Taking away property as punishment is not unusual, and might not violate the Berne Convention.

Re:Ridiculous.

[IdleTime]

Sometimes I'm surprised how stupid people are.

MS is having problems in EU because the break the law. Is that hard to understand?

Re:Coca Cola..

[Shadyman]

You can tell right on the ingredients label, if it has "Sugar", "Glucose", "Fructose", "Sucrose", or any combination of the above.

Who Says What's Missing?

[Petersko]

From the English article:

"Ms Kroes said: "I am not impressed if someone says 90% of the information is already there when we need 100%. It's a jigsaw and some parts are missing ... In my opinion, this information should have been here a couple of months ago."

So what's missing, and if it's "secret stuff", how do they know it exists? And how do you prove it doesn't, if it doesn't?

Seems to me that if your fines are based on something that isn't falsifiable, then you have no business levying such a fine.

Re:Who Says What's Missing?

[TheLinuxSRC]

"So what's missing, and if it's "secret stuff", how do they know it exists? And how do you prove it doesn't, if it doesn't?
Seems to me that if your fines are based on something that isn't falsifiable, then you have no business levying such a fine."" Pretty simple actually if you are referring to across the wire protocols such as smbfs/cifs etc. Simply sniff the wire and anything that goes across that is not documented yet it exists. There are very similar techniques available using debuggers for watching what arguments are passed to/from file system libraries.

Re:EU corruption

[flibuste]

I am from the EU and demand that you provide credible sources before accusing elected people and other "officials" of corruption. So far, it's been the usual average and nothing as shocking as stories like Enron.

This constant tirade against Microsoft is being paid for by someone - yes, I've said it out loud. The EU officials behind this are being bribed to attack Microsoft.

The constant slander of EU officials being corrupted has got to stop, or at least provide some ground.

You obviously don't know what you're talking about. Oh..this is slashdot. Ah well..never mind.

8 days isn't a lot of time to document...

[Nevyn522]

As far as I can recall, MS did endeavor to document a bunch of their interfaces. The response was that it was insufficient. MS tried to find out how it was insufficient, and was told that it was MS's responsibility to figure that out.

MS does produce technical documentation for a whole slew of its products. Look at the API-level documentation that is on http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/. It's just not the most obvious documentation. Is it usable? For the most part. Does it cover every single idiosyncracy? No.

MS did make a good faith effort previously, and the only response they got was a thumbs down with no guidance on what to do differently. I don't really think such a risky prospect as actually having SECRET APIs would have been permitted by the company's legal department after the antitrust mess. Rather, I just don't think the documentation is that good. An uncommented header file would be documentation; it just wouldn't meet the needs of the EU regulators.

Providing MS with an EIGHT DAY deadline is just absurd. Even if everyone qualified as a technical writer was thrown at the problem, there still needs to an information flow, probably from some people who are on vacation for a month now that Vista has shipped. There's only so much that can be written at a time, and only so much that can be documented in any period of time. Add in the time for editing, and legal review, and to verify completion... eight days? It's just an excuse to charge Microsoft with more money. Even a month would be more of an indication that they expected Microsoft to be able to comply. Given that up until this point Microsoft was working at having it done next July, the scheduling cannot be compressed by 8 months.

Had the commissioner provided a more reasonable deadline, Microsoft could be cast into a harsh light by this ruling, as the request already existed, and the Commissioner just disagreed with the amount of time they were claiming to need. Microsoft has tried to provide documentation before, and was told it was insufficient -- doubtless this time they wanted to avoid this charge.

Anyone who has ever written technical API documentation will probably be inclined to agree that trying to compress even a three month timeline into 8 days will be well nigh impossible. The commissioner's demand is effectively a demand for money, not for documentation; I can't see any way ANY company, no matter their motives, would be able to meet the deadline.

Re:8 days isn't a lot of time to document...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

As far as I can recall, MS did endeavor to document a bunch of their interfaces. The response was that it was insufficient. MS tried to find out how it was insufficient, and was told that it was MS's responsibility to figure that out.

Bullshit. MS was given clear instructions. They need sufficient documentation so that competitors can re-implement these protocols in their own servers. It is simple and clearly defined and instead of complying MS published a bunch of lies and tried to both sway public opinion and provide the least possible info to satisfy the EU in the hopes that they could get away with something that was insufficient for their competitors in the server space.

MS does produce technical documentation for a whole slew of its products. Look at the API-level documentation that is on http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/. It's just not the most obvious documentation. Is it usable? For the most part. Does it cover every single idiosyncracy? No.

They do not publish reasonable documentation on the protocols as they themselves have admitted and the US courts have also judged them in noncompliance (although due to their lobbying we don't punish them). If they're going to use secret broken versions of existing standards, they can't use them in both their client and server. This is simple and obvious if you read the law. MS knew it. They still know it. They're just delaying the fines as long as possible.

Providing MS with an EIGHT DAY deadline is just absurd.

Again I call bullshit. This is how long they have to stop breaking the law in this one way. They knew the law in the first place. Zero days before a fine is levied is sufficient in my opinion. Listen Mr. Murderer, I know 8 days isn't a lot of time, but we need you to stop killing people within that time frame. I know it's hard to change, but that's just the way it is. Besides, they have 8 days till the fines kick in. They've had two years since they were officially convicted of the crime already. That is way, way, way too long. Every day weakens competition and hurts both consumers and the industry.

Anyone who has ever written technical API documentation will probably be inclined to agree that trying to compress even a three month timeline into 8 days will be well nigh impossible.

APIs? They have had 2 years to document communication protocols, not APIs. The protocols were mostly copied from existing open standards in the first place. Either you've bought into their propaganda beyond all reason or you're being paid to spread this FUD.

The commissioner's demand is effectively a demand for money, not for documentation; I can't see any way ANY company, no matter their motives, would be able to meet the deadline.

Good. Hopefully it will go beyond that. MS has built their business plan around breaking the law and paying off politicians and lawsuits. This is unacceptable. They should be progressively fined higher and higher amounts until breaking the law is no longer profitable for them and then they should be fined even more so that other companies understand such practices are not acceptable. If the US was not run by corrupt scumbags MS would have been broken up long ago and this would not be a problem. For political reasons the EU cannot order MS to break up, but they sure as hell should be fining them into oblivion until they obey they law.

Re:8 days isn't a lot of time to document...

[Nevyn522]

If the US was not run by corrupt scumbags MS...
Wow. Let's assume for a second that I'm not going to respond to your anti-US sentiments, nor your claims that I'm being paid by MS to spread FUD -- or even that it is FUD.

I have no problem with the EU Commission fining MS for failing to comply; that is their legal responsibility. Without looking at the documentation, which I'm sure you haven't either, I can't say one way or the other whether the documentation is sufficient or insufficient. Neither can you. MS has published a set of documentation, which their representatives say is complete -- with the caveat that it would take a great deal of experience to implement based off of it -- while the EU Commission's representatives say is insufficient. They're probably both right. It doesn't matter.

Microsoft is in the business of making money. It's hurting their stock price to have this still hanging over their heads. It's hurting their productivity to have spend money to pay people to document all these protocols. Whether it's five people over 10 months or one person over fifty months probably means very little -- aside from the fact that Microsoft, trying to make money, would rather have this over and done with.

I'll reiterate my original point: an 8 day deadline is absurd. I can't imagine anyway that MS could complete the task in that time. If the Commissioner just wants to fine them, okay. However, providing an unreachable goal helps no one. Whether or not MS inflated the time they thought it would take to get the documentation up to snuff is almost insignificant. I sincerely doubt MS has the documentation being requested already written -- the 3 million euro daily fine would be a great reason to get it out there if they did.

If the Commission honestly wanted the documentation done in a faster manner, the proper response would be to disagree on the date of completion, and ask MS to complete it faster. I, unfortunately, could not find when MS announced it would be done next July, but even if it was six months ago, telling Microsoft NOW that they want the information in 8 days is simply absurd. Based on the complaints of Neil Barrett, the most recent version of the documentation is still massively insufficient. If MS had scheduled the work to be done by next July, for whatever reason -- real need or delaying tactic -- shifting the schedule may have been a possibility; say by January, or even maybe December. Some deadline that was actually attainable is a very different creature than an arbitrary 8 day deadline that is certainly unreachable.

SO: an 8 day deadline that is impossible to reach is absurd. Microsoft is too smart of a company, no matter how evil and monopolistic, to want to carry this out any longer than necessary; it's too expensive, and Microsoft is in the business of making money. The EU Commission is not evincing a desire here for the documentation to be completed; their demanding their money.

Re:8 days isn't a lot of time to document...

[julesh]

Providing MS with an EIGHT DAY deadline is just absurd. Even if everyone qualified as a technical writer was thrown at the problem, there still needs to an information flow, probably from some people who are on vacation for a month now that Vista has shipped. There's only so much that can be written at a time, and only so much that can be documented in any period of time. Add in the time for editing, and legal review, and to verify completion... eight days? It's just an excuse to charge Microsoft with more money. Even a month would be more of an indication that they expected Microsoft to be able to comply. Given that up until this point Microsoft was working at having it done next July, the scheduling cannot be compressed by 8 months.

The original deadline was in July. Think of it as a free 4 month extension.

Re:8 days isn't a lot of time to document...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Without looking at the documentation, which I'm sure you haven't either, I can't say one way or the other whether the documentation is sufficient or insufficient. Neither can you.

MS admits their documentation is insufficient. The US courts also found their documentation to be insignificant. The EU commission's experts found it to be insufficient. The impartial expert MS selected before the proceedings started found it to be insufficient. Sure, maybe they're all wrong or lying, but I don't think it is reasonable to make that assumption.

Microsoft is in the business of making money. It's hurting their stock price to have this still hanging over their heads. It's hurting their productivity to have spend money to pay people to document all these protocols. Whether it's five people over 10 months or one person over fifty months probably means very little -- aside from the fact that Microsoft, trying to make money, would rather have this over and done with.

MS is making money hand over fist by not complying. They sell a huge number of inferior servers because those servers work with Windows desktops. They sell a huge number more desktops because other machines cannot properly communicate in the same way and they already bought an MS server. Thus the cycle continues. MS does not want this to stop until they have most of the server market and have created one more huge lock-in to stop others from threatening their desktop monopoly. So both from an immediate cash flow and a strategic perspective, they'd rather pay the fines than let others compete fairly with them.

They don't want this over, because they have no intention of complying until the cost becomes too high. In the mean time, they will continue delaying tactics like they have been and spreading tons of propaganda about the issue.

I'll reiterate my original point: an 8 day deadline is absurd. I can't imagine anyway that MS could complete the task in that time.

If you go out and start grabbing money out of the tills of cash registers downtown, how many days do you think the cops will give you to stop before they take some action to stop you? 8 days? MS is willfully breaking the law. It is part of their business plan. Do you think after multiple convictions for this offense their lawyers still did not know this was illegal? Pulling Windows server from the market and making it illegal to sell until it is fixed would be the just thing to do. The EU is being political and conciliatory and bending over backwards here. They were convicted in 2004 and still have not even stopping committing the crime, let alone paid any fines. That is absurd, but not in the way you imply.

However, providing an unreachable goal helps no one.

The only way MS will stop this action is if it becomes unprofitable. Daily fines that affect their bottom line are a damn fine way to do this. It helps a lot of people.

...the 3 million euro daily fine would be a great reason to get it out there if they did.

It might be, if they were actually paying the fine and if they weren't making more money than that by keeping the market broken with this action.

...ask MS to complete it faster.

They tried that over a year ago. This isn't the first delay you know.

...telling Microsoft NOW that they want the information in 8 days is simply absurd...

They're not saying it has to be done in 8 days. They're saying they're starting to collect the fines because MS has run up to big of a bill. Hopefully this is a prelude to raising the fines or taking other action that will motivate MS to act, since fines this size have not.

Microsoft is too smart of a company, no matter how evil and monopolistic, to want to carry this out any longer than necessary; it's too expensive, and Microsoft is in the business of making money.

This is a fundamental disagreement between us. I think MS is still making

Re:EU corruption

[DragonWriter]

I'm from Europe and the unspoken truth here is that the EU officials are severely corrupt.

This constant tirade against Microsoft is being paid for by someone - yes, I've said it out loud. The EU officials behind this are being bribed to attack Microsoft.

Even if that's true, I have trouble feeling sorry for Microsoft, since their slap-on-the-wrist for illegally leveraging their US monopoly directly resulted from their connections to the incoming Republican administration in 2001.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

oooh! look at the talking polar bear!

[everphilski]

Icelandic ... I will defend with teeth and claws.

No export taxes

[crow]

The US would never impose an export tax, as doing so is expressly forbidden in the Constitution.

Article I, Section 9: "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State."

Is there a point to this post?

[golodh]

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the point of this post.

It's full of rambling generalities about "The State" (which one?), tangentially suggests that the EU is seeking to line it's own poackets by fining Microsoft, and only refers to the matter at hand in the most oblique way possible.

For my money I see Microsoft simply (as it is wont to) trying to see what it can get away with in terms of handing over incomplete documentation of their client-server protocols. They've had years in which they've dragged their feet, hemmed, hawed, played to the public gallery, asked for "clarification" (as if ... protocol documentation is protocol documentation), and apparently still haven't coughed up the specs. So if they're fined I guess they had it coming to them.

I know it's something of a fashion to moan about "Government" and "the State", especially when they crack down on public companies, and sometimes it does go too far, but not in this case. Microsoft is wiping its feet on the EU fair-competition laws by failing to hand over protocol specifications, and has done so for years. Unfortunately for them they don't have the same political clout in the EU as they have here ... and so they won't be able to get away with law infringement there. Tough on them.

Re:What exactly is microsoft being asked to give u

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Doesn't Microsoft offer "collaboration servers" based on these formats? If so, they'll have to be opened.

I'm not sure what you're referring to specifically (sharepoint?), but to be clear, no servers or code needs to be opened at all. Only the protocols need to be documented. They can sell a closed desktop OS and a closed server OS, so long as everything that goes between the two (protocols) is documented so anyone else that wants to make a server OS can interact with the desktop in the same way. MS doesn't have to give up their source code or let others use it, just give them the same opportunity to write code to work with Windows desktop as MS has.

It's RMS!!!!

[everphilski]

n/c

Re:Ridiculous.

[kilgortrout]

Isn't the real question why is the US so easy on a convicted monopolist?? The answer to that question is things that negatively impact MS will have a negative effect on the US economy. MS employs a large number of US citizens, pays a lot of taxes and is a very large exporter of US goods which could greatly effect the balance of payments if exports of MS goods were reduced. You could probably throw in political bribes in the form of campaign contributions, etc. as well but I assume they do that world wide.

These consideratioons are not present in the EU so you get more even handed enforcement of the antitrust laws. It's also a chance to stick it to one of the EU's main economic competitors, the US which I guess is the gist of your comment. But make no mistake about it, MS is as dirty as hell in both the US and the EU. Can you imagine what would have happened to MS in the US courts if it was a French company?

Re:What exactly is microsoft being asked to give u

[raddan]

SMB/CIFS, MAPI, Microsoft DNS, RPC over HTTP, Office APIs, and so on... The list is here.

translation please!

[vrochette]

I think this is just EU racket from high-flying technocrats.

I like what babelfish translates:
"I do not have eternal living ', thus Kroes concerning intensified very".

Strange Dutch people.

Re:Huh?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

You keep using the word 'Force', I do not think it means what you think it means.

"Do this or go out of business when we charge you twice as much as your competitors for a vital component for which we are the only supplier." Yeah, in economic terms that is pretty much forcing someone.

Seriously, the OEMs chose to sign the contracts...

Yeah, and then they signed them anyway because the alternative was go out of business and hope the US courts would actually enforce the law in a reasonable timeframe and force MS to stop. Basically, these agreements are big vote of "no confidence" in the capability of the US courts to act in a reasonable timeframe against one of the largest contributors to both party's campaign funds. These companies made the right choice, from what we've seen.

Free market mean anything?

[Pojut]

It isn't like microsoft MADE itself a monopoly. We the consumers did. Why should Microsoft (or any company for that matter) have to hand over its "secrets" simply because their method works better than anyone elses? And thats the funny thing...IT DOESN'T!!! As fantastically complicated vista and etc. is/will be, it isn't like they have the only brains in the world...So, what, now I have to pay fines because my idea was better than everyone elses idea? Isn't that what the goal of buisness is? To have an idea that works better than everyone else? Why don't these security companies that are bitching give a big f.u. to microsoft and build their OWN operating system. Oh that's right, I forgot. That would be too much work and too much risk. Boo fuckin' hoo.

Re:Free market mean anything?

[Phil246]

becoming a monopoly isnt the problem - abusing that position is. thats what they were convicted of both in the EU and in the US.

Re:Free market mean anything?

[Pojut]

do people so easily forget that they are not the only people that "we the consumers" refer to? PC Makers adopted windows because it sold well and because it was becomming "the standard." average consumers (yes, people other than you exist in this world) decided that using windows was easiest and went with it. How is it ignorant to say that a company got a vast portion of market share from the vast portion of that market buying it's product? If alot of people buy your product...you get market penetration. If over 90% of that market buys your product...you get deep market penetration. Again, where is the ignorance in that statement?

Re:Free market mean anything?

[Pojut]

I don't even KNOW you, man. Like I said in my other reply, are people so full of themselves that they don't realize that *gasp* THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE OTHER THAN YOU???? DR-DOS...that's funny, because even though it wasen't made by microsoft...it has the name of the very operating system that got microsoft a jump start right in it's name... Beyond all that, the mere fact that you got so personal about such a generalized statement...*we* refers to the general market...between that and your uncalled for insult, I can only assume your ego has reached a point where it's eating itself.

Re:Free market mean anything?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Free market mean anything?

Yes, the free market means a lot. It means the greed and self interest that is part of human nature can be harnessed to drive innovation and lower prices through competition. That is, unless that free market is undermined by a company that uses a monopoly in one market to create artificial barriers to entry and take over a second market without innovating. In that case it leads to higher prices and retards innovation.

It isn't like microsoft MADE itself a monopoly.

Well, technically they did, but it doesn't matter because they weren't convicted of being a monopoly. That is legal. Abusing a monopoly to gain in other markets is illegal and this what they were convicted of.

Why should Microsoft (or any company for that matter) have to hand over its "secrets" simply because their method works better than anyone elses?

Didn't you cover this stuff in Econ 101? I've got a monopoly on cars. There are five companies nearby that make cheese. The ones that make the best cheese at the lowest price have most of the market. I decide to tie my cheese sales to my car sales. Now everyone who buys one of my cars (everyone who drives) gets a lifetime supply of cheese and the cost of my cars goes up by a few thousand bucks. It is crappy cheese, but most people aren't willing to pay twice since I just gouged them for a few grand they otherwise could have spent. The other cheese sellers go out of business and I look for another market to take over. The quality of cheese has gone down; the price up. Everyone except me loses and the free market is broken. That is why bundling is illegal. Bundling is one form of tying, but there are others. Secret protocols are one way. Sure maybe Active Directory is not as good as LDAP, but AD is built into all Windows desktops and I need those to run my business. Thus it makes sense for me to buy the expensive, crashy, slow Windows server, instead of the Linux server that uses LDAP. Again the market has failed.

Isn't that what the goal of buisness is? To have an idea that works better than everyone else?

Using these anticompetitive practices, a monopolist can take over the market despite someone else having a better idea that works better (or would if not for the abuse). That is why it is illegal.

Why don't these security companies that are bitching give a big f.u. to microsoft and build their OWN operating system.

Because they don't have enough money for starters. Because having a better OS won't let them win in the market either. They won't be able to get it pre-installed by any OEM, so they'll need hardware too. That's a huge amount of money to enter a market and you get a better return with less risk in a non-monopolized market. The point of capitalism is everyone acting in their own best interests makes for better products at lower prices and everyone wins. Capitalism breaks in the face of a monopoly abusing its position which is why almost every country in the world is a regulated capitalism and makes this illegal.

Re:Free market mean anything?

[PigIronBob]

protocols by definition are the opposite of secrets, protocols are there for interaction by otherwise incompatible entities, these protocols need to be published in order for them to work. Microsoft wants to be the ONLY entity. That and ONLY that is the reason why they do not wish to share these protocols.

Re:Free market mean anything?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Bullshit. Another admin who does not know how to stably configure a windows server. I have used both LDAP and AD. No windows server I have ever worked on has been "crashy" or slow.

Then you must not have been in the business for very long. Windows servers running multiple services were notoriously crashy for years.. and yet they gained in market share. Microsoft replaced all the hotmail backend Linux servers with Windows machines and doubled the number they needed to keep it running. Are you saying MS is too incompetent to properly configure their own servers?

I prefer QNX or FreeBSD but I can work just as effectively on a windows server.

So you prefer FreeBSD huh? And it is free to use. And yet people buy Windows licenses. Why is that do you suppose?

The market did not fail, you did.

You say that as if they were mutually exclusive. I only admin servers for my personal uses. The info about Windows machines is what I've been told by numerous admins at numerous ISPs and companies I work with. It's also what most of the independent reviews of the platforms say when reliability is tested. The ability to run Windows only protocols is the main reason they sell boxes. That is illegal.

Re:Ridiculous.

[Maxo-Texas]

They were convicted here but basically given a slap on the wrist.
They were convicted there and are being given a punch to the jaw.

EU shows willingness to get out the sharp knives and teeth extractors if they continue resisting.

Basically, same crime- same conviction- but the us political parties have a lot more interest in microsoft's donations and the wealth it brings to the country than other countries.

hmm...

[Kaenneth]

My thought is, a lot the people who wrote those 'standards' while working at MS had gotten stock options and retired, or were enticed away by the likes of Google, and such, the people who wrote those old protocols are now gone, and now it's new people, reading old source code, which is probably (like most source code) poorly commented.

I'd really like to see that!

[Wooky_linuxer]

immediate consequences: 1) MS market value plumbers. 2) EU governments promotes en-masse migration to Linux. 3) MS shareholders actually take over and try to do some damage control, but no one will trust in MS again, including any conscious americans enterpreneus; 4) the rest of the world follow suit to EU (yeah, there is life outside EU and US! incidentally more than 2 billion people live in China and India, and China alone will surpass US in economic activity given time). 5) MS is just one more example of management gone horribly wrong in textbooks. Too bad no one even at MS would be stupid and arrogant enough to try it. Not to mention all sold copies of Windows would still work as well as existing contracts, mitigating the cost and urgency of migration. If MS screwed with that, then UE would sue them to smithereens even on US grounds.

Re:oh come on, isn't paying Novell millions to let

[Pojut]

You are forgetting one thing. We the consumers created that monopoly, not microsoft. And why did we create that monopoly? Because they produce relatively easy to use, readily available software. It isn't like there aren't other choices out there...why don't you ask mcafee and norton and those folks to stop bitching about microsoft and release some good shit for linux? Or mac? The reason so much software is available for windows is because *gasp* market penetration. And guess what? As long as windows has the most software available for it, that is what will be used most.

nine hundred days not eight ..

[rs232]

"MS did endeavor to document a bunch of their interfaces. The response was that it was insufficient. MS tried to find out how it was insufficient, and was told that it was MS's responsibility to figure that out"

MS was instructed to publish the specifications of the protocols sufficent to allow third party apps interact with MS servers. MS misleading pretended to having not understood the Commission and produced some source code and API calls.

"What we're obligated to license, under the European Commission's decision, is specifications, documents that describe how those protocols work. We're not obligated to license their source code. But one thing is perfectly clear, if you want to understand these communications protocols, the source code is the ultimate documentation", Brad Smith.

"Normally speaking, the source code is not the ultimate documentation of anything, which is precisely the reason why programmers are required to provide comprehensive documentation to go along with their source code", Neelie Kroes.

"Providing MS with an EIGHT DAY deadline is just absurd"

They had since March 2004 to produce the information and were given 120 days to comply as you would be no doubt aware.

was Re:8 days isn't a lot of time to document.

Re:Newflash! MS to pay up!

[SEMW]

Uh, no. This is a legal fine. MS can't pay a fine to a court with vouchers for their software any more than you can pay a parking fine with a book of coupons.

Re:EU corruption

[KaptajnKold]

I'm from Europe and the unspoken truth here is that the EU officials are severely corrupt.

Well, I'm from the EU too, and your statement is absolute horseshit. It's true that there have been corruption scandals in the EU, but very few would actually believe that EU officials are corrupt as a general rule. On the other hand there is a lot of scepticism about the whole EU project within the member states, and opponents of the union are fighting to turn back the clock, every step of the way. It's not difficult to see why some of them would try and motivate there resentment with claims of unbounded corruption.

Your claim that the case against MS is the result of bribery, is downright ridiculous. It is perhaps politically motivated, but that's a different thing all together. And remember that the EU court is independant just like any other court, so even if your claim were true, it wouldn't change the fact that MS has been convicted by an independant court of law.

Silly EU, The Source Code Is Our Documentation

[Prototerm]

Why else do you think our software's always riddled with holes and vulnerabilities? What, you think we actually have functional and technical specifications for this stuff? Are you nuts?

Simple as this

[brywalker]

This is nothing more than bribery for trade secrets. Period. The only thing Microsoft can do is retaliate.

1) Immediately release a statement that they are horrified that they are being pressured to make copyrighted works public or else face fines.

2) Announce an IMMEDIATE withdrawl of Windows software from the EU. They will buy back licences at fair market value, as long as there is proof that the OS has been removed from the system. Announce no more support for those that continue to use it.

3) Profit.

How? The EU would shit their pants if Microsoft pulled Windows from the market. They could not function without it. Try doing a multi country conversion to Linux without disrupting business, it can't happen. They would come crawling back with their tail tucked.

Call their bluff, Microsoft. This is grade A bullshit.

Re:Simple as this

[Phil246]

The eu doesnt need microsoft to co-operate if it truely wanted their trade secrets. they could sieze them without all this fuss.
Microsoft can threaten all it wants but no corporation currently is more powerful then a state.
They'll simply be slaughtered both by the EU, and by their shareholders if they continue to refuse to comply with the court order.

step 2 above seems to assume that everyone would return their copy to microsoft, just because they asked.
Chances are they wouldnt, and all the EU needs to do is revoke all copyrights, patents , etc granted to microsoft and all businesses can continue to use it, legally while they migrate people over to other operating systems at their own pace.
you may say that microsoft wouldnt let them access the updates, and you're probably right - however there are sites which package windows updates into one big installer. Those could be used and indeed patched should there be anything to ensure that only those outside the eu can install them.

Furthermore, Microsoft needs the EU more then the EU needs Microsoft.
the EU is a huge market for microsoft, larger then the US is and their shareholders would certainly take action if the executives cut off such a large market through their arrogance and stubbornness.

Re:Simple as this

[Darth]

Immediately release a statement that they are horrified that they are being pressured to make copyrighted works public or else face fines.

Issue a statement that they are horrified that the organisation that creates the artificial restriction on everyone else's behaviour is pressuring them to abide by the rules they created for when they are willing to allow people to exercise their fabricated exclusive use right?

How? The EU would shit their pants if Microsoft pulled Windows from the market. They could not function without it. Try doing a multi country conversion to Linux without disrupting business, it can't happen. They would come crawling back with their tail tucked.

No, the EU would void all of Microsoft's "intellectual property", ban them from operating in the EU, and it would be perfectly legal for anyone to use, modify, or deconstruct their products.
This would also encourage all organizations in Europe to migrate away from Microsoft products. That would destroy Microsoft's monopoly on operating systems and on office suites. Once their monopolies are gone, Microsoft will die worldwide.

Microsoft is a corporation. Their existance as an entity and the protection of their products under the law are at the sufferance of the government under which they are operating.

Microsoft needs the EU government a hell of a lot more than the EU needs Microsoft.

Re:Simple as this

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

This is nothing more than bribery for trade secrets. Period.

Yeah those criminals at the EU that expect Microsoft to obey the law, or at least comply with the punishment they negotiated after being convicted... madness. And please, stop writing the word "period" after and before the punctuation mark. It is more than a little redundant.

The only thing Microsoft can do is retaliate.

Ha! yeah, umm that would go well. Governments and courts, especially ones recently established love it when companies retaliate against their implementation of the law. That's not a challenge to their authority that will force them to respond or anything.

1) Immediately release a statement that they are horrified that they are being pressured to make copyrighted works public or else face fines.

Well, MS is good at releasing statements. Not that anyone who matters is fooled.

Announce an IMMEDIATE withdrawl of Windows software from the EU... Announce no more support for those that continue to use it.

I see, so they should abandon 8 billion in revenue to save themselves from 1 billion in fines? Yeah, the shareholders will go for that in a big way. Of course due to the genuine advantage program that would also mean they are in violation of their contracts with thousands of international corporations, all of whom would immediately sue them in the US and probably bankrupt them.

Profit.

The executives would be far to busy bending over in the prison showers at this point for massive shareholder fraud than anything else.

The EU would shit their pants if Microsoft pulled Windows from the market. They could not function without it.

Umm, and people wouldn't just use pirated copies why? MS would have no standing in any EU court after refusing to comply with their laws and no way of enforcing their copyrights. Heck the EU would probably invalidate their copyrights for that antitrust abuse alone, possibly assigning them to a competitor or new company formed from the seized MS assets in the EU.

Call their bluff, Microsoft.

Yeah do it. It's brilliant. I was wrong about all of the above. It'll be great. :)

I can see complaining if the EU was enforcing some obscure law that they never enforce against EU companies, but this is pretty routine. They enforce it all the time and it is the same law the US convicted them of violating for the same incident. I mean come on already. Where do you get ideas like this?

Monopoly law

[DragonWriter]

Judging by how USC is typically interpreted, something tells me that you need to read the rest of Title 15 (at least chapter 1) to find any exceptions to the rule that Microsoft might be using.

That's not really relevant to the issue the grandparent was responding to, which was GGPs claim that it is impossible to be a convicted monopolist in the US since there was no US law against monopolies. GP successfully and completely rebutted that claim by demonstrating that there is, in fact, a law against monopolies in the US which can support such a conviction.

In point of fact, Microsoft was found to have violated, among others, the exact provision of law GP points to by US courst in the United States v. Microsoft case.

Of course, all that is somewhat tangential to the issue of the EU fines, since the EU is not bound by US law; Microsoft has separately been the subject of monopoly/antitrust action in the EU.

Re:Monopoly law

[Hijacked Public]

Once of the biggest mistakes many people, and geeks seem especially prone to this, make is to read the text of a law and think that whatever their interpretation of that text might be is all they need to know to construe about the legal implications of one thing or another.

Consider why the law quoted doesn't just openly state "It is illegal to be a monopoly". Why does the word monopoly not even appear? Does the word 'monopolize' have a legal meaning different from 'monopoly'? How have courts interpreted the law quoted?

You could read this guide as a start, but reading actual court documents is much better. Microsoft was indeed found guilty of being in violation, but not simply due to their monopoly status, but because they unreasonably restrained trade, therefore they are guilty of unreasonably restraining trade rather than 'being a monopoly' because 'being a monopoly' is not illegal.

Re:Monopoly law

[DragonWriter]

Once of the biggest mistakes many people, and geeks seem especially prone to this, make is to read the text of a law and think that whatever their interpretation of that text might be is all they need to know to construe about the legal implications of one thing or another.

Certainly true, though not relevant here as, again, US courts have, in fact, found that Microsoft is guilty of violating the provision of law at issue.

Consider why the law quoted doesn't just openly state "It is illegal to be a monopoly".

It states the exact equivalent, because a "monopoly" (in the sense that one can 'be' rather than 'have' a monopoly) is simply one who has succesfully monopolized trade.

Does the word 'monopolize' have a legal meaning different from 'monopoly'? How have courts interpreted the law quoted?

Clearly. One is a noun, the other a verb, their meanings are, necessarily, different. Nevertheless, they are linked. Indeed, courts have interpreted Section 2 of Title 15 (which is also Section 2 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act), which refers only to the verb "monopolize") creating an offense of "monopoly". See, for instance, US v. Grinnell, 384 US at 570-571:

The offense of monopoly under 2 of the Sherman Act has two elements: (1) the possession of monopoly power in the relevant market and (2) the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident.

You could read this guide as a start, but reading actual court documents is much better. Microsoft was indeed found guilty of being in violation, but not simply due to their monopoly status, but because they unreasonably restrained trade, therefore they are guilty of unreasonably restraining trade rather than 'being a monopoly' because 'being a monopoly' is not illegal.

No, they were found to have both committed the offense of "restraint of trade" (laid out in Section 1 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act) and the offense of "monopoly" (laid out in Section 2 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act). Being a monopoly, that is committing the offense of monopoly, is in fact illegal, and an offense separate and distinct from that of restraint of trade. Merely having monopoly power is not alone enough to commit the offense of monopoly, it is merely the actus reus of the crime. The mens rea, the deliberate or willful mental state, is also required, as is the connection between the mens rea and the actus reus.

Microsoft was, in fact, convicted of monopoly. Monopoly is prohibited by US law, separately and distinctly from "restraint of trade".

Re:I don't care what happens to Microsoft

[TheLinuxSRC]

Had this been any other company I would be willing to give your argument the benefit of doubt. However, I know of many companies that have partnered with Microsoft yet do not know of any that came out of that partnership in better shape than when they entered it.

I don't get it, who does this help?-Reading links.

[Anonymous Coward]

`(f) REVERSE ENGINEERING- (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.

who is corrupt ..

[rs232]

"I'm from Europe and the unspoken truth here is that the EU officials are severely corrupt"

Acutally you have it the wrong way round, it's MS and its lobbiests who are doing the corrupting. Batting on their side is also Charlie McGreevey a member of one of the most corrupt goverments in Europe. he's also behind the repeated attempts to get a US style patent system introduced into Europe.

was EU corruption (Score:5, lies)

POINTLESS

[swalters1]

Alright, I'm not going to argue about MS being a monopoly or not, to be honest, I don't care. I don't care because one company setting the standards and everyone complying with it creates an environment of stability in computers. Most crashes, problems, and issues I have to diagnose and repair are most often caused by thrid party vendors that wrote software without bothering to read the existing Whitepapers on the subject...which is why this is POINTLESS. Even if MS complies have the people out there won't bother to read the information unless they are trying to take clients away from MS products. I know that's the point right? They're using legal action to ensure that people can play on a level playing feild. It's sounds liek a good idea, but it's a recipe for chaos in the long term. All you end up with is the establishment of new proprietary information from competitors of MS that eventually wil have to be sued to hand the information over as well, and the person who sues them, will use this ruling as the basis for their law suits.

Making MS hand over documentation on protocols is pointless, there are white papers that describe eveything important to a real programer, with a single exception, file formats for Office products (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, Visio, etc) The formats used in Office 2007 are completely different....making this a pointless ruling. They've already changed the very protocols they've been told to hand over, and since 2007 isn't out of BETA yet, it technically isn't covered by the ruling. Smooth move.. this is what happens when courts are allowed to make rulings on technical systems they arn't qualified to rule on. They missed it big time if they really want to level the feild.

Personally I don't think making them turn over anything beyond a table of file format struture is fair to MS or the consumer. LEts say they force MS to turn over documentation about security in Windows (crippled as it already is) you've just given evey hacker a road map! That's about as stupid as a CNN reporter asking, "Can you give me the exact location of the troops?" while the enemy is watching CNN. Please, they want an API to turn off secuirty center, they got it. They want to re-write parts of the OS, screw em. It's not their OS, it's not their right to create more issues for the end user. Symantec and McAfee in particular are the worst abusers of the OS to date (at least in the US), and are ten times worse than MS about their anti-competition practices. At least with an OS you know what you're getting, you can expect it to infest every part of your comptuer, but half the people out their don't get that the copy of Security Center or Internet security that came with their new PC, is so deeply embeded in the OS that half the time the uninstall fails leaving your systems crippled forcing you to reinstall the software or risk having to reinstall windows.

Anyway, rant over. This ruling is pointless, it accomplishes nothing except having MS turn over file format informaiton to help Belgium's conversion to open office and doesn't do crap for the consumer the court is suppose to be protecting.

Re:POINTLESS

[Darth]

Alright, I'm not going to argue about MS being a monopoly or not, to be honest, I don't care. I don't care because one company setting the standards and everyone complying with it creates an environment of stability in computers.

Sort of like how dictatorships create an environment of stability in countries, right?
Sure, they might abuse their power and kill some people, and the laws they dictate might be unjust, but at least you know what you have to comply with.

Most crashes, problems, and issues I have to diagnose and repair are most often caused by thrid party vendors that wrote software without bothering to read the existing Whitepapers on the subject...which is why this is POINTLESS.

Uh, so? You think nobody on the planet is doing, or wants to do anything outside of the issues you have to diagnose and repair? You seem to have a very myopic view of the world.

They're using legal action to ensure that people can play on a level playing feild. It's sounds liek a good idea, but it's a recipe for chaos in the long term.

Sort of like Democracy, right?

All you end up with is the establishment of new proprietary information from competitors of MS that eventually wil have to be sued to hand the information over as well, and the person who sues them, will use this ruling as the basis for their law suits.

Without monopoly power, a competitor cannot dictate proprietary standards onto the market. Their competitors will create an open, interoperable standard and support it instead and the proprietary vendor will end up marginalized. This has happened plenty of times in the last 30 years. In the absence of monopoly influence, the market tends to correct itself on those things.

If it did happen then, yes, someone would sue and this ruling could be used for the basis of their suit (actually it probably couldn't since i dont think the EU courts use prior cases as precedent in future cases the way the United States court system does). I'm not sure why you brought that up though, because that was just indicate a properly functioning legal system, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Making MS hand over documentation on protocols is pointless, there are white papers that describe eveything important to a real programer, with a single exception, file formats for Office products (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, Visio, etc) The formats used in Office 2007 are completely different....making this a pointless ruling. They've already changed the very protocols they've been told to hand over, and since 2007 isn't out of BETA yet, it technically isn't covered by the ruling.

I think the Samba guys would disagree with ou on that first part. (unless, maybe you don't consider them real programmers?)

I fail to see how the Office 2007 format being different makes the ruling pointless. Do you not think people want interoperability with older file formats? Do you think everyone will immediately switch to Office 2007 and convert their old documents to office 2007 format? History disagrees with that.

Also, how can Office 2007 using a different file format make the ruling pointless if it isn't even out of beta yet? And how do you know the EU isnt requiring them to hand over documentation on the file formats for the beta software also?

Personally I don't think making them turn over anything beyond a table of file format struture is fair to MS or the consumer. LEts say they force MS to turn over documentation about security in Windows (crippled as it already is) you've just given evey hacker a road map!

So far, the only people who have demonstrated a need for a road map for windows security are the security vendors and MS themselves. The hackers seem to be doing just fine without one.
Besides, if looking at this documentation will make it so easy for the hackers to abuse windows, shouldn't it also make it easy for MS to find those holes and fix them? Are the hackers that much better than the "real" programmers at M

Re:POINTLESS

[swalters1]

Sort of like how dictatorships create an environment of stability in countries, right? Sure, they might abuse their power and kill some people, and the laws they dictate might be unjust, but at least you know what you have to comply with.

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of how prior to the standardization of railway gauge each independent railway system was allowed to develop it's own system and then charge people to use it, and purposly take their competitiors systems and modify them to stop their compeitior from running trains on their rails. Or if you don't like that example then there's the standaradizaiton of the automobile that was the direct result of unchecked monoploistic tactics. Or the standardzation of Electrical standards (AC DC 110 220, etc), recording standards (Anyone else remember the RCA 45?), TV (we're still fighting over this one), Radio (FM,AM, Direct Transmission... yeah..Tesla was nuts...), Satellite, Internet, Networks, etc, etc... but your response was as much hyperbole as my comment was so I'll call it even.

Eventually every market creates a "winner" and if the courts step in at that point, or better yet, a legislative body steps in and says, "Fight's over, they win, eveyone use their standard." Things work out better in the long run. Unfortunately, in the short run some of these companies have to die off. If the EU is planning on taking the protcols and turning them over to ISO and then asks or forces all developers to use those protocols as the defacto standard then I'm cool with it. But if it's their intention to create an artifically level feild then there's a problem.

Uh, so? You think nobody on the planet is doing, or wants to do anything outside of the issues you have to diagnose and repair? You seem to have a very myopic view of the world.

*blinks* Um okay, so I'm the only one that gets annoyed by AoL deciding to write code contrary to the existing documentation and then caused system to crash? Or better yet the wonderful medical software companies I work with deciding to ignore ISO standards and write their own homebrews? But lets skip that for a moment and look at it this way...you're as entitled to be wrong as the next person and in this case you are. But agian, not the topic..so truce? well truce after the next comment cause it's bait and I'll bite...

Sort of like Democracy, right?

*coughs* It's another hyberbole like the dictator comment, and it's not helping the discussion and is taking a comment out of context because it suits your purpose and I keep saying you have some good points... so lets get on to those. The point of democracy is to allow each person to have equal say in the foundation, formation and composition of their respective government, it works best when business and industry arn't involved in the process.

But we're getting off topic lobbing insults back and forth, so lets take a look at the rest of the comments.

Without monopoly power, a competitor cannot dictate proprietary standards onto the market. Their competitors will create an open, interoperable standard and support it instead and the proprietary vendor will end up marginalized. This has happened plenty of times in the last 30 years. In the absence of monopoly influence, the market tends to correct itself on those things. If it did happen then, yes, someone would sue and this ruling could be used for the basis of their suit (actually it probably couldn't since i dont think the EU courts use prior cases as precedent in future cases the way the United States court system does). I'm not sure why you brought that up though, because that was just indicate a properly functioning legal system, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Agreed, but.... I mentioned earlier I work with medical software. Currently there are 26 companies competeting for the same market. Because no one has the greatest share of the market (i.e. 25%) they all are still refusing to work together and keep trying to force their s

Re:POINTLESS

[Darth]

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of how prior to the standardization of railway gauge each independent railway system was allowed to develop it's own system and then charge people to use it, and purposly take their competitiors systems and modify them to stop their compeitior from running trains on their rails. Or if you don't like that example then there's the standaradizaiton of the automobile that was the direct result of unchecked monoploistic tactics. Or the standardzation of Electrical standards (AC DC 110 220, etc), recording standards (Anyone else remember the RCA 45?), TV (we're still fighting over this one), Radio (FM,AM, Direct Transmission... yeah..Tesla was nuts...), Satellite, Internet, Networks, etc, etc...

The difference between those examples and Microsoft is that those standards were documented and the other competitors in those markets, when their attempts to press their proprietary formats failed, could implement the winning format and be interoperable. Microsoft actively pursues a policy of changing the format to break compatibility anytime someone tries to be interoperable with them.

but your response was as much hyperbole as my comment was so I'll call it even.

Fair enough.

Eventually every market creates a "winner" and if the courts step in at that point, or better yet, a legislative body steps in and says, "Fight's over, they win, eveyone use their standard." Things work out better in the long run. Unfortunately, in the short run some of these companies have to die off. If the EU is planning on taking the protcols and turning them over to ISO and then asks or forces all developers to use those protocols as the defacto standard then I'm cool with it. But if it's their intention to create an artifically level feild then there's a problem.

The EU is not, and should not, force anyone to implement a standard. Once one standard "wins" everyone will implement it or they will fail. Or they can restart the war by creating a new standard. If the new standard is compellingly better than the old one, it'll take over and everyone will implement that.
In the case of Microsoft, the EU is saying " you cannot create a barrier to entry into the market place by not letting people implement your standards." The reason they cannot do that is because they are a monopoly.

But we're getting off topic lobbing insults back and forth, so lets take a look at the rest of the comments.

heh...you should have seen the stuff i almost wrote and decided was too inflammatory.

Agreed, but.... I mentioned earlier I work with medical software. Currently there are 26 companies competeting for the same market. Because no one has the greatest share of the market (i.e. 25%) they all are still refusing to work together and keep trying to force their standards on unwitting doctors. It's a bad situation all around. What's worse they're ignoring ISO standards and doing their own thing because there is no governing body yet that wil step in.

I can appreciate how much that would suck, but it isnt really equivalent to the case with Microsoft. In Microsoft's case, they are doing things like implementing a proprietary version of LDAP and not following a standard that everyone else in the market does follow. They do it specifically to create a barrier to non-Microsoft applications to facilitate their attempts to leverage their desktop monopoly to increase their server market share. That's illegal and that is the kind of thing the EU ruling is about.

Also MS released a huge explination of DOCX in MSDN, it's pretty much an open format that anyone can use...providing they are running an MS OS or Mimo. Personally, I'd prefer that they force everyone to adopt an open document format, but as a .NET programer, I don't mind DOCX since I can make my server produce DOC files on the fly in about 3 lines of code. (Extremely difficult on the binary version)

Well, if it is fully documented, there shouldnt be a

The Simple Solution...

[Eric Damron]

...is to break up Microsofts monopoly into two or even three companys. Split the OS part of the business away from the software that they develop to run on it. Maybe even split the Office part into its own company.

This should have been done a long time ago.

Re:The Simple Solution...

[Phil246]

Microsoft isnt an EU company and so the EU cant do that. The US can however, but has been unwilling to do so.

Re:The Simple Solution...

[wizkid]

They were going to split $M. Then:

The Judge shot off his mouth about $M's abuses

$M's head troll had a visit with the Pres. Mr BU$H.

The pres told the courts what judge to appoint.

Microsoft got a fine they redirected to marketing campains. Vouchers for free software, of which they were required to pay for an inflated support contract.

So much for the integrity of US courts.

Bullshit

[Moraelin]

Now, we have various competitors that are locked out of a market because the State decided to give preferential treatment to certain companies (in this case, Microsoft). Copyright, patents, trademarks can all be used to keep other people out of a given market long enough for a company to grow to a size that makes it hard to defeat.

1. Neither copyright nor patents nor trademark had anything to do with the MS anti-trust lawsuits, nor with the predatory practices it was accused of. Neither Novell nor Netscape nor Sun nor all the other companies were attacked by MS via copyright (none of them were selling copies of Windows), nor trademark (none of them called their own product "MS Windows" or "MS Office"), nor patents.

2. MS was _not_ even tried for being a monopoly as such, but for abusing that position to break other trade laws. You _can't_ be tried for just having a big slice of the market. E.g., see Coca-Cola. Noone brings that one before a court of law. Do you understand? The issue isn't just that MS is too big to defeat, but that it abused that position to engage in predatory practices that ultimately hurt the consumer.

I.e., what you've been arguing for half that message is at best a complete non-sequitur. All that rhethoric about becoming too big to defeat is completely irrelevant to the issues that led to that huge fine. It's just not tried for being too big.

Sure, some will say that they violated anti-trust laws, but those laws have enough loopholes to let any big company get around them.

So then why didn't MS get around those? So your argument is... what? "The law has enough loopholes, so let's ignore that someone outright broke it instead of using the loopholes"? Or what?

At any rate, the fact that they broke the law _and_ then proceeded to show utter contempt to the court (both by non-compliance for over 2 years and the whole media war against the EU) is the _whole_ point there, not some secondary issue that can be summarily hand-waved out.

Let's look at reality here. The State wants these fines to pad their own accounts -- they same laws will exist, and the same problem will repeat itself. This is basically a legal form of asking for bribes, and Microsoft will be happy to comply.

Yes, let's look at reality here, and this time the real one:

1. What the "State" asked wasn't fine. It asked MS to offer everyone the documentation needed for interoperability. I.e., what it tries to do is break that monopoly. The original judgment against MS didn't ask for a single cent. So on WTF bullshit do you base such idiotic statements as "The State wants these fines to pad their own accounts"?

2. The fines are just punishment for refusing to comply with the court order, after it had been given ample time to. And even then MS has been given more than 2 years to comply with it, in which case it would have to pay no fine. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

3. MS had more than 2 years to comply, and it didn't. In fact, that's how the fine got so big: it's a daily fine until they comply. And ignoring it for more than 2 years eventually starts being big money. So on what _do_ you base such bullshit statements as "Microsoft will be happy to comply"? Because so far it showed no intention to comply. It just engaged in some smoke-and-mirrors media war against the EU instead of doing what it was asked to.

Any changes Microsoft makes will only be enough to make the State happy, and the next run against them will be strictly for income for those making new laws. That income helps provide for more loopholes and better preferential treatment for the companies that can afford it.

1. Being fined up to 30% of your yearly _sales_ (see, here) is hardly buying preferential treatment. It's something that would put most companies in

A question pre-supposing an answer

[Epeeist]

You start off with the view that anything the State does is wrong and in a subsequent post essentially claim that the free market is the correct and only mechanism.

Adam Smith's free market ideas were extant at the same time as the Phlostigen theory. Is there any reason to suppose that the theory of free markets is any more valid than Phlostigen? If it is a scientific theory has it been subject to critical tests and passed? Or is it yet another matter of belief with limited evidence of its validity?

Open Standards

[RAMMS EIN]

``Before Thursday next week, Microsoft must hand over all secret information on Windows protocols'' ...because then we can all go and write software that interoperates with Microsoft's proprietary protocols. That is, assuming Microsoft caves in and provides the required information.

Why doesn't the EU just do the right thing and standardize on open protocols (and file formats)? That would enable not just interoperability, but also allow standards to evolve outside Microsoft's control. If the EU government mandated that open standards be used in all its branches, that would provide a huge boon to software vendors who already support these standards, and an incentive for Microsoft to play along.

Re:Europe

[arevos]

Now, there are certainly pockets of civilization in Europe (i.e., London, Berlin, etc.) but most of the rural areas are still coming to grips with things like electricity and indoor plumbing. If you were to walk up to your average European and say things like "Microsoft", "keyboard", "Internet", etc., you might as well be talking to a rock.

51.9% of the EU's population currently has access to the Internet, so not only does the average European know what the Internet is, he's already using it.

And considering the EU's population is 456 million, that gives approximately 236 million EU Internet users. The US's population is 296 million, and has 69.3% Internet penetration, giving 205 million US Internet users. In other words, the EU has 31 million more Internet users than the US.

Now, I realise you're a troll, but I thought these statistics might be of interest to others. Whilst I don't have statistics on the respective levels of Windows piracy in the US and EU, it's not unreasonable to say that there may be millions more Microsoft customers in the EU than there are in the US.

monopoly

[Mr 44]

Actually, Microsoft was only determined to have a monopoly on x86-powered desktop computers (Leaving out PowerPC Apples and Linux-powered servers).

lotsa cash!

[feld]

777.5 million Euros = 998.38775 million U.S. dollars

Ouch...

Look for Bill's golden toilet on Ebay everyone!

It's not their monopoly that's illegal

[200_success]

Regardless of your opinion of IP laws, there's no hypocrisy on the part of the government here. Yes, copyrights and patents do create monopolies. Being a monopoly is legal. Microsoft is being punished for abusing their monopoly status, which is illegal. The EU has ruled that bundling Windows Media Player with Windows is an anti-competitive practice. Both the US and the EU governments have focused on the bundling issue because it's the easiest way to show that Microsoft is taking advantage of its market share to shut out competitors from the market.

Even within the current framework of IP laws, there are plenty of ways that Microsoft can operate legally. As long as PC manufacturers have to ship with Windows pre-installed, Microsoft is supposed to make Internet Explorer and Media Player separate products, that's all.

Not really xenophobia

[Moraelin]

And you are correct with some of the xenophobia. Basically, the EU nations do not want to be purely beholden for this type of thing to a US-based company.

Huh? There are plenty of EU-based companies which got harsher sentences than MS right from the start. MS initially got no fine, and was just ordered to document the protocol. MS got fined only after it ignored the ruling and the deadline. MS's fine only got so big by ignoring the daily fine for 2.5 years. (It's basically like ignoring a parking fine for 2.5 years straight, and continuing to park in front of a garage every day. Of course it gets to be big money after a long time.) _And_ it's been given a sweet deal in that if it finally releases those docs until the final deadline (in 8 days now), it gets to pay no fine at all.

EU-based corporations and cartels typically got slapped hundreds of millions of Euro fines right from the start.

I.e., whatever xenophobia might exist in the EU (and it exists), this judgment was the exact opposite. MS was given a much better deal than any European company that broke the anti-trust laws. I.e., if any discrimination is at work here, effectively the EU then discriminates against its own citizens and companies by giving MS a much better deal.

Excellent points

[Tony]

Without a tyranny in the State, a company producing a product or service would have competition -- no matter how big that company is.

Okay, we're both wandering off into complete speculation at this point, so any argument we have is going to be based on rhetoric and gut feelings, but I'm really enjoying this discussion, as you are one of the first rational free-market proponents I've met.

So, with that in mind:

The problems with all corporations results from their one desire: to maximize profit. They will do all they can until they can regulate the market themselves. Yes, I believe all market giants are doomed to fail. But they can do a lot of economic and social damage before they *do* fail.

I do not like large government. I do not trust the government, of whatever size. But in a power void, I firmly believe (and I believe history supports me in this) that large corporations will step into the void and assume the role of regulators. And I trust corporations even less than I trust the government. The government is stupid, and capricious, and contradictory. Corporations are directed toward one thing: exploiting resources to make the largest amount of money possible.

Until we live in a time when people learn to respect each other above their desire to get rich, corporations will be worse than government. Competition won't help, because competitors will team up to exploit "consumers" (through price fixing, for instance) to maximize short-term profits. Then they will turn on each other, shift alliances, and still the ones to suffer most will be the people.

The one big assumption the free market requires is that all competitors are equally powerful. This just isn't so. Without that assumption, the more powerful will cause harm to the less-powerful, and end up regulating the market to their own end.

At least, that's my very cynical observation.

Re:Excellent points

[dada21]

Okay, we're both wandering off into complete speculation at this point, so any argument we have is going to be based on rhetoric and gut feelings, but I'm really enjoying this discussion, as you are one of the first rational free-market proponents I've met.

I appreciate that attitude and definitely would love to discuss more with you, probably off slashdot for fear of an off-topic hit. I'm offering minarchists, socialists, anarcho-capitalists and Statists the chance to come to my blogs and write about their opinions in a debate-chain -- and get paid to do so by me. If you're interested, my e-mail address is there. Let's chat.

I'll disagree slightly on the rhetoric and gut feelings aspect. We've had democratic governments for thousands of years, and they always fail to meet promises or expectations. If you look at ANY market that is fairly deregulated or completely deregulated (short of sales tax and other tax burdens), you see huge growth in terms of prices dropping, quality going up, safety going up, and choice/selection. Look at hair combs. Look at Razor blades. Look at toothpaste. Look at lawn mowing services. Look at oil change facilities. I should make a website listing all the various markets that are uncluttered by excessive regulation, actually. Let people debate them individually :)

The problems with all corporations results from their one desire: to maximize profit. They will do all they can until they can regulate the market themselves. Yes, I believe all market giants are doomed to fail. But they can do a lot of economic and social damage before they *do* fail.

I'm going to disagree slightly here because this is the desire of all individuals, too -- to maximize "profit." Profit comes in the form of more money, but it can also come in the form of more entertainment, more free time, more happiness, and more. If you and I, as individuals, barter, we both profit from the transaction in some way or we don't transact. This is true of ALL transactions except ones with the State which forces us to make a transaction or face penalties or jail time.

Corporations can't just maximize their profit by raising prices, unless the State is there to allow them to by reducing your choice to find competitors. The minute that Corporation A raises their price higher than the level that Corporation B can start selling the product, Corporation A will be in trouble. Competition provides for more than A and B if there is enough demand -- unless the State is there to tell you that only one or two companies are licensed to provide the service, or if the State says only one or two companies have the right to produce a product or service in a certain way because of the protection of their right over the way one thinks or moves their hands or fingers.

Corporations are directed toward one thing: exploiting resources to make the largest amount of money possible.

Only if there is a demand for the final product or service. If the demand for dirt went way up, corporations might try to take over all the dirt, but that's only because peole want dirt. There is a market for dirt, though, which means that there is a demand for dirt to be bought cheaper than the individual can get it themselves for. Corporations do not exist unless demand exists, and that demand only exists up to a certain price level -- once the supply of a product hits a certain price point, demand could become non-existant or severely limited.

No one exploits anything unless there is a gain to be had, and gains are made because others want what you have.

Let's say that a cartel of corporations is created -- what is to stop you and I from competing with them? If they have a monopoly over a certain resource, what is that resource and how could we get more? What stops us from getting more of that resource? Some Statists say that electricity is a short resource because there isn't enough room to have 50 different electric companies running cables all over the pl

Re:Excellent points

[rollingcalf]

'the free market actually scares corporations away from cartelization as long as someone else can bounce in and affect the market. We're talking about 5 corporations versus 3 billion individuals, any of whom can get together and say "we can do it better."'

The "as long as someone else can bounce in and affect the market" is a very big IF in a free market. New entrants will usually find that it is more profitable to join the cartel where they can sell at the high uncompetitive prices, rather than fight the cartel. Otherwise there wouldn't be a cartel -- the individual members would have separated or declined to join it.

Re:Excellent points

[dada21]

The "as long as someone else can bounce in and affect the market" is a very big IF in a free market. New entrants will usually find that it is more profitable to join the cartel where they can sell at the high uncompetitive prices, rather than fight the cartel. Otherwise there wouldn't be a cartel -- the individual members would have separated or declined to join it.

This is a very good point, one that I have pondered often. My only answer is:

Has the State created MORE cartels than it has protected against? If what you say is true, why are there so many unregulated markets (lawn mowing, razor blades, toothpaste, pizzas, burgers, etc) that don't see cartelization? The only time you do see cartelization that MIGHT MIGHT MIGHT need State intervention is when the supply of a product is TRULY limited. Software is NOT a limited resource, it is artificially limited by... the State!

PS:

[Tony]

Oh, one thing I had intended to say in my last post:

It seems we both definitely agree getting rid of patents, and probably copyright, would be a step in the right direction. I'll support you 110% on that.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?-Reading lin

[evil_Tak]

`(f) REVERSE ENGINEERING- (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.

English link

[ringe82]

One of the Dutch articles is quoting from the guardian.

Example

[Tony]

In one example of Standard's aggressive practices, a rival oil association decided to build an oil pipeline, hoping to overcome the virtual boycott imposed on Standard's competitors. In response, the railroad company (at Rockefeller's direction) denied the consortium permission to run the pipeline across railway land, forcing consortium staff to laboriously decant the oil into barrels, carry them over the railway crossing in carts, and then pump the oil manually back into the pipeline on the other side. When he learned of this tactic, Rockefeller then instructed the railway company to park empty rail cars across the line, thereby preventing the carts from crossing his property.

This is an excellent example of what I'm talking about. To use RMS's description of the free market, it is often portrayed as a race, which goes to the fastest and fittest. But what happens when racers start punching each other, or having other people drive them over? Suddenly it isn't a race, it's a fistfight, which always go to the meanest and most willing to cause harm.

This is just one example of how Standard Oil used their size and clout to impede their competitors. Of course Standard Oil could sell their oil cheaper: they made sure their competitors were not allowed the efficiencies Standard Oil could get. This is a case of artificial regulation not from the state, but from the larger company making sure they don't have any competition.

You are being funny, aren't you?

[Dion]

You act as though MS produces anything that's not worthless.

If MS doesn't comply then the EU courts can easily take what they want from MS by force (real force: guns and strong men), there are several large MS owned businesses in the EU, you know.

If that wasn't the case then MS copyrights could be invalidated in the entire EU zone, that would:
1) Make it free for everyone to use windows, thus strengthening the EU economy.
2) Weaken MS, the EU is the largest market for MS.

It would probably cost a bit for all of the EU to migrate to OSX / Linux, but doing so would be much cheaper than if just one company/government had to do so, because the EU is the largest market in the world and if it was to announce that everybody was migrating to Linux then a huge industry would be created to do that.

The best thing MS could do to promote Linux and thus kill itself would be to give up the european market.

Legal people make bad assumptions about software

[c0d3h4x0r]

The lawyers and judges (who don't generally understand software development or architecture at all) keep making numerous faulty assumptions. Among them:

1. Companies document everything they do.
2. Documentation is easy and quick to write.
3. There's always some kind of clean, clear line between "interface" and "implementation".
4. No one can figure anything out without documentation.

First off, Microsoft doesn't document everything they do internally. "The code is the documentation" is often true.

Second, documentation is not easy or quick to write. It's very difficult to write comprehensible documentation for a complex interface and it takes a lot of time to write, edit, revise, verify for correctness, and run through the legal department.

Third, unless software was architected up-front explicitly to have an exposed public interface and a hidden private implementation, there's not going to be such a clear distinction. And creating one after-the-fact for pieces of shipped software already in use around the world is not necessarily a feasible task.

Fourth, there's this great thing called reverse-engineering that permits people to play with something until they figure out how it works, and then interface to it any way they please. Tons of people have figured out tons of things without documentation. Just because Microsoft doesn't publish documentation for every conceivable thing they do, it doesn't mean a competitor is incapable of interoperating with their stuff.

Answer:

[warrax_666]

DMCA. Those were found to be in violation of the anti-circumvention provision. Reverse engineering is still permitted as long as it isn't for the (sole?) purpose of circumventing protection measures.

Translation of first article

[Poingggg]

A quick and dirty translation of the first linked article. Enjoy!

-----------
Kroes gives Microsoft nine days

(Novum) - EU-commisary Neelie Kroes has given the American softwarecompany Microsoft nine days time to release information about the Windows operating system.
She says so in the British newspaper The Guardian. The company has till next week Thursday, Thanksgiving Day.

MS indicated earlier to release the data at last on July 19, but this has still not happened yet. "I don't live forever" was Kroes's reaction. The Dutch lady says not to be impressed if people say that ninety percent of the information already has been released. "We need one hundred percent, and it should have been there a few months ago."

Kroes emphasises that the information has to be available for concurrency in the interest of economic growth and jobs in the EU. "I am the arbiter in the game and I will operate tough but fairly", says Kroes. The European Commissary emphasises not to tolerate 'economic nationalism'.

In July Microsoft was fined more than 280 million Euro for not releasing the data. Two years ago the company had to pay almost 500 million Euro for misuse of its dominant market position.
----------------------

English is not my native language, but Dutch is. Please forgive me my mistakes.....

Non Sequitur

[overshoot]

Even when Microsoft does not do business in EU, Berne Convention [wikipedia.org] still applies.

Which has -- what? -- to do with Microsoft's ability to enforce their copyrights in Europe?

Treaties are agreements between nations. It's still up to the nations to codify and enforce their terms by means of national laws.

And courts.

Re:Non Sequitur

[tokul]

All EU countries signed Berne convention and TRIPs. I am not a lawyer, but I think these agreements protect copyrights. If Georgii Porgiov distributes counterfeit copies of Microsoft software, he violates copyright laws.

Re:Non Sequitur

[overshoot]

If Georgii Porgiov distributes counterfeit copies of Microsoft software, he violates copyright laws.

No doubt about it. However, as in the USA, there are times when you can't go to the Courts to get things you want (such as a judgment of infringement.) For instance, if you're an escaped murderer with a death sentence in the USA, filing suit against your landlord isn't going to do you much good.

Re:Awesome! Not just crack that beast's back

[davidsyes]

but let it heal --incorrectly, and then crush its nut. Rip off its toe nails, and put it in shackles. And, put around its neck one of those BR II collars. Finally, a way to tame that beast might just work... A hunch-backed, knee-knocking, light-footed behemoth. Even Sasquatch would win a beauty contest between the two...

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?-Reading lin

[internic]

So, in true Slashdot fashion, IANAL but that sounds like it's saying precisely that you're allowed to, say, reverse engineer the word format for the purpose of creating a program that interoperates with that file format, invalidating dada21's original point on the matter. As far as I understood, that's the whole point of the section you've quoted.

Of course, that's doesn't preclude companies from trying to use patents or other methods to lock down their file formats. But I believe that original poster is correct, reverse engineering file formats and protocols is limited mainly by the complexity of the task, not by legal barriers.

Re:Legal people make bad assumptions about softwar

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The lawyers and judges (who don't generally understand software development or architecture at all) keep making numerous faulty assumptions.

You're the one making faulty assumptions. Many of the people working on this case know all of the things you cite, but they don't matter. This is a punishment for MS breaking the law that MS bargained for after they were found guilty. They claimed they would do it.

Just because Microsoft doesn't publish documentation for every conceivable thing they do, it doesn't mean a competitor is incapable of interoperating with their stuff.

If they're writing something that connects their desktop OS in the market they've monopolized with the server OS in a different market, they bloody well knew it was illegal unless it was open and documented so they bloody well should have done so. Or, they could have used the original standards they corrupted in order to make these protocols and avoided breaking the law in the first place. It doesn't matter if the Samba team can reverse engineer well enough to get Linux to mostly work. By law they have to have exactly the same capability to do so that Microsoft has and that means clearly written docs or the original developers hired to help them and anyone else who wants it.

If Microsoft wants to take over the server OS space, great. Let them do it by making the best server OS, not with this illegal bullshit. In my opinion, MS should be fined a hell of a lot more than they have been and the money handed over to all the competitors they have harmed. The damage they have done to the entire industry will take many years to fix and it won't start until this is solved.

If this were a first offense or something I'd be a little more lenient but it isn't even close. They've done this same thing again and again and they continue to do so. It needs to be made clear that breaking the law as part of your business plan is not acceptable and you will be smacked down hard if you do it. The US should break them up, but since the US courts are too corrupt, the EU should make sure they walk away from the next meeting of directors with a clear message that breaking the law will not be profitable.

Re:the EU vs the world

[fbjon]

If microsoft was a convicted monopoly but an EU company, would this be happening? The answer is no.

What makes you assert that?

But microsoft is a monopoly, different rules for them.

Exactly.

The EU is ticked of that a foreign company is so popular.

You mean the EU is sporting feelings of jealousy?

As of yet, no other company has made a better product that the public has wanted.

As of yet, we don't know what people want because ...:

The EU decides what the EU people want, and forces it down their throats.

Microsoft decides what people want.

If companies would spend 1/2 the time working on their own product/services rather then bitiching and sueing microsoft

Companies sueing? This is almost off-topic already.

The OS is the application "common carrier."

[Kazoo the Clown]

In the 20th century, the railroads were monopolized by Carnegie and then he charged his competition extra for their use of the platform for shipping oil, a business that Carnegie was also in. Microsoft has similarly utilized its monopolization of the desktop computer platform to restrict its competition's ability to compete with it in other, non-OS areas.

No, evidently not.

[mmell]

But I did try! :^S

Exporting the DMCA

[tepples]

And apparently you haven't realized that the EU is not subject to US legislation.

It doesn't have to be. See WIPO Copyright Treaty, EU Copyright Directive, DADVSI, and threats of trade sanctions from the United States if EU member states do not harmonise their copyright laws.

Scarcity

[squidsuk]

The difference is that physical property suffers from scarcity; if you enjoy the use and benefit of physical property, then it is denied to anyone else, and conversely if anyone else takes it away from you then you are denied the use and benefit of it. This is what property laws protect.

By contrast, ideas do not suffer from scarcity; if you have a good idea and another learns of it, by whatever means, then afterwards you have a good idea, and so does he; the utility of the idea is not reduced by being shared, and there is no scarcity nor can there be a "tragedy of the commons", quite the reverse any attempt to artificially restrict ideas leads directly into "broken windows" economics that hurt everyone.

Re:Scarcity

[UbuntuDupe]

So, in other words, you didn't read any of the follow-up replies, and are suffering from the delusion that you just offered some new insight to the topic.

There are more succinct ways to get that across.

use the fines to promote open source

[quixote9]

That's what I'm waiting for. Fine the crap out of that anti-competitive monopoly, and then use the money to to help open source projects. Maybe funding programming. Maybe helping municipalities or businesses to switch over. (I can dream, can't I?)

Re:oh come on, isn't paying Novell millions to let

[Locutus]

yea, I think I purchased atleast one computer with MS DOS on it and once they hit monopoly status/control with MS DOS, the choice for consumers went out the windows. Look at the long long trail of court docs for all the lovely things Microsoft had done over the years to maintain that OS monopoly. IMO.

LoB

Re:Legal people make bad assumptions about softwar

[donaldm]

Any company that maintains software that adopts "The code is the documentation" is asking for trouble. Show me a company that does this and I will show you a company that is going out of business. All companies should document their software and protocols and Microsoft is no exception, but they keep saying they have to look at the source to document the protocols so IMHO they are lying or stupid and I don't think the latter applies.

Note: I am not talking about the quick script that a System Admin may write to get a specific job done, but more complex software. If you want to see complex and elegant software that actually self documents itself then look at TeX and LaTeX this IMHO is the exception.

The EU is only asking for the protocols for interoperability purposes not the source code which Microsoft seems to be trying to convince anyone who will listen that the EU is after this as well. Basically the EU has given Microsoft plenty of time and they have now finally drawn the line.