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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."
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,194 8086,00.html
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.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Oh, beg to differ. Microsoft is a convicted monopoly abuser. And down comes your pretty house of cards.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
" so is EU commissioner Neelie Kroes."
But what about his cousin Mie Kroes Offt?
Where were you when the voynix came?
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.
-- That grumpy BSD guy - http://bsdly.blogspot.com/
So, who does it help? Me, the EU citizen. I may not be the greatest EU fan but they've got this one right.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
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?
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
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
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.
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.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
"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?"
.doc compatibility sucks has nothing to do with "the State". Please stop trying to wedge everything into your paranoid political mold.
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
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.