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Microsoft Gives In To the EU
An anonymous reader writes with word that Redmond Developer News is reporting
that Microsoft has given in to EU threats of further fines. The company has opened up a whole host of protocols, including the Exchange protocol, under a license, the terms of which are not known. No other news outlet has picked up this story so far.
Their moves wont satisfy critics, because they will do everything in their power to stop Open Source from using these protocols.
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
FTA:
Of course, the licenses are not free. And, to a large extent, Microsoft is bowing to the European Commission, which decreed the company must make the interfaces public so rivals can compete on what they claim will be a more level playing field.
It appears that this wont make its way into the Open Source community; however, it does open up the market to competition. More competition is better than zero competition.
"The specifications covered by this license cannot be used in programs released under the GPL" (or rather, license terms that are intended to have the same effect without mentioning the GPL by name)
Stupid corrupt bureaucrats. A monopoly trying to punish a free market made winner.
Euros need better paying jobs? Get the government out of the market. Government doesn't have any business trying to run companies. They can't even run their own stuff.
Sure looks like they are getting killed to me......
Unfortunately, I would guess that Microsoft's license tries to deal with this problem. Probably in a way analogous to Numerical Recipes' clause:
Too bad the EU couldn't force them to go totally open.
Let's see what sort of exclusionary license Microsoft will impose before crowing that they have capitulated.
If an organization really, honestly, truly wants to not use Outlook... NOBODY is forcing them to. But it's so much easier to whine and moan.
Exchange is the best product of it's kind out there. Ever try using Notes? Yech... what a train wreck. How about Openview? Disaster. Oh wait!! Let's use Fetchmail! Troll. It was never about the emails (who the hell uses exchange because of the emails?!); it was about the fricking calendaring functionality which is NOT available to non-MS programs.
The multinational corporation Microsoft has complied with the law, and this is reported as "Microsoft Gives In To the EU". I wonder whether the headline would have read "Microsoft Gives In To the US" if the laws in question has been American.
buying votes in Europe. I'm not saying they haven't, but they don't have the system locked up like they do have here.
And America is losing power to influence the world. Most of this is because on the horizon is the vision that they won't be THE dominant player anymore that can strongarm anybody they please, like they were for most of the 20th Century, because of a variety of factors (EU gaining power, China, US own economy and debt).
Microsoft's paid-for Congressman will be doing less good (for them) in the rest of the world as time moves on.
This is the same spin we've seen before. I've got a news item from last August on paper that says *exactly* the same thing ("Microsoft buigt voor Brussel" - meaning MS gives in). The one-but-latest news came from the EU a couple of weeks ago, saying "You know, these protocols aren't innovative at all, your fee is too high", so now it's MS's turn again: "Hey, we finally open up, here are all our protocols, for a most reasonable fee that we don't exactly know yet".
The lawsuit *is* about the licensing. It is not about the protocols. Saying "you'll get the protocols but we'll define the licensing and the fees next time" is like saying "I will make you rich, and I'll define rich for you".
my other sig is a 500 page novel
First I was about to joke and write something like 'MS gives in to representative body of 400 Million people' but then I noticed that even this can't be taken for granted. I'm glad the EU has enough self-respect to tell MS who's boss when it comes to anti-competitive behaviour.
Then again MS was delaying the game to draw attention off the fact that they're defending their monopoly much more effectively in another place: Standards, closed, non-compatible Data Formats and Software Patents. The former two are great devices of market control. The EU ought to do something about that. Probalby MS wasn't really interested in lobbying in this as, as giving in here isn't so much a loss for them as it would be if they where required to comply to an amount of standard IT standards. Now *that* would be the appropriate punishment for MS.
I'll rest when MS has 50% market share or less.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Who got the ball rollling on what eventually became the WTO? Wasn't it the USA with the original ITO proposal? Now the USA is finding out that it's not just others who have to play by WTO rules they also have to do so. In a sense the US Govt. shot it self in the foot when it comes to it's freedom to establish mechanisms for strong arming others over trade issues. Not that the EU is any better in this regard, it isn't. The USA likes to keep it's options open on doing things like the Byrd Amendment so one gets the feeling the whole WTO thing wasn't properly thought through in the USA because WTO has significant power to enforce its decisions through the authorization of trade sanctions. It's almost like somebody forgot to turn the WTO into a toothless tiger like the UN. The US Govt. probably can't help MS by trying to strong-arm the EU, at least not under WTO rules, and even if the US tries to strong-arm the EU over MS anyway it wouldn't be worth it since the result could easily be a nasty trade war which would hurt a whole lot more US companies that just MS.
</rant>
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I've heard people say this sort of thing before. Let me tell you what would happen if MS decided to "pull out" of the EU. Realistically, the board of directors at MS would have an emergency meeting and fire the CEO then appoint someone new who would apologize for the old CEO and claim he had lost his mind or something. Then, MS would probably pressure the US to deport the now criminal CEO to the EU for prosecution and/or institutionalization. Then business would go back to normal except with a lot more anti-MS sentiment in the EU and the possibility of the EU taking a lot of new legal actions against MS.
Now assuming the entire board of directors and majority shareholders and CEO at MS were insane and decided to "pull out" of europe here is what would happen. MS would have just broken countless licensing agreements with multinational corporations who would then sue MS into nothingness in other countries with lawsuit after lawsuit for failing to provide support and licensing for Windows in Europe. The EU would probably take direct action against the now criminal MS organization who just blatantly rejected their authority and fled the country without complying with the courts while at the same time breaking EU antitrust laws in the most extreme way ever in all of history. The EU would now have a huge issue to beat the US with in diplomatic situations, trade talks, and the WTO making MS hated by US lawmakers (until MS was sued to nothingness). The EU would probably confiscate and freeze all MS owned property and funds in the EU likely including their intellectual property rights like patents and copyrights. They would then either found a european MS company and grant them these assets and have a very good case in international courts that it was the true owner of all of said patents and copyrights and that the US company was violating those copyrights etc. Or the EU would keep the real property and release the rest into the public domain and allow any company that wanted to modify and use MS's code and sell versions of Windows.
Either way, MS would be utterly destroyed. MS has power, including the power to bribe governments, but not enough to go head to head with a government on its own ground or to thumb their nose at one of the largest economies in the world.
You'll be able to license their specs for whatever is covered under the agreement, and the fees will be fixed and reasonable, but it will cost money and there may be conditions on it. That's probably fine for the EU. Their concern isn't making OSS fans happy, their concern is that companies be able to produce products that compete with Microsoft's stuff.You're mostly right with this but the EU may be bullish about it, particularly since all the large (and EU based) competitors are providing open source solutions. A license that excludes OSS, excludes all the competitors and is as unacceptable as a phone company who provided space for gear that was too small for any existing hardware on the market. The EU's concern is somewhat about making competitors, who happen to be OSS companies, happy.