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.

Comments

Don't be fooled

[EvilGoodGuy]

Microsoft isn't bowing down for nothing, this is all just the next step in their plan to buy the EU. Just watch, you heard it here first!

Wont satisfy Critics?

[sr180]

Their moves wont satisfy critics, because they will do everything in their power to stop Open Source from using these protocols.

Re:Wont satisfy Critics?

[Tim C]

In which case they'll almost certainly still be in violation of the terms of the court ruling. The intention was to open up the protocols and APIs for everyone, not just for those few companies with deep pockets and clever lawyers.

Not Free

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Not Free

[Technician]

Uhh ISO now fast tracks Microsoft submissions, havnt you heard? One good thing that MSFT is now pushing their standards, that forces Adobe to follow suit with their submissions. The great thing about standards is there is so many to choose from now :)


ISO Certification fast track or not, the Customers will demand formats that exchange nicely. MS is working hard to prevent it as seen in the article..

"Redmonk Analyst Stephen O'Grady said Microsoft could not -- for any number of reasons, most of them political -- support ODF earlier on in the process.

"ODF support would have to be compelled by external parties, and large ones at that," O'Grady said. "I'm sure many within Microsoft hoped that ODF would indeed fade away, but I doubt they expected that, and once it trod down the path towards ISO certification, this move was probably a given." "

It is going to be a fierce battle for a while as MS pushes for their own in house solution and hope the other format will die out because their format is extended.

"The move is a big about-face for Microsoft, which has said it would not natively support ODF, openly dismissing the standard as too "limited" to meet the demands of the market."

MS is trying to define the market again instead of leting the market define the market.
If it is too limited to meet the demands of the market, why is the market demanding it? The market is demanding it because the MS format is too limited. The limitation is in it's inability to be accessed by other systems.

Good luck the the new browser war!

Re:Not Free

[jimicus]

Who is going to want to compete in making an alternative exchange server other than Free software proponents and perhaps Apple.

Don't underestimate Apple. They've got a server product, it supports some of the most common things served today out of the box (such as HTTP, LDAP - don't know if they've also got an IMAP server in there but I'd think so).

I reckon they'd love to implement 100% exchange compatability.

I am sure that this term will be in the license

[jonwil]

"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)

Re:I am sure that this term will be in the license

[slashjunkie]

If such a term was in the licence, it would open up a legal can of worms for projects such as Samba, Scalix etc, that are already doing quite a good job of reverse engineering Microsoft's closed protocols.

What if some of these specifications were leaked into the public domain by a company that bought a licence - how could you then prove or disprove whether Samba had reverse engineered protocols under their own steam, or seen some of the leaked specifications, mysteriously fast tracking certain features they'd been slaving over?

It could be SCO vs Linux all over again.

Re:I am sure that this term will be in the license

[Crayon Kid]

Not much, according to the copyright law. As long as a developer gets his hands on the specs and develops software that implements them from scratch, there's nothing they can do. Licensing only covers specific, already-written, code. Reverse engineering is limited in the USA by the DMCA, but there's no such thing in the EU. Providing the same functionality is limited in the USA by software patents, but again, there's no such thing in the EU (even though there's a lot of push for them). So all you can do is tie the people involved with NDA's and liability claims, but once someone gets around that, there's nothing stopping them from implementing the specs. Again, this only works in EU.

Of course, I'd venture that Microsoft already thought as much. If they're opening up their specs it may mean that (a) they're desperate to sell to the EU no matter what the possible consequences; (b) they're going to take whatever measures to stop the specs finding their way to free software. NDA's, liability and exorbitant licensing costs are pretty good methods, albeit not infallible. Another trick would be to offer the specs hopelessly obfuscated, but that won't work if they charge an arm and a leg for it -- those who pay want to know what they payed for.

The trouble is this..

[zappepcs]

MS is not willing to go the whole way. They give lip service to many things, but their business model is about SELLING software. The whole F/OSS environment is killing them, and those folks that want open standards are considered terrorists in Redmond. MS cannot be open or convenient anymore than a car can be an airplane.

MS has to fight tooth and nail against all common sense or change their business model completely. Guess which will happen as long as they are able to buy congressmen?

Announcement

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to announce that I, Anonymous Coward, have also given in to threats from the Government and will be complying with local laws, subject to certain conditions that I don't yet choose to reveal. This is my latest claim to have complied with the laws that supposedly bind me. The many many previous times I've made similar claims, it has been nothing more than wordplay with no basis in reality but please don't allow that to distract you from treating this as Headline News. Just because I'm a serial liar doesn't mean I shouldn't be given the same respect and trust as everyone else. Thanks.

Binary protocol translation modules

[Mathinker]

What is the state of the parallel open protocols? If their functionality is well-developed, an altruist with deep enough pockets might be able to release binary-only plugin modules which translate between protocols. Or perhaps a binary-only proxy server application which does that.

Unfortunately, I would guess that Microsoft's license tries to deal with this problem. Probably in a way analogous to Numerical Recipes' clause:

(ii) our software is bound into the programs in such a manner that it cannot be accessed as individual routines and cannot practicably be unbound and used in other programs. Specifically, under this license, your program user must not be able to use our programs as part of a program library or ``mix-and-match'' workbench.

Too bad the EU couldn't force them to go totally open.

The article is wrong!

[jkrise]

From TFA: Microsoft is making key communications protocols available for license , so that third parties, including competitors, can link into the company's newest enterprise products...

The key communications protocols are the ones where Microsoft has a monopoly position... namely,

The protocols by which a Windows 95 / 98 / NT / 2000 PC joins and authenticates with the Domain Controller.
NTFS, Active Drirectory, SMB etc. would be some other protocls of interest.

To my knowledge, Exchange Server, Share Point etc. are not areas of monopoly for Microsoft.

The article is plain WRONG. It might be some more PR spin by MS as usual, though. You want us to open up our protocols? Okay... here's how Dynamics CRM talks to SharePoint Portal! One thinks the EU inspectors will not be susceptible to such tricks.

OMG - I was there! I was there!

[cliveholloway]

"No other news outlet has picked up this story so far"

Wow. I feel honored. I can now tell my grandkids when I'm old and crusty that I actually saw a peice of news that was posted first on Slashdot - as opposed to the usual way of things being recycled from Fark, Digg or CNET. Or worse, a Roland Pickadoor submission.

Is that a tear forming in the corner of my eye? Sniff.

Microsoft Gives In To the EU?

[ChameleonDave]

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.

They seem to have trouble

[rolfwind]

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.

that's not "opening up"

[nanosquid]

Licensing protocols to other companies is not "opening up". And given that open source is becoming more and more important inside the EU, this may not satisfy the EU.

Seen it all before

[valentyn]

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".

First I was about to joke ..

[Qbertino]

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.