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Microsoft Gives In To the EU

Posted by kdawson on from the playing-nice dept.

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.

6 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Don't be fooled by EvilGoodGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  2. Not Free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Binary protocol translation modules by Mathinker · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

  4. Re:I am sure that this term will be in the license by slashjunkie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. Microsoft Gives In To the EU? by ChameleonDave · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. that's not "opening up" by nanosquid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.