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Microsoft Responds to EU With Another Question
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has responded to the latest round of EU requests by asking how much the EU thinks they should charge for Windows Server Protocols. The EU has stated the Microsoft should charge based on 'innovation, not patentability' and that they have 'examined 160 Microsoft claims to patented technologies' concluding 'only four may only deserve to claim a limited degree of innovation.' The EU is also starting to discuss structural remedies as opposed to the behavioral remedies they are currently enforcing. At what point has/will the EU overstepped its bounds?"
Publish them all! No unpublished protocols.
Never if it means they are protecting the industry, consumers and future innovation
Q: At what point has/will the EU overstepped its bounds?
A: Is it really necessary that every Slashdot summary ends with a very polarizing question?
The EU has already overstepped their bounds. No government should be allowed to tell a company what it is they can charge for a product nor whether their individual products are "innovative" or just "patentable".
Forget the fact that the entire process is a blatant example of socialism, it's just purely one-sided and I believe that no matter what Microsoft does at this point the EU will just continue to abuse this implied authority that they've been granted until they can drive Microsoft off their shores or make all of the products free in EU.
The EU's goal is ostensibly to ensure proper competition in the market, right? And let's face it, MS's only real competition is Free Software. Therefore, the only possible fair price for the protocol specs is free, and with free redistribution, so that it's able to be used by Free Software.
(Note that I'm talking about interoperability specifications (and patent licenses) only... Microsoft should be able to charge whatever it wants for its reference implementation.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
is at what point has Microsoft overstepped their bounds?
Whatever point you pick, I'll bet Microsoft has overstepped it! Face it; the EU wouldn't even be considering such actions if Microsoft had behaved as a decent corporate citizen.
A government should never tell a private organization what it can charge for a product. Might as well just have the government own the business (since it is setting prices) which leads to communism!
Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
The EU has been very heavy handed recently using any and all trade laws to hurt tech companies. It would be nice to have one or two of them say "screw you" and pull out of the market. A EU without Apple, Hitachi, Toshiba or Microsoft?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Its bounds? The EU pretty cannot overstep its bounds - if Microsoft wants to do business here, they'll have to play by the rules, just like - and this is important - EVERYONE ELSE. If they're unwilling to do that (and I'm not saying "unable or unwilling" since it's pretty much impossible for them to really be unable), well... nobody's forcing them to do business here. There's no dog-given right to act like an arse, and our politicians haven't been bought out 100% yet (just 99%).
On a side note, it's really rather funny to see that all the hatred for Microsoft on Slashdot suddenly vanish as soon as it's Microsoft vs. the EU - then suddenly, defending a fellow US-American company suddenly seems to become more important than pointing out how much Microsoft as a convicted monopolist engaged in illegal anti-competitive tactics is hurting innovation/the industry/society.
butter the donkey
But c'mon. Clarity and lack of prejudice need to be the driving force for communication in this matter. Levels of bureaucracies only stymie potential resolution.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
You know, the more governments interfere on how a private company should price its products the more worrying it is to me. Rules and regulations are one thing on how a company should conduct itself, but a company should be able to price its product as it damn well pleases. If people don't think its value for money then they can go elsewhere and look at the competition - thats what a free market is all about.
Your assuming they dont have a "look at the source codes!!!! damn newb" policy on documentation. From i have heard about their documentations, and implementations, neither are any good as documentation of any form.
so the article concludes: "only four may only deserve to claim a limited degree of innovation." man... if only BetaNews only had an editor. I'm sure it would only cost only a minimal amount per article if only.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
The EU has already pushed too far. I personally refuse to use MS products, so I'm not a MS fan, but the EU has gone too far in interfering with the market. Yes, the US has gone too far in "promoting" innovation through patents, but the EU has swung too far the other way. Besides, if you won't allow software patents (which I am against), then you should allow software to be a trade secret. If you are concerned about the monopoly, how about all governments use an open standard for all government business? Then, companies that want to do business with the government will switch, and things will cascade down. Governments have enough power as market actors, as opposed to market regulators, to affect things without being so heavy handed.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
Where does a 500 pound gorilla sit? Anywhere she wants, except in the 600 pound gorilla's seat.
I don't know who is the 600 pound gorilla in this case, but it sure is interesting to see a case where M$ doesn't just walk all over someone and is actually being bullied back....
Imagine if the EU dumped its focus on trivial crap like software patents and applied the same reasoning to medicine patents.
To hurt tech companies or to protect European consumers?
(Retort with: Or European companies?)
No, fair price does not mean equivalent price points - they are not the same product. Or lets turn it on its head - how about Free Software charging the same as MS ?
if you don't like the way things are done [in the EU] then take your ball and leave, you are welcome to practice monopoly in USA
and the snide remark about the EU overstepping its bounds, its "bounds" are to make business "free and fair"
they are not doing this for fun or to "stick it to the US" they are doing it because many companies/individuals have complained and so they acting on this to bring about a level "competitive" playing field
the last comment on the article really says it all
In 2000, US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered Microsoft to be broken up into two companies, but the decision was thrown out by an appeals court in June 2001, and Jackson was removed from the case. The US Department of Justice later dropped its efforts to split up Microsoft.
remember if you go against big business in USA and find in favour of the little guy you will be fired (see Alberto Gonzo and 8 judges for a recent example)
Namely, renting access to your own data.
In other words, how much should customers have to pay to get at their own data, which happens to reside on Microsoft products?
Lets take MS's argument seriously for a moment, to see where that leads us.
Suppose there is software A, which holds the data, and software B, which accesses the data. How much does MS charge for that A-B interface? There are two possible answers to this. First, they charge 0. Then everybody should pay zero. The second possible answer is that the cost of the A-B interface is part of the cost of A,B, or both.
In that case, they are illegally bundling it, forcing users to buy access to the other product when they buy A or B, but not allow customers to use it to access competitive software. They should unbundle the interface and show that all three components are priced competitively and independently.
Whatever the piece of innovation that MS feels it should be compensated for, customers should be able to buy it without having to buy other MS products.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
What point could it?
Well if it bankrupted the company then yes that would be too far certainly. If it made it so the company when complying with the law (ie not being fined) could not actualy make a profit after costs, that would be too far.
Many prices are restricted by goverments - I suspect even in the US though I don't know for certain. Things like the cost per unit of electricity, water, gas, telecoms, public transport when run by private companies. These are to ensure that companies that have effective monopolies cannot abuse the position.
Same with mircosoft. I agree they should be able to charge what they want for their software. But where they have a protocol or an API that completely separate instance of software talk to (eg from a different computer on the network of from a piece of software that is not part of the OS, or not part of the same software suite) then those interfaces, protocols and APIs should be documented and the information provided for free.
Yes they can protect their code and their implementations, but the fact you have a microsoft server should not force you to have a microsoft desktop in order to use it - other desktop made by others should be able to communicate on the same level. And vice versa, it should be perfectly possible, from complete and freely available documentation to implement a server that will behave from a clients point of view in the same way a microsoft server would. This is simply fair competition.
Microsoft would then have to get by on the merits of it software, rather than on vendor lock in.
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
Well, the US convicted Microsoft of being a monopolist, then did nothing about it. There's clearly a problem (I don't think we need to argue about that on Slashdot.) So, is it just the idea that the great all powerful US isn't doing it that some people find annoying? Or would you rather some other "superpower" like China, India or Russia ends up having to do it (in 15 or 20 years time).
Reality needs to be faced. Your government can't deal with the wayward MS business, the EU wants to deal with your problem for you. Isn't that nice of them?
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
Microsoft has hurt the global economy to the tune of billions of dollars in lost productivity because of security vulnerabilities, unstable software, and proprietary formats. All the while better alternatives have existed but legal and marketing efforts by Microsoft have kept them out of the public's hands. Bill Gates has used his ill gotten wealth to push patented drugs on Africa which has probably lead to massive death since generic drugs could be mass produced much more easily. The Gates foundation has also funded The Discovery Institute, the main group preaching intelligent design lies. If the EU were to imprison all present and past members of the board of directors and executives of MS and seized all of Microsoft's wealth, they would not be going overboard. They would help millions of people and control a known industrial menace. Perhaps a nuclear attack on Redmond would be going to far, but I'm not sure.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
What does that matter? If the documentation is the source code, and the EU requires MS to release documentation, that just means MS is required to release the source code (or write new (sufficient) documentation that it feels comfortable releasing).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
hmm, interesting EU policy..
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
We're talking about a sovereign body here. These guys set the rules *AND* the bounds. If their ultimate remedy is to dump Microsoft entirely, then so be it. The opposite end of that spectrum is to do virtually nothing like the U.S. did. Somewhere in the middle would be to stipulate rules for their behavior as a condition of continued participation in their marketplace. They make the rules. They set the bounds. I don't think "overstepping their bounds" is even possible.
The EU should just tell MS how much they can charge and get on with it. Why the pointless back and forth?
The hell with it - MS should have to open them for free. In fact, I'd be in favour of mandating that _all_ protocols should be open. You don't need to open your implementation, but other people should be able to use your protocols.
My Journal
What are you talking about? This discussion is about releasing documentation, not any kind of "product." I'm just making the point that allowing Microsoft to charge for its standards (turning a secret proprietary standard into a public -- but still proprietary -- one) doesn't do any good; the standards and documentation have to be royalty-free so that the documents and code can be redistributed within the Free Software community without each individual having to personally get permission from Microsoft first. To require such would cause those individuals to violate the GPL, among other things.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It may well be the case that Microsoft are being forced to under-charge for these protocols - but the fact is they have been found guilty of anti-competitive behaviour by the EU. Now, rather than pay the fine and be apologetic, even after trying to lie and bully their way to not being found guilty, they continue to try and lie and bully. Remember the "ooh, well, maybe we'll just pull out of the EU" threat they tried? So they lie, cheat, and bully, and suddenly expect the EU to sit down and give them a fair hearing now? Sorry, but the individuals involved in the case have been prejudiced against microsoft because of microsoft's previous dishonest behaviour. So is the price fair on the protocols? It doesn't matter. The EU is going to make Microsoft pay for abusing its position, an pay DEARLY for trying to avoid the initial fines and trying to bully their way to success. The EU isn't the US - we aren't just going to vote in the Republicans to make it all go away.
As others have pointed out, the cost of doing business in the EU is being regulated by the EU. That's life and if the fines/interference/etc is too onerous, Microsoft is free to abandon that market and concentrate on the US, Africa, Asia/Pacific Rim.
Personally, I'd love to see such a move coming from Redmond. It would accelerate adoption of non-Microsoft solutions in Europe. The resulting ripple effects would have some nice benefits for those of us developing stateside. :)
Myddrin
I don't know how many times I saw this discussion. Every time US citizens see this as a direct attack on their country. Every time there are links posted to examples that european companies are fined in the same way and that they comply to the terms of EU. Every time there are posters that think it's an attack on a free market. There's no such thing as free market in any country and I don't know if anybody knows any benefits of monopolies in any kind of market.
Assuming the EU has the power, the next question is should it? Well, I personally think it's going to be the only way to bring Microsoft into line. It has a long history of nodding yes to the courts and the authorities, and then just finding some new way of doing what it wants. The EU certainly has had limited success getting Microsoft to even adhere to the demands it has made already, and certainly cannot be ignorant of Microsoft's behavior in elsewhere in the world. Since Microsoft won't co-operate in any meaningful way, likely won't stop the behavior that has lead to the present impasse, what other option is there than to remake it into something that will obey European rules?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's a pretty standard argument: Utility A sells cheap service in area A. Everybody moves to area A. Utility hikes price of service by 10000%. Is everybody now supposed to move, or what?
In the analogy: software = service, area A = Microsoft Windows, and moving = changing platforms. For some people changing platforms is even more expensive than moving physical locations, and for others it's actually impossible (if they need Windows-only software to operate). Sure you could argue that they shouldn't have gotten so tied to the platform in the first place, but saying that doesn't actually help anything.
HAND.
Bill, don't go hippy on me: this isn't an exercise to "blow your mind." See if you can follow this:
1) The EU thinks it ought to spend some time knocking down patent holders.
2) The EU thinks it the patent holders it ought to go after first are software vendors.
I'm not challenging the legitimacy of the EU or even statement #1. I am challenging statement #2, and I think pursuing pharmas rather than software vendors would help fight disease and perhaps poverty.
Let me know if you need further assistance with your mental processes...
Um, how is that logical? So you create a cookie recipe and distribute it freely on the Internet and give all the cookies you make away for free. I have a cookie recipe but I keep it a secret and sell my cookies for a profit. Despite the fact that your cookies are free, more people want my cookies and are willing to pay for it. So you are saying the only fair thing to do is make it so that my cookies are free and that everyone should have my recipe.
Ok, so not a perfect analogy because we are talking about interoperability and I can't fit that in with cookies...but it is basically what you are saying. Having and using open standards is a big advantage to the consumer and to free software. But Microsoft is a business and what you are saying it should do is basically give up its recipes so that people can use its competitor. What business in its right mind would do this? Really, I understand both sides of this. But forcing MS to give its specs is a bad business move for them and I understand why they do what they do. Basically, they built themselves up to be dominant and now Free Software wants to interoperate with them so that they can gain more marketshare. How does that benefit MS?
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
The speed and decisiveness of the EU makes me wonder if they will do ANYTHING in my lifetime.
I see MSFT tieing them in their own knots, and I don't think the the EU is capable (politicly) of
acting. Dither would seem to be the operative word.
I wish it were not so.
How much of a percentage of the operating system market does Microsoft possess?
What methods did it use to capture this percentage of the OS market?
Like the US courts have found, did the EU determine that Microsoft restrained trade in order to possess this market share?
If they did in fact determine this, then what fines were levied on Microsoft and what other remedies imposed?
Has Microsoft complied with EU directives?
If Microsoft has not, then should the EU have the right to determine what further penalties should be imposed?
Regardless of what you think about bureaucracy, doesn't the EU have the right to impose its own standards on Microsoft for doing business?
That should clarify.
I've been swashdotted -- Elmer Fudd
Why doesn't MS just give the EU a big "F- you" and stop selling it's products in Europe? Not that I'm saying that MS is in the right in anything they do, but it sounds like the EU is being a royal pain in the side for Microsoft. Why couldn't MS just say "Fine, I don't want to do business with you, have fun", take their ball and go home?
In fact, it's funny that Microsoft tries to promote their own document format because they say that interoperatibility is important and that they support open protocols blah blah blah, and then they don't release the specs for the protocols they're using in windows server, because those protocols is what make windows server succesful (because 95% of clients are windows and only windows server can serve them)
Although its initial public response to the Statement of Objections disputed such findings and warned the EU may be overstepping its bounds by assuming it can determine royalty rates that are in place in many countries outside Europe, Microsoft's response Monday was far more measured.
"We continue to seek to resolve these recent issues. We need greater clarity on what prices the Commission wants us to charge," Brad Smith, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Microsoft, said in a statement.
Hyuk Hyuk
Me thinks they are getting nervous. 'bout time someone put fear into Microsoft the way Microsoft puts fear into most other IT corps.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Market on this planet, at least not that I'm aware of. That goes double for the subset of the market that involves computer operating systems. Microsoft has a long history of using blatant manipulation of the market itself in order to succeed, instead of competing solely in terms of product quality, price, and service, as would happen in a theoretical "free market". Given that history, allowing Microsoft to continue to participate in the market at all is a measured compromise.
To quote a movie I found surprisingly funny, in response to someone needing advice because they'd been arrested again:
"Stop breaking the fucking law!"
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
... despite the EU's oh-so-onerous demands, Microsoft still thinks it can make money there. That's why they call it "the bottom line".
What many folk fail to understand when they say that governments should not try to regulate prices on M$ is that M$ have for some time used government systems to sell products.
g lf/index.htm
Scotland, has by the hand of our pm signed a few deals with M$. At the same time M$ gets "free" use of the parliament building for the "Microsoft Government Leaders Forum Europe" to sell their software in a World business convention along with some other names that I will not bother to dirty this page with.
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/nmCentre/news/m
Now, one could say that the forum was needed to be staged in that building but I have a dvd of what went on in the building and it is nothing but a sales pitch for M$ to folk who don't know any better.
That sales pitch cost us 400,000 GBP.
The EU needs to step in or M$ unchecked will do as it always has.
Perhaps because MS don't want to get rid of 500 million potential customers who are actually capable of paying for legitimate copies of their OS (as opposed to china, for example).
How is it logical for Microsoft? It's not, of course; that's why the EU is having to force MS to do it!
It doesn't! It benefits the EU's citizens, which is what the EU cares about.
I'm really not sure I understand the point of your objection here. Don't you realize that asking "how does this benefit MS" is exactly like asking "how does going to jail benefit a criminal?" Benefiting the criminal isn't the point!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Maybe it's because I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about, or maybe I am just stupid...why does ANYONE care what Microsoft charges for ANYTHING?
NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE is forcing ANYONE to use ANYTHING from Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't go around holding guns to people saying you MUST use our shit...millions of OSX and Linux users prove that point.
Why do people care what they charge? Just like any other company, if you don't like the price....DON'T FUCKING BUY IT.
Living With a Nerd
Not to mention that if Microsoft turned away from this market, business partners and subsidiaries of European countries would suddenly have a strong incentive to consider alternatives too.
You need to get out of, lets say, the "playground mentality" and look at the realites of such an action. The basic and very obvious reason is: money.
They can't just drop the EU market because it's the same size that the US one. It's a publicly traded company and investors would very much like to know if was a fiscally sound decision (i.e. did they lose more than staying would have cost). If they don't get the answers they want the stock tanks and I doubt shareholder lawsuits would be far behind. And add to that the worldwide worries wether you can trust Microsoft with your IT infrastructure. Buyers would ask themselves: will they try the same tactics in our market? what will they demand of us to keep on selling their products? can we afford that?
Sure it could. I don't think the shareholders would be very happy with giving up one of the few markets that actually *pays* for Microsoft products though. MS is not a human being with feelings that can become touchy or offended by this behaviour: it's a company that needs to sell and increase the value for the shareholders.
Mind you, I would love to see MS do what you sugested though. Partly because it's MS, partly because there is the other side of the coin: as an European I would prefer to benefict a company with the HQ in Europe, all things being equal.
The commision ruled in 2004 that Microsoft broke European competition laws and directed them to release complete interoperability documentation on the protocols, MS pretended to not understand what the Commision was on about and released some source code. The Commision also said that MS acted to stifle innovation by tying Media Player to Windows.
The real question is whether a single company should get a lock in on PROTOCOLS, never mind what they should charge for them. Is this an example of the polluted protocols MS talked about in that Valloppillil email.
"By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can DENY OSS projects ENTRY into the MARKET."
'At what point has/will the EU overstepped its bounds'
At what point will MS realise it isn't dealing with the DOJ?
davecb5620@gmail.com
edmicman must open his wallet, and little moths flutter all about. No more mics for you Ed! The EU is a market. Not tapping a market means you lose revenue. Furthermore, there will become a need for an OS/Office Suite/ANYTHING in the EU... which will be filled. The last thing MS wants is competition gaining an actual foothold. Booya.
The EU doesn't want the source code. They want documentation, and have repeatedly told this to MS. If MS didn't really have proper documentation (and I REALLY don't believe this) then it was up to MS to write it, as ordered by the court. MS has plenty of time, money, and staff to get the job done. They are stalling while their market share continues to rise due to lack of interoperability.
Isn't it strange that 99% of the time a country wants the other country to charge more for their products, not less. If you don't charge more, they will add tariffs such that they do cost more. All in an effort to give their own companies a chance to compete on price. But in this case, they have no competition, so they instead want just the opposite. They want the other country to charge less for the product.
They do the same thing with medicines I suppose...for medicines they can manufacture, the skys the limit, for those they can't, they want the maximum price controlled.
Seems what this really boils down to is the EU doesn't like paying for Windows because it is an imported product. The EU can impose whatever laws they want on Microsoft, but ultimately the WTO is going to decide this issue, not the Europeans. If the EU slaps around Microsoft too much, the WTO will find them in violation of free-trade agreements and European manufacturers will be the ones suffering as tariffs limit their exports.
Europe is still a free-enough economy that when Airbus is slapped with a 30% tariff in retaliation and can no longer compete with Boeing for American contracts, you can bet the EU politicians will feel what real pressure is like.
Not monopolies, but closely releated are cartels. The EU fines these with fairly hefty sums regularly (over 2 billion in 2007 so far) See http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/cartels/overv iew/index_en.html and http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/cartels/stati stics/statistics.pdf
Well, I would think it wouldn't matter a damn to the European Union if Microsoft was un-american.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
"About tree-fiddy!"
No, it's a good enough analogy, just extrapolate it to where it should go based on historical fact. I'll flesh it out. The MS bakery, once it got large enough, started to get just a scosh pushy about things. they went around and strongarmed all the little bakeries around and said "you only sell our cookies-or else!". They went to the wheat and sugar and eggs and cream growers and told them "you only sell wheat and sugar and eggs and cream to our approved "partner" bakeries, and in the manner we suggest, using just our approved recipes, with no variation, or else!". They went to the baked goods delivery truckers and said "you only deliver our products, or else!"
And so on. They have a long running and chronic case of gangster asshole-ism, mafia-like extortion and other sorts of corrupt racketing practices to get their way, and probably worse than that, if all the truth ever comes out. Their corporation should have been disbanded, de-chartered, unincorporated, whatever it is called, all their stocks declared worthless and frozen out of the trading markets, the top criminal leadership should be chucked in jail for racketeering, and the physical property auctioned off at the Marshal's sale a long time ago. The EU is letting them off *cheap and easy* compared to what they really deserve. They are worse than enron, or worldcom, or haliburton even. And you want to know why they got away with it for so long? Because "the authorities" themselves got conned and coerced into becoming dependent on their products, and that as the big stick MS used to keep from getting busted more severely, but now that a lot of other options are more mature and more robust and governments can see that they don't have that MS stick held over them quite as bad as before-you are starting to see them getting prosecuted more severely. And it isn't going to stop, because people or nations-governments-really dislike being bullied around and ripped off.
The MS "emperor" has been revealed to be naked, and more and more people are laughing at the lunacy of it all. Vista has shown they are beyond their peak in even half assed level coding, and their offer of three dollar OS and office suite bundle to the "developing world" has revealed what their craptastic products are really worth when faced with the reality of entire huge groups of people who don't cave in to their extortionist demands.
Linux FTW.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Why? In order to a) not be called a coward any longer and b) to step out of anonymity? There's an easier way to do that: just login.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
This is the European Union, not the United Republicrat States of Corpo-fascism wonderland of America.
We have a Human Rights declaration, and plutocratico-aristocratic capitalistic sons of bitches aren't listed on it as a protected species.
... which, in several EU country if not all, allows the government to regulate the prices charged by monopolies.
And yes, having a 90%+ market share on preinstalled operating systems is a monopoly, it's higher a market share than Standard Oil ever had.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
go on, be an hero :-)
At what point has/will the EU overstepped its bounds?
The EU is a government. They will have overstepped their bounds when their constituents say they've overstepped their bounds. Note that Microsoft is not one of those constituents, nor are any Americans or American companies. This is a concept Microsoft and it's supporters seem to be having a problem getting their heads around.
GDP growth rates higher than the US, positive balance of payments, higher life expectancy and literacy, lower infant mortality, lower crime rate, TEN TIMES less people in prison, much higher savings rate, lower personal debt, ...
Oh yeah, you're right, unemployment is higher. Great. You know what? It doesn't mean shit.
4th quarter 2004, unemployment rate men aged 25-54: 7.4% in France, 4.6% in the US.
You're right, it (look)s bad.
At the same quarter, the employment rate, that is, the number of people working vs. the total number of people in that sex/age group was 86.7% in France as opposed to 86.3%. That's right, more people working in France than in the US. (Source: OECD Employment Outlook 2005 (pdf))
There's a few reasons for this discrepancy, one being that we don't put 1.5% of our active population in jail, most of whom are poor blacks, likely candidates for the "unemployment" row.
Since the VISTA refund from Dell is about $27 and the protocols make up about 0.001% of the total, the price for the protocols should be about a quarter penny...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
A EU without Microsoft is a wet dream.
Please let it happen.
... if it does act just like Microsoft, it cannot over-step its boundaries. They should just do what they want, and when Microsoft complains, they should say "so sue us." Then drag MS through the court system until MS pukes or gives in. IF they started acting like Microsoft, maybe Microsoft (Gates, Ballmer, lawyers, et. al.) might start acting human. I like keeping Microsoft's damn, dirty paws off me! I use gnu/linux.
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
As Jerry Lee Lewis once said... "Well England Can Kiss My @ss!!!"
... Steve Ballmer and plan exploding yourself at the M$ board meeting?
The Eu keeps fining microsoft these huge amounts of money . At what point do these fines equal up to more then what microsoft is getting from its cudtomersd there. Even with microsoft, europe would be in serious trouble because it would take time to change over to linux.
No. Just like the American fines against MS, the goal is to obtain a "rebate" on volume licensing deals with MS that they were not satisfied with, as governments are pretty much the only people obliged to actually pay for Microsoft products. It has nothing to do with competition. There is no competition for Windows, just as there is no competition for MacOS, as there is no competition for QNX, they are all completely separate markets, corporate and public sector consumers already know exactly what they want.
If The US and EU governments predominantly used Apple products, you see the same fines/rebates being applied to Apple, probably even more vigorously as Apple products are so much more expensive and actually are anti-competitive and vendor lock-in based for future market security.
I sure wish I could fine businesses that charge too much for their products. Especially automobile manufacturers, boy they'd sure have one doozie of a fine from me. (I suppose the comparison is not really that valid though, as the auto industry is at the mercy of unions when it comes to the cost of producing their products.)
The member states of the E.U. would be within their bounds if they declared war on the U.S. and nuked Washington. Getting into a pissing contest with an American software company is something short of that.
What percentage of the server market does MS posses in the EU market? If they're not the market leader will giving more information to competitors actually decrease competition in the EU in this segment?
According to one source Bill Gates replied to the EU courts, "No Chance, EU bed-wetting types. I burst my pimples at you and call your protocol-opening request a silly thing..."
Who cares how it benefits MS?
As you stated -- "Having and using open standards is a big advantage to the consumer".
So therefore the consumers get together and form a "union" -- hmm, lets call it the EU -- and they say, 'you must use open standards because it is better for us'. If MS does not use open standards. Then they pay a fine.
Or they can just decide not to sell their product under those rules. That is their choice.
Imagine you buy a second home in Europe and vacation there every summer. You like it there and a lot of your family lives there. You take out a loan from an international bank to pay for the second home (mortgage). Now imagine, while you're in Europe you're convicted of a white-collar criminal offense, say fraud. Why don't you just fly to the US and never go back?
Well for one, that would make you a criminal refusing to comply with the law in Europe, and there are extradition treaties so they might ship you back to sit in a prison cell for a long time. Two, you would no longer get to see your friends and family there. Three, you have a lot of money invested there and the EU is not going to let you sell the house you own and ship the money back to the states when you're a wanted criminal. Four, that big loan you took out with the international bank, they still expect to be paid and if you're not making payments and have lost the house to the EU courts, they're going to go through the US courts and take your house in the US too. Five, what makes you think you can make it out of the country without being arrested for fleeing your warrant?
MS pulling out of the EU would be sacrificing billions in annual income for the sake of millions. The shareholders would fire that CEO in hours for losing them that much money. Also, being a convicted criminal with lots of assets in the EU, including all your patents and copyrights and trademarks and buildings and cash means they might confiscate some or all of that. Also, a lot of MS employees work there. If you worked at MS in a given country and MS told you one thing and the police told you to do another or go to prison, what would you do? MS saying "we're not doing business in the EU, does not mean the MS assets there are not considered a separate company that keeps developing and selling Windows. MS has business contracts with thousands of international organizations. If they stop doing business in the EU, they just broke all of those contracts and will be sued in the US courts by each and every one of those companies that has a US branch until MS is completely broke. If MS somehow managed to stop selling Windows in the EU, suddenly they would have created their own largest competitor. Whether that is the new MS-EU, or a Linux provider, or Apple, or Sun or IBM or some combination thereof, they would have just given up 20% market share to another OS, strongly motivating every developer on the planet to look into offering software on that other platform and removing the biggest lock-in MS has over customers elsewhere.
Are those enough reasons for you?
Because some of the biggest developers in the world are in Europe. If Microsoft loses it's stranglehold on the OS market in Europe, games and other large programs will suddenly be cross platform with linux/bsd that can run on that still-cheap hardware. If that happens, then the stranglehold starts to loosen on the rest of the world.
I'll take socialism over laissez-faire capitalism any day of the week. How's your heating bill?
... or haven't you ever gone out to a big business lunch where it was known that you'd just be splitting the check equally? People are pigs when there's an incentive for them to consume more than the next guy.
A whole lot better than it would be if we were just splitting the bill equally between everyone in my town
If everyone pays the same for water, then there's no reason for me not to just let the tap run when I'm brushing my teeth, or install a more efficient washer, or anything else. I'm not going to bother to install a timed thermostat, and if it's between cranking the heat and putting on a sweater, I'll just crank the heat -- why not? It'll cost virtually the same amount anyway.
Those are the sort of inefficiencies and waste that 'socialist' schemes lead to, and in the end, we're all poorer for it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I don't think that most people will install their own car stereos either. They take it to a shop and have someone else do it because it's beyond their own realm of expertise. I realize that most of the people posting here don't have these problems with a computer. I had an Atari 400, an Apple IIe, an Amiga 500, and then several different Microsoft based PCs. Most of you can tell the same type of story. So what if most of us can install a different media player or download and install Open Office? The people that can't do that are the ones that you seem concerned about. At least with Microsoft bundling all of these additional features the computer novices will be able to listen to music, or surf the net, or send an e-mail. If the functionality wasn't there with the OS what would they do? Because apparently those people don't know how to add or remove programs so it seems as though they would need to hire or find someone else to do these things for them. A touch inconvenient and potentially much more costly.
As is known, MS was fined by the EU for abusing their monopoly, namely, bundling MS media player (and other apps) with windows.
s oft_antitrust_case
For not complying, they were fined again. And again. And...
One of the requirements was opening up the specs so that third-parties could use the same API as MS media player uses, thus actually having competition on that part.
However, MS argued that this spec contained innovations, and should not be opened up freely, as there were costs involved.
The EU found this reasonable.
MS opened up the specs, and set a price based on those innovations.
Upon investigation by an independent party at the request of the EU, the independant party found nearly nothing innovative.
As the amount of innovation was tied to the cost, it meant that microsoft was way overcharging its specs.
This of course is not part of the deal: the cost of the specs should be reasonable, so that third parties could actually use the spec, and compete.
This is where the EU is upset about. The fact that Vista is way overpriced is not the issue here. The issue is MS abusing the wording of the ruling and the subsequent settlement of the antitrust case they had against them.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Micro
Charged one time per company or working group.
Then no license fee.
If MSFT doesn't like it, it can abandon Win sales in the EU.
Or live with ever growing fines.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If windows was not such a great important product, and all the "better alternatives" the Microsoft haters here constantly support and say Microsoft is undermining, the EU would just fine MS harder and harder and than insist they charge MORE and MORE for the product so they can fine them harder and harder agin, all the while funding these "better alternatives" to eventualy compleatly replace Microsoft software with the "better free alternatives".
I am not saying Microsoft is a great champion of open competition, but please....mas religious conspiracy and world domination are a bit much no?
Microsoft knows it is going to be fined very heavily, so they raise the cost of their products in the EU to accomodate this higher "cost of business". The EU folks know damn well what Redmond is doing, so when this thing gets to the stage where fines are levied, and MS is asked to pay for it's naughty ways, the EU is going to set some records.
I expect the fines will surpass 20 billion dollars. I know others who think it will be even higher.
Personally, I think Redmond's blind stubborness is becoming the greatest asset the OSS community has.
In B.C., our fascism is green.
I raise my hat to the EU for giving Microsoft a rough time. They deserve it because Microsoft are a form of the Anti-Christ.
Open-source/Open-hardware is what is best for society.
I have been following Microsoft products since 1981 and I have been exposed to Minix/Linux since it first came out.
Patents, Intellectual Property along with the rest of the smoke and mirror tactics only protect the interests of the technocracy.
Consider the arm of influence Microsoft has.
Consider the way Microsoft has locked-in Political Institutions, Education Institutions, PC vendors, Developers, Technical Support Representatives and Consultants to use Microsoft product.
Consider the way this has impact on the up and coming generations of kids.
The value of instant gratification(ship buggy product to get profit) seems placed over the value of long-term gain(quality product used for long periods of time).
The value of just playing games on computers seems placed over the value of learning how computers work and creating things with computers. Microsoft prides itself with hiding its magic recipes from the public and then Microsoft continuously exploits and profits from the public by charging them almost on a per-use basis. If not, that is what Microsoft is aiming for. That is why it is trying so hard to make a web-browser based OFFICE popular because it aims to charge Web-OFFICE users on per use basis.
Consider the way Microsoft regiments their software delivery schedule and imposes when all the users on the planet must update. I don't use the "must" word lightly here. Their "patches", "Service Packs", "update" all eventually get imposed on all the PC users.
The illusion of the PC being owned and controlled by the user is amazing when in actual fact, it is Microsoft that OWNS it because they control when the PC owners need to purchase something. Internet explorer updates come to mind here. When IE 5 ran on win95 and then they forced the update to IE6 and if I recall correctly, you couldn't get IE6 for free unless you purchased win98/win xp. This places developers in a dilemma because it forces them to buy a whole new set of developer tools for the next version along with the headache of ensuring their software runs on the previous windows versions to support smooth transitions of software product upgrades.
As a developer I had no control when to buy software developer tools. Microsoft enforced the schedule on me. Usually this meant getting Microsoft Enterprise Developer Network Edition to get all the tools and to discover all the new stuff. The other levels of developer subscriptions sometimes did not inform the developers of recent changes and things to watch out for. Take a look at the price of MSDN Enterprise and you will see it is exclusively expensive.
I raise my white hat to Linux because it has grown to a point where it is truly an alternative to anything Microsoft has. This is not to mention the fact that the manner you install and upgrade the Linux operating system and the software packages available is truly superior to Microsoft. I am not going to give preference to one flavor of Linux because they all deserve the credit for making it what it is today. Because it is open-source, anyone wanting to learn how the stuff looks like under the hood can do so. That is truly priceless.
I didn't mention the true impact this will have on the next generations of users, Linux hobbyists, and professionals. The synergy coming from discussions in open source related mailing lists and from all the Linux source code contributions from all countries has already surpassed Microsoft innovation and will continue to do so.
Open-Hardware is an important topic also. In order for the world to get more synergy, the hardware needs to open up and a great many have already discussed this. That said it needs to remain in the forums of discussion in order for more people to become aware how important it is to open up hardware in order for the world to get more synergy and innovation.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(because 95% of clients are windows and only windows server can serve them)
Ah. Good point.
Samba's fallen badly behind (you can run a Windows domain entirely with Samba, provided you don't mind it being an NT4-style domain, so no group policy stuff) and while they are trying to catch up, it's clearly an uphill battle.
Opening the various bits which still aren't perfectly reverse engineered would have Samba serving AD domains very quickly indeed.
*sighs* There we go again ... someone triggered the "Governments are socialist evil" reflex, and yes ... up pops someone to say that "No government can tell a company ...".
... for those with short memories and a limited appreciation of what is going on here. So ... please take the time to read up on the whole case, and _then_ sund off.
... it merely describes the plug you need to let third-party software components interoperate with Microsoft Server and Microsoft Windows in a Microsoft Server environment.
I'm afraid that this sort of response is just what Microsofts engineered in the first place
(1) The whole case began when Microsoft violated the EU fair-competition laws by withholding essential protocol information required to make other software products interoperable with Windows special flavour of the SMB protocol. And no, this does not include source code
(2) It is Microsoft that has been "gaming the system" for about three years now, using all procedural options to dicker, cavill, and waste time all with the intention of letting so much time pass that new facts on the ground are created (read closing the window of opportunity for competitors to offer interoperable software) and thus to freeze competitors out of the market.
When finally forced, by threats and fines, to open up their protocol specification, they have taken action to ensure that:
(a) the information they give out is as tardy, deficient, obfuscated, and useless as they can possibly make it
(b) they can *price* the information they are obliged to make available in the first place, aimed squarely at excluding Open Source software.
Of course this was never the spirit of the EU fair-competition laws, but like any good commercial organisation, Microsoft is doing absolutely anything that will not actually get them fined or jailed to make certain that they can use all the loopholes contained in the _letter_ of the law to get away with non-compliance.
(3) It is Microsoft which has been using "pricing" as a means to ensure that Open Source Software _cannot_ be fully inter-operable with Microsoft Server (from the article: "Some individual technologies within the premium tier, such as Kerberos authentication, are actually free of charge; though others, such as Base Authentication Services (used to grant authentication to clients accessing Windows Server resources) are relatively expensive - as high as $17.50 per server seat. (The complete proposed rate table is available in this PDF document.)".
The fact of the matter is that Microsoft is hiding behind the letter of (patent and copyright) law as follows: They take an open, documented, protocol (say SMB, which was developed by IBM by the way), extend it with things that delve deeply into the internals of MS Windows, and then say that it is "proprietary technology", and refuse to reveal how to be inter-operable.
The commonsense conclusion is that there is no innovative content in the new protocol, just a crafty way of commingling so much of their truly proprietary code into it that it anyone making something inter-operable will (a) infringe on their patents or (b) need copyrighted information from Microsoft. I believe that the EU is fully justified in refusing to fall for this formalistic trick and to allow Microsoft to make an end-run around the fair-competition laws.
(5) Besides Microsoft seems to have _promised_ the EU not to charge based only on patentability:
"But the EU Commission said in March that Microsoft agreed to base Windows Server protocol pricing on innovation, not patentability, adding that some protocols are not innovative enough to warrant a premium charge. The Commission also said that those protocols which aren't patentable should not require a fee at all.
In acknowledging the work of its designated trustee, Dr. Neil Barrett, the EU said it examined 160 Microsoft claims to patented technologies, and conclu
"MS's only real competition is Free Software"
Just a pedants point about markets, really. Microsoft sell windows in a number of markets. Many machines run windows, but depending on their purpose and usage they may be competing with different products from different vendors. A home computer is generally the most open, a good deal of home users would be well suited by some linux distro or other, or by a macintosh. Corporate networks may be so heavily tied in to certain pieces of windows infrastructure that there is very little direct competition Print and certain creative industries are strongly (emotionally? historically?) tied to the Mac platform, and an engineer at a nuclear power station may have specialised uses for a laptop running SPARC Solaris. Of course, server markets are far more open, and MS have fewer and weaker monopolies in such markets and will be competing with various UNIX and UNIX-like OSen (I shan't go on).
To conclude, to say that free software is MS's only real competition is demonstrably untrue. To talk about windows as having one market is completely unhelpful.
So... what's the word if a government "contracts" private organizations, imposes draconian tariffs to products of other countries to make his products competitive (agricultural products, anyone?), forces other countries to sign unfair trade agreements and even subsidiarizes his own products. Again, agricultural products, which would normally be more expensive because of the labour cost and, right now, are even being selled in poorer countries like Mexico, even cheaper than their own ones.
Oh wait, that's not comunism, that's capitalism at its finest!
But, wait again, the difference was...
Life needs more saving throws.
There is a marked difference between medicine and software patents.
If the pharmacutical industry was run like the software industry it would be a nightmare, with the top of the list issue; no one would know how each drug interacts with each other; if you created a drug which didn't act negatively with another drug, you would end up vendors suing each other.
Lets ALSO remember that the large pharmacutical company in the world only has approximately 6% of the marketplace; there is no player which has 90% of the market. The pharmacutal industry is brutal, ask any startup.
Tell that to patients whose particular disease can only be treated by drugs from only one of the pharmas. There are several areas in which individual pharmas own 100% of a particular "niche" and thus have all the patients and doctors suffering through X by the balls.
If it's tougher to get into the pharma business than the software business, then why is one software vendor the target of more anti-trust attention than various pharmas?
Free software was in fact the argument used by microsoft to say that there was competition. Free software according to the courts was If you are going to allow that free software is competition (by definition a 0$ cost of entry to the market)then you also have to allow that Microsoft is not a monopolist(there would no longer be the required substantial barrier to effective entry). I think that's how Microsoft is going to game the system. If the EU sets a price, then anything lower than that is, by definition, competitive. If they do not set a price, then microsoft can claim insufficient guidance and stall essentially forever.
"If complying with the law results in a company going bankrupt, then the business model of that company is flawed."
The government passes a law that says that no company can make a profit, therefore all companies in that country have flawed business models?
Ostensibly (adv.) -- seemingly, apparently, on the surface.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Sure, there were other companies that did it earlier and some even better, but Windows brought a gui to the masses. Without that happening (by anyone, Microsoft or not) your computer people of "above average intelligence" would be even more of a fringe society that we are now. And I certainly hope that this is not your first language if you really are above average intelligence. First, anyone that wants to announce their increased intelligence to the world probably has some issues, so maybe you're not so much familiar with "modesty". Second, what the hell is decidedness supposed to mean in your post? If you plan to label someone as a moron you should first do a spell check. It lends a touch more force to your accusations if you don't sound like a moron yourself. I still insist that bundling is not a big deal. How many people do you know that actually use the build in CD burning functionality in XP? None? Because it sucks. What about Media player? Probably a lot more because it's not a bad product. I'm not saying it's great, but it is usable without much fuss. I don't use Paint, because the GIMP is free and works well. I do use Office because it loads fast and it works. And what, exactly, does an electrical utility bundle with the electricity? Nursery rhymes and sunshine? I guess that I've got to go and edit my My Space page now. If I was 13 I might even do that.
I thought that patents were required to be innovative. If the Government wants only
innovative patents to count, they have an easy solution: only patent innovative ideas.
What "criminal activity"? Microsoft has never been charged with a "crime". "Civil" violations are not "crimes". The "civil" code is not the same as the "criminal" code.
Also, I've read that the EU "case" consists of mandates and decrees issued by the EC, not a court. Microsoft has appealed those decrees to a real court, but the court hasn't heard the case yet.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
If you make your cookies with an ingredient that makes the eater of those cookies allergic to the flour used in the cookie dough of every other cookie maker, then it's perfectly reasonable to say that you need to work with other cookie makers to ensure that their cookies can be eaten by people who've eaten your tainted cookies. It's perfectly reasonable to say the the FDA can require this of you or ban you from selling your cookies in the first place.
It's the same thing in this case. The EU is representing its constituents' rights to use non-Microsoft software when and where they choose to and also to produce software that can compete with Microsoft where EU-based companies believe that they can compete successfully. If Microsoft is allowed to act as a monopoly, they can use products they produce that have no reasonable equivalent to lock customers into other products that could have reasonable equivalents and also lock other vendors out of competing in those areas.
So what's wrong with the EU acting on behalf of the people they represent? They know their market is much too large for Microsoft to ignore completely, so why not try to level the playing field for both IT consumers and IT producers in their constituent countries?
......nuke Redmond from orbit.
MS should PAY subscribers an annual stipend for as many years as they have been convicted as a monopolist and have withheld the information. I recall a time where you had to pay several hundreds of dollars to get the complete specification for facsimile transmission and reception. So how about $666, (999 upside down and the number of the beast, heh, any suggestions on how work in some kine of depiction of Mohammed?). Sent each year to any company subscribing who was a legitimate software business when MS was convicted, latecomers can get a softbound copy by paying the same $666 value. I could live with it never being produced in anything but hard-copy to reduce copyright violation by electronic distribution.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
In the WTO "technical barriers to trade" gateway which the EU (and member states are party too)...
... NOT!
Isn't world government great!
The big argument that I see repeated on here is that Microsoft is a monopoly and that Microsoft has foisted its products on the world. The reality of the situation is that there are alternatives. The alternatives are Apple, Sun, IBM, Linux, etc. But those can't do all of the things that Microsoft software can do. Or they can do it, but they don't do it in the same way. Or they want to try to do it in the same way, but Microsoft is saying, "Nope, that's our way of doing it. Go do it your own way."
I read a lot of stuff here on Slashdot from people who say what Microsoft has patented is "obvious." I have to wonder if 50 years from now, if people are going to be saying the same things about the patents on genetic engineering, or biotechnology. Just because something is "obvious" right now doesn't mean that it was obvious when the patent was filed. If a company is out there on the leading edge of things, they are going to go patent crazy to do everything that they can to protect their market. Last I checked, all of the big players in the computer industry have huge patent porfolios, not just Microsoft. I'm sure that if AS/400 was as big as Windows Server 2003, you'd be seeing IBM playing their interoperability documentation close to their chest, and the OSS world would be making them out to be the villians.
Let's just get it over with.
As we all know, MS may be a 500 pound gorilla, but the EU is something of a two-tonned whale.
My request to the EU: Burn MS to the ground. Ban them out the EU. Force them to open ALL the protocols. Sue the hell out of them if you can, too. Abolish software patents in the EU, or make them better. (IE: "You may have the patent, but that leaves anyone else Free to use it, as long as they give you X amount of money if you want, but Y is the limit! And other than that and mentioning you, piss off!")
The EU has EVERY right to do WHATEVER it wants to products entering its zone. It's a sovereign entity (Composed of soveriegn states that are highly respected for the most part) that has full rights to destroy anything that impeeds it, especially if it breaks "the rules".
I wouldn't mind a nuking of MS's headquarters either.
They really deserve it.
The sum of the employed and unemployed is not 100%, that's the key to this while issue.
As I mentioned, those include for example people in jail. The US has 10x more inmates than Europe. Those are conveniently not included in the unemployed stats.
Other tricks exist, some European countries (UK I believe is one of them) just classify long term job seekers as handicapped and unemployable, give them a monthly allowance, et voila, clean unemployment numbers!
And yes, I'm obviously speaking of ratios, unless explictly stated otherwise. There's little point counting absolute number in those matters, except for obfuscation purposes.
I hope MS does take their ball and go home. They won't, though, because it would soon become patently obvious that the EU was getting along just fine without them, and that cluebat might even manage to knock some sense into stupid Americans.
wouldn't the smart idea be to treat the eu the way most places treat wal-mart?
(big customer)=(yes, sir!)
if this sort of thing does go through in the eu's favor, might that get the us govt puppets thinking about sticking it to m$ in anti-trust matters?
If free software were to be made by (a) company(ies), it(they) would have been sunk by M$ monopolistic behavior.
It's only because OSS is mainly written by either volonteers or people paid by entities that don't directly compete with M$ that it has a fighting chance.
Is a consequence of buying any product. And it has its own price. If the electric company was charging you through the roof, it would only be a matter of time before the costs of staying in the city you are in exceed the cost of moving to a new city... But even if that weren't the case... Purpose of corporation: locking you in and draining you like an advanced species of parasite. Purpose of regulatory commissions: Prevent the parasite from consuming the totality which is you. PoC - PoRC = screwed(U) Paraphrasing: what the hell did you expect MS to do, how the hell did you expect the EU to react and why the hell did you move to a place where no one is looking out for your rights!?
why make trillions when you can make... billions?
The whole point seems to be that somebody asked the wrong question at some time.
Closed protocols and formats are the privilege of commercial entities. Mandating closed formats and protocols by a democratic government for egovernment purposes is a mockery on democracy no matter what the price. Why not just hand over an exclusive contract and cash in instead. It would be as bad as it is now, but with less hypocritical.
The EU has no business regulating what commercial entities use for their own products. However, it can and should mandate open standards which are not burdened by patents and by ANY price. So, clearly, there was no point in asking m$ the question that prompted that answer. - s7ht9fga
The EU would "overstep its bounds" when they stop complying with the law and the powers it has.
But asking such a question in regards to an issue involving a monopolist, is frankly rich to say the least.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
fair enough- if they don't compete with Microsoft then they wouldn't need access to the protocols, since they are only used to connect to microsoft systems.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Are they using their desktop monopoly to unfairly muscle in and create another monopoly on the servers?
Having the monopoly is bad, abusing it to monopolise a new market is illegal.
MS should just leave the EU then there wouldn't be anything to argue about. All you people crying over MS's ways what would you do with out windows. I know a lot of you don't use linux but whine about ms. It's horrible go use the other alternatives please. Just quit whining.
At what point has/will the EU overstepped its bounds?
What bounds do you mean ?