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Microsoft Responds to EU With Another Question

Posted by Zonk on from the dismantling-from-the-ground-up dept.

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?"

3 of 545 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Too late... by ILikeRed · · Score: 5, Informative
    Innovative and patentable APIs?!? Oh, you mean like Microsoft's version of Kerberos - great patent application there.

    From the US DOJ finding that Microsoft purposefully breaks Kerberos interoperability.

    ----[quoting]----

    For example, Kerberos is an industry standard for encryption, in which certain fields are reserved for optional use. Microsoft, however, has used one of those fields to produce its own proprietary version of the standard. In itself, this is unobjectionable.

    Microsoft, however, has gone one step further: it has manipulated its operating systems and middleware so that they will use and accept only the Microsoft version of the Kerberos standard.(16) This is diametrically contrary to the purpose for which standards, even with optional fields, are developed. Optional fields are included in standards to enable firms to add information to a message. Ordinarily, if an optional field is used in creating standard messages, those messages can still be sent and received among all products that comply with the standard. In such cases, the information included in the optional field may simply be ignored. Optional fields are never, however, intended to enable a firm -- i.e., Microsoft -- to subvert the standard and preclude its widespread usage.(17)

    16. The CCIA explains that "[w]hile the Kerberos Version 5 Microsoft uses for their security services is a standard, the way they have implemented Kerberos is not a standard and renders it nearly inoperable with any other implementation." CCIA White Paper, supra, at 24.

    17. Not content with Microsoft's corruption of the Kerberos standard, Microsoft has filed for a patent on its proprietary version. Consequently, not only will Microsoft products fail to interoperate with non-Microsoft products (because of the modification), but Microsoft will not allow anyone else to use its version unless they purchase a license from Microsoft.

    --
    I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
  2. Do you even know what socialism is? by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 5, Informative

    Forget the fact that the entire process is a blatant example of socialism... Do you even know what socialism is? What Socialism is depends on where in the world you are. For most of the world it is a spectrum of political denominations that advocate a social-economic system where property and the distribution of wealth is controlled by the community or the state. These can range from the moderate Social democrats, who simply advocate borrowing certain aspects of this model and integrating them into modern democratic systems, to the more radical Communists, Bolsheviks, Stalinists, etc... who advocate the complete abolishment of private property and total state control of all aspects of the economy. In the USA, however, the meaning of the word 'Socialist' is somewhat different due to the almost complete absence of a political left wing (as the rest of the world defines it) in US politics. Here 'Socialist' seems to be a pejorative applied without any regard to it's true meaning to anybody whose political affiliations lie to the left of the extreme right wing of politics including both genuine Socialists as well as people with more moderate right wing affiliations.
    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
  3. Oh that economic wasteland that is the EU... by Nicolas+MONNET · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.