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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?"
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'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
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.
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....
That is a ridiculous statement. Microsoft is the one over stepping the bounds. A company is an artificial construct that is licensed to do business by a government. Hence the business has a duty to follow the legal rules.
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 ?
So you agree with the statement that the government should be able to tell companies what to charge for their products?
So the electric company should just charge you whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it? Because, hey, if you don't like it you can always move.
Forget the fact that the entire process is a blatant example of socialism
No, the existence of patent monopolies in the first place is a blatant example of corporate welfare. The EU shouldn't fine microsoft - it should simply definitively abolish patents in the EU and restore free-market competition. While patents exist, free markets don't.
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.
Flamebait, perhaps, but no more so than any other opinion expressed on Slashdot... and it doesn't make it any less true.
Of course, it will never happen since because of the monopolistic situation about Microsoft, it is almost impossible to do work in many of the actual jobs nowadays without Microsoft tools.
You can speak about OpenOffice if you want, but, if you just take Excel as an example:
So whatever happens, the EU will never be too restrictive towards Microsoft.
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
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 ";_
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
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..."
When one creates something, one must take responsibility for it. Setting rules for it seems like a logical measure.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
I see that companies are sovereign powers now, and that they are able to do whatever whenever because it is their god-given right to earn money for the share-holders, yada-yada-yada. Give me a break. If MS doesn't like Europe's laws, they can go and try to sell their products elsewhere. Nothing guarantees them the right to make a profit.
I'm not sure if you're trolling or not, but I'll humour you.
Antitrust legislation and structures are designed to maintain a competitive market. In this case, the reasoning is that by limiting prices in a specific area, a monopolostic company is exposed to more competition, hopefully resulting in a situation where the market can once again set the prices of goods efficiently.
A market with no safegards and protections is _horrible_ at setting prices, worse even than governments. Monopolistic 'markets' set prices motivated by only one factor - maximum profits for firmse. This is not great for consumers.
Conversely, perfectly competitive markets set prices so that companies make zero economic profit. Basically, in a perfectly competitive market, labour and capital generate exactly the same level of economic profit in every industry.
So, sometimes it _is_ good for consumers if the government sets prices - if in doing so the government encourages a more competitive market later on.
Great idea, I'm all for it! Are you willing to abolish copyrights and patents, and other government-granted monopolies (i.e., government interference in the market) to make that happen?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I modded it so its only fair that I take the bait. How about the US oil market? How about "de-regulated" electricity?
I'll take socialism over laissez-faire capitalism any day of the week. How's your heating bill?
My Babylon
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
Flamebait - not in the slightest. Or is it because you don't agree with the opinion?
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
Sure, but I don't agree that a totally free market is the ultimate end goal that we should judge things by. Honestly, I'm not really sure what criteria would be best used as a measure, but I do believe that free markets are merely a generally good way to get there, not the end goal itself. As far as patents are concerned, I disagree that they are a bad thing. Besides the standard argument of protecting innovation, they also serve the important role of exposing most innovations to public record. Sure, the companies get a temporary monopoly, but once that time has expired we are left with all records of the innovations as a matter of public record. To my mind, that is a lot better than having to deal with a bunch of companies that hoard their trade secrets so that they never see the light of day.
It is only by the mandated rules of the government, speaking with the voice of all the people, that Microsoft has any rights to charge people for this at all.
It is only by the mandated rules of the government(s) that their money has any value period.
The EU cannot overstep their mandate where Microsoft is concerned.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
You do know this is part of a settlement for criminal activity right? You might as well argue that just because a cat food manufacturer put poison in their cat food, the government should not be allowed to mandate that they enact stricter testing measures as part of their punishment for breaking the law in the first place.
Forget the fact that the entire process is a blatant example of socialism...Do you even know what socialism is?
...it's just purely one-sided...It's strange how the punishment phase of a convicted criminal is often one-sided isn't it? I mean how come car thieves have to go to jail and aren't really given anything positive, like a new motorcycle?
...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 commission has very limited authority, but it does include stopping MS from breaking the same laws they stop everyone else from breaking. Once MS stops breaking the law, their complaints might have merit.
Not the same whatsoever - but if you insist, you shouldn't have moved there in the first if you didnt like the price. And if you want to go further in the analogy theres another form of electricty that is Free if I wish to choose it. But you're comparing buying a piece of software with a subscription to a electric service which has physical\geographic limitations.
"The EU has already overstepped their bounds."
Indeed. By granting copyright and patent protection to MS, they have interfered with natural selection. Your argument is invalid because without government, there would be no such thing as patents.
MS has abused its privileges. The people have a right to revoke them.
Hey, HEY! Not *everyone* around here wanted this pathetic mess that is the European government. Some of us were very happy with the simple free trade agreements and a unified currency.
Global warming is a cube.
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
darn, looks like they haven't crossed that line yet
Maybe if I check again.....
Your implication that socialism is "wrong" is funny and sad.
The EU's bounds are its citizen's to decide. End of the discussion. If you're a EU citizen, then bringing your concerns to your duly elected local or federal representative through a petition, a letter, or a manifestation; as well as by voting against people you don't agree with is the proper way to act. Not by posting flamebait on Slashdot.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Really. Abolish patents...
By doing that you would basically eliminate free market, or at least damage it, because there would be no incentive to innovate. As soon as you designed some great product, say Slicedbread v2.1, some yahoo comes along and decides to copy most of your work and name it Slicedcheese v1.0. Because of this you would make less profit and are less motivated to work on your next project... Slicedmeat.
Come to think of it you just reinforced the quote from the parent.
http://www.streetracingwar.com/
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.
So you're saying that you're 'right' to breathe is just like a business entity's right to make money from a patent?
<name of some famous sensationalist idiot> would be so proud of you.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
Well, I can't eat a cake that I don't have. But otherwise, it's a reasonable point. Corporations wouldn't exist without "government intervention". People against "government intervention" are usually just against the government intervention that they personally don't like. (Though some of the really creative ones will support exactly the same intervention as long as it only applies to their competitors.)
This is the dumbest thing I've seen on Slashdot today. Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. How is it socialism for a government to attempt to find remedy against a company found to have abused its monopoly? If the government didn't do this then capitalism would stop functioning as key markets became monopolized over time. The EU's actions aren't socialism at all, they are practicing responsible capitalism.
Yes, yes, that second "you're" ought to be "your." Mea culpa grammar nazis.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
Bzzt. You fail. There are laws governing natural monopolies like electric companies and the like. Microsoft does not have a monopoly anymore, or are you stating/admitting that Linux has no significant presence or impact in the world?
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.
If you're a company (ie, an artificial entity that exists only based on law and not any natural basis), then yes, you do exist solely by the legal grace of the real people in the jurisdictions where you conduct business.
Considering Stalin was a communist, and large international megacorporations are generally somewhat capitalist, I think you may have to repeat 7th grade.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
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...
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.
Good for me. Then Microsoft will perish.
If they lose the EU, then Linux *will* fill the void. If it does, then Microsoft's competition in the US gets a lot stiffer.
I am same AC as top of thread.
That's the prevailing attitude in the US. It's not the prevailing attitude of EU citizens (but I'm sure a large number of Europeans would side with American stance). Microsoft is free to choose not to do business in the EU if it doesn't like this.
In this situation Americans seem to be telling the Europeans how to run their markets and economies. Turn it around: as American, how do you feel about Europeans telling you how to run your justice system (e.g. death penalty and gun control?) and health care systems? Both sides think their approach is correct and that the other butt out and mind their own business.
I've long said one way to make sure Microsoft behaves is to make it illegal for the company to break existing standards and protocols. Jail for Ballmer, fines of 20-50% of gross profits, that sort of thing, that would certainly change the corporation's behavior overnight.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The government shouldn't tell companies what to charge for their products, but they should ensure that companies can compete freely and make money.
I'm not sure, the threat may be big enough that the companies in the EU start to call for the EC to back off. The amount of money lost in the short term would be too much for the companies to see to the amount saved by switching to linux.
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
The difference : the EU is ELECTED. MS is not, so : yes, the EU should be able to do anything to MS.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
How's your heating bill?
Around $100 for heating (water and air) and electricity, family of four, three computers, 2000 sq ft home.
I'll take laissez-faire capitalism over socialism, thanks!
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)
What makes the electric company a "natural monopoly"? What is so natural about it? What about phone service, cable, etc?
The OP foolishly stated that the government should never set prices, and that's just wrong.
If you are going to say that Microsoft is immune to government price intervention, I'd think you could equally argue the same about the electric company because people can run a generator.
The only mechanism that should set prices is the market
That is the point, in all normal cases the market should set prices, but since Microsoft has a monopoly, and has been convicted of abusing it, the government should intervene in this case.
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.
The EU cannot overstep their mandate where Microsoft is concerned.
Well considering that software patents are forbidden in EU, I don't see why EU should take the number of patents MS owns as a metric for innovation.
That sounds benign, but I think a lot of people fail to see the reach of this claim : an expert EU commission just stated that the number of software patents is completly uncorrelated to the amount of innovation a company carries. If investors and shareholders finally manage to understand this, the patent system could fall.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Considering that is also part of their mandate, isn't it?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I'll bite : The material wealth created by the market is the means to ensure everybody gets a fair chance on happiness. So, market is by-product of our society.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
The "issue" of this law would be that the EU commission doesn't accept the number of patents as a metrics for innovation ? Considering that software patents are not recognize in EU I only see a coherent decision and a good law.
There are also laws in some EU countries about interoperability that aim at forbidding a company to abuse a dominant position to prevent third-party interoperability. Call it socialist if you will, but I only see this as a way to guarantee a free competition in a free market (an objective which is harldy socialist)
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
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".
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
I'm not saying that Microsoft is right here. I just think that we ought to be a little skeptical when a government starts trying to decide how much a company is allowed to charge for their product.
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?
The Godwinization writes itself....
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
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
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.
No it's not. The prevailing attitude in the US is that the market should be subject to more and more interference in the name of protecting "IP" (i.e., imaginary property).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Not "should intervene", it must intervene as its duty to the citizens that elected the government. It's unfortunate that the US government has failed its basic mission of protecting its people from abuse, and has now turned into the abuser.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
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
So democracy justifies oppression?
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Linux FTW.
You are talking about the body that gives MS licences the force of law in the EU. If MS did that how long do you think it would take the EU to size the rights to, and reverse engineer Vista? More importantly, how do you think that MS would respond to warrants for the arrest of all it's senior management being issued by INTERPOL? (The US is signatory).
I am not an economist so forgive me this this question seems obvious, but wouldn't enforcing a 'cheaper' price on a product be destroying competition? If there is competition already, and said competitions greatest competitive advantage is it's price (in lots of cases free), wouldn't forcing MS to lower prices mean you're taking away the competitive advantage and be giving MS an edge?
There's one thing I recall from my Econ. 101 class. A businesses #1 goal is to maximize profits, independently of what kind of market they are in. The only difference the market makes is who has the most (but not all) sway in setting the price. A business who is not trying to maximize profits is not a business, but a charity. Non-profit charities still have to make money, they're just not trying to make more than they need.
The other thing I remember is that a product/service is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. If Windows had cost $1 million per unit, no matter what the monopoly they had, they wouldn't likely sell any.
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
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.
Talk about failing... The courts found MS to be a monopoly. In the eyes of the law, you don't have to have 100% market share to be a monopoly. Microsoft's 90%+ on the desktop is enough. Legal definitions and dictionary definitions don't always mesh.
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.
Beyond that, the government sets up the patent system with certain rules. Microsoft applies for patents under those rules, and now the government suddenly decides "oh, well those patents aren't really *innovative*, you can't charge for those." Well why were the fracking patents granted in the first place then?
And even beyond that, it just seems like this "innovation" rule is ripe for abuse and selective enforcement. If Microsoft's EU patents really are a problem, strip them away. None of this meddling bureaucratic bullshit. But I'm guessing the prosecution doesn't have a good enough case to strip away their patents outright.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
... 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 :-)
Yeah, let the all the great and good and decent companies produce whatever they want no matter how harmful it is. I guess you have to be American to understand that logic, but you are so used to getting ass raped by private companies that it probably feels natural for you.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
The trouble is that Microsoft can't break existing standards. They can choose to implement them correctly or not. If they choose to implement them incorrectly, compliant implementations may not interoperate with them. But to say they may not implement software which complies with a standard is idiotic. It's nearly a free speach issue at that point.
That said, I fucking HATE microsoft and I wish they'd had been destroyed years ago. But saying you can't implement a protocol however you want is silly. _Maybe_ it's a trademark issue, but certainly not more than that.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
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.
Interesting... Since Microsoft has a monopoly in certain areas (or very nearly so), perhaps it should be treated like the other "state-endorsed monopolies", utility companies. That is to say, they can continue to do business (because shutting them down would be nearly as disruptive as shutting down the power company), but the government heavily regulates what they can and cannot do.
(I'm not advocating it, but I think it's an interesting idea.)
...grammar nazis. "Nazis"? That's no groveling!Grammar gods to you, and don't you dare forget it!
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
...and are less motivated to work on your next project
So let me get this straight: In order to preserve the "free market", the government has to introduce special incentives to motivate people to produce useful stuff?
Maybe I missed something in economics class, but I thought the whole point of a "free market" was that the market itself created the incentives, and that government distortion of those incentives leads to inefficiency...
Of course, personally I think that intervention and tampering with markets can often be a good thing (by legitimate, functioning democratic institutions, not corrupt governments), I just had to point out that your own reasoning is contradictory: Patents are a distortion of a "free market", so abolishing them can't possibly jeopardize the freedom of said market.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
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.
Governments do not tell a company what they can charge for a product. However, they will tell the company what they will pay for said product, no if, ands, or buts. Functions very closely to that of WalMart. One exception is if said company has powerful friends (congress, senate, etc..) then the price can be a little more negotiable.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Actually the main controlling body of the EU, the Council of Ministers, is NOT elected and is empowered to over-rule the European Parliament which IS elected. A disgusting state of affairs which is studiously ignored by the media.
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!
That's funny... I always thought that open discussion of political views was an important part of the democratic process. Do you disagree with that, or do you disagree with having a discussion that includes non-EU citizens?
this kind of thing is like telling somebody that has committed multiple felonies that he must abide by certain "extra" rules ...)
(can't live near "secured areas" can't own firearms can't go to certain locations
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
A EU without Microsoft is a wet dream.
Please let it happen.
Copyright exists by government mandate.
It can therefore be withdrawn by government mandate.
If the EU says "we ought to punish this company, but it is too powerful for us to tangle with", then it completely undermines the EU's credibility as a government and regulator of companies.
"Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither."
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
... 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!
Balls.
1. Most of the major companies in a field have cross-licensing agreements stopping them from suing each other.
2. Smaller companies can't afford to enforce patents anyway.
3. Most major patent suits seem to be brought by 'IP licensing' firms that just bulk buy old patents and look around for someone to sue.
This case is unfortunately different, because we are talking about monopoly. Microsoft's product is also comparable to electricity and water because there is really no viable alternative because of the restrictions Microsoft has put on their protocols and interfaces. What I have understood is that Microsoft has developed families of protocols and systems based on the patents they have acquired instead of going with unpatentable alternatives that would be as innovative and suitable as the ones with Microsoft patents. The real problem EU is having is not let Microsoft charge for its innovation, but the fact that as being monopoly Microsoft has "innovated" existing protocols to be covered under Microsoft patents and now charging premium for that.
As Jerry Lee Lewis once said... "Well England Can Kiss My @ss!!!"
That's idiotic. Aside from the fact that the EU is an entity not a person and no one elected the entity, if you substituted "Bush" for EU and "ACLU" for Microsoft, I doubt you'd even agree with your own statement.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
You, sir, are an idiot. Yes, an idiot. Let me explain what actually happened without your paranoiac comments about Stalinist Europeans. Despite the fact that most of the EU were allied with you for over half a century. Prick.
We have a large company who over the years have gained a monopoly. Congratulations! There is a problem, The US government and the EU have rules, some of which annoyingly prevent this monopoly crushing all-comers by abusing their monopolistic powers.
The US government convicts them, attempts to remedy this, faces legal challenges, and meekly cries off, having done all but nothing to fix the problem.
The EU takes a slightly different tack, and says "You broke the rules. You can't keep breaking the rules. One of the rules you're breaking the one about muscleing your competition using your monopoly so you're to 1. Stop forcing Internet Explorer, and your own solutions on everyone, let them make their own minds up and 2. Give others the information to interoperate correctly. You can charge for 2, if the patents that cover it are innovatve you can charge more. The innovative restriction applies because in europe you're not allowed to patent any and every kind of software no matter how obvious*."
So they're saying "fix your behaviour, or we'll get annoyed and do drastic things".
MS wibble off muttering and after acting outraged for a while, decide on a different tack, which is, to delay. The EU's response was, "Delay all you want. Incidentally, if you manage to delat too much, there's a time-based fine after April 3rd if you're delaying". Again, a behavioural solution.
As the request of MS, they extended the deadline to today, and MS's response is "How much should we charge?"
This is a delaying tactic again, and I think MS are going to get a nasty shock if they keep it up. Y'see, the EU WILL apply fines of 4,000,000 per DAY if MS keep it up, and even with reported cash reserves of $30 billion that'll sting. Espcially as it'll be retroactive to last August 1st.
For the next section, we've to be a bit more specific and informative.
The specs in question are technical information to competing groups allowing them to design better Windows-compatible server software, specifically work group servers. The ruling was some time back, the final appeal which MS lost was in December 2004. Yes, that's right, 2 and a half years ago.
They missed numerous deadlines to submit the information, finally coughing it up in July 2006.
The real problem here is that MS don't want to release those specs, and if they do, they want it to be extremely unattractive to actually license them. So much so that they're demanding up to 5.95% of a licensee's server revenues as royalties, which is completely unreasonable considering that the market rate for such specifications (according to IBM, Oracle, Sun as well the commission's expert, Prof. Neil Barrett, who was suggested by Microsoft.) is between 0% and 1%.
Mant of MS's other API's are available (for 0%, incidentally) at msdn.microsoft.com, so they've set a standard themselves. The ones that aren't are areas where they're using monopoly power to leverage a market, for instance, MSN Messenger had to be reverse-engineered (and that would probably be illegal in the states now!).
All the EU has been/is doing is trying to improve competition, for everyone, using behavioural remedies to attempt to correct a monopoly dominated market (as the DoJ tried, and failed, to do). All MS has been doing is delaying the inevitable to squeeze another few Euro's out of the market.
And if they keep it up, the behavioural remedy will become structural and Microsoft will not be allowed to trade in Europe as it currently stands. Which is fine by me, although it'd be a royal PITA for a while.
So do you understand what's happening now? And why you're ridiculous attitude makes you look ridiculous and an embarassment to your country ("Down with the commies" is very 50's. I suppose you still think pot is a commie drug?) ?
Also, as
Rational thought is the only true freedom
That would be quite unfortunate for all the people who own Microsoft stock... Or do you think the guy who bought a few shares as an investment is evil as well?
If MS decided to skip town (continent, actually) just because the court room hearings were getting rough, it would be quite sensible for the EU to freeze all their assets and issue warrants for the arrest of the executives. Once you start thinking of Microsoft as organized crime, it gets a lot easier to decide what to do with them.
Discussion on political issues is indeed important. My point though was that many european countries are socialist, and that his flame against the ideology was totally non-constructive. If he has a problem with socialism in Europe, and he's european, he should vote against socialists. It's possible to discuss the issue at hand without resorting to such though.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Thats one viewpoint,
... step in and take up the slack.
however perhaps you might be motivated to make a better product. As a customer of yours or your competitors I get a better product from either of you. Why should the customer get shafted with a poor quality product made second rate by the patents your competitor holds limiting your product and your patents causing similar problems for your competitors.
Don't think either of you can hack it? then let competitor 3 or 4 or 5
If you truly can innovate are experts in your field then who's product will i buy the cutting edge or a pale imitation. Do we really want the pace of innovation slowed by a factor of around 20 ?
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Free speech? Intentionally breaking Kerberos to further its monopoly was not an exercise of free speech. The intent was to assure that interoperability using an accepted and standardized protocol was broken, thus giving a major leg-up to Microsoft operating systems. It's probably one of the most notorious examples of how Microsoft maintains its monopoly, and I think making the punishments so onerous that no one in Redmond would put their asses on the line to pull it off is a good way of bringing some moderation back into the marketplace.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
Your question was a reasonable one, but the aim is to make the market for products that can interface fully with Microsoft Server Products more competitive, not to make the market for the protocols themselves more competitive. I specifically wrote that _markets_ set the price and not _firms_. You are correct insofar as any one firm in a market will always seek to maximise profits. The point here is that if the firm is in a perfectly competitive market, the price at which profits are maximised is always the same - the price is always equal to mariginal cost of the product, which is in turn always equal to marginal revenue of the product. Bascially, although every firm is trying to maximise profits, in order to sell any goods, it has to compete with every other firm, and so the price is set by the _market_ - by every firm competing with every other firm. One of the identifiable characteristics of a perfectly competitive market is that individual firms never set prices - if any one firm raises its prices above the market level, it simply ceases selling any goods.
In a market dominated by a monopoly, the monopoly, not the market, sets the price. It can charge whatever it likes. Because it seeks to maximise profits, it will set the price at a level to do so, but this will be a different price from that of a competitive market. It will, incidentally, still be equal to marginal revenue, but it will no longer be equal to marginal cost. If a monopoly raises prices, it will sell _less_ goods, but it will still sell _some_.
Additionally, a good may be "worth" whatever people are willing to pay for it, but that will never be its price - this makes intuitive sense, as different goods are of different levels of utility to different people, but everybody usually pays the same price. You can actually plot on a graph the difference between what people are willing to pay for a good and its price, and by doing so you calculate "consumer surplus". Imagine you're at a coffee machine and you're hung over - the first coffee you could buy might be "worth" $1 to you, but the machine doesn't know that, it only has one price, $0.50. The second cup is "worth" $0.60 to you (you've already had one cup, you don't want a second cup as much), the price is still $0.50, so you buy a second cup. A third cup would only be "worth" $0.20 to you, because you've already had two cups. The price is still $0.50, so you don't buy a third cup. Your consumer surplus is ($1.00 - $0.50) + ($0.60 - $0.50) = $0.60.
yeah, but they are trying to fix that, but i fear it will take a long time.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
I wish I had mod points, GP and PP would get a "funny".
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
I take it you don't use natural gas, heating oil, or eat corn or cheese, do you? Whether it "should" do these restrictions, they're a well-established fact of law, and not worth wasting the time debating the basic concept here.
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?
Hmmm, does this mean that the United States is oppressing the rest of the world by not allowing any person who wants to to move to the United States tomorrow?
I don't think so. The United States has the right to democratically make laws about what they allow into their country. Just as the EU has the right to democratically make laws about what a company can do in their countries. No one is being oppressed here. They are just being told, if you want to come into our country you have to abide by our rules.
Yes, the rest of the world has different rules then the United States. That is their choice and there is nothing wrong with that. MS can either play by those rules or take their ball and go home.
You can also find a definition at the Wiki
Basically, an electrical company, sewer, gas, and used to be cable and phone systems require so much capital investment in the power lines, sewer lines, gas lines, etc. that a second supplier would find it very difficult to place their own systems and compete. Think about how much money/time/permits/work it would require for another company to duplicate all the wiring/pipes under Manhattan and then try to compete with the companies there. Plus, the market is somewhat fixed (modulo new buildings and people moving in and out of the area) so growth is somewhat limited and there's little economy of scale (if the company wants to compete in another area, lots of infrastructure would have to be put into place there and infrastructure the company already has in other areas is almost entirely irrelevant to the new area).
Nope. The investors maybe (to a degree), but the shareholders? They're not in it for the innovation but for the money. However broken the patents system may be, it apparently encourages the making of money (for the patent holder).
If anything, I'd bet on the shareholders flocking to MS because they hold the patents.
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
Yes... I guess you missed the word "anymore". Particularly with respect to the growing Linux/OSS movement around the world cutting into that market share. Unless, as I opted, we say that Linux/OSS (and OSX) has little/no impact on the market, thus giving Microsoft back their monopoly.
They also wouldn't have anything to protect because they wouldn't have developed anything in the first place without the guarantee of protection.
If the government grants rights and then takes them away, it's the one trying to have its cake and eat it, too. The company is just operating under the assumption that the government is acting under good faith. Without this assumption, anarchy would ensue.
Stop! Dremel time!
> Forget the fact that the entire process is a blatant example of socialism. .EU is made up of broadly socialist people & govts.
.EU didn't force MS to be a Monopoly abuser
But why, the
> it's just purely one-sided
The
> the EU will just continue to abuse this implied authority that they've been granted
An authority that is the will of the people of the European Union.
If I recall correctly, the US has plenty of protectionist measures in place. Why do you think your food is full of corn oil [made in the US, subsidised] and not sugar [made outside the US, huge import tax] ?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
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.
You would be right except for the fact that MS's overall marketshare in the EU has increased significantly since the EU began this whole thing... So the problem is worse now.
But I guess for an American it's much easier to think of it as poor poor MS, struggling with all those nasty European laws just designed to make things difficult for non-European companies, right?
Yes, they should, but then there are many other lessons from Atlas Shrugged that nobody has taken to heart yet either.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
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?
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 disagree. If a government took away the rights (ethical, legal, or otherwise) of individual citizens in this way, then you would be moving towards a more socialist political framework. However, governments should not be required to accord the same respect to artificial entities like corporations that they should towards real people. Businesses are commercial entities, and should be permitted by law to exist and to act exactly to the extent that they serve the people by doing so. It is a very important role of government, particularly in basically capitalist societies, to provide the checks and balances that keep businesses doing so. The alternative, where capitalism is allowed to run its course unchecked, is that every major industry ultimately converges on an effective monopoly, which lacking effective competition or regulation then exploits the people forever (cf. the current US government).
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The fines max out at about half of what the EU gets from sales there. Right now they are more like 1/500th what they are making.
Even with microsoft, europe would be in serious trouble because it would take time to change over to linux.So? What is MS going to do, stop doing business in the EU? That would be the most blatant anti-trust violation possible and would make them all wanted criminals. How then are they supposed to get the EU courts to enforce any copyright laws in the EU? Why wouldn't EU businesses freely copy, distribute, and even modify the source to Windows? MS only has something to sell in the EU because they obey EU law. Copyright, patents, corporations, etc. are all legal entities created by the government. The EU would have all the time it wanted to switch to Linux or to develop a competing OS from the Windows code base.
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
Yeah it might seem that way if you're completely ignorant and have not bothered to note that MS is violating criminal law and this is part of their punishment.
The EU can impose whatever laws they want on Microsoft, but ultimately the WTO is going to decide this issue, not the Europeans.Please. The WTO will do jack and shit against the US, EU, and China. The US is ignoring numerous WTO sanctions right now.
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.I doubt the WTO is going to do anything about the EU enforcing antitrust laws against MS when the US has already convicted and punished them for the same crime in the US.
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! --
yes, when there is perceived to be no alternative, but as usual with this sort of comment the point was missed it was MS that asked the EU what they thought they should charge, so I guess the question you should have asked was
Is it right that a company should be able to ask an elected government what it should charge.....but then that wouldn't suit the free-market above all else point of view
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.
Thanks for clarifying Odiumjunkie, I appreciate it. I need some economics refreshers now and again. =D
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
The council of ministers are representatives of the elected democratic governments of the EU.
All these Euro-skeptics complaining about the EU being undemocratic are missing the point. They don't want the EU being a super-state do they; well, guess what? It isn't, *because* the main business is set by the European Commission - also representatives of the EU member states chosen by the democratic govts. The member states choose what the EU does and is allowed to do (even if it is allowed by them to act autonomously in some respects).
And the European Parliament is the part of the puzzle that allows citizens of the EU to influence directly its operation; note that the European Parliament generally has the disadvantage (or advantage) that it doesn't usually take national interests into account.
It's all a fine balancing act, and actually, as a compromise, it is fairly good.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
Thank you for that. I couldn't have said it better myself.
The real problem is that Microsoft is not liking resistance. They bought out the US government through lobbying, which is legal. But in the EU, they call lobbying "bribes". France outright bans the practice, and it is highly frowned upon in the UK.
Granted that businesses should have a voice in government, but they should not be the ones RUNNING the government, and that, I believe, is where Microsoft has trouble accepting the EU authority.
Now that the EU rules that Microsoft is over-charging for access to certain documents is completely acceptable, because if the competitors, i.e the few hundreds of small or medium programming companies, not to mention game companies in the EU need those documents to survive, and if the fees are too high, then there's a problem for the EU economy. It's part protectionism, part economic boost. If MS is forced to compete, it will drive true innovation, which is what the EU is trying to achieve.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
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.
Isn't it illegal to nullify a license you sold if the owner of that license did nothing wrong?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
This is a typical Europhile apologising for the fact that the EU is ruled by a cabal of unaccountable oligarchs. All this talk about balancing acts and compromise is irrelevant distraction form the simple truth that the Council of Ministers has final authority and makes all the real decisions. OK so the governments who appoint these "Ministers" are elected but that does not make the process democratic.
Oh, so basically "what you want them to do" is somehow "right", I see. That of course is reason enough to force people into doing it, against their wishes.
Global warming is a cube.
Stalin was a Stalinist, which is not anything like Communism. Stalin used communist ideals as the springboard for his new form of government. Stalin's system of rule is different from dictatorship only in that a dictator is still morally bound to do that which is best of his people. Stalin was bound by nothing.
I would ask that you stop disgracing a perfectly good form of government by associating it with Stalin's horribly corrupted form of that government. Communism is a very noble concept, and deserves the respect due to such a well-developed solution to the unsolvable problem: "which form of government is best?"
Consider yourself spoken to.
These laws are actually almost identical to the ones in the US, and do not differ significantly from most of the rest of the world. What MS is doing is a crime in countries around the globe. If you want to argue that antitrust laws like these are not needed, well that is fine, but it should be backed up with something other than "because." Monopoly abuse undermines capitalism. It breaks the system is such a way that the best, cheapest product no longer is rewarded with money, while a more expensive and inferior product is, simply because of that company's position in a different market. You could go into business and make a product that is both better and cheaper than your competitor and they could still easily drive you out of business and then collect money in that market forever, despite never innovating or improving the state of the art or finding a way to lower prices.
We have plenty of historical examples as to why we have these laws. If you want to go back to renting a wired telephone handset for tens of thousands of dollars over the course of your life, well then you have some really odd preferences. If you want to watch market after market consolidate under the roofs of a a few monopolies until very few are born into all the wealth and we're a feudalist system again, well then I think you're an idiot or a wealthy jerk. We tried it your way and it was unstable as all hell and bad for almost everyone. Why should we go back to it, just because you do not understand the mechanisms or did not bother to read your history lessons?
*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
Not if the person who said that had already been tried and convicted and paid the penalty for the first offense (whether you agree or not if the penalty was "enough", it was sent through court and the courts have finished with it, including any applicable penalties). If Microsoft is practicing non-competitive monopolistic practices again, then that's a different story, but even your post seems to say that you don't think they are.
"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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Life needs more saving throws.
Seriously, though, what point were you trying to get across?
...brand new, all over again.
The cross-subsidy problem was shown up by Microsoft with the XBox. They were able to lose huge amounts of money selling the XBox just to build the brand. Entering a new market is typically very expensive, and if you have deeper pockets, you can usually win. If I spend some money on R&D, and make a new product, then (without patents) a large company can come along, spend a few hundred million on making the same product and selling it at cost (not below, because then they'd fall foul of dumping laws), and drive me out of business. No matter how I innovate, I can't compete with them, because they don't need to make a profit. See Netscape and Internet Explorer here; when IE and Netscape were about as good as each other, who would pay for Netscape (it was only free for non-commercial use) when IE was free? And IE was only free, because Microsoft could use the profits from Windows and Office to pay for development.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
Not really. It is more like telling someone convicted of multiple felonies and who is still in the act of committing that same felony and has never stopped that no, putting the knife away that they've been using to stab people isn't good enough, you actually have to stop repeatedly kicking them as well and yes could you please stop throwing bricks. That's what a lot of people here don't seem to be getting. This isn't an "extra" punishment. It is criminal to tie an existing monopoly to a product in a new market and nonstandard protocols between your monopolized product and the other product that in any way disadvantage competitors are illegal. The EU bends over backwards here and still you have people claiming that they are being anti-american. I'm about convinced at this point that about 1 in 100 people here understand what a monopoly is, what tying is, and what constitutes that tying in this case.
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?
I can implement any protocol I want. If it's similar to SMTP but not compatible with it, is this some sort of crime? Even if I'm a certified monopolist? I'd say no. Now if I claim that I implement a standard and am not compatible I could be sued for fraud or false advertising or something. /etc/postfix/main.cf:
The idea of requiring that every protocol Microsoft implements is completely compatible with some standard is just silly. Especially when they can't even read an RFC:
From http://www.postfix.org/SASL_README.html :
Older Microsoft SMTP client software implements a non-standard version of the AUTH protocol syntax, and expects that the SMTP server replies to EHLO with "250 AUTH=mechanism-list" instead of "250 AUTH mechanism-list". To accommodate such clients (in addition to conformant clients) use the following:
broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
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.
Exactly. Since the CII (Computer-Implemented Inventions) directive (a.k.a. software patent directive) was voted down, there has been no harmonization between the countries. The EPC (European Patent Convention) forbids patents on software "as such", but in certain countries they are allowed if combined with a computer (just like in the US, IIRC). In Sweden, where I live, it appears that software patents are valid. Patent och Registreringsverket (the equivalent of the USPTO) states:
Vilka datorprogram kan patenteras?
När det gäller datorprogram får man inte patent på programmet i sig utan på kopplingen till den tekniska lösningen, alltså den funktion, metod eller process som blir resultatet av programmets körning i datorn.
Man kan även få patent på program som styr fysiska processer eller som behandlar fysiska signaler, eller program som styr kommunikation. Datorprogram som styr operativsystem kan patenteras.
Which roughly translates into:
Which computer programs can be patented?
Computer programs cannot themselves be patented, rather the patent covers the connection to the technical solution, that is the function, method or process that results from executing the program in the computer.
You can also patent programs that controls physical processes or (programs) that processes physical signals, or programs that controls communication. Computer programs that control operating systems can be patented.
"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.
the EU has no god-given-right to use Microsoft Software however they want either.
Technically, everyone in the world has a god-given right to do whatever they damn well please provided it doesn't break the laws laid down in the bible. (Assuming you believe in the bible, but if you don't believe in some sort of religion then there's no such thing as a god-given right.....)
However, thousands of years ago it became apparent that it was far more productive for humanity if there was a set of ground rules saying what people can and can't do, together with some sort of infrastructure for enforcing these rules.
As society has become more complex, so have these ground rules. Today, we call them "laws" and we have an entire segment of society called "government" whose job it is to look at society and keep the "laws" in step.
The government shouldn't tell companies what to charge for their products, but they should ensure that companies can compete freely and make money.
But when you've got a monopolist like Microsoft, it's very difficult for another company to come in and compete freely.
Seeing as about all a company has are products which it exchanges for a certain amount of money, if the government wants to interfere with a company in order to foster competition in a market, about the only thing they CAN do is mess with either the product or its price.
As has been long established, when you are in a monopoly position, the ordinary rules of business don't apply. Microsoft wasn't simply just altering a protocol standard, they were breaking it to further their monopoly. That is a different bag of worms altogether.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
So if a politician is elected, he should be able to go round and shoot his constituents? The EU isn't even elected.
I can see where you are coming from, as the US has a really complicated (and I would argue antiquated) election system, with the people voting for electors, that in turn votes for their candidate. In addition, there is the "winner takes it all" rule in most states, that makes all electors in the state vote for the candidate that got more than 50% of the votes in said state, which in turn makes it possible for a candidate with just slightly above 25% support among voters nationwide to become the president. And finally, voting requires manual registration by the voter, which results in lower voter turnout since not everyone is aware of this fact (not to mention those being misled by one side into believing they don't need to register). And I'm not even going to discuss voting machines and the problems they bring.
Other countries, such as Sweden, where I live, have much more straightforward voting systems. In our election, we vote for three different assemblies, the national parliament, the regional parliament and the county parliament. Each citizen above the age of 18 automatically (no registration required) gets a voting card from the election authorities a few weeks in advance of election day. This card proves that you are entitled to vote, and specifies which regional and county parliament you can vote in. You bring this card to the election hall (usually a school, clinic, or some other public space), where you take three envelopes (one for each parliament) and ballots for the party you intend to vote for in the different parliaments (you can take ballots for as many parties as you want, if you don't want it to be obvious to onlookers which one you are voting for). You go behind a screen and put ballots into the envelopes according to your preference, and seal the envelopes. Then you show the voter card to the election official, who takes your card and registers that you have voted, and allows you to place the envelopes in their proper bins. Note that voting is not mandatory, you can ignore it if you like, but usually the voter turnout is high, in the 80% or more range.
In the evening, the votes are counted and the tallies are reported on national television and on the internet. If there is a close call or some other dispute, the votes can be recounted (an advantage of paper ballots). Detailed statistics (such as tallies for each neighborhood) are posted a few days later in local newspapers and on the election authority web site. Parliamentary seats are distributed proportionally according to the election results, except for a minimum limit of 4% voter support for a party to get seats in a parliament. The proportional election system assures that the parties that form the cabinet have more than 50% voter support, as well as making it possible for smaller parties to exist and take seats in the parliaments.
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
Yes I am. Current patent and copyright law is horribly broken with regards to the 'digital age'. I'm not sure scrapping it totally is in order, but major changes need to be made to avoid all this IP silliness that's going on.
Intellectual property rights include trademarks, copyrights, and patents. If the EU "confiscated" those rights because of criminal acts on the part of MS, then they could either give those rights to a newly formed competitor to MS, or make them public domain. MS certainly would not be able enforce their copyrights to stop free copying and use of Windows, since as criminals on the run they would have no standing. Many other countries might, in fact, agree with the EU that the rights had been legally transferred to the EU, thus providing the same result in those other countries (many of whom are less than please with both the US and MS to start with) and making software from the American MS the copyright violator.
On what grounds? It is not illegal to pull your products from a region that isn't profitable.Actually, that would be a criminal act of antitrust abuse. That is, of course, ignoring the fact that they would be violating legal contracts with literally thousands of international corporations who would file suit in the US and elsewhere suing MS into oblivion.
If you want to discuss unaccountable oligarchs, one suitable organization to discuss is the EPO, the European Patent Organizaion. Consisting of unelected lawyers, they have a significant saying in the patent legislation field, and unfortunately have the ear of the commission and the council of ministers.
All this talk about balancing acts and compromise is irrelevant distraction form the simple truth that the Council of Ministers has final authority and makes all the real decisions.I agree that the CoM and the commission have too much power. It was evident in their handling of the EU CII (software patent) directive. But still, this directive was voted down by the parliament, and thus scrapped, for the time being. The parliament is not powerless, but it could use much more power, and it should have since it is the only directly elected assembly in the EU.
OK so the governments who appoint these "Ministers" are elected but that does not make the process democratic.I agree that it isn't even close to a good implementation, but it is still better than having the supreme court decide who will become president. :)
......nuke Redmond from orbit.
That depends on who does the lobbying. The IPR Enforcement Directives have been extensively lobbied for by the music and movie industry. It sure helps that Janelly Fourtou, a French MEP, is married to Jean-René Fourtou, the former CEO of Vivendi-Universal.
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.
A very good and very extensive explanation for why you are right can be found here.
An incorrectly configured terminal in *nix can produce a ^H when you press the backspace key instead of erasing the character to the left of the cursor. The ^H... is thus used in emails, chat and message boards to humorously indicate your real meaning of a polite or politically correct word or phrase.
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.
If someone breaks the law and is caught, he will be punished. Is that so strange?
But of course, you think that there should be no laws...
Because the patents were granted by the EPO, which is (confusingly enough) not an EU body. EPO-granted patents need not be valid in the EU, which has a different standard to which they judge patents. The EPO consists of unelected patent attorneys, which should not be able to determine the patent policy of the EU.
And it can, if the company abides by the rules imposed by said government. If it tramples all over them, it can not expect the government to ignore its infractions, and some of the privileges of the company may be revoked.
Except that the EULA uses laws for enforcement. If the licensor (i.e. Microsoft) ignores the law to increase its profits and/or stifle competition, I cannot see why the government should still enforce the laws that the EULA is based on.
Yeah, no argument there, I'm just saying, when the court system actually works, it's illegal.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
>The only mechanism that should set prices is the market.
:P)
Idiot, that will create monopolies in notime.
Please read some basic economics before posting about this issue again. (and if you're being ironic, you should train at that too
Hear hear!
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.
Isn't it illegal to nullify a license you sold if the owner of that license did nothing wrong?
Suppose that would depend on the conditions of the license. In any case, pulling out of a major market completely would seriously shake every government and business' faith in Microsoft. They will not and cannot afford to pull out of the EU, it would be the undoing of MS.
The CoM chose to accept the recommendation of the EU Parliament on the software patent directive, it was under no obligation to do so.
Nobody, well nobody but an Americaon, would seriously present the US as a model of how a democracy should be organised.
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.
as much as I hate MS, that is absurd. The EU is definately overstepping when it decided how many of the patents are "innovative" if they werent innovative then they shouldnt be granted and should be nullified. If thats the way the EU is going to treat businesses watch as people stop doing business with them. Whenever the EU decides you are being too profitable you are saying they have the right to tell youwhat to do?
not correct at all. frankly they dont need to governments right to charge anything. if the government didnt exist they would charge in some other means. secondly they dont have to charge in the EU's currency either. And guess what microsoft doesn't have to sell or give you their products either. and you don't have to buy them.
Do you even understand how capitalism works?
whats more sad is that people think your claims are insightful when they are shortsided, and overly simplified.
what about next week when the EU decides that you are no longer allowed to charge more than 1 penny for your work. have they over stepped their bounds yet? if you dont think so, then I think you either dont understand rights, or you are a moron and i'd like to do business with you so i can abuse the fact that you don't understand rights at all.
I despire MS, but the EU can definately overstep their bounds and arguably doing it already.
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
WTF? Marriage does not exist "naturally", it's a legal/religious institution. The same is true of corporations.
The people who comprise institutions are real people. They have rights. Institutions themselves are simply convenient artificial structures people create for a variety of reasons.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Developer Documents on interoperability with other operating systems isn't a product.
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?
Okay, I'll go deeper into details. The European Patent Office is regulated at the EU level. According to the European law, it cannot deliver software patents, algorithms are considered as "mathematical formulas" and can't be patented while programs themselves have other protections meanisms : copyright laws. The law is fairly clear.
But the EPO still delivers plain software patents. Usually you have to disguise them using the gimmick you describe. I know this also works in France. But it is interesting to note that nobody has ever used such a patent in a court of law. Legal opinions are divided, a lot of people think that these patents couldn't stand up in court.
To my opinion, these kind of paradox are symptomatic of the European heavy bureaucracy.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
And where would you move to?
There is rarely more than a single electricity company in a given area, thus there is no need for them to compete. Under the system you propose, electricity would be ridiculously expensive in every area, resulting in it becoming a costly luxury item only available to the rich and famous.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
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.
The patents shouldn't have been granted, and that's what the EU is saying. It's not complicated. You might also want to try starting your sentences with a capital letter.
If you can read this you've gone too far.
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
From your words (ones I didn't put into your mouth):
Note the "I am not killing women any more" part... Since you are using an analogy to demonstrate how you think Microsoft is pleading, your analogy indicates that you believe they are not "exerting illegal monopolistic practices any more". If this was not your intent, then you should practice writing analogies more. Another thing is description by analogy is usually not a good way to go because you're almost guaranteed someone will read something into it that you didn't intend but is otherwise true with respect to your analogy, probably exactly what happened in this case.
Keep reading a little more of that line (the part in parenthesis) before you hit the reply button.
Umm, no. The EPO is not an EU body, and cannot be regulated by the EU. The EPO was founded when the EPC was signed, and the set of countries that have signed the EPC is not the same set of countries that are members of the EU.
If there really is a lack of competition in a market, the logical choice is to examine the market leader (which, in the case of the EU server market, isn't MS). The EU's current strategy appears to be directed toward maintaining the current market winners rather than increasing competition.
At what point has/will the EU overstepped its bounds?
What bounds do you mean ?
The point is that because the EU is made up of different countries, a directly democratic process would result in many countries having their concerns trodden on by the majority.
So I do not see it as making sense for Euroskeptics concerned about the EU having too much influence to be seeking it to be arranged by a directly democratic process. It would be a disaster for many countries in the EU if the European Parliament for example was in the driving seat.
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