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Microsoft EU Decision Protects OSS Projects From Suits

Posted by Zonk on from the at-least-we-hope-it-does dept.

rfc1394 writes "An article in Australia's IT News mentions that under its antitrust agreement with the European Union, 'Microsoft will publish an irrevocable pledge not to assert any patents it may have over the interoperability information against non-commercial open source software development projects.' Essentially, in addition to getting them to comply with the anti-trust decision, the EU has forced Microsoft to back off of its saber-rattling when it comes to EU open source projects. That protection in no way extends to US projects, of course."

4 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. you gotta love eu bureaucrats by unity100 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    only eu bureaucrats could pull such 2 stunts in just one gig. when a bureaucracy works, it really shines.

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    1. Re:you gotta love eu bureaucrats by gomiam · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No. It still considers software unpatentable. Which makes me wonder how on Earth will Microsoft be able to collect that 0.4% in patent royalties from European software developers selling their software to European customers.

  2. Cool. by dino2gnt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So, can projects threatened by patent infringement suits now move development to the EU?

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  3. They can still go after end users and distributors by jesterzog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    These were also my first thoughts in reading the summary. From the article, the European Commissioner for Competition Policy says (emphasis is mine):

    "I told Microsoft that it should give legal security to programmers who help to develop open source software and confine its patent disputes to commercial software distributors and end users. Microsoft will now pledge to do so."

    Presumably all this means is that Microsoft won't be going after developers, but it may still be going after anyone who makes use of those developers' efforts. It's some good news for developers, but it's not exactly a let off the hook if you can't tell your users with any confidence that they won't be sued by Microsoft for obscure patents that wouldn't hold up in the face of anyone who could afford to defend themselves. If anything, this might give Microsoft more power to spread FUD about OSS. They're just narrowing the target, basically saying that it's okay to develop OSS, but they might not let people use it without paying up.

    Hopefully the linked article isn't representative of what the actual arrangement is. For the thing to be of any use, Microsoft really needs to be pledging that they won't enforce whatever patents they claim to have at all.