Microsoft EU Decision Protects OSS Projects From Suits

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."

Comments

you gotta love eu bureaucrats

[unity100]

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

Re:you gotta love eu bureaucrats

[Dogtanian]

And failed. If all goes well, the system apparently works. That's naive; the system was still stacked in favour of the Commission's findings/wishes in that it effectively required an overwhelming rejection of them by the parliament itself for them not to go through. The fact that the Commission could re-present these after their initial rejection and (second time around) could effectively have won by default does not reflect well on this aspect of the EU, even though things worked out in this case.

In short, the right decision was made in spite of (and not because of) the European Commission.

Re:you gotta love eu bureaucrats

[gomiam]

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.

proper attire is mandatory

[User 956]

Microsoft EU Decision Protects OSS Projects From Suits

Which is good, because the OSS crowd is more into t-shirts and jeans.

Bill gets tired of EU, a conversation.

[Facetious]

Scene opens at Imperial Headquarters, Redmond. Imperial march plays and quiets as conversation begins.

Bill: Man, I am getting so tired of the EU. I am going to have to buy Europe. Bring me my checkbook.

Accountant: Sir, it's a little out of your price range.

Bill: (Staring blankly) Price range?

Accountant: Yes, sir. It costs more than you have, especially since most of your money is in dollar currency.

Bill: (Picks up phone.) Steve, get in here. And bring your chair.

Re:Three... Two... One..

[Zonk (troll)]

Whats the EU equivalent of Sourceforge? =D BerliOS.

They can still go after end users and distributors

[jesterzog]

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.

Re:in no way extends

[mrbluze]

This, of course, insures profitable OSS projects will not be based in the US. Damn shame. Some of us like Tech jobs.

Nah, it just means that you guys in the US will have to keep living the American DRM.

Re:EU and software patents?

[Iloinen Lohikrme]

Actually EU doesn't have anything to do with patents right now. A few years down ago EU Commission tried to bring legislation that would have introduced EU wide harmonization of patents and brought unified judicial system. As the European Parliament didn't accept the directive, the attempted legislation was withdrawn. More about the subject.

How ever there is European Patent Organization which works by the power of European Patent Convention. EPO is fully independent organization and isn't part of EU. EPO actually is the only organization in Europe causing real grief in regards of patents. They award software patents even if they don't have any power to do so. Many big corporations and also smaller companies have applied basically pure software patents from EPO. How ever as the EPO really doesn't have power to award these kind of patents, the situation is that those patents are more or less worthless. They also will stay worthless even if EU would make software patents legal as those patents were filed and awarded before they were legal.

In my company we have talked and researched the software patent issue some what. My own point of view is that software patents are worthless and as long as the member state we operate doesn't allow software patents, we don't have any reason to worry. I really do hope that this situation will stay the same as the business of software company is to make software and solve customers problems, not pay big fat checks to lawyers.