DoJ Extends Microsoft Oversight for Two Years

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The US Department of Justice has extended its anti-trust oversight of Microsoft by two years. This only applies to the requirement that Microsoft make protocol documentation available to competitors, though. All of the other requirements have expired, and Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly did not give the states complaining the full five years of oversight they requested. Still, this should prove useful given that one of Microsoft's new tricks is to use OOXML extensions to tie businesses to Sharepoint."

Comments

Re:Toothless and Pointless

[ozmanjusri]

And the EU has achieved real change, beyond fines and a separate packaged version of Windows that essentially no one uses?

Yes.

The Software Freedom Law Center got the protocol documents for Microsoft workgroup networking, which they were supposed to make available in 2004.

The EU agreement also weakens Microsoft's FUD about Linux and other FOSS violating its patents. They now have to disclose patents covering its workgroup protocols so developers will be able to show their code doesn't infringe.