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

Toothless and Pointless

[ozmanjusri]

What's the point? The DoJ has achieved less real change in the past decade than the EU has achieved in past two years.

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.

BS in TFA

[peektwice]

The relevance of the consent decree sanctions is somewhat questionable under current market conditions. TFA gives evidence to the dominance of Google in the search arena, Apple's up-and-coming market share, and Firefox's also blossoming market share. However, what they're missing is that Microsoft still holds a heavily dominant position in the O/S market and an equally dominant market position in the office applications market. I call BS.
It is clear to me that the sanctions are still relevant. What is not clear to me is how the consent decree is going to change anything, since TFA also states that "protocol specifications" were supposed to be released in 2003, and still haven't been fully released.