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Documentation Compliance Means MS Can Resume Collecting Protocol Royalties
angry tapir writes "Microsoft may begin collecting royalties again for licensing some protocols because clear technical documentation is now available, according to the US Department of Justice. The change comes after the DOJ issued its latest joint status report regarding its 2002 antitrust settlement with Microsoft. The settlement required Microsoft to make available technical documentation that would allow other vendors to make products that are interoperable with Windows."
An interesting side effect of the DOJ's decision to force Microsoft to document more of their protocols was that internal Microsoft employees have found their job easier and the teams more efficient.
I stumbled across this tidbit while research for a final paper about software patent (good/bad/why/alternatives). You can read about it here.
Yeah, but a food recipe can easily be reverse engineered and used for profit or given away. If I magically figured out KFC's recipe without having prior knowledge of it and I made my own fried chicken stand that drove KFC out of business there wouldn't be a thing KFC could do. Similarly, I could reverse engineer coke and make my own soda. About the only thing that you -can't- do with a trade secret is if you know it most agreements forbid you from disclosing it or competing using it.
As for copyright, yeah, you can copyright anything, but I can still use your work, just not publish the recipe.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
yeah right how dare they not just do it all for free right? there's no reason you can't charge a license for a protocol, just like any other piece of software. there should of course be nothing preventing you writing a competing protocol or your own clean room version. that's why patent are bad, but this is not.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
OK. So the government order Microsoft to document the protocols. Microsoft then does what the government asks. Now the government acknowledges that Microsoft has done what was asked.
Somehow, the comments here make it seem like Microsoft made yet another mistake. Wasn't this what they asked Microsoft to do?
Hah, You just wait until there's a story about jellied eels, smoked beer or lutefisk.
That is in fact the case here. According to the article, some of the protocols are encumbered by patents. I can't imagine what kind of patent you can get on a protocol, but that is the sorry state of the matter.
Qxe4
Blizzard online game protocols ...
Fortunately reverse engineering a product for the purpose of interoperability is allowed under the DMCA.
That's assuming, of course, that you can convince a judge that your purpose was interoperability. Last I heard, it was still illegal to make a client interoperate with Blizzard's servers, and illegal to make a server interoperate with Blizzard's clients.