Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Documentation Compliance Means MS Can Resume Collecting Protocol Royalties

Posted by Soulskill on from the only-took-seven-years dept.

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."

4 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Outrageous by PizzaAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is outrageous, and I have two examples why. First, protocols are like food recipes. The pizza you sell is yours, but the ingredients to make it is not. Here the protocol is your ham, pineapple, salami and shrimps on a barbeque sauce large size pan pizza. You have not stolen the app from your competitor, you're just making yours compatible with theirs. Like the third party IM clients can connect to MSN network. Secondly, how would any of those open source apps pay for the royalties? But maybe this is Microsoft's plan. Let me tell you what is happening here. Microsoft is paying for the local BBQ Sauce factory to include a license agreement before you can use their sauce in your pizzas. The license agreement says you are only allowed to use their BBQ sauce on Microsoft approved pizzas. And before you know, these pizzas will be degraded. Forget your ham, forget your pineapples, forget you bacon and forget your cheese. THIS is the pizza we offer, and this will be the pizza you like.

    1. Re:Outrageous by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Informative

      You can't copyright recipes, and anything can be regarded as a trade secret.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    2. Re:Outrageous by symbolset · · Score: 5, Funny

      You have to give him (or her) points for creating a new account that memes another troll username and getting the initial comment with a topical troll message that references the username. That's troll diligence there.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
  2. Samba has a license for many of the key patents by tridge · · Score: 5, Informative
    Before everyone gets too worked up, please look at this:

    http://samba.org/samba/PFIF/

    Samba and any other free software project (via the PFIF) has a royalty free license to most of the patents that are important for these protocols.

    There are some patents that are excluded from this (see appendix 4 of the agreement for a list of the excluded patents), and we do indeed need to avoid infringement of those patents. That has not so far proved to be an insurmountable obstacle, although it is an inconvenience.

    Cheers, Tridge