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EU Plans To Make Apple, Adobe and Others Open Up

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the jaws-of-life dept.

FlorianMueller writes "After pursuing Microsoft and Intel, European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes is now preparing an initiative that could have an even greater impact on the IT industry: a European interoperability law that will affect not only companies found dominant in a market but all 'significant' players. In a recent interview, Mrs. Kroes mentioned Apple. Nokia, RIM and Adobe would be other examples. All significant market players would have to provide access to interfaces and data formats, with pricing constraints considered 'likely' by the commissioner. Her objective: 'Any kind of IT product should be able to communicate with any type of service in the future.' The process may take a few years, but key decisions on the substance of the bill may already be made later this year."

5 of 389 comments (clear)

  1. It's about time mac os x on any hardware/ midtower by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It's about time mac os x on any hardware/ mid-towers.

    apple hardware is over priced and where is the mid-tower the mini is weak for it's price and the mac pro is over top with carp video card for it's price.

    The imac need better video and people do not like screen lock in.

  2. But, will it include by WindBourne · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    ALL the companies? For example,will it include EU companies? Will it include Chinese?

    And why stop at IT? Why not continue with other industries that are prevalent in EU? Will all German drug companies be forced to open up how they make their drugs and open their patents/copyrights on them?

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  3. Re:Great News by intheshelter · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Bullshit. You don't know what you're talking about. You're either the dumbest person in the world or just dishonest.

  4. Re:What I'd Like to Know by BasilBrush · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    "Note that some of those listed Apple was part of creating from scratch. vCard, iCalendar, iWork formats, ZeroConf, HFS+. That's not a bad percentage."
    vCard was not developed by Apple, but rather by a consortium (of which Apple was a part).

    I know. That's why I said "Apple was part of..."

    HFS+ - as if anyone cares about it.

    Is this random dismissal time? The question was not about the popularity of the technologies amongst other people. That's not in Apple's control. HFS+ is used as standard on OSX. It's open if anyone wants to use it. That's the point that's in question.

    As an example of their really core products - look at iTunes, iPhone and iPod. Both are notoriously closed.

    They are more closed than OSX is, but even there they all support open standard media files. AAC, MP3, MP4 etc.

    While one can compile MachO-files on other platforms, _ALL_ Apple's headers and libraries require Mac OS X by their license. So you won't even be able to compile Cocoa "Hello, world!" application on Linux.

    Ah, it's not cross compiling you're complaining about. It's that Cocoa isn't open source. Well tough tits - Apple is a business, not a hippy commune. They support open standards in most cases for interoperability. They aren't there to provide Linux freetards with free stuff.

  5. European is very very stupid now by kentsin · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Over weight standards

    Over power government.

    They are just do not understand what make a good life.