Submitted by Microsoft ended three years of resistance on Monday and finally agreed to comply with a landmark 2004 antitrust decision by the European Commission. The defeated software giant announced it would not appeal against a decisive European Union court ruling two months ago that backed the Commission.
“Microsoft will not assert patents against non-commercial open source software development projects”
So that excludes GPL then!?
It seems that anyone would be free of hassle if they did a project on Sourceforge, but if Red Hat or Novell did something they would have to adhere to the patent. Hard to really understand from this article, seeing as it seems to have been written by a non-technical reporter.
Ouch! How that must have hurt. Admitting defeat to an opponent which is only a single continent, and not a very big one at that. I’d love to have seen the “constipated” look on Balmer’s face when the decision was made.
He might have been relieved.. time to move on.
Europe is massive and Microsoft is just a company.
Personally I think it’s disgusting that a company can get so powerful that it takes an entire continent to win a trial against it.
It makes you wonder what hope anyone else stands?
[edit for clarity]
Edited 2007-10-22 17:31
“Personally I think it’s disgusting that a company can get so powerful that it takes an entire continent to win a trial against it. ”
Together our voice is louder than alone
“Europe is massive and Microsoft is just a company.
Personally I think it’s disgusting that a company can get so powerful that it takes an entire continent to win a trial against it.”
Saying that “it took an entire continent” suggests that the whole of Europe’s population was up in arms over this, when 99.9999999% of them could not care less. (Not to mention that the EU itself doesn’t represent “an entire continent” in the first place.
)
It didn’t take “an entire continent”, it took a government commission. And no matter how “powerful” a company gets, the government has absolute power (after all, government is ultimately backed by force of arms). There’s an old saying, “You can’t fight city hall.” Meaning, when the government tells you to do something, you do it. Microsoft was too arrogant to understand that. Now they’ve been properly humbled (and are probably better off for it).
But there’s also a saying about “Chickens coming home to roost.” Those that prompted this action have unleashed big government forces on the tech industry, and the precedent has been set that big government can dictate software design. Anyone that thinks the EC will stop with Microsoft is kidding themselves.
Edited 2007-10-22 18:23
Fortunately it hasn’t.
Unless one can come up with any form of software design that violates market laws.
I strongly hope it doesn’t stop but continues to prohibit abuse of market dominance in all kinds of industries.
“””
“””
Although you can’t fight city hall, sometimes you can buy it. I would be surprised if that method was not attempted. I can’t prove it, of course. But anyway, whatever methods they tried didn’t work.
But on to the issue of government regulation. Increasingly, I find myself viewing all this in terms of a living body. For the most part, the free market functions well. But it is prone to certain illnesses, pathological conditions, autoimmune disorders, etc. For the most part, it can handle these, given time. A few conditions might actually be fatal. But not many. Some particularly unpleasant maladies might take a very long from which to recover.
Often, it’s best to see the doctor and get on medication to speed the recovery process rather than suffer through the illness naturally. Usually, the medication helps us to recover faster. Sometimes it actually saves us from a life-threatening condition. Sometimes, the medication has deleterious side effects. And sometimes the medication prescribed is just plain wrong and we are either not helped, or are actively hurt by it. Such is life.
In most people’s opinions, I would say, it is best to go to the doctor when we’re sick. Adherents to the Church of Christian Science disagree, and instead seek help from practitioners who help them pray their way back to health. (My family on my mother’s side were Christian Scientists, and swore off doctors for years, until cancer finally drove each of them to seek a medical solution, but it was always too late.)
I believe that, despite the risks and possible side effects, this is a case where we need to call the doctor and get medical treatment.
I believe that *eventually* the free market *would* act to heal itself. Monopolies which are not natural monopolies tend, I think, to have a natural life-cycle, finding themselves in a position where they have to squeeze harder and harder to get more money out of their existing customer base, until one day, a competitor comes along and the customers are more than ready to jump ship despite the barriers they may face in doing so.
But the question is… how long are we willing to wait for nature to take its course?
Edited 2007-10-22 20:23
I know – I was mealy responding to the original post using the same layman’s lingo that he chose rather than suggesting that the EU ruling represents a united European consensus
It might be small, but it is the largest economic area in the world, so it must really hurt.
It’s actually god for the economy: IKEA must have gotten a massive order for new chairs from Microsoft’s EU offices
– Gilboa
Edited 2007-10-23 06:30
Microsoft is God for the EU economy? Wow.
… As you might have guessed, this was a spelling mistake. (Though, it can create yet-another-level of irony)
– Gilboa
This means that companies will be able to modify samba to allow Linux to become a AD domain server so you don’t need to use windows server to use AD…whooo!
Another story I read said that this agreement was reached after a late night phone call between Kroes and Balmer. That’s hard to imagine. Also, doesn’t this make all of Balmer’s recent ranting about Linux owes him money seem, well, like the ranting of a spoiled brat or a mad man? To the point: don’t trust’em. They’re just stalling. Balmer probably thinks he can buy Europe and fire everyone that doesn’t toe the Microsloft line. Next chapter will be very interesting.
Another story I read said that this agreement was reached after a late night phone call between Kroes and Balmer. That’s hard to imagine.
From the Grauniad:
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2196951,00.html?gusrc=rss&f…
“The deal that Ms Kroes refused to call a settlement began with a dinner for Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, in a restaurant near her home in The Hague straight after the CFI judgment. Negotiations that continued almost daily ended today. Under the deal Microsoft has agreed that open source software developers for the rival Linux operating system, seen by the EU as its sole rival in a market it dominates by 80%, will be able to access and use the “complete and accurate” interoperability information.”
How many broken chairs in Monkey boy’s hotel room after that dinner out?
Edited 2007-10-22 18:37
“How many broken chairs in Monkey boy’s hotel room after that dinner out?”
Probably none, though it would not surprise me if he was smiling with the after dinner entertainment.
We are the Borg, resistance is futile
Please don’t mod me down to hell, I am European and I fully approve what the European Commission did.
I think the irresistible force just met the immovable object, and the force won. 😉
Edit: I am *so* envious of your avatar. My childhood role model. And today, too, really. Great shot of him!
Edited 2007-10-22 15:13 UTC
I’ll tell you a secret: it comes from the Gentoo forums
FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, “The decision seems positive but it is five years out of date. During that time, Microsoft has lobbied for software patents in Europe and bought patents on many trivial concepts. It has claimed patent violations against Linux, put patent timebombs into its formats and interfaces, and turned fear of patents into a core part of its business strategy. It will now open its formats, because that lets it extend its software patent franchise even further.”
http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/Microsoft_will_trump_EU_compet…
I don’t think there is an awful lot of help on this…but its looking like a big win for Microsoft.
yes, it seems like ms has switched from defending “trade secrets” to defending patents. and they still talk about “royalities” which they are collecting for providing the informations they have to provide. but the european union was thinking of something like “handling fees” instead. the wording shows that ms didn’t give up their position that the definition of their protocols is their intellectual property. the information probably won’t be published openly, no public source hacker will spend 10.000 $ for it and ms will sue all commercial vendors if they don’t buy their patents if they use this informations.
(and ms had to pay half a billion and not half a million € in fines in 2004)
That was the Champagne. I’m all for a big toast. Who wants a glass?
I’m sure it chapped the *** of the person who had to transfer funds from the Microsoft pig-gy bank to the EU accounts.
According to this slashdot post:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=335465&threshold=-1&comment…
“They already paid directly after the EC decision three years ago. The money was placed on a special bank account where neither the EU nor MS could touch it until the decision by the European Court.”
Hi Molly,
I have not looked at the link because the link content is not what I’m posting about. And you probably already know this. But rightly or wrongly, quoting Slashdot posts around here is the geek equivalent of citing The National Enquirer. 😉 After citing /. one might as well start typing “LinSux”, “CrackOS X”, and “Microsloth” for all the good it does one’s credibility. 😉
You don’t have to click the link, since I quoted the entire slashdot post (it was just those two sentences).
I understand that slashdot has credibility problems.
But slashdot informative posts as well. Anyway, I since I stated that it was a slashdot post, the readers here can take that into account when reading the info. I think it’s better I do that than simply post the info without saying where I read it from. 
Yeah. I understand. Even though we don’t always agree, you make high quality posts. And I just wanted to make extra sure you were aware. 😉
Edited 2007-10-22 18:30
So it is:
[X] Microsoft
[ ] Apple.
for the EU.
500 billion USD in todays market isn’t much to either the EU or to Microsoft. Either way, if it was placed into an account three years back or yesterday, it still chapped someone off.
To a person who only makes 40k a year 500 billion USD is huge amount. Microsoft has noone to blame but itself for its business decisions or the judgements made against it.
Since I only make 40k a year, before massive tax deductions, health insurance, social security payments, etc, I chose to use Linux or any othe X that either saves me cash or puts money in my pocket.
“To a person who only makes 40k a year 500 billion USD is huge amount. Microsoft has noone to blame but itself for its business decisions or the judgements made against it. ”
Ok, I’m curious: where on earth did you pull that number from, and that it isn’t a large amount? Unless you’re from a different language where 1 billion USD != $1,000,000,000 (you’re talking 500 of those, or $500,000,000,000) then your math is way off
If the EU did try to fine Microsoft 500 billion, I expect they’d write off the EU as a bad debt, and before the EU could hope to extract that sort of fine, they’d need to use their military. Yeah, right, that’ll work
I was wrong reading further into the Guardian article
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2196951,00.html?gusrc=rss&f…
In a remarkable climb-down it has accepted a one-off fee of only €10,000 in royalties for this information and a slashing of its original demand for 5.95% of product revenues for a worldwide patented licence to a mere 0.4%. This is seen by lawyers as in effect price-fixing for intellectual property rights (IPRs) and their downgrading before consumer rights.
The patent licence at a “mere 0.4%” is an affront to the everyone. This is a backdoor for them to threaten to sue enterprise Linux distributions for providing SAMBA, because it is adapted to MS’s perversions of the Open Standards (SMB, Kerberos and LDAP), that has now been suddenly converted into MS’s “intellectual property”. Capitulation to a gang of thieves Ms Kroes.
How did MS pervert the Kerberos protocol? It’s my understanding they used an extension provided by the Kerberos standard to store PAC data. Granted the PAC data was MS proprietary but I don’t see how they perverted the Kerberos protocol.
Samba is FOSS … for the most part it is distributed for $0.
For Samba then, 0.4% of product revenues is … $0.
Therefore, Linux distributions can distribute Samba for free and pay Microsoft 0.4% of Samba product revenues (which would be $0), and come out of the whole deal revenue neutral and unable to be sued by Microsoft.
Only Novell would have to pay Microsoft … because Novell charges $$$ for SLED. The trick is this … what percentage of the cost of SLED is represented by Samba? If we say (somewhat arbitraily I suppose) that Samba is 1% of SLED, the Novell would owe Microsoft .004% of each sale of SLED, I suppose. Not a biggie.
RedHat charge people for the service contract, not for the code (it is just that with redHat, you can’t buy one without the other). Canonical distribute Ubuntu for $0 with absolutely no strings attached. You can buy support from Canonical for Ubuntu, or from anyone else for that matter, but you don’t have to.
So certainly for Canonical, and also arguably for RedHat, they can distribute Samba and pay $0 to Microsoft per copy of Ubuntu. For this alone, it would be worth it for Canonical to donate the once-off 10,000 fee to the Samba project.
Not that the argument is relevant anyways, but Novell doesn’t charge for SLED/SLES any more than Red Hat charges for RHEL, they are both service driven models.
OK, fair enough. RHEL and SLED both charge for support contracts, not for software. “Samba code” is not part of “support services”, so the price of the product “Samba” in both RHEL and SLED is $0.
So, does anyone actually charge money for something wich includes Samba as part of the product that is being charged for?
Xandros? Linspire?
Anyone?
0.4% of exactly what, Microsoft?
Edited 2007-10-23 04:22
BTW, the 0.4% applies for access to Microsoft patents.
Microsoft networking protocol is not a Microsoft patent, it is a trade secret. The 0.4% does not apply to those trade secrets.
See here from the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/technology/22cnd-soft.html?_r=1&h…
The one-time fee is for access to the protocols, which Samba would utilise.
The 0.4% is for royalties for Microsoft patents beyond that, which Samba would code around and avoid, by using only information provided in the protocol specifications.
Even if Samba did accidentally use a method which turned out to be the same as a valid Microsoft patent (unlikely, but we must consider the possibility of being unlucky) … then Microsoft could collect 0.4% of the product revenue from Samba … which because Samba is non-commercial would come to … $0.
“Even if Samba did accidentally use a method which turned out to be the same as a valid Microsoft patent (unlikely, but we must consider the possibility of being unlucky) … then Microsoft could collect 0.4% of the product revenue from Samba … which because Samba is non-commercial would come to … $0.”
Software patents don’t exist in the EU.
Exactly my thinking agrouf, good old EU (i live in England) don’t have patents, so as far as i’m concerned it doesn’t affect us anyway.
SOFTWARE patents.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2327327.stm
But it’s anyway very important to note that software patents are void, because the FUD is affecting uninformed people who are not affected. If you are in the EU, you have nothing to fear from so called software patent violations.
Even if Samba did accidentally use a method which turned out to be the same as a valid Microsoft patent (unlikely, but we must consider the possibility of being unlucky) … then Microsoft could collect 0.4% of the product revenue from Samba … which because Samba is non-commercial would come to … $0.
Not if they sued a commercial distribution which does have revenue.
What exactly would Microsoft sue a commercial distribution for?
How does offering a support contract for Linux “infringe” in any way on any valid Microsoft “IP”?
BTW, no-one can sue anyone for deconstructing trade secrets.
BTW, Microsoft won’t sue over patents because the patent countersuit against Windows would result in mutually assured destruction.
Sorry MS PR wannabes, but this particular FUD is dead as a Dodo. You’ll just have to try to think of something else.
Microsoft ended three years of resistance on Monday[…]
The only reason they waited so long was Bill wanted to make sure there was enough money accrued in interest to also fund this year’s Bill and Melinda Gates Foundational grants…
–bornagainpenguin (wondering how much interest you’d get after three years…)
…when you can load the Standards Bodies with your ogenda?
Edited 2007-10-22 21:40