"Microsoft was fined a record 899 million euros (USD 1.35 billion) by the European Commission on Wednesday for using high prices to discourage software competition in the latest sanction in their long-running battle. The executive arm of the European Union said the U.S. software group defied a 2004 order from Brussels to provide the information on reasonable terms. Microsoft has now been fined a total of 1.68 billion euros by the EU for abusing its 95 percent dominance of PC operating systems through Windows."
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Member since:2006-01-06
Look, if you're going to erect strawmen, at least pick out something orthogonal to attack that I've actually SAID, rather than pull something out of your rear. I never said the "OSS community is always wrong". This thread started with the proposition that the EU fine was unwarranted and unjustified; followed by a discussion of Samba's refusal to license MS technology. Try to catch up.
Color it any way you want. It still amounts to opposition to paying for the technology.
Except it really didn't work out that way. Samba, itself, may have dodged a patent bullet, but anybody who ships the resulting code (Red Hat, etc) is faced with that same patent litigation unless they accept the licensing terms. So, in reality, Samba is essentially playing chicken with Microsoft on the patent issue, and hoping that MS blinks.
We'll see about that if/when Red Hat et al try to ship the code. Then we'll see how they feel.
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:2005-07-24
You've claimed this before. But it is not true. (And I believe that you have been corrected before.) Samba did not dodge any patent bullets. The patents involved have to be listed publicly, now, and that list must be kept up to date by MS. Which seems like quite a reasonable requirement. But Samba must avoid infringing upon those patents, like everybody else. You seem to be trying to claim that the Samba team "pulled a Novell", which is quite disingenuous of you. But after reading a number of your other posts, that tactic does not surprise me.
Member since:2006-12-28
More ignorant drivel. As the CIFS/SMB protocol was a joint IBM/MS development, MS would either have shared patents on it or, more likely, none at all. Then only thing MS has done since then is to obfuscate the protocol, thereby making it hard to reverse engineer.
Even if they did have a patent pertaining to the SMB protocol, they could never sue as IBM's lawyers, also known as the Nazgul, would pick them apart like MS was going out of fashion.
Lumping all the documentation together and then claiming the EU commission is lying about it, based on how useful the Samba team has found the docs that they purchased is truly brain dead.
I'm not at all surprised the Samba team found the docs useful, as MS selling them at a reduced price is not only a great marketing tactic, it also provides MS with an example of the quality of their docs if the EU found them not in compliance. MS come out looking like the nice guys even though they sold nothing but the specs of a mutated open protocol to the Samba team. Nothing was stopping MS from overcharging for the rest of their shoddy docs.
Claiming the Samba team already had access to this information by pointing out the could read a load of uncommented source code, which they where not even allowed to compile to check and see if it does what it says on the tin, just goes to show you know less about software development than me.
Furthermore, to claim that you know better than the EU when it comes to the quality of the docs, without you ever having looked at them, does not only speak of an extremely inflated, and so far unjustified, ego but also that you need to go into rehab.
Member since:
2005-07-24
Not sure why I am bothering to reply to such an obvious Microsoft mouthpiece. You pretty much start out with the conclusion that the OSS community is always wrong and MS is always right, and then see what kind of a bridge you can build from that back to reality, using whatever out-of-context info you can cobble together, the appearance of actual discussion being a necessary illusion.
But as I recall, they were only against the royalties to the extent that those royalties blocked FOSS participation. Andrew did manage to negotiate a deal which is compatible with the openness necessary for FOSS to work, and the Samba project ponied up the money to make it possible for all to benefit. And I do credit MS for going a bit further than they absolutely had to in making that possible. Though it says something about the company that one should feel the need to credit them for demonstrating an ability to act with basic decency.
But I think you will find that the Samba guys have no complaints, today, about the money spent. At least Jeremy seems quite pleased with the arrangement.