“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.”
I know that Microsoft says that it’s Open Protocol Announcement has nothing to do with the EU court pending decision (pending at that time anyway). But I bet it has had some influence, and to that end I applaud the EU for keeping the pressure on…..something the US failed to do.
Edited 2008-02-27 19:04 UTC
That fine is crazy. I’d like to know where the EU came up with such a high figure.
They dont come up with the figure from thin air you know, just the same way a judge comes up with a figure for you to pay something. From what I’ve seen it’s based on a percentage of what you earn or gross.
Microsoft earn alot of money so the fine will be big to you and me, if a smaller company did the same thing it wouldn’t be the same figure because they profit less.
Edited 2008-02-27 19:12 UTC
Yeah its almost like RIAA wants you to pay a million and a half per album you pirated.
The air? Someone’s ass?
But does it really matter? Nothing that the EU has done has been reasonable or effective. Look at the whole Windows Media Player debacle. The EU forced MS to provide a version of Windows without WMP — and no one wanted it! Now, it’s perched to do the same thing with Internet Explorer, on behalf of Opera.
So, really, what’s happening here besides a bunch of Eurocrats getting fat at MS’s expense?
do you actually know what the EU does?
Yes, the fine is big, BUT microsoft would not have those kind of sums in the bank had it not denied the competition
The reason no-one wanted the non media player version was it was the same price as the version WITH (in the uk at least)
Yeah, they generate voluminous amounts of paper, hot air, and fines.
That is debatable. We don’t know the impact of the lack of interop documentation on the marketplace. Samba is a perfect example of an excellent product that has succeeded in spite of no docs.
Perhaps, in some peoples’ fantasy world, everyone should pay for a media player. Or a web browser. Or notepad. Or paint. Or solitaire. Or other least-common-denominator software that just about everyone uses. But that isn’t reality. Practically nobody buys commercial versions of basic apps when there are perfectly good free choices on the market (WinAmp, FireFox, Flash, etc). So, really, those apps don’t (and shouldn’t) affect the price of Windows.
It has nothing to do with creating a lucrative market for basic apps. It’s about allowing software to compete on the platform. If you delete RealPlayer, it’s gone. If you delete Windows Media Player, it respawns itself before your eyes, and when you run it, you get an advertisement of your choice from among a handful of Windows Media download services offering files that require Windows Media Player on Windows to keep playing. The de facto installed position of that software allows Microsoft to create dependence before customers are aware of lock-in or alternatives. The EU sees that tactic as abusive. I tend to agree.
They already have that freedom. Third parties are free to negotiate with OEMs such as Dell and Gateway and IBM to include their software. Google does it. So do other companies.
That’s nonsense. Nobody is “dependent” on or “locked-in” to the Microsoft apps (Media Player, IE, etc). There are plenty of free alternatives. FireFox is eating IE’s lunch in the EU — perhaps somebody should email a clue to Kroes — despite this so-called “lock-in”.
That was easy: a lot of guys working on Samba came from Microsoft and left because Microsoft wanted more compatibility with older software, the developers didn’t like it and joined (or started?) Samba. So specs where not needed.
I don’t know which reality you live in that this occurred.
I’m sure Andrew Tridgell and Jeremy Allison appreciated the help of all these programmers when they were reverse engineering the protocol by looking at the bytes going over the wire (that was sarcasm, by the way, in case you didn’t realize). Oh wait, they didn’t get any help.
If you want to spout bullshit like you just did, you better be able to back it up with trustworthy links stating what you just said. Which you won’t be able to.
Not to mention that Microsoft developers who did this would be sued into the ground for divulging trade secrets.
In summary, you’re a f–king dumbass sack of shit, and you’re talking out of your ass.
Well, while I don’t recall any former MS guys who worked on Samba… I do recall an interview with either Jeremy or Andrew some years ago in which they said that earlier on, certain factions within Microsoft had been friendly, helpful, and cooperative, and excited about the prospect of SMB running well on other OSes. Which dovetails with statements made recently by Jeremy about how it is hoped that the agreement which got them the CIFS documentation might signal a return to normalcy for Samba<->MS relations.
Just like fines from the judge, pay them and you do it again, it’s not like the EU can imprison all the CEO’s and people responsible. If you had a court bindded by the rules of law what would you do?
But that’s the issue: The EU isn’t bound by any laws. It can make them up as it goes along, and it has a kangaroo court to approve them.
What law have they made up, Microsoft should think themselves lucky since they got broken up during the Clinton era. It’s a good job Clinton didn’t have another term because from those video interviews I seen Bill Gates was sweating.
The difference in the WMP case and in this case, is that in the WMP case, Microsoft was force to offer to version of Windows for the same price and with one version beeing inferior to the other one. While in this case Microsoft is asked to release documentation about Windows API and protocols, for a reasonable price.
How much is Media Player worth? IE? Notepad? Paint? Solitaire? Quite frankly, if you say anything but $0, I’m going to be very surprised, because there are tons of free alternatives on the market that have necessarily reduced the value of Media Player to $0.
According to MS, “hundreds of Microsoft employees and contractors have worked for more than 30,000 hours to create over 12,000 pages of detailed technical documents that are available for license today.” The EU claims that the documentation wasn’t sufficient, but isn’t required to provide independent analysis by anyone outside their payroll. Quite frankly, given the amount of money at stake here, I’d question the EU’s objectivity on this issue. I say let ISVs tell us whether the docs are sufficient or not, not some hired flack from the EU.
Actually there are external adjudicators from the industry that have been appointed to judge the quality of the documentation.
Ok Mr Tomcat, explain why someone would pay EXACTLY the same amount of cash for two systems, one with all the “goodies” missing ?
Change the prices and then we will see.
Because, as I’ve pointed out on this thread, a Media Player isn’t worth more than $0, when there are numerous free alternatives on the market (ie. WinAmp, etc).
Maybe so, but there is a huge sway of people who think for things to run properly on Windows, they need to say “Windows” in front of the name, and better yet, if it says “Microsoft”.
Does many free alternatives to MS Windows (ie. Linux, Open/Free/Net BSD, OpenSolaris, …) make MS Windows worth nothing ?
The DG Competition can ask 5% of the daily turnover for each day of non-compliance. Microsoft had to be compliant within 90 days after the Court of First Instance decided they did need to comply.
What they did is count the number of non-compliant days multiply with the daily fines, and subtract the non-compliance fine from 2006.
Back in 2006 the DG Competition did not fine the full 5% (if I remember well 3%) and warned the remaining money would be fined if Big M would still be incompliant. Apparantly this is what happened today (plus the full 5% daily fines after the 2006 fine).
It should be noted that Microsoft now is being considered compliant (the new terms allowed Samba to buy the documentation), but apparently they didn’t get forgiveness for the non-compliant period since the previous fines in 2006.
Easy.
The calculation is made on the period in which Microsoft broke the law and is a percentage variable between 3.5 and 11.4 depending on the gravity of the illecit income made in consequence of the felony.
Funny fact.
If the morons at Microsoft had just paied in first place instead in dragging the discussion for years (hoping the EU will starve on the way) they would have to pay less due to a shorter period of infringement.
Well written Law are such a bitch
Microsoft did pay the fine in the beginning before making the appeal.
Probably the same formulars used by the USA when someone sues a fastfood chain becuase the hot coffee that they ordered was… wait for it… hot!
Edited 2008-02-28 16:48 UTC
I hope they use all this money to start a campaign to promote alternative operating systems…
It’s unlikely that’s gonna happen though…
Promote? I think most of the people actually interested in using an alternative operating system could give a damn about a 1.5 bn promotion.
When you force something down someones throat, they tend to demand it be worth it.
When you do things like improve the product, they vote with their feet.
It is not in the interest of anyone in the EU to promote an alternative operating system.
That was not what the whole case was about.
I know people on this site is generally very anti-microsoft, but let me tell you that alot of people, me included, find this disturbing. It doesn’t look like EU is doing it for the case anymore, but rather to get money. It’s like they are looking for excuses to get more money from Microsoft, and at the same time safeguarding their own political career as the people that fought evil Microsoft/got shitloads of money to the Union.
I was always Pro the European Union, but now I am really getting second thoughts if that was a wise decision. On an individual national level Microsoft products ARE being reconsidered, and free/open source products are used instead, but that is no thanks to the EU…they are just milking the cow for all the money they can get out of it.
Edited 2008-02-27 19:16 UTC
I agree with you, it seems like they just want to beat up the big American company. We’ll see what happens.
You’re not making sense man. The EU cannot do anything else but fine M.$. Would you be happy if they just didn’t do anything? It’s not like they can come to M.$ and put the company behind bars for breaking the law. Sheesh get a grip on reality.
The figure btw. is like the cost of matchbox for you really. M.$ earns it back so fast it’s hilarious. Multiply by 100 and then we can talk about impact.
Edited 2008-02-27 19:21 UTC
You didn’t read his post very well did you?
He’s not saying they should punish them in a different way.
I did, and he’s basically just saying he disagrees with the fine. So I’m just saying that the EU has no other way but to fine M.$. They cannot do anything else short of ignoring a law-breaker.
He’s suggesting that the EU is watching for any little excuse to take money from Microsoft. That they aren’t really looking out for the people of the EU, but that it looks good to beat up a big American company and get more money for the EU.
They broke the law, they got ordered. They didn’t comply they got fined. What’s there the EU can “choose” ? You didn’t read the article did you? They DO NOT HAVE a choice in this. It’s the law. They had a choice originally, weather to order them to comply and open interoperability possibilities. They chose so and gave M.$ some time. They didn’t comply so they get fined.
It’s not like there’s a fat guy at the EC which simply pushes a “fine M.$” button.
The error here is “broke the law.”
A criminal case would be devastating to Microsoft. There would be standards applied to evidence and testimony to ensure they were accurate and correct, and there would be protection against double jeopardy. A conviction in a criminal case would be on the level of the Enron trials, with the company virtually shutting down and jail time for dozens of people. All these repeated “fines” have been levied in civil cases, which use much lower standards and can be repeated at will.
And when a large, multigovernmental organization feels powerful enough to start demanding “compliance”…
Which EU law did they break then? As far as I know each EU country has individual laws and any attempt to create a common law has been a failure. Sure there are rulings and decisions (not sure what the english word is) made by the EU, but that also means that EU can change these as they see fit…including to such an extent that it gives them billions of dollars. I have yet to see which specific law that are broken and how that applies to the member countries because everytime I hear about this case in debates like this its only “they broke the law” and thats it. The media does, however, not seem to use the word “law” as much in this case. They rather say “ruling”. I find that kinda interesting.
You talk about this as it was a criminal case, which it is not obviously. That would really cause a scandal.
just my 2c…
Edited 2008-02-27 19:49 UTC
You’re right they didn’t break a particular EU law per-se, but they are a monopoly by EU standards, and EU law governs “stuff” about monopolies. It gives certain rights to certain institutions to make sure the economy is kept healthy. These institutions empowered by law, found M.$ to be lacking and ordered them to change. They didn’t and got fined for non-compliance.
Edited 2008-02-27 20:07 UTC
While each member country has indeed their indiviual laws, there are quite some common laws, mainly related to commerce and transportation.
One thing that can be easily misunderstood is that this common laws are inacted by creating or changing national laws, i.e. when there is sufficient agreement for a new common set of rules, each member nation is required to include these rules in their own legal frameworks within a certain time.
Depending on the country’s already existing laws there might not be any change at all (rules already covered), some changes to existing laws required (some rules not yet or only partially covered) or new bills introduced.
So even if the rules are then covered by different laws in different countries, they are still valid in all of them, effectively making them common law.
In my language we have a expression which translates to something like: “the goat watching the bag of grain”, and is used for situations where an entity is responsible for watching over an item where the entity has self-interests (you know…because the goat would eat the grain). I believe that the expression applies to this situation where the EU is watching over Microsoft’s moneybag, and have interests in using their money for their own purposes like funding galileo or their administration (as suggested before).
I am still skeptical about EU’s motives in all of this regardless if its the big evil Microsoft (yeah that was kinda sarcastic although I am not personally using microsoft products anymore).
Actually they do have other options.
During the hearing at the European Court of 1st instance a so-called “think tank” produced a list of options the EC has available according to the EU treaty.
For example the commission could impose a ban on competing for governmental contracts using Microsoft products.
Since this is a huge market (Administration offices, schools, etc) this would be far worse from Micrsoft’s point of view than any fine.
I think that would be political suicide for the EU. Too many countries (and organizations/businesses within them) are way to reliant on Microsoft products.
Do the EU really have that power? And if they do, is it anything but symbolical?
Actually, that figure represents about 2% of Microsoft’s yearly income.
Let’s see:
0.02 x 365 days is about one week. I wouldn’t call that a long time. It’s more comparable to a 1000$ fine for an ordinary person which is actually quite adequate if they repeatedly break the law and don’t give a damn about it.
Indeed. Supersized corps require supersized fines to even get their attention. As you demonstrate, that number, which sounds huge to those of us who file our yearly 1040EZ forms, is really just a very reasonable and life-sized fine relative to the entity being fined. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that a certain amount of leniency has been shown.
The good news is that, despite my fears to the contrary, we actually have started seeing some improvements in their behavior as a result of the legal interventions of the last 10 years. But it is hardly time to let up. There is still so far to go.
True, and if the EU really wanted to hurt MS they would of charged a real billion and not an american billion. That would have put real pressure on MS’s wallet
…umm, they charged them with 1.37 billion USD. If they can look at that fine without breaking a sweat, then I doubt the extra 101 million Euros would have mattered much. Balmer probably causes that amount of damage with office furniture every week.
Try looking up what a billion is in the US and then see what it is in most of the rest of the world that can count. We’re not just talking about differences in currency value 😉 ok
Edit: Comment removed because not accurate.
Edited 2008-02-27 19:47 UTC
The EU is definitely NOT against US-based companies.
If you look at the list of companies that get fined, you will find that MOST of them are EU-based.
And about the height of the fine: None of the EU-based companies were stupid enough to go to the stage where they get slapped with daily fines, nor was any of the companies as big as Microsoft. Both factors are rising the fine.
The rules are simple: Don’t act in a way that makes the market dysfunctional. If you do, you get fined. The fines are steep enough to make bad behaviour be a slow way towards bankrupcy, so misbehavior does not make economical sense.
Microsoft obviously thought they could do with the EU commission what they did in USA, but alas, they were wrong.
Had the fines been less high, Microsoft would just have continued their behaviour, because the loss by compliance would have been more than the loss by fines.
What happens with the fines?
The fines go into the EU budget, paying for subventions, the administrative costs and GALILEO.
Sorry, but that is the worst argument I have ever heard for why this is a good thing. EU is perhaps the organization with the most bureaucracy in the world unless beaten by UN or something. Bureaucracy equals a insane moneydrain for redundant operations. Same goes for the Galileo project. We already have GPS through _our closest allied_ (that would be the US), that works (where galileo does not, and is costing the taxpayers more money than its worth). Sorry, but funding galileo is beating a dead horse what I am concerned. Once again redundancy. I will not even get started on where EU spends it money on subventions as that would take the debate into a whole other dimension.
That the EU spend the money on administration by itself _should_ alert most people. The same people who get their salaries and fat bonuses from making such rulings get their check from, you guessed it, the people the rule against. This opens for a whole new level of corruption.
I am actually kind of glad I wrote this comment because I have myself never thought of it this way before.
The EU bureaucracy is a big myth. The Europian Union is one the most efficient administrations in the EU, compared to national and local administrations. Compared to the work produced, the EU has a reasonably low amount of people employed and burns little money.
Yes, all the translation etc. costs money. Yes, the moves from Strasbourg to Brussel cost money. However, these are part of what the EU stands for. Even with these costs, the EU bureaucracy burns far less money than most member states governments.
Edited 2008-02-27 21:20 UTC
What? Do you know how many people work for the EU? 23,000. Compare that to the 43,000 civil servants working for the city of Paris (inner city only, 2 millions inhabitants).
As for Gallileo (of which the EU is funding only one third), the EU is promoting international competition and the development of high tech companies and research. You can always argue that cooperation would be economicaly more sound, that may be true in the short term but in the long one? We all know where monopoles lead.
Somebody has to support the EU’s welfare state….why not Microsoft?
fixed
0.9B Euro is a drop in a EU budget. It’s also removed from the pool that EU members have to contribute, it doesn’t increase spending.
Except that there is no EU welfare state. Most of its member countries are “welfare states” (open market with social security) but not all as this is a matter that its members decide for themselves and of course those aren’t paid by eu fonds.
I would imagine that the Microsoft has some good friends in the current BUsh administration who could probably be convinced that this fine is excessive. That could lead to some sort of trade dispute in which the US puts a big levy on imported goods from the EU.
That game can be played both ways and the U.S economy while strong isn’t going to be the winner in the end.
Yeah, we have all seen how good the US economy is these days…
Edited 2008-02-27 19:22 UTC
Well, I am not saying anything about the Economic power of the EU vs the US but note this:
Taking goods and services together, the EU and the USA account for the largest bilateral trade relationship in the world. The significant amount of bilateral trade and investment illustrates a high degree of interdependence of the two economies.
This was taken from an EU website. http://www.eurunion.org/profile/facts.htm
clearly a trade dispute is not in either the US or EU’s benefits.
Yes, it’s not viable for any side to do any kind of economic damage to the other. Who would end up “less poor” in the end is questionable.
You do of course understand that the US market is minuscule in comparison to the EU, the worlds biggest market ?
If the US decided to go for a trade embargo, they would be doing more than shooting themselves in the foot, they would put the US further back into bankruptcy than it is at this minute.
That would be great, except you are comparing a single country to almost an entire continent.
Until the EU becomes a single country, your statement is PHAIL.
Something new to learn everyday.
Until now I thought that the USA were actually a union of states, covering almost an entire continent (North America).
Must be Canada then.
The U.S. Civil War was properly known as the War of Secession. The outcome was the loss of States’ rights. A state may no longer secede, making it nothing more than a jurisdiction rather than a fully independent state ( state as in Nation ) which had a membership in a the Union of American States ( a.k.a. The United States of America ).
The Civil War had NOTHING to do with slavery. Slaves were originally only “freed” in the states which had seceded so that those states would lose their work-force and home-turf defense. The freeing was technically not legal, merely a proclamation by the U.S. president that slaves defecting from the seceding states would be welcomed to the North as freed men, causing the famous “Underground Railroad.” At the end of the Civil War the abolition of slavery was actually issued in order to alleviate the risk of the few Northern slaves acting in revolt.
The seceding states, mind you, had legal rights to succession in many cases ( others had terms to their membership ), especially Texas. In fact, Texas, to this day, remains ultimately legally capable of seceding and is basically considered a Nation State. One evidence of this is flag height. A State must fly its flag below the U.S. flag’s height. It is ILLEGAL to fly ANY State’s flag at or above the same height of the U.S. flag, except for the Republic of Texas, whose legal entity name in U.S. law is Texas or “State of Texas” or “State of the Texas Republic.” ( not certain if the last entity name/title is still considered for new document/law usage )
So, basically, the U.S.’s experiment failed with the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution. It became a singular nation of States and Territory’s and soon began to expand beyond the borders of the seas, doing so by taking advantage of every possible opportunity to expand. The last two states were added in 1959. Alaska was purchased from Russia. Hawaii’s royal family was taken out of power and they originally became a U.S. occupied land, then U.S. ally, then a territory, then a state.
Just check out how many “nations” the U.S. either is occupying, allied with, or calls a territory. These are merely the various stages a land must traverse for the U.S. to “quietly” assimilate them into the matrix.
U.S. history classes all have sections describing “Imperial America,” but they always speak of it in the past tense, and few are able to recognize that current events are tomorrow’s history. Even though they know it, they don’t understand what it really means because they were trained in schools to not form connections, or else they will be called “nuts” or “conspiracy theorists.”
<psycho rant>
End result: One crappy nation ruled by special interests with governmental officials having almost no clue as to their job description because they cannot connect the past to the present either.
</psycho rant>
Hmm, well just a little history lesson 🙂
–The loon
raver31
Member since:
2005-07-06
You do of course understand that the US market is minuscule in comparison to the EU, the worlds biggest market ?
—————————
What kind of rot are you talking about?
2007 GDP for US was 12.57 trillion, the EU 16.6 trillion.
Last I checked, 12.57 vs 16.6 is not minuscule unless you decided to single handedly change the definition of the word.
Sources:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/brazil-becomes-worlds-biggest…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union
Yeah, but us trillions are like EU billions
While I’m often critical of my home country, and strongly support the EC in taking the action which we in the US have failed to take, I do believe in sticking to reality when making criticisms of the US. The US GDP is 40% higher than that of the EU-15.
http://tinyurl.com/2maaj8
That said, neither the US nor the EU can afford a trade war. And US citizens like their SUVs too much to consider risking our precarious economic standing over this issue.
EU-15?
I am counting 27
http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/index_en.htm
Hmmm, I think my original link was talking about the 40% higher *per capita* GDP for the US, which is not really what we are talking about. (Though it does have some bearing on the comment that someone made about the US ecomony being in bad shape.)
Perhaps this is a better comparison:
http://tinyurl.com/y2pn7u
Looks like overall the EU-27 is ahead by a nose. (5.5% in 2007.) The original assertion, to which I was responding, claimed that the US economy was “miniscule” compared to the might of the EU’s economy.
Whilst I don’t think the US would be stupid enough to try that sort of stunt with Europe, I’ll add a +1 to your post as it seems someone is modding people down again incorrectly.
Dave
The EU is not the least bit afraid of the USA anymore. The EU is far stronger economically and the US would be hurt far more.
“far stronger” my ass. the eu is more populous but the usa is richer. both economies are of comparable size. and i really don’t think that the us-government is unhappy about the decision of the eu.
This is not an EU vs USA issue. This is EU vs Microsoft. You guys love trying to make everything issues either with the entire USA or with Bush…lame.
Makes no sense, if they’re prices are set too high then that provides an easy niche for a competitor to fill; low cost alternative.
The high prices apply to the protocol documentation. And by high prices, they mean an initial price of 3% of revenue, which was lowered to 2% and then 1% and now sits at 0.4%, which was finally acceptable.
I think it is hard to compete with Microsoft, but I don’t think it’s because of anti-trust or anything like that. Microsoft is a big company with a bunch of smart people, and the ability to hire more smart people as needed. If you want to go head-to-head against this juggernaut, then you’ll need to hire a set of smart people as well. Perhaps the EU should start forbidding Microsoft from hiring people from Europe and instead force them to work for one of the ECIS companies.
The EU is a god-send, and it’s nice seeing a government with cajones taking on repeat corporate offenders — or at least repeat corporate offenders on the other team.
Oh, really. Do tell about their “successes” in the industry so far. Because, as far as I’ve seen, they haven’t accomplished anything other than levy fines.
You’re obviously biased. I don’t know if you’re some person from EU who’s just angry coz he had to pay a tax which wasn’t there before, or a foreigner who just doesn’t like the EU, but you’re quite obviously biased.
The EU has done a lot of good and a lot of bad pretty much as any other comparable “entity”, but it sure isn’t just puffing hot air. See eg: software patents etc. (yes, I know the corps themselves were against it in the end)
Stop trying to shoot the messenger. What are the EU’s successes?
For example the car manufacturers no longer tell their dealers to not serve customers of neighboring country after Volkswagen and Opel (General Motors) were fined several tens of millions Euro for such misbehavior.
This signal, i.e. that it is no longer acceptable to create artifical borders, has also been understood by other industries.
I’m referring to the computer industry. What, exactly, have the EU’s successes been, other than fining MS?
Isn’t that enough? They are tackling the single biggest problem in the industry today, and in the process, doing the US DOJ’s job for it, since it is apparently unwilling to live up to its responsibilities to the American people.
And as an American citizen, I thank Europe for their dilligence.
No, it’s not enough. It hasn’t been the LEAST effective. The EU has already gone after MS in trying to remove WMP from Windows and, for all of that effort, the industry IGNORED the so-called remedy.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1740580115
“The European Commission won an appeals court challenge from Microsoft on Monday, but its 2004 antitrust decision has done little to change the competitive landscape for media players in Europe.”
Now, it’s gone after MS to produce interop docs, MS responded, and the EU says it’s not good enough. So, what has the EU accomplished other than spouting good intentions and levying fines? Samba clearly doesn’t need the EU’s help to provide interoperability. It’s not clear whether any of this will yield ANYTHING. My bet is that it’s an utter waste of time.
Funny you should mention Samba. Because the Samba team clearly felt that it was worth going to a lot of effort to negotiate a deal to get that documentation. The deal having been negotiated via the expenditure of much effort by Andrew Tridgell himself. Do you really think that they would have been able to do so without the EC’s actions? In that case, Microsoft clearly demonstrated that they see the handwriting on the wall by going a bit beyond the absolute requirements of the settlement to facilitate FOSS projects. (Good on Microsoft for that!) But it would never have happened without pressure from Europe. The whole “make your product available without media player bundled” was well intentioned, but misguided and ineffective. Chalk it up to inexperience in dealing with Microsoft. However, insisting upon proper documentation, and plotting of the patent landmines is very much not.
Why are you so disturbed by the idea of vitally important protocols, upon which (for better or worse) the world economy depends, being properly documented?
Edited 2008-02-28 19:56 UTC
Samba doesn’t need the docs to make their basic code work. LANMan/File/print services already work fine, as is. What they’re wanting now are the protocols which will allow them the REPLACE ActiveDirectory servers (and their upstream replication servers) so that Samba can nibble further on Microsoft’s corporate lunch. This is about EXTENDING open source reach into the enterprise, not on fixing what’s already there.
Yes, they certainly could have. Microsoft already has programs in place (ie. Shared Source license) to allow customers to view its source code. The sticking points were that Samba didn’t want to pay up, and they wanted to be indemnified from patent infringement. They lost the first battle (had to pay $10K which, frankly, is chicken feed in the larger scheme of things) and won the second; although, anybody (but Novell) who uses Samba (ie. Red Hat, etc) is subject to possible patent litigation, according to MS.
I disagree. What we have here is a difference of opinion on technology licensing. FOSS proponents have a bug up their rears about NOT paying for technology that they want. Right or wrong, MS deserves to be compensated for its IP, in the form of license fees. As long as FOSS proponents take the position that they won’t pay for access to IP, they’ll be forced to reverse-engineer.
Yeah, and we’re seeing the EU gear up to do the same thing on behalf of Opera. Do not be surprised when the EU orders MS to produce a version of Windows without IE. It’s going to happen and, frankly, nobody will want it. Just another repeat of the same ridiculous process. The only ones who will benefit are the lawyers and the bureaucrats.
I don’t have a problem with documentation. What I have a problem with are bureaucracies run amok, without any kind of constraints. The whole thing strikes me as rather fascist. The EU is both prosecutor and judge over Microsoft. They can not only assert that Microsoft isn’t complying, but they can judge them, and then fine them, as well. The courts are little more than rubber-stamp mechanisms. Many of you seem to relish the fact that it’s MS on the hotseat, but I’m more concerned about the EU becoming the overbearing elephant in the middle of the room; incurring billions of dollars in fines from companies and yielding little or no practical value. Watch the Opera antitrust suit. It’s going to be very telling.
Edited 2008-02-29 01:10 UTC
And you make that distinction for what reason? I take it that you have a problem with there being competetition in that area, and believe that Microsoft should be able to leverage its extant desktop monopoly to gain another monopoly in a server market?
You know very well that the look but don’t touch Shared Source of which you speak is no different from any other proprietary license and as completely incompatible with OSS licensing as any other proprietary software.
No. FOSS proponents want a free exchange of information, and for users to be able to exercise some control over their own IT infrastructure. FOSS devs *give* *give* give* everyday, and have been doing so for many years. What we have is you trying to play the “FOSS guys are freeloaders game”. It’s quite stale, passé, worn out, and wrong.
Really? After all your protestations?
And that strikes me as activating a corrolary of Godwin’s law. Didn’t they counsel you against that back in shill school? 😉
Edited 2008-02-29 02:15 UTC
To point out that documentation hasn’t been an impediment for Samba in creating interoperable software.
We’re talking about different things. I’m talking about the interoperability information that is [inherently] present in the code. You’re talking about OSS projects incorporating the source code, itself. It’s not necessary for OSS projects to incorporate the source code in order to derive technical information from it.
You’re certainly NOT “giving, giving, giving” anything to the people that you’re expecting to give you technical information, namely Microsoft. And you most certainly DO expect to freeload it.
Read on.
I didn’t invoke the Nazis.
According to Neelie Kroes, EU competition commissioner: “Microsoft is the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an anti-trust decision … Talk is cheap; flouting the rules is expensive so let’s wait and find the reality in this context. If you flout the rules you will be caught and it will cost you dear.”
Put like that, I don’t think the EU had much choice. Clearly, they’ve seen Microsoft’s non-compliance as a direct challenge to their authority. And if you or I can expect to be busted for 101 minor infringements like parking restrictions, why on earth should a huge corporation not be held to account in the same way? The rule of law means nothing if we are not all treated equally, and in this case the process has taken place in open courts and after a lot of appeals.
That said, I don’t think Microsoft’s new love for all things FOSS, announced a couple of days ago, means anything much. Microsoft only has two main methods, the bulldozer and the python. In this case the bulldozer – ignoring the law, riding roughshod over regulation and hurling cash in all directions – has failed. The bulldozer has been reluctantly retired with a 1.3 billion dollar hole in its engine block.
So now it’s time for the python, Microsoft’s traditional embrace and extend manoeuvre. I think they are only interested in FOSS on the basis of trying to hook FOSS software so closely into Windows that it won’t work as well or even at all without it. This will happen slowly, with plenty of bait for developers, but the ideal scenario is that in, say, five years, the user of Apache/KDE/OpenOffice or name your proggie will find more functionality available to him/her on ‘doze than on Linux, Solaris et al. Once that’s happened, of course, you the developer are p0wned by Microsoft: they can kill you off or keep you or bleed you white, as they choose.
So the competition still gets frozen out at the OS level – same way, different method. The intended result? Protecting monopoly pricing of the Windows OS family
It’s still war out there. At least the EU Commissioner seems keenly aware of the nature of the beast.
It’s amazing how many people take statements like Kroes’s at face value without questioning any of the assertions that she’s making. How about questioning authority? You know, that elusive objective thought thing? Here’s a good start. The EU hired some guy to wade through the documentation provided by Microsoft, and render an opinion on its suitability for implementation. Quite predictably, the guy found the documentation to be inadequate, the Commission goes to court on the strength of this guy’s opinion, and — imagine — the Court agreed to sanction Microsoft. Microsoft, on the other hand, provided its own experts who — again, predictably — felt that the documentation was adequate and timely.
I’m not sure who to believe here, nor do any of us. Face it: The EU has a rather large conflict of interests. It has big bureaucracy to feed, and it would like nothing further than to keep levying fines against its favorite cash cow, Microsoft. Without seeing objective evidence, I can’t conclude simply on the strength of Kroes’s paid flack that Microsoft hasn’t complied. Nor am I willing to just accept Microsoft’s account, either.
What I think is needed here is someone objective (like the ISVs who license the documentation — and I’m not just talking about Microsoft antagonists like Real or Google or similar parties — to weigh in on whether the documentation suits their needs. I think that would answer the question and provide a foil to possible corruption at the EU.
In case you are referring to the monitor trustee, Professor Neil Barrett, he was selected from a list of experts Microsoft themselves suggested as being capable for the job.
Of course we could make up a conspiracy theory about an EU mole inside Microsoft putting a “trojan horse” on the list.
Sure, but Microsoft didn’t know that Barrett was in clandestine contact with its competitors. Microsoft discovered these contacts and called Barrett a “co-prosecutor”, which was actually pretty accurate. Because the EU admitted that it’s given Barrett broad powers to “monitor Microsoft”. Which means, in other words, that he isn’t an independent agent performing a limited function as an expert witness. He’s a member of the prosecutor’s office. The EU stacked the deck against MS (no surprise there), and anyone with half a clue can see that he isn’t an objective source of information.
Total rubbish.
Firstly, the amount the EU fined MS is tiny compared to the EU commission’s budget, never mind the rest of the EU.
Secondly, repeatedly saying the EU has a large bureaucracy does not actually make it true. The EU has a very small and extremely efficient bureaucracy, as anybody who has done even limited studies of the EU can tell you.
Thirdly, the EU has found many other, mostly European, companies in violation of it’s anti competitive laws and has levied pretty high fines on them as well. To somehow imply that MS is the EU’s whipping boy is absurd.
If your gonna try and argue that MS does not deserve these fines, you should at least read up on what your talking about first. Maybe that way people like me will not feel the need to correct your obviously biased and misinformed rants.
So what. $1.3B pays the salaries of a lot of bureaucrats.
False. The EU employs 40,000 employees. If you consider that to be a “very small and extremely efficient bureaucracy”, you’re smoking crack.
No, it’s not absurd. The extent of fines and regulation against MS is unprecedented.
Read the news. Even Kroes admits that they’re breaking new ground here in going after MS.
40’000 people is not a lot considering it’s a multi national entity, now is it? Hell, MS alone employs 79’000 people.
The EU employs less people than the British government, one of it’s own member states. It also employs less people than the US federal government, so I repeat, just because you keep stating your misinformed opinions as fact does not actually make em true.
As for these bureaucrats supposedly greasing their own back pockets, let me tell you a little something about how the EU works. These people are not for sale, as the fact that MS was unable to buy it’s way out of this court case attests, unlike what happened across the pond.
If you seriously think that the MS somehow deserves to be let of for so blatantly ignoring the EU anti competitive rulings, then you my friend are the one smoking crack.
the us federal government employs about 1,8 million people.
in comparision, the the eu commision is really tiny.
sure, they do much less. but they certainly are a lean form of government.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this subject. I happen to believe that 40K bureaucrats are a LOT of bureaucrats. And, comparing with other bloated European socialist bureaucracies doesn’t lessen the number.
Hilarious. So you believe that the U.S. Supreme Court was paid off by Microsoft to let them off the hook? So, where do you get your drugs?
I never said that MS deserves to be let off. MS should comply with the order. What I would like to see, however, is a truly independent review of the protocol documentation, not some hired flack for the EU who works hand-in-glove with Microsoft’s rivals.
Sure, and the US is a picture of bureaucratic efficiency. I don’t see what your obvious anti socialist biased has to do with MS getting fined, but then in my experience, libertarians generally don’t think all that straight.
Oh please [rolls eyes], be gentle with my bruised ego! It’s a well known fact that MS made substantial financial contributions to Dubia’s election campaigns, in exchange for political pressure being put on the US supreme court, effectively buying themselves a ‘get out of fines free’ card. To claim otherwise, you’d have to quite obviously be high :-p.
I find that statement very hard to believe. Mudslinging I’d be more willing to consider if it came from an obviously non biased source.
Straw man. I don’t care about comparisons between the US and European bureaucracies. Neither has any appeal to me.
The actions of the EU bureaucracy haven’t yielded ANY practical benefits to the computer industry. They’ve simply sucked $$$ from the private sector into the public sector.
If it’s indeed a “well known fact”, then you won’t mind actually providing a verifiable reference.
Given that you believe that tripe conspiracy theory about the U.S. Supreme Court, you’re going to have to work harder to feign disbelief.
I don’t see why you’d oppose a truly independent review of the protocols. What are you worried about? Worried that your sacred cows in the EU might have played you for a sap?
Edited 2008-02-29 08:46 UTC
They most certainly have. Documentation bought by the Samba team is already being used to great effect. I will also happily enter into any reasonable wager that the outcome of forcing MS to open up their specs will lead to major repercussions in the private sector. It’s plain to see that only after MS had any serious competition in a market did they decided to improve their offerings, i.e. IE in case you haven’t noticed. Forcing these robber barrens to play fair is the only way we will ever get a level playing field, something somebody with anti socialist sentiments surely would approve of.
How about the sum of $9 million to both US parties since 1999? http://www.campaignmoney.com/microsoft.asp
Mind you, those figures are only what the company contributed. There is also a list of personal contributions further down the page.
As for getting of lightly due to government involvement, first link provided by Google did the trick there. Here is an interesting excerpt.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/business/28WIRE-SOFT.html
Remember, Google is your friend.
I don’t and never said I do. I just find it hard to believe anything you say, that’s all. Straw man indeed.
First, if Samba has been able to make good use of the documentation, then clearly the EU and its agent (Barrett) were full of CRAP when they claimed that the docs were useless; and therefore, the fine was unwarranted. Second, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere on this thread, Samba has ALWAYS had the option of getting the technical information that it needs by participating in Microsoft’s Shared Source License program for customers. It enables customers to get view-access to Microsoft source code. Samba didn’t want to pay for access. Even with the EU on its side, Samba had to pay $10K for the docs. So, from a practical standpoint, the EU didn’t do anything that wasn’t already available through normal market conditions.
I wasn’t referring to campaign contributions. I was was referring to the SO-CALLED influence that you cited on the U.S. Supreme Court. You claimed that the Supreme Court was influenced by campaign contributions to the Bush Administration. I realize that you’re in Europe and, therefore, may not be familiar with the way that our government and court system are organized. But the U.S. Supreme Court is wholly independent of the Bush Administration and Congress. Members of the USSC are appointed by various presidential administrations — both liberal and conservative — for a life term. They don’t need campaign money and they don’t need to run for public office. And, given that you have ZERO evidence that they were improperly influenced to side with Microsoft, the point goes to me. Quite frankly, given how badly Microsoft was antagonized by Judge Jackson during the federal circuit court trial, I’m surprised that you would even try to suggest that campaign money influenced the outcome of the case in the courts. It just doesn’t follow reality.
Finally, we can agree on something meaningful.
And yet, somehow, you convinced yourself that the U.S. Supreme Court decision was improperly influenced by campaign contributions. You might want to reexamine your thought processes. You’re not thinking clearly.
Firstly, your claims that the Samba team somehow wants access to MS proprietary technology for free just shows how ignorants you actually are of the whole situation. Active Directory is nothing more than MS’s patented EEE tactics as it’s a direct rip off of the free and open LDAP specification. Wanting one LDAP implementation to be able to interact with another without having to reverse engineer the latter is the whole idea of open standards in the first place. If you can’t understand that, then you need to go back to school.
Secondly, if you don’t have either the want nor the intelligence to put two and two together when it comes to the Bush administration’s blatant abuse of it’s powers to influence appeal courts, then I’m not at all surprised that you lot let yourselves be had twice in a row. If you really think that any US court is immune from the current presidential administration then not only are you extremely naive, you also need to put down the crack pipe and step away from the keyboard.
It’s hilarious how you completely IGNORED the point about Samba making use of the docs proving that the EU was full of CRAP. Face it: Your sacred cows are lying.
The Samba team was indeed adamantly opposed to paying Microsoft for its technology.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39186884,00.htm
“The co-founder of Samba, the open source file and print server software, is due to contact the European Commission (EC) in the next couple of weeks to lobby for changes to Microsoft’s proposed server interoperability licence. Speaking to ZDNet UK this week, Samba co-creator Jeremy Allison launched a damning attack on the proposed licence, calling the fees that would be demanded under it “monstrous”.”
Whatever. It’s technology that Samba didn’t have and, therefore, it has fundamental value, regardless of your lame characterizations.
Look, I’m not asking for much. I’m simply asking for PROOF. If you can’t or won’t supply it, then just admit it, I’ll take the point, and we can move on. Because “feeeeeeeeeelings” or “intuitionnnnnnnnns” aren’t going to cut it. Provide proof, or STFU.
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.
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.
And here I was, reading about how MS is against software patents and what a scourge it is. I guess they’re only against others having software patents.
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.
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.
The EU ruling on the docs usefulness has very little to do with what you ‘feeel’ or ‘thiiink’ is right.
If MS feels they don’t need to comply, then they get fined. MS agreed with the appointment of the expert to look over the docs. To back track now is a bit late.
I’m not opposed to an independent review of the documentation, but for it to be done at this late date is absurd. No other court or government would give you or I the chance to back track and start again, especially after having been dragged kicking and screaming into compliance.
Why should the EU do that for MS? Are they some special case in that they are allowed to flaunt the trade laws of any country they feel like, whenever they feel like it?
As for proof, it really is no secret. It was all over the news. Take, for instance, the following link.
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2002/11/01.13.shtml
The following excerpt is again very interesting.
If you still don’t want to see what is staring you in the face then I can’t help you. What was that about STFU?
The agreement for the appointment of an expert was limited to precisely that: looking over the docs. But the EU has basically made the guy a co-prosecutor, which is hardly an independent review.
I disagree. The lame review of the documentation is the basis for the imposition of the $1.3B fine.
First, I’m against Microsoft fighting the EU at every turn. MS should realize that it’s up against a bunch of pigheaded bureaucrats and do whatever it takes to come into compliance. Second, since Samba admittedly has made great use of the interop docs, then clearly the docs weren’t as lame as they were claimed to be by the so-called “expert”. So, perhaps as a matter of fairness, an independent review is warranted.
Let me remind you of what you said:
“It’s a well known fact that MS made substantial financial contributions to Dubia’s election campaigns, in exchange for political pressure being put on the US supreme court, effectively buying themselves a ‘get out of fines free’ card.”
Donations to the Bush administration don’t amount to “political pressure being put on the US supreme court”. Face it: You have ZERO proof that any pressure was applied to the U.S. Supreme Court. All you have are lame-ass speculations.
The article says that the EU opened up a new investigation that resolves around Microsoft Office and the difficulty for documents from rival systems to interoperate with Word and other Office products.
I don’t know if it has changed recently, but last time I bought a PC, I had the choice of whether I wanted MS Office or Word Perfect with the computer. So, what exactly is the problem? I understand that MS opening their document formats is desirable, but is them not doing so somehow illegal?
Wow, $1.3bil….whatever will Microsoft do to pay all that money? </end sarcasm>
I’m glad the EU steps up where the US gov’t bends over and spreads eagle for any lobbyist (like the punk little b*tches they are), but in the grand scheme of things…..so what? So MS is being fined for monopolistic practices. Yeah….and? That’s like suddenly realizing the US shouldn’t put military bases in other countries….”Wait a minute! That’s not right!”
The other question I had, and I think another poster said it prior to me, but I’ll re-voice the question. Where is all that money going to go? What is it going to do? If I were in the EU, I’d vote to divy up the cash up to FOSS developers to keep fostering alternatives. The EU doesn’t need the money, the Euro is pimp-slapping the dollar on a daily basis.
Of course they need the money. You can’t continue to grow an already bloated bureaucracy without more coin from foreign corporations…
Not only do we have a lot of people knowledgable in the workings of BSD in this forum, we also have a lot of EU competition law experts around here ! I didn’t know that
Rather than simply fine MS the EU should consider moves which actually hurt. Making the use of fully open protocols mandatory for all EU official usage would be far more effective in countering the MS monopoly than mminimal (relative to Microsoft’s capitalisation) fines.
f–k the EU and all Eurotrash.
Considering your obvious intense lack of education (EU welfare state… priceless, I’m still laughing), maybe you shouldn’t jump to conclusions.