EU Gives Microsoft 8 Days Until Fines

kaysan writes "European Commissioner Neelie Kroes has presented Microsoft with an ultimatum: Before Thursday next week, Microsoft must hand over all secret information on Windows protocols to its competition. Should the company choose to ignore this demand, it will be severely fined. Microsoft's history with EU fines so far amounts to approximately Euro777.5 million. Both linked websites are Dutch, but then again, so is EU commissioner Neelie Kroes."

English article

[Aphax]

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,194 8086,00.html [guardian.co.uk]

Why the Dutch?

[spellraiser]

A simple Google News [google.com] search turns up a whole lot of items on this story in English.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[chill]

Microsoft is not a monopoly...

They are in the United States. They were legally convicted of being such in a court of law.

All else stems from that -- the rules are different for a monopoly.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Rogerborg]

> Microsoft is not a monopoly

Oh, beg to differ. Microsoft is a convicted monopoly abuser [bbc.co.uk]. And down comes your pretty house of cards.

Re:Ridiculous.

[KiltedKnight]

Remember: they bought the software, Microsoft didn't bash down their doors screaming "YOU WILL BUY OUR SOFTWARE!!".

That's not entirely true. Microsoft did make the deals with the PC OEMs to include a Windows license with their computers. Once upon a time, you actually had to purchase the PC operating system separately. Once Microsoft made these deals, OEMs were forced to install Windows on the machines. Based on recent experiences, the OEMs are not allowed, contractually, to sell the computers without Windows installed.

So they didn't exactly bash down the consumers' doors and force them to buy their software. They forced the PC OEMs to force it on them.

And you are correct with some of the xenophobia. Basically, the EU nations do not want to be purely beholden for this type of thing to a US-based company.

Translation and Original Story

[smooc]

quick translation:

New Ultimatum for Microsoft bu the EU

LONDON - The Eurpean Union has issues a new ultimatum against the American software giant Microsoft: before next Thursday the company has to turn over all (bdb: information about the) secret protocols in its Windows-OS to its competitors.

If Microsoft does not comply with the demands, the company risks more fines, threatened EC Neelie Kroes in Wednesday's edition of the British newspaper the Guardian. "I do not live forever" Kroes said about the tightened pressure.

Accoriding to her Microsoft has not given all relevant information yet. She compared it to a puzzle from which certain pieces are missing.

In March 2004 the European Commission already fined Microsoft by an amount of 497 million euros in alledged abuse of market power. In July an additional fine was set which can go up to 280,5 million euros.

original story in the guardian: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1947759,00 .html [guardian.co.uk]

Re:What exactly is microsoft being asked to give u

[jimicus]

CIFS, for a start.

Don't get me wrong, the Samba project's done a fantastic job of reverse engineering SMB, but they're miles behind domain management - you can't run an Active Directory domain with a Samba backend, the best it supports is an NT 4 domain.

Work is afoot to support AD domain management, but realistically the release of something like that would probably give it a huge boost.

That may be why MS aren't too keen to release anything...

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have to be, but it is the State that creates these secrets, not the company. Without ridiculous laws against reverse-engineering, and ridiculous patent laws, anyone would be able to dissassemble any file format and then write software to use that format. Your State prevents you from doing this and entering the market, hence prices go up and service goes down, dig?

That is NOT true in this context. I quote http://scientific.thomson.com/free/ipmatters/sbm/8 180036/ [thomson.com] (yes it's a bit dated, but it shows the EU Comission's standpoint on reverse engineering, and i couldn't find a better source now in a hurry):

Further, the Commission was anxious not to extend its patent proposals into the field of copyright, which protects computer programs as 'literary works'. The Commission states that it wants to preserve and ensure the continuation of the copyright provisions whereby software developers are free to reverse engineer another's program without infringing copyright.

So somehow your libertarian logic is not entirely correct in this case; For some reason I fail to see software written using e.g. the Skype-protocol...

Re:Ridiculous.

[DragonWriter]

While I am like most of Slashdot in that I think that Microsoft has a very tight grip on the computer market, I still will never understand why the EU is so against Microsoft.

The EU is so against Microsoft because Microsoft is so against obeying the law in the EU.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[abigor]

"Without ridiculous laws against reverse-engineering, and ridiculous patent laws, anyone would be able to dissassemble any file format and then write software to use that format. Your State prevents you from doing this and entering the market, hence prices go up and service goes down, dig?"

Reverse engineering of file formats is legal. It is a very difficult process, particularly for highly complex binary file formats like Word and so forth. The reason why .doc compatibility sucks has nothing to do with "the State". Please stop trying to wedge everything into your paranoid political mold.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[lawpoop]

"Network protocols are easy to monitor and reverse engineer with the right equipment. Why can't people reverse engineer the interfaces and duplicate them in their own software? Oh yeah, the State says it is illegal."

This is false. It is legal to reverse engineer software and network protocols. It is also legal to duplicate them in your own software. This is what the samba project, the wine project, amongst many others, are based on.

Re:What exactly is microsoft being asked to give u

[raddan]

SMB/CIFS, MAPI, Microsoft DNS, RPC over HTTP, Office APIs, and so on... The list is here [microsoft.com].

Re:Newflash! MS to pay up!

[SEMW]

Uh, no. This is a legal fine. MS can't pay a fine to a court with vouchers for their software any more than you can pay a parking fine with a book of coupons.

I don't get it, who does this help?-Reading links.

[Anonymous Coward]

`(f) REVERSE ENGINEERING- (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.

Re:Wonder what they'll tell us this time

[Keeper]

They never said that. They said they had documented everything, and if that still isn't sufficient you can license our code. The EU said that code wasn't sufficient documentation.