[Upd-discuss] FSF Europe: MS Paying for Blocking Interoperability

[Seth Johnson]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] Commission to Microsoft: Preventing
interoperabilityhas a price
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:07:06 +0200
From: press@fsfeurope.org
To: press-release@fsfeurope.org


Commission to Microsoft: Preventing interoperability has a price

FSFE welcomes the decision by the European Commission.

"Microsoft is still as far from allowing competition as it was on
the day of the original Commission ruling in 2004. All proposals
made by Microsoft were deliberately exclusive of Samba, the major
remaining competitor. In that light, the fines do not seem to
come early, and they do not seem high," comments Carlo Piana,
Milano based lawyer of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)
regarding the decision of the European Commission to fine
Microsoft 1.5 million Euro per day retroactively from 16.
December 2005, totalling 280.5 million Euro. Should Microsoft not
come into compliance until the end of July 2006, the daily fines
could be doubled.

These fines are a reaction to Microsofts continued lack of
compliance with the European Commission decision to make
interoperability information available to competitors as a
necessary precondition to allow fair competition. FSFE has
supported the European Commission from the start of the suit in
2001.

Having made similar statements during the hearing, Microsoft
commented to the press last week [1] that 300 engineers are
currently working "day and night" to fulfill the request of the
public authorities.

"If we are to believe Microsofts numbers, it appears that 120.000
person days are not enough to document its own software. This is
a task that good software developers do during the development of
software, and a hallmark of bad engineering," comments Georg
Greve, president of the FSFE. "For users, this should be a shock:
Microsoft apparently does not know the software that controls 95%
of all desktop computers on this planet. Imagine General Motors
releasing a press statement to the extent that even though they
had 300 of their best engineers work on this for two years, they
cannot provide specifications for the cars they built."

Many companies run a mixed network of Windows, GNU/Linux, Unix
and other operating systems (OS). The Windows products understand
each other, and all the other operating systems can talk to each
other. It is the connection between the two worlds that was
deliberatly obfuscated a few years ago by Microsoft, and that the
Samba project is working on.

During the main hearing at the European Court of Justice toward
the end of April, the president and founder of Samba Dr. Andrew
Tridgell presented the work of the Samba Team work. Among other
things, he demonstrated a box for roughly 100 EUR. If Microsoft
did not hide its interoperability information, that box would
already be capable of administrating hundreds of users. A small
100 EUR box could do the same task that is currently done by an
entire PC for 1.000,- EUR.

"Dr. Tridgell demonstrated easily what kind of innovation is
locked out of the market by Microsofts refusal to interoperate
with other vendors. In this case, the price of that refusal are
domain controllers that are ten times more expensive than
necessary, and the price is paid by everyone: private businesses,
public authorities and society as a whole," Georg Greve
summarises.

He concludes: "When will society refuse to legitimise such
business practices by buying from companies that exhibit such
behaviour?"

[1]
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/07/04/216779/Microsoft+working+%e2%80%9cday+and+night%e2%80%9d+to+meet+EC+deadline.htm 

About the Free Software Foundation Europe:

   The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a charitable   
non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free   
Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may   
participate in a digital society. Therefore the Freedoms to
use,    copy, modify and redistribute software - as described in
the Free    Software definition- allow equal participation in the
information    age. Creating awareness for these issues, securing
Free Software    politically and legally, and giving people
Freedom by supporting    development of Free Software are central
issues of the FSFE.  The    FSFE was founded in 2001 as the
European sister organisation of the    Free Software Foundation
in the United States.

   Further information: http://fsfeurope.org 
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