Microsoft loses EU case

[Jimmyfj]

It has just been announced that Microsoft Corp. just lost their appeal in the court if EU - Read the ruling here:

http://curia.europa.eu/en/actu/communiques/cp07/aff/cp070063en.pdf

Sorry for my poor spelling :lolflag:

[LT1Caprice57L]

Got my hopes up for a minute, only to find that this is a revisit to the legal storm in '97 concerning Windows 98 bundling Internet Explorer 4.0.

I was hoping they would be getting their asses kicked for that trusted computing bull****.

[mali2297]

This is good news.

How badly does it hurt Microsoft though? Will they have to change their business model or will they continue as usual?

[curuxz]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO they finally lost.

It changes EVERYTHING, microsoft are now $$£^ in europe. They have to open up connection to their products, we could be seeing an opensource full outlook connector very soon, plus all their formats opened up, media player may get striped from windows and a £343m; $690m fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D


Greatest day for EU opensource EVER

[ssam]

more details
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6998272.stm

[Jimmyfj]

I don't think that this will change any of Microsoft's business policies nor their usual behavior - One can only hope that the community will open its eyes toward the way Microsoft tried to make their OOXML a standard. We can only hope that the ISO national bodies will look at this verdict and not adapt OOXML to a standard ever.

The other great news of today is that SCO is in serious trouble too - Ups, the ran out of money, poor thing :)

More information here: http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9778778-39.html?tag=tb

[floke]

We win.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6998272.stm

[mtron]

Yes ;) i like :)

i hope the next company wo gets sued by the EU commission is apple. What they do with their Ipods is not really different.

[LT1Caprice57L]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=552912

[KiwiNZ]

That decision is very poor. No one should consider that a victory.

[easyease]

#dances on bill gates grave#

[easyease]

this could put a spanner in the works of drm and the bbc player hehe.

[daverich]

this could put a spanner in the works of drm and the bbc player hehe.

yeah that was my first reaction. - open source BBC access.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

[misfitpierce]

nice

[curuxz]

That decision is very poor. No one should consider that a victory.



Why do you think there is a problem?

[buzzmandt]

agreed, please explain that this is not beneficial

[slira]

That decision is very poor. No one should consider that a victory.

ok, it could be something like "no machine in the EU uses W any more" or "inside UE institutions only freesource is allowed" etc. :lolflag:
but why do you think this is not a victory? :confused: partial, eventually minor, but still a victory, I think.

[plun]

Of course it is a Victory....:)

Groklaw woke up:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070917053717322

But maybe a 10 times bigger fine...

For Samba its really important with open server protocols... :)

[gn2]

Won't make any difference, MS openly flout the law as part of their business practises, as for the fine, that would be like me getting a parking ticket.

[eljoeb]

So... wait. They got a fine and have to have a monitoring trustee? Am I missing something? That doesn't seem especially earth shattering.

The Windows Media Player thing always confused me. I know Ubuntu comes with a media player, does that mean its not being competitive? Does Apple have a media player installed by default?

Besides, I don't think its the operating system that is at fault here. It ought to be a competitive product; its just not very good. It ought to be easy to compete against if it weren't for their business practices, which ought to be the target of the anti trust regulation. Which is, in a lot of ways, what this ruling targets (I guess... a fine is a fine). Trying to gimp the product to make it "more competitive" seem kind of inneffective, and a weird precedent for other businesses.

[Sunforge]

If the EU could guarantee that Microsoft had to open up its server products so that true interoperability was possible that would be a victory.

A common communication standard for AAA and file sharing that was adhered to by all parties would go a long way to making life a lot easier than it is now.

Simply fining them for being bad boys and leaving it at that is something that leaves Microsoft and the rest of the world with kludges and work arounds rather than a genuine and positive solution to a problem that has been around for far too long.

[FurryNemesis]

I'll just quote the relevant bit:

"The Court criticises, in particular, the obligation imposed on Microsoft to allow the monitoring trustee, independently of the Commission, access to its information, documents, premises and employees and also to the source code of its relevant products,"

With no nanny around to force compliance, especially on the source code issue, how long is it going to be before MS gets up to its old tricks again?

Kwins is right - I don't see that this verdict has any teeth. What we need is an independent monitoring body like the Competition Commission that has free rein to breathe down MS's back and can say, at the appropriate time, "No, we're not allowing you to do X because it's anticompetitive and against the ruling , stop it or we forcibly curtail that part of your business."

[dasunst3r]

Since the last time I've heard from the EU about Microsoft's anticompetitive practices, Microsoft has, at minimum, stuffed the ballots with respect to OOXML. Even if the bundling of media players is not that big of a deal now, I think that ballot stuffing is pretty admissible in this case.

Why would Ubuntu not be considered anti-competitive by bundling a media player? It's because the player is not made by Canonical and it is known that the user has a choice.

[saxuntu]

They have to make some of their code available to competitors huh? So does this mean they have to make it open or does Linus have to dial up Bill and ask for an email attachment?

Oh and congrats to all you Europeans for have an anti-trust system that works. We used to have one...I can't remember where we put it...I'll check the hamper.

[Depressed Man]

It was sold off to companies.

[ExSuSEusr]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070917113552.qopf87r0&show_article=1&cat=0

Interesting!! Does it me a bad bad person for feeling some joy from this news? \\:D/

[BoyOfDestiny]

If the EU could guarantee that Microsoft had to open up its server products so that true interoperability was possible that would be a victory.

A common communication standard for AAA and file sharing that was adhered to by all parties would go a long way to making life a lot easier than it is now.

Simply fining them for being bad boys and leaving it at that is something that leaves Microsoft and the rest of the world with kludges and work arounds rather than a genuine and positive solution to a problem that has been around for far too long.

There is a great interview on Groklaw, with relevant links

"Right after the Court of First Instance announced its verdict Monday upholding the EU Commission's finding that Microsoft abused its monopoly, our own Sean Daly did an interview with the following: Georg Greve of FSFE, Jeremy Allison and Volker Lendecke of Samba, and Carlo Piana, their lawyer of record in the case. It's a delight."

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070919214307459

Anyway, great read. The only downside is that MS will try make the licensing of protocols incompatible with Free Software.

I do like the bits of the interview with "(laughter)"

Don't really care about the flames at this point. MS doesn't like it, and the GPL won't let money "make the problem go away". That code is always going to be out there, and can be built upon. Read the interview for specifics :) (and laughs that go with it :lolflag:)