I wonder how that pans out

Story: Microsoft Concedes in European Antitrust CaseTotal Replies: 2
Author Content
Sander_Marechal

Oct 22, 2007
10:50 AM EST 		It's a victory for Europe, but I remain sceptic if it's really a victory for FOSS as well:

Quoted:
Under the agreement, software developers must now only pay a one-time fee of 10,000 euros, or $14,300, to gain access to Microsoft’s server protocols. Competitors that use Microsoft’s protocols in their own products will pay up 0.4 percent of sales to Microsoft.


I wonder how that will pan out. Can we pull a Spyglass on Microsoft here? Since we don't sell the software, there's no 0.4% to pay? That still leaves FOSS projects such as Samba the task of raising EUR 10.000,- for the protocol specs though.

Second wonder: if Samba raises the money for the specs, can we then simply use Samba as our reference implementation and avoid the EUR 10.000,- fee for other projects?
bigg

Oct 22, 2007
10:57 AM EST 		I wondered the same thing. If you have to purchase access, then this cannot be used in GPL'd software, even if you have the funds.

I don't fully understand the justification for the payments and royalties, either. If Microsoft was doing something wrong by not revealing that information, why are they allowed to charge for it?
tracyanne

Oct 22, 2007
12:15 PM EST 		At the moment the site appears to still have the pre EU ruling/agreement documentation on it, Plus, of course, huge amounts of spin about how Microsoft fosters innovation and support interopperability, so it's hard to tell what will be on offer.

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