Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
| From: | press-AT-fsfeurope.org | |
| To: | press-release-AT-fsfeurope.org | |
| Subject: | [FSFE PR][EN] Commission to Microsoft: Preventing interoperability has a price | |
| Date: | Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:07:06 +0200 |
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/... 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 _______________________________________________ Press-release mailing list Press-release@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release
Posted Jul 12, 2006 18:31 UTC (Wed)
by flashydave (guest, #29267)
[Link] (7 responses)
Posted Jul 12, 2006 20:25 UTC (Wed)
by MarkVandenBorre (subscriber, #26071)
[Link] (6 responses)
The more I think about it, the less sense I see in a monetary fine for Microsoft. After all, as a monopoly, they can recoup the fine by raising the price of their products.
Posted Jul 12, 2006 20:40 UTC (Wed)
by flashydave (guest, #29267)
[Link] (3 responses)
What else could the EU realistically do? Banning sales isnt realistic.
btw MS share price dropped significantly (2%) so the marketplace thinks it must have an effect. Interestingly RedHat prices jumped temporarily today before dropping back. Coincidence?
Posted Jul 12, 2006 22:51 UTC (Wed)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link]
Looking at day to day price fluctuations in stock prices are pretty worthless. I could not have anything to do with Microsoft or REdhat. Could be something as stupid as 'Blah blah looser announces Tech stocks still over priced' scrolling along the bottom of a screen on some tv news channel.
There is a easy way to remember this when looking at stock prices..
It's like reading tea leaves or something.
Posted Jul 12, 2006 23:38 UTC (Wed)
by man_ls (guest, #15091)
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Posted Jul 13, 2006 15:17 UTC (Thu)
by dwheeler (guest, #1216)
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Posted Jul 13, 2006 8:13 UTC (Thu)
by ekj (guest, #1524)
[Link] (1 responses)
That doesn't work. It's not a one-time fine. It's a running fine. And the explicit purpose of the fine is to force changed behaviour.
Which means that if it's inadequate to acomplish this, it simply needs to be made an order of magnitude bigger, or more.
Besides, at some point you start facing contempt-charges. Following court-orders is not optional. Refuse to do so for long enough, and eventually "men with guns"(tm) show up and freeze your assets. Resist these, and they'll freeze you instead. (typically by putting you in jail)
It's a disgrace though, that we allow big companies with lots of lawyers to ignore court-orders for such a long time with so little consequence. If any of us had ignored a court-order for such a long time, we'd have had the men with the guns in our homes a long time ago.
Dunno about the EU, but in Norway, for example, it generally takes on the order of 2 months from final, unappealable court-order and until that order is physically enforced. Atleast that's how long it took from I won in small-claims court (over a non-working computer that the seller refused to fix) and until an officer of the state showed up by the seller and demanded that either he pay, or he'd simply walk away with whatever valuable items he could find in the shop and sell them to cover the expenses. (and any attempt at physically preventing this confiscation would be met with police-force)
Posted Jul 13, 2006 9:48 UTC (Thu)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
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Posted Jul 13, 2006 9:40 UTC (Thu)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (7 responses)
For example, this brought my inner parser to a screeching halt:
And there are typos:
Oh, and one last pick:
Posted Jul 13, 2006 11:58 UTC (Thu)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (1 responses)
> You probably meant 'cease to legitimise', and even then the sentence is I guess you meant "buying" ;-p Just kidding. Thanks for pointing out the mistakes, I'll pass them on. The PR process usually catches these things, but sometimes people are very busy, and sometimes the native English speakers are stuck in meetings etc. while deadlines are approaching.
Posted Jul 15, 2006 10:13 UTC (Sat)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
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Thus is the balance kept. :)
Posted Jul 13, 2006 16:04 UTC (Thu)
by man_ls (guest, #15091)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Jul 13, 2006 16:47 UTC (Thu)
by lysse (guest, #3190)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 13, 2006 17:03 UTC (Thu)
by man_ls (guest, #15091)
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Posted Jul 14, 2006 8:25 UTC (Fri)
by MortFurd (guest, #9389)
[Link] (1 responses)
I saw this this morning at a gas station that also sells snacks: Donut's (the only word on the sign, obviously meant to be the plural of Donut.)
This isn't an isolated example, either. It is very common to see this kind of thing. Note also: It not proper German to make the possesive form of a word with "apostrophe S."
Check out "Fools's Apostrophe" and some of the links there:
Posted Jul 15, 2006 10:17 UTC (Sat)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
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Posted Jul 15, 2006 9:31 UTC (Sat)
by dark (guest, #8483)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jul 15, 2006 10:18 UTC (Sat)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Assuming MS did eventually pay who gets the money?Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
Although I can guess the answer its a pity there isnt some mechanism whereby the funds could be made available to "victims". Even a small percentage of the fine would keep many worthwhile Open Source projects going for many a year!
The fine is supposed to go straight into the EU working budget.Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
Yes but they still have to comply. They couldnt stand increased fines indefinitely and the higher the price the more people will look at potential alternative solutions. GNU/Linux, at least, is becoming better known amongst computer literate people making IT decisions.Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
probably not. Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
"Stock prices have no relation to reality in any recognizable manner".
And, the fines are probably undermining their morale. It may be a subtle effect, but important nonetheless; witness the letter sent to employees. In it, they took care to say that they were trying to comply; after all, many people don't like working for a racket doing bad things to other people. And those who do like it are already working for the RIAA... nah, just joking ;)
Microsoft fines
There are alternatives to fines, though they won't happen. If Microsoft NEVER complied, and no fine seemed to work, there are seizable assets: Windows and Office. Just declare that the copyright to those products has been revoked, and that they and their successors are in the public domain. This is similar to having a property seizure if you don't pay fines. No, that will NEVER happen. And I don't know if the laws are written in a way to make it possible... but it's conceivable. Which suggests that MS will eventually comply with the law, at least enough to make some enforcer happy, or find a way to overturn the ruling.
Seize assets - Windows, Office
The more I think about it, the less sense I see in a monetary fine for Microsoft. After all, as a monopoly, they can recoup the fine by raising the price of their products.Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
The EU does *everything* more slowly than one would expect. It's not corporate bias: if anything it's bureaucratic bias.Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
Nice stuff, but a suggestion to the FSFE: run this sort of thing past a couple of native English speakers before publication.
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
"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,"
This says either that writing documentation is a hallmark of bad engineering or that failing to document your own software is a task that good developers do. (There's also a missing apostrophe, but native English speakers are now worse at apostrophisation than Europeans are, so I'll not harp on that ;) )
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.
Proofreading might not catch things like this (humans are notoriously good at missing such things), but it certainly might push up the probability of zapping them.
He concludes: "When will society refuse to legitimise such business
practices by buying from companies that exhibit such behaviour?"
You probably meant 'cease to legitimise', and even then the sentence is clumsy: it's ambiguous as to whether buyigng from companies constitutes refusal or not, and my first parse was that it would (oops, wrong).
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
> clumsy: it's ambiguous as to whether buyigng from companies constitutes
> refusal or not, and my first parse was that it would (oops, wrong).
There is no grammar flame that does not have a grammatical error.Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
(There's also a missing apostrophe, but native English speakers are now worse at apostrophisation than Europeans are, so I'll not harp on that ;)
What apostrophe? If you are referring to the one in "document its own software", no, it does not have an apostrophe. You are right that English speakers are bad at apostrophisation: after all, Greve is not English and he wrote it right :D
He probably meant the one missing from "Microsofts numbers".Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
Aww, you are right, sorry.
Missing apostrophe mystery solved
Don't bet on Europeans being any better with apostrophes.Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
http://www.deppenapostroph.de/
I've seen one piece of tourist-directed English shopfront signage in the Alsace area which possessivised English by adding `es'. For a moment I hoped they were putting up signs in early Middle English, but alas no. It wouldn't have been correct German in that instance either. :)Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
I really like the >From in that message. Just when you think the dark and scary days are over, mbox quoting rears its head again.Free Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
You can never escapeFree Software Foundation Europe on Microsoft fines
>From this nightmare.