It's worse than that
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| glynmoody Jan 27, 2006 8:29 AM EDT |
As far as I can tell struggling through the legalese, the licensing explicitly forbids precisely the kind of use that open source projects would want to make of this code. Since things like Samba are the only real competition that Microsoft is worried about, this makes its offer worthless in the real world. |
| tadelste Jan 27, 2006 9:45 AM EDT |
I just wonder if the EC will consult a vendor to see what it would take to get people interested in working with the code. If the commissioners don't know the practicalities of administering a program, it's going to fall into a bureaucratical toilet. |
| number6x Jan 27, 2006 10:10 AM EDT |
The EC could counter offer. Instead of a $2M a day fine, why don't they order MS set aside $1M a day for a business month, say $20M total, and pay a consulting firm to turn the source code into the documentation the EC have ordered MS to produce. Give the consulting firm a reasonable time, say 6 months, to document the interfaces, and test that the interfaces behave in the described manner. If the task takes longer havethe EC consider making MS pony up more cash. MS can have an NDA with the consulting firm so their precious source code never gets free. The third parties can have the documentation on implementing interfaces that they need, with no strings attached. MS also gets their own software de-bugged and tested, so the money to the consulting firm is not a total loss If MS doesn't agree then the EC can change the fine to $4M a day doubling it each month that goes by without compliance by Microsoft. This will get the results that the EC has ordered, keep third party software writers from being 'tainted' by MS code, and (if MS complies) keep the potential fines MS might have to pay way down. A win-win-win situation that would promote competition! Unless any of those parties is against fair competition and innovation :) |
| hkwint Jan 30, 2006 3:45 AM EDT |
You people missed something (26 jan): http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,124515,pg,1,RS... Quoting:"It would be premature to conclude access to the source code would resolve the problem of the lack of compliance with our decision," Jonathan Todd, spokesperson for European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes... I have also scanned the license, and as far as I can tell, its gonna cost a lot of money. |
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