I wonder how that pans out
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Sander_Marechal Oct 22, 2007 11:50 AM EDT |
It's a victory for Europe, but I remain sceptic if it's really a victory for FOSS as well:Quoting: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 11:57 AM EDT |
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 1:15 PM EDT |
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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