FSFE: "Microsoft seeking to bypass decisions of European Court"
"My local shop has a rule that they don't serve women. This is not discriminatory because the same rule applies to both males and females equally." Software giant Microsoft seems to behave similar to the shop owner after a decision of European Court.
Spring last year, EU Commissioner Mario Monti imposed a penalty of nearly 500 million Euro on Microsoft, as well as some additional conditions. One of those conditions are the publication of so called software interfaces.
Software interfaces determine how computers communicate with each other to exchange information. This information is important for several Free Software projects. One of these is SAMBA, which connects the UNIX and GNU/Linux world with Microsoft's operating system and works against the monopoly that Microsoft has established on the operating system market. Without access to the software interface information, SAMBA will have a hard time keeping up.
Microsoft appealed against this decision in front of European Court of Justice and asked to suspend the decision until the proceeding has come to a final decision in possibly four years. European Court refused this suspension December last year. Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) supported the European Commission throughout this procedure. Officially Microsoft says it wants to cooperate with the Commission and to comply with the conditions.
Microsoft has published an agreement which allows Free Software projects like SAMBA to use the software interface information, but bans it from publishing the software as Free Software.
"That is not even complying with the wording of European Court's decision - not to mention its spirit!" Stefano Maffulli, Italian Chancellor of FSFE says. Microsoft requests a "Per User Royalty" from Free Software projects: "Obviously, while paying royalties is not impossible in principle as una-tantum, with Free Software nobody knows exactly how many copies use a certain program are circulating, as Free Software is allowed to be copied as often as necessary, freely.", Maffulli says.
FSFE Lawyer Carlo Piana adds: "It seems that Microsoft has misunderstood the actual meaning of the decision. I cannot enter into details, but it has offered a license as though it would have to license its software, while all which is demanded is to release certain information as to the 'language spoken' by its applications."
This is the same kind of information that any software company is entitled to acquire and use by reverse engineering, to produce an independent product or buy buying a license to standards like POSIX.
Piana adds: "Moreover, the license offered only applies to the European Economic Area (but it is governed by the laws -- and put under the jurisdiction -- of the USA.) Not to say about the agreement requested for evaluating the licensed software, which is incredibly burdensome and only allows inspection for total 48 hours. According to Microsoft testimony, the inspected documentation would pile up 'tens of thousand pages', you can do the math! It took more than four hours to me just to study the contracts... And those who have inspected the information loose the possibility to work on the development of similar products for one year. We cannot even start a discussion on this basis."
"We have communicated our concerns to the Commission and we are full of confidence that Brussels will bear them in mind: for European consumers it is a must that SAMBA and any other Free Software developer is allowed to publish Free Software on the basis of the given interface information. Secondly nothing else than a single payment is acceptable to us. And thirdly we have to take care that Microsoft does not try to protect its monopoly with software patents on these interface informations. It is really difficult to follow all the dodges they do", Maffulli says, "but FSFE will be awake to avoid Microsoft making paper tigers out of decisions of the European Court!"
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.
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