[Jifyicyfuhpop]

Originally posted by Drogue
That may be. However in a case of this magnitude there would be experts, both technical and economists, to argue about the effect of the fees on competition. The "experts" who testified against Microsoft were Apple, Sun, etc. I'm sure they are completely honest in their demands that result in their #1 competitor being handcuffed and fined.

Moreover, the court found in one way. Going against that is risky. MS gambled that the higher court would go against it, and thus didn't change until a while after. They upheld it, and MS was hit with a huge penalty for non-compliance. They were fined for non-compliance during a period in which the ruling's validity was unknown. You do not see the problem here?

[movlabs]

Perhaps Drogue has a better understanding of EU law than you do?

Nahh...

[Sertvfdnhgjk]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Perhaps Drogue has a better understanding of EU law than you do?

Nahh... I don't see the point of appeals if companies need to act before the appeals are heard. You don't execute someone before you hear their appeals.

[abouthotels]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Asher, your understanding of the law is clearly very minimal to be making all of your extreme claims (eg ruling is fixed, no one on the court understands the technology involved but makes a ruling anyway, MS should not have to follow a ruling until all appeals exhausted, etc). I don't see why it's extreme for a company to wait for drastic business changes to be made only after the courts agree with the absurd commission ruling.

I also think it's clear no one in the courts understand technologies if they make the claim that competitors need cheap access to MS patents to make "media players" and other software.

[EvaQWmrm]

Originally posted by Drogue

You realise it's common practice, if someone rules against you, to abide by the ruling until it's overturned? You don't get out of jail for a crime while you're appealing it. The rulings validity was known: a ruling is valid 100% until it is overturned.


The commission is a court, in the sense that it is allowed to make legal rulings. MS didn't action until it lost final appeal. It had already been ruled upon. The problem is it's not a simple case of going to jail for the duration.

When you demand MS give things to others, you can't take it back afterwards. Giving internal secrets out on the initial ruling, then having the appeals court say you didn't have to do that, what good is that?

[bitymnmictada]

Originally posted by Asher
The problem is it's not a simple case of going to jail for the duration.

When you demand MS give things to others, you can't take it back afterwards. Giving internal secrets out on the initial ruling, then having the appeals court say you didn't have to do that, what good is that? Originally posted by Asher
Either way the decision is final -- divulsion of "trade secrets" and execution, no? Internal secrets? I thought you said the patents wouldn't impact competition? Moreover, it's not about divulging trade secrets, it's about doing it for less money. Some people already had those patents, hence the information was already spread, at least somewhat. All this says is they should do it cheaper. There's no divulging where there was none before, just divulging to more people at a cheaper cost.

[escolubtessen]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Perhaps Drogue has a better understanding of EU law than you do?

Nahh... He may have the understanding of EU Law, but this isn't about some generic EU law.

It's about a highly specific ruling by a bureaucratic commission related to highly technical software products.

I don't think he has a greater understanding of what the ruling actually means.

[kabelshik]

Originally posted by Asher

He may have the understanding of EU Law, but this isn't about some generic EU law.

It's about a highly specific ruling by a bureaucratic commission related to highly technical software products.

I don't think he has a greater understanding of what the ruling actually means. Actually I don't have much of a knowledge of EU law. I did however study the economics of competition, and even the Microsoft case specifically. Microsoft were squashing competition in the applications market.

I admit I don't have the technical knowledge to know myself on the specifics of whether that information could increase competition, but neither do you - you don't know what the application competitors wanted to do with it, or how it related to their proposed products, even if you do have the technical knowledge of what the information was and how it related to Windows.

[Pwy9egVW]

What the competitors pointed out was that Microsoft did possess knowledge of their operating system that they did not know -- because they developed it. This information is largely "trade-secret" implementation details, such as how the OS scheduler works. It should have no bearing at all on the implementation of the applications that run on top of the OS -- the whole purpose of the OS is to abstract the technical and provide interfaces for programs to work on top of that. The courts don't seem to realize how irrelevant this information is to actual development, but in theory the lawyers argued "if MS knows it and others don't, that's an advantage! ANTICOMPETITON!" and this whole shitstorm started. You made an awful lot of this paragraph up. How do you know the argument is largely trade secrets and that lawyers somehow duped the court into demanding completely irrelevant information about the OS?

[sasaderesada]

Originally posted by Asher
Because the last time I checked the documents they requested were internal OS design documentation.


What did they ask for if it's relevant, Wiggy?

I am also completely in the dark as to what, exactly is impossible for developers to make for Windows without this mysterious hidden "secret sauce".

Which is a surprisingly stunning omission since it's apparently the whole reason behind the EU action. Read the 2004 decision then. On pg 6 it is established that 8 years ago Sun sued Microsoft for "reserving to itself information that certain software products for network computing, work group server OS's, need to interoperability fully with MS PC's. This information is necessary to compete viably as a work group server OS system supplier." http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition...s/37792/en.pdf

If you don't even know why Sun initiated the complaint then you have no business making your ridiculous charges. Other complaints were added over the last 5 years or so.

[SawbasyWrab]

Asher, read the tech forum please.

[annouhMus]

Originally posted by Asher

In 2002 Microsoft released the specs publicly for XP filesharing support. IIRC it was a modified Samba system called CIFS

In Vista, SMB2 replaced it. Microsoft has provided the detailed specs needed for interoperability, including giving it to the open-source Samba group.

Again, I don't see anything right now that is impossible to do for developers. And they're being fined $1.35B for their efforts. I like how in the decision (p208) there's a quote from microsoft executives discussing how they want to lock Oracle and Sun out with some "new protocols" using their server control.

Read pp50-85 of the decision for a complete summary of the initial complaint, MS's response, and why their response is inadequate. There's all sorts of little points in here, like how MS refused to supply dll's to Novell for NDS for NT and rendered their software inoperable on Windows 2000. It mentions the inadequacies of the samba group on p83. My understanding of those pages is that Microsoft used its market position to screw Novell, Sun, and others. The remaining portions of the 300 page decision seem to focus on WMP.

But you cannot just launch tirades at poly posters and expect it to matter. Would be more useful if you addressed the court, since they published a pretty substantial ruling here.

[ppfpooghn]

Given that none of us - yourself included - are experts on this matter, nor have any of us excluding Wiglaf read the ruling, that's not a valid argument. The burden of proof is on yourself at the moment, Asher...

[BoattyGonm]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Given that none of us - yourself included - are experts on this matter, nor have any of us excluding Wiglaf read the ruling, that's not a valid argument. The burden of proof is on yourself at the moment, Asher... Not really. All of the evidence in all of the articles indicate MS has already supplied all necessary information, eg:

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/finan...eek+exclusives

Microsoft immediately said the issues for which it was fined have been resolved and the company was making its products more open.

So why would the burden of proof be on me when I'm the one maintaining developers have all of the information they need?

The fine is what's absurd here. The EU complained about the licensing fee issue in March last year. MS went back and forth with them for quite a bit until they settled in October on new rates that the EU was happy with.

Yet the fee was massive that even pre-dates the EU Complaint from March. Does not compute.

[Rategbee]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
I just know enough that your allegations that this is some sort of fixed trial or political witchhunt by judges who do not know how to operate a mouse is beyond retarded. If you think there's nothing political about this, you are naive.

And it's not a witchhunt BY judges, it's a witchhunt BY Microsoft competitors which have clear motivation.

Caught in the crossfire are the judges and EU Commission. Which are not exactly software engineers...The EU Commission -- which is the one doing all of the fining and demands -- are basically a generic legislative body. It's no different than having the US Congress make technical demands, with people like Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens.

This is not far out there. Politicians and judges are not software engineers or computer scientists, they're just people who listen to other people ***** then draft legislation to shut them up.

[fluistulkn]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Right, I think the main complaint is the interoperability requirements of the 2004 decision that went ignored. Until last week, when they apparently woke up and realized they were going to get fined for it. You're confusing issues yet again.

The announcement last week has nothing to do with this, it's independent of any anti-trust actions of legislations. The fact that the fine is only up to and including October 21st in particular should've tipped you off on that, comrade.

[WaicurtaitfuT]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Probably wanted to avoid getting the book thrown at them. Didn't work

Also, you're claiming there is political motivation here. What is it? I doubt these companies can exert more power on the commission or the judiciary than Microsoft can. I'm right here, you are wrong Many of the plaintiffs are European companies (eg, SuSE) or companies with massive corporate presence in Europe that MS doesn't (Sun, IBM).