It was on Friday 14 July 2006 12:14 am, that Roy Schestowitz apparently said:
> __/ [ William Poaster ] on Thursday 13 July 2006 13:40 \__
>
>> It was on Thursday 13 July 2006 6:58 am, that Roy Schestowitz apparently
>> said:
>>
>>> __/ [ Mark Kent ] on Wednesday 12 July 2006 22:10 \__
>>>
>>>> begin oe_protect.scr
>>>> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>>> __/ [ Linonut ] on Wednesday 12 July 2006 12:17 \__
>>>>>
>>>>>> After takin' a swig o' grog, nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx belched out
>>>>>> this bit o' wisdom:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> IP/04/382). That Decision found that Microsoft had abused its dominant
>>>>>>> position under Article 82 EC, and required Microsoft to disclose
>>>>>>> complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow
>>>>>>> non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with
>>>>>>> Windows PCs and servers. Today's Decision, adopted under Article
>>>>>>> 24(2) of Regulation 1/2003, finds that Microsoft has not fulfilled
>>>>>>> this obligation. Should Microsoft continue to fail to comply, the
>>>>>>> Decision also increases the amount of the daily penalty payment to
>>>>>>> which Microsoft could be subject to euro3 million per day.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Like, how will they collect?
>>>>>
>>>>> No software coupons, please. No purses with lipstick, either. I am more
>>>>> curious about how the money is returned, divided, distributed, and/or
>>>>> invested (among industry, as well as EU nations). Maybe they should use
>>>>> the money to <sarcasm>sponsor some counter-Microsoft Munchkins
>>>>> or</sarcasm> compensate companies that were affected. But how???
>>>>> Additionally, without eventual compliance, it's a toothless tiger
>>>>> penalty.
>>>>
>>>> It sends an important signal to MS and everyone else, I think, but as
>>>> you say, the key thing is actually getting the hard cash from MS. You
>>>> can't redistribute the cash, it must go into EU coffers - anything else
>>>> would look too much like corruption, be that the intention on not.
>>>>
>>>> Were I the commissioner, I would simply continue to increase the daily
>>>> fine, perhaps 1million per day every week, until MS decided that it be
>>>> too expensive, and chose to comply with the requirement instead. I do
>>>> harbour the suspicion that without employing the samba team, MS will
>>>> find it very difficult to comply, as I suspect that they lack the
>>>> technical capability.
>>>
>>> If the priority is to get them to comply (which it is!), don't even
>>> increase it linearly. First month - 3m per day; second month: 6m per day;
>>> third month: 12m; forth: 24m...
>>>
>>> At some stage, given enough time, they will comply or file for bankruptcy
>>> (or simply retract all business from the EU).
>>
>> Would the EU not be able to seize assets in lieu of unpaid fines?
>
> What assets? It's all about code. Apart from headquarters around the world,
> the company has got nothing but intellect, which it claims is its property.
> It often seems as though Microsoft employs an army of lawyers and marketeers
> rather than good coders.
That's true, *&* they'd sooner employ astrotufers, & offer thousands of $$$ for
info leading to the arrest of virus writers. All that, in fact *anything*, but
actually fix their POS software they laughingly call an OS.
--
Disk full - remove Windows?
Y - Yes!
F - FFS YES!
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