__/ [ 7 ] on Friday 09 March 2007 21:37 \__
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> Microsoft lands first licensee in EU protocol program
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | The program, which stems from the European Commission's historic
>> | March 2004 order, requires Microsoft to license its protocol
>> | technology at "reasonable and nondiscriminatory" terms. A goal
>> | of the program is to provide all licensees, even Microsoft rivals,
>> | with the ability to create server-based products that will
>> | interoperate with Microsoft's technology.
>> `----
>>
>> http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6165514.html
>
> I think the dumb asses in EU must have forgot open source
> protocols are free for them to use and interoperate through
> without having to pay. If they MUST pay, they should pay
> the maintainers or tender to get subcontractors that can maintain it.
This is a very dangerous thing, a precedence. Microsoft even /paid/ to do a
press release about it. The EC has explicitly called it "too trivial to be
patentable". Microsoft is trying to say here that people now need to pay in
order to connect to a Windows PC/server. And then there's Novell's role. One
wonders if Microsoft 'sponsored' this latest deal (just like it paid Novell
a third of a billion dollars) for admission of guilt (or "swallowing a
bug").
--
~~ Best wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector"
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU is Not UNIX | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
roy pts/2 cg001a.halls.man Fri Mar 9 15:04 still logged in
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