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EU Commission Invites Comments on the Microsoft Deal - Here's
Where to Send Them
,----[ Quote ]
| The official notice of the new draft deal between
| Microsoft and the EU Commission has now been posted
| to the EC website and published [PDF] in the
| Official Journal of the European Union, and it
| invites comments, giving all the addresses, email,
| fax and regular mail, where interested parties can
| submit their observations within a month of the
| date of the announcement. The date of the
| announcement was October 7. Comments must *reach*
| the EU Commission within a month, not be postmarked
| by then.
|
| [...]
|
| And the price to interoperate with Microsoft,
| according to that document and the proposed
| interoperability agreement [.doc] is $10,000, and
| that is the minimum, not the maximum:
|
| 3.Royalties
|
| 3.1. Prepaid Royalties. Licensee will pay
| Microsoft $10,000 in non-refundable prepaid
| royalties, to be credited against Royalties.
|
| 3.2. Royalties. Licensee will pay Royalties for
| each Product containing an Implementation
| consisting of the Net Revenues for that Product
| multiplied by the Royalty Rate set forth below,
| provided that the Royalty per User of that
| Product or Provided Copy of that Product will
| not be less than the Minimum Royalty set forth
| below for the applicable Product Type:
|
| Then there is a chart, breaking it down further.
| Now, $10,000 is nothing to Microsoft. A large,
| supported project like SAMBA could probably swing
| it. How about some university student somewhere?
| You don't think that matters? How about a
| university student named Linus Torvalds, for
| example? Think *that* matters? Do you want a deal
| that excludes the next Linus Torvalds? Where will
| he get $10,000? This single clause exiles any
| innovation from the next Linus, because he won't be
| able to afford to pay the toll to interoperate,
| thus excluding him from the general market.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091010104533940
Recent:
Microsoft antitrust case: FSFE offers analysis to European Commission
,----[ Quote ]
| For desktop applications, FSFE argues that the software
| monopolist must release interoperability information in
| such a way that it can be used in Free Software. The
| company must also make a binding commitment not to
| enforce its patents against Free Software. That would
| prevent Microsoft from using Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt
| (FUD) to keep rivals from making use of the information.
`----
http://fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20091006-01.en.html
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