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118 lines
5.2 KiB
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<title>FSFE in Samba case: Microsoft's defiance backfired</title> |
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<h1>FSFE in Samba case: Microsoft's defiance backfired</h1> |
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<p>Luxembourg, May 25 - FSFE played a key role at a Microsoft hearing |
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before the European Union's General Court on Tuesday, helping explain |
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the intricacies of Free Software servers.</p> |
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<p>The hearing was called to consider Microsoft's challenge to a EUR 899 |
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million fine imposed by the European Commission in 2008. Microsoft had |
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failed to carry out remedies imposed for its violation of EU antitrust |
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law. A ruling is expected for later in the year.</p> |
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<p>Microsoft was required to provide interoperability information that |
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would enable others to hook up to its products so they could compete |
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with its workgroup servers. Key among those was the Samba team, which |
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is the only surviving competitor in the workgroup server market. Only |
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after a European Union court acted in 2007 to uphold nearly all of the |
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Commission's 2004 decision did Microsoft finally meet the Commission's |
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requirement to comply.</p> |
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<p>"In order to compete, the Samba team only needed the mundane |
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information about how Microsoft computers talk to each other," said |
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Tridgell. "There is nothing innovative here. All the innovative bits |
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are either already published by Microsoft's own researchers, or are |
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contained in the Microsoft program source code – and we have no |
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interest in seeing that. The innovation certainly isn't in the |
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protocol specifications."</p> |
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<p>Tridgell appeared before a panel headed by Chamber President Nicholas |
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James Forwood of Britain, which also included judges Franklin Dehousse |
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of Belgium and Juraj Schwarcz of Slovakia. Microsoft, the Commission, |
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and outside intervenors on both sides were also represented. FSFE and |
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the Samba team were represented by lawyer Carlo Piana.</p> |
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<p>The problems date back to the Commission's 2004 decision that |
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Microsoft should release interoperability information. After that, the |
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company played for time and waited three years to comply with the |
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Commission's demands. Explaining the significance of Samba for a |
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competitive software market, Chamber President Forwood said: “Samba is |
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the funnel through which the effects on the market will be produced.”</p> |
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<p>Microsoft contended that the information it had to provide was |
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valuable and innovative, and originally sought to charge high prices |
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for it. Tridgell demonstrated that the valuable information had |
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already been revealed by Microsoft in research papers and other public |
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fora. By contrast, the information that Samba team needed to |
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interoperate with computers running Microsoft Windows was neither |
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original nor innovative.</p> |
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<p>“Microsoft didn't keep this information secret because it was |
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valuable; the information was only valuable because it was kept |
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secret,” Piana told the Court on behalf of FSFE. He said it let |
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Microsoft preserve its dominant position, because no other software |
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was able to talk to the company's systems. “The company used these |
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three years to further entrench its dominant position in the market.”</p> |
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<p>“Microsoft is acting like a gambler who doubled up on a losing bet, |
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and now wants his money back,” said Nicholas Kahn, the representative |
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of the European Commission. By waiting three years before complying |
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with the Commission's decision while the clock on the fine was |
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ticking, Microsoft set the stakes very high – and finally lost.</p> |
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<p>“In this case, Europe's competition regulators have shown their |
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bite. We hope that the court will uphold the fine and make it clear |
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that companies in Europe have to play by the rules,” said Karsten |
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Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe. “FSFE does |
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many things to help foster the growth of Free Software. We're proud to |
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help make the case for Free Software in a forum such as this, where we |
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believe we are providing a public service.”</p> |
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<p>Workgroup servers handle tasks used in small groups – printing, |
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signing in, and allocating permission to access particular files. The |
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Samba project not only provides an alternative to Microsoft's |
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workgroup server. It has come up with an alternative that is better in |
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many respects. For example, the Samba team used the trivial |
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information provided by Microsoft to build an innovative system that |
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runs on very small, cheap computers -- something that Microsoft's |
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software cannot do.</p> |
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<p>“The hearing established that Free Software is central to restoring |
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competition in the workgroup server market,” says Piana. “Everyone |
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agreed to this, including the judges. This case matters because it |
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highlights that interoperability is more important than a company's |
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interest in keeping its dominant position.”</p> |
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