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Some days I envy the EU...

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The EU is adamant that Microsoft is abusing its monopoly powers:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070917/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_microsoft

It will be interesting to see what MS does next. A lot of people I know whine and say the EU ruling is stupid because they're forcing MS to remove "free" software. I tell the whiners that they're idiots - MS provides software "free" only to kill competition. Once competition is dead, they charge a fortune. For the non-believers, just have a look at what you got when you bought "MS Windows" 10 years ago and look at what you get now. Once upon a time there was simply "Windows XX" and "Windows XX Server". Now you have "Home Basic", "Home whatever", "Home Ultimate" in place of old "Windows XX". The short story: you're paying an awful lot more now for all those bits which M$ considers "extra" - you know, the bits they used to provide "free". The EU has made a start, but now they have to make sure M$ complies. So far they're doing better than our lame-ass Department of Justice which won a case for consumers but put victory on a silver platter and handed it to M$.

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interop

Submitted by jamei on Tue, 2007-09-18 08:20.

Quote:
In its 248-page ruling, the court upheld both the Commission's argument and its order for Microsoft to hand over information on server protocols to rivals.

It would be interesting to know which 'server protocols' and "communications code" the EU is ordering MS to hand over.

A guess is that it has something to do with the Windows Media codecs. Any other ideas?

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interop

Submitted by pinniped on Wed, 2007-09-19 03:22.

1. Microsoft's version of CIFS/SMB (an unrecognizable monster deliberately created to not quite work with CIFS).

2. Active Directory specs

Those are the most likely ones. Other possibilities include:

a. Microsoft's mangled version of Kerberos (once again created to not quite work with standard versions.

b. Microsoft's "Internet Messaging" protocol

c. Remote admin protocols

And that's just a start - there's an awful lot of stuff essential to interoperability but M$ deliberately avoids interoperability. You could bet they're re-engineer the internet if they could. (Fortunately they can't.)

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