Microsoft EU code license offer
p2p news / p2pnet: Microsoft says it’ll license the source code for Windows as part of its bid to pacify European antitrust regulators.
"Competitors and the European Union have said the software maker is resisting complying with an EU order to license information on network communications," says Bloomberg News.
Accordingly, the EU’s European Commission is threatening to fine Microsoft 2 million euros ($2.5 million) every day, "for failing to license data on Windows to help competitors understand how the operating system communicates over a network," says the story.
"The commission has never asked the company to license its source code."
The EC said it’ll "study carefully” Microsoft’s offer, reiterating its demand that the company complies, says Bloomberg.
But Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said the company won’t allow the code to be published under licensing terms used by such as Linux.
"We’re not open-sourcing Windows,” the story has him saying, adding:
"Robert Lande, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who has followed Microsoft’s antitrust cases for 10 years, is skeptical of the company’s offer.
" ‘I’d be suspicious,’ Lande said in an interview. ‘Unless there’s been a change in corporate strategy, their track record is to delay, promise and never deliver’.”
Also See:
Bloomberg News – Microsoft to License Source Code to End EU Dispute, January 26, 2006
January 26th, 2006 at 7:03 am
Yes and i’m sure the code they’d let other companies see would mostly do the job it’s alleged to. Of course MS would have all kinds of extra, undocumented, functions they’ll be using to do a lot more, a lot easier. And of course using undocumented functions is heavily frowned upon by MS, in order to prevent their competitors accessing them.
Yet another part of MS’s track record down the years.