OtaSoft

Microsoft’s admission of defeat in its nine-year long anti-trust battle with the European Commission has met with mixed responses from the open source community.

On Monday, Microsoft agreed with Commission’s 2004 ruling that it was abusing its dominance in the market in the workgroup server market and would not appeal against a further European Union court ruling in September, which upheld the Commission’s findings.

Microsoft had been accused of overcharging and making unavailable the documentation and code companies needed to create server products that could interoperate with Windows servers and desktops.

John Newton, CTO and chairman of Alfresco saw the Microsoft move as a small step in the right direction. “By open sourcing even a very small part of its product set, Microsoft has taken an important step towards creating an open environment in which end users can freely choose between software rather than being railroaded into the most costly one,” he said.

While Neelie Kroes, European commissioner for competition policy, called this “a victory for the consumer”, she also voiced concern at the time it had taken for Microsoft to capitulate.

“It is regrettable that Microsoft has only complied after a considerable delay, two court decisions and the imposition of daily penalty payments,” she said.
Open source developers will now pay a one-off $14,300 fee, rather than a revenue percentage creamed off sales of any software developed as a result. For those that do choose to license the patents, the fee has been dropped substantially from 5.95% to 0.4%.
But for some the cost is still too great. “The price to pay to obtain the specifications to the Windows protocol that Microsoft is supposed to share is ridiculously high for open source developers,” said Stefane Fermigier, CEO of open source enterprise content management Nuxeo.
While companies the size of Nuxeo can easily afford the fee, students or developers starting out in the open source world (like the young Linus Torvalds) would struggle to make such payments, he argued.
However contrite Microsoft may appear now, it could not make up for nine-years of lost competition.
“It’s good to see Microsoft finally admit that they have behaved in a non-competitive way. But in the meantime, they’ve used these unlawful practices to undermine many competitors, and short-change customers by stifling competition and innovation. Nobody is going to be compensated for this, as far as I know,” he said.

Linux powerhouse Red Hat was waiting to see how the dust settles on Microsoft’s moves, but was still worried about patents. “Our enthusiasm is somewhat tempered, however, by concerns that the patent arrangements may have not been made compatible with open source licensing, especially given the pro-competitive effects to consumers of the open source model,” said Michael Cunningham, executive vp and general counsel at Red Hat.

According to David Mitchell, senior vice president of IT research at analyst firm Ovum, yesterday’s announcement could have little real effect on the market and was the kind of victory that enabled both sides to save face.

“The market will carry on, largely unchanged, after yesterday’s announcement. Companies who were developing products will still continue to develop those products. Companies who had previously rejected the Microsoft-related development route will still reject it,” said Mitchell.

Original post by Janine and software by Elliott Back