Microsoft EU Decision Protects OSS Projects From Suits 186
rfc1394 writes "An article in Australia's IT News mentions that under its antitrust agreement with the European Union, 'Microsoft will publish an irrevocable pledge not to assert any patents it may have over the interoperability information against non-commercial open source software development projects.' Essentially, in addition to getting them to comply with the anti-trust decision, the EU has forced Microsoft to back off of its saber-rattling when it comes to EU open source projects. That protection in no way extends to US projects, of course."
you gotta love eu bureaucrats (Score:5, Interesting)
Cool. (Score:3, Interesting)
AUstralians for change (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:in no way extends (Score:1, Interesting)
This doesn't appear to cover open source projects that aren't "non-commercial." One could argue that ANY project that has one employee and takes in ANY income is commercial. Thus is any project or any distro that takes in any money "commercial?" Who decides? MS wouldn't challenge anyone in court, however, as they so dislike lawyers.
There appears to be a growing interest from MS in splitting the open source community, into volunteers and commercial interest parties. Unfortunately, it looks like they are succeeding.
Re:in no way extends (Score:2, Interesting)
They are promising to not sue "non-commercial" interests. If you look, they are orchestrating a proxy campaign against commercial open source, while senior executives such as Ballmer threaten exactly such activity - full bore FUD. Who is the latest victim of this proxy campaign? Redhat, with more to come unless they cave to MS threats to sue unless companies sign an "intellectual property agreement with them, ala Novel.
With commercial interests a very major component of open source development, it leaves MS with the freedom to do exactly what they are planning to do. Spread FUD by threatening commercial linux companies and their enterprise clients with lawsuits unless the respect MS intellectual property which they conveniently refuse to detail.
Same shit as the DOJ settlement, just a different pile. Until governing bodies play real hard ball with MS, they will continue to game the system with their ill gotten gains to the detriment of consumer.
Re:in no way extends (Score:3, Interesting)
They can still go after end users and distributors (Score:5, Interesting)
These were also my first thoughts in reading the summary. From the article, the European Commissioner for Competition Policy says (emphasis is mine):
Presumably all this means is that Microsoft won't be going after developers, but it may still be going after anyone who makes use of those developers' efforts. It's some good news for developers, but it's not exactly a let off the hook if you can't tell your users with any confidence that they won't be sued by Microsoft for obscure patents that wouldn't hold up in the face of anyone who could afford to defend themselves. If anything, this might give Microsoft more power to spread FUD about OSS. They're just narrowing the target, basically saying that it's okay to develop OSS, but they might not let people use it without paying up.
Hopefully the linked article isn't representative of what the actual arrangement is. For the thing to be of any use, Microsoft really needs to be pledging that they won't enforce whatever patents they claim to have at all.
Re:in no way extends (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem will be for companies that use dual licensing models. There you have a catch that the company might both sell the software and distribute it as a FLOSS project. The commercial path will make them liable to pay license fees for the copies to clients. But still, the receivers of the FLOSS copy are in the clear again and may redistribute under the same FLOSS terms.
Re:you gotta love eu bureaucrats (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:AUstralians for change (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:EU membership (Score:3, Interesting)
As for Iraq, they are going to in fight a terrorist group - listed as terrorists by the US and Iraq and Iran and Syria - that are killing their soldiers. Has nothing to do with anything else going on, although it will screw up Iraq more than it is already. This incursion has the possibility of becoming a full scale war between Turkey and the Kurds. And if the US doesn't go along with it, Turkey can cut off US access to the Incirlik US Air Force base which is vital to supply routes to Iraq. Relations between the US and Turkey are considerably strained at the moment. The US has no argument against Turkey's incursion because Turkey is under attack by a terrorist group harbored across the border in Iraq and supported - or at least not condemned - by the two major Kurdish parties, who happen to be the only two allies the US has in Iraq. So the US can either attack the terrorist group, which will alienate the Kurds from the US, or do nothing, which will irritate the Turks and force them to act. A no-win scenario for the US. Which is also complicated by the fact that a second Kurdish terrorist group which targets Iran is being directly supported by the US in order to destabilize Iran. Which is why Turkey and Iran are thinking of cooperating and both attacking the Kurds, according to the latest news.
The next problem for the US is that the two Kurdish parties intend to either establish a "federated" Kurdistan as part of Iraq with oil-rich Kirkuk as their center, or if Iraq is not partitioned, secede from Iraq and form an independent Kurdistan. That would be a disaster for Turkey, Iran and Syria as Kurdistan would then be in a position to fund and foment secessionist groups in all three countries. Turkey has said it will outright invade northern Iraq if that is allowed to occur, which would be a much wider war than the current incursion intention.
As for oppression of the Kurds, that is correct - but not much different than Turkish oppression of the Armenians, and who knows who else. In fact, the Turks used Kurds to murder the Armenians back around WWI.