Court vets Microsoft’s snub to ‘free software’

By Aoife White

Date: 09/06/05

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) will have to decide on the details of US software giant Microsoft's offer to share code with open source developers.

The European Commission promised on 6 June that if it won its anti-trust battle at the ECJ it would make sure that Microsoft published information and software protocols allowing its ubiquitous Windows operating system to function smoothly with servers and printers under an open source licence.

But Microsoft believes it has already made "tough concessions" in agreeing to a new royalty structure for licensing Windows protocols in non-Microsoft software products. "Microsoft is now offering new ways for developers to distribute software code that implements its technology together with open source code, while ensuring that Microsoft technology is subject to a separate licence agreement," a statement from the company said.

But these concessions do not go far enough for free software developers who insist that traditional patent and copyright conventions are too restrictive. Carlo Piana, a lawyer for the Free Software Foundation, said the group was pleased EU officials were taking free software seriously. But Piana said developers were unhappy that Microsoft's offer specifically excluded the information from being shared, copied and distributed as free software.

The Commission said it would ask Microsoft's rivals to test how the American giant plans to implement part of the antitrust remedy it was ordered to obey in March 2004.

Microsoft met an EU deadline at the end of May to outline how it would implement the ruling.

Last year, EU regulators found Microsoft guilty of abusing its dominant position and imposed measures to address the alleged barriers to interoperability. The software firm was also told to sell a new version of Windows without media player. The Commission said this would allow other media software to compete fairly with the Windows player.

Article reports that it was up to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to decide on the details of US software giant Microsoft's offer to share code with open source developers.