[Sussex] 'nuff said

[Geoff Teale]

On Tue, 2004-01-27 at 16:11, Iain Stevenson wrote:
> ... I think they got this far in the US and then it all went horribly 
> wrong.  Clearly a financial penalty isn't going to make much difference to 
> Microsoft.  It'll be interesting to see if the EU has the balls to define 
> some software based remedies - and then if our government feels it can 
> impose these sanctions on its chum "Sir" Bill.

OK, well it's all up in the air right now, but the EU have been leaking
tit-bits of this story continuously since lunchtime and as thos tit-bits
have been music to my F/OSS-loving-liberal-fantasist ear (and bad news
for Microsoft is good news for those of us working in Companies selling
Linux based products) I thought I'd repeat them here.. so:

Firstly, from all accounts we're talking about billions of Euro's - the
highest figure I've seen today (from the economists news-feed) was 60
billion euros.  The lowest touted figure I've heard is 14 billion
euros.  Bear in mind that Bill Gate's personal worth (which will be in
no way affected) is estimated to be around $40 billion (and that the US$
and the Euro are close to 1:1 ).  It's painful even for Microsoft.

Furthermore there is a strong suggestion that there will be  restriction
on Microsoft's products as well.  The most obvious suggestion is that
Microsoft will be banned from selling products that:

 - integrate non-OS-core functionality (like a media player or a
relational database) into the OS package.
 - give proprietary access to Microsoft software.
 - lock out competitors through proprietary file formats, API's or
communication protocols.

... and there has been specific mention of banning Microsoft from there
OEM license deals that have that require vendors to pay for a Windows
license for every machine sold or restrict OEM vendors from installing
there own choice of software (including bootloaders, OS's, browsers,
media players, etc..).

Finally, underlying all this is the proposal that the remedy for any
further breaches within the EU (or failure to pay up and comply) would
be an outright ban on trading in the EU.

The EU seems to be saying that they were pissed off with how the case
worked out in the USA, and trying to send a message, not only to
Microsoft, but to the USA as a whole, that the EU will not be pushed
around by bully boys.  If this works out to be the case then I would
suggest that it is a shining example of why the EU, for all it's faults
is of ever increasing importance in the post cold-war era, and why our
governments "kneel and suck" approach to Anglo-American relations is so
incredibly dangerous for the average citizen of the UK. 

-- 
Geoff Teale
general: <tealeg at member.fsf.org>
home   : <geoff at tealeg.uklinux.net>
work   : <gteale at cmedltd.com>
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