From: Mike '/m' 

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:58:06 -0500, Richard B.  wrote:

>On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 20:44:56 -0500, Mike '/m'  wrote:
>
>>Coming from a Ziff-Davis rag, that is indeed a damning editorial.
>
>ZD uk has not been quite the lapdog of it's american counterpart.

Apparently so.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/software/0,39023769,39185372,00.htm

===
ZDNet UK examined a copy of Microsoft's proposed licensing agreement to see
the source of the EC's concerns.

First of all, why is this licence necessary? Microsoft has been found
guilty of breaking EU competition law by "leveraging its near monopoly
in the market for PC operating systems onto the markets for work group
server operating systems and for media players".

OK, so Microsoft broke the law and was found guilty. What's the punishment?
Well, a fine of 497 million euros (AU$833 million) for a start. But the
more important part of the punishment is the software giant has to open its
protocols to competitors, to help them produce software that interoperates
with Windows, both on the client and the server side.

No bird then?
No, nobody's going to prison. Let's call this community service.

Great, so I get a licence to use Microsoft's interoperability APIs in my
software and go right ahead, right? Not quite. Microsoft's draft copy of
the licence requires you to pay royalties.

So they're asking to be paid for their community service? Effectively, yes....
===

The entire article is actually a bit funny, and a bit scary.

 /m

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