EU slaps Microsoft with Massive $1.35 billion fine

[Asher]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Perhaps Drogue has a better understanding of EU law than you do?

Nahh...

I don't see the point of appeals if companies need to act before the appeals are heard. You don't execute someone before you hear their appeals.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Asher
They were fined for non-compliance during a period in which the ruling's validity was unknown. You do not see the problem here?

You realise it's common practice, if someone rules against you, to abide by the ruling until it's overturned? You don't get out of jail for a crime while you're appealing it. The rulings validity was known: a ruling is valid 100% until it is overturned.

Originally posted by Asher
You seriously don't see the problem with this?

The commission ruled in 2004. The courts didn't agree til recently. MS didn't action until the courts agreed. MS got fined for the time inbetween that the court sat on it and didn't rule one way or the other.

It's a money grab by a second-rate governmental organization.

The commission is a court, in the sense that it is allowed to make legal rulings. MS didn't action until it lost final appeal. It had already been ruled upon.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Asher, your understanding of the law is clearly very minimal to be making all of your extreme claims (eg ruling is fixed, no one on the court understands the technology involved but makes a ruling anyway, MS should not have to follow a ruling until all appeals exhausted, etc).

I don't see why it's extreme for a company to wait for drastic business changes to be made only after the courts agree with the absurd commission ruling.

I also think it's clear no one in the courts understand technologies if they make the claim that competitors need cheap access to MS patents to make "media players" and other software.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Asher
I don't see the point of appeals if companies need to act before the appeals are heard. You don't execute someone before you hear their appeals.

This isn't execution. You do fine someone before you hear their appeals. And then you hand it back afterwards if it's overturned. You also make sure you don't keep breaking it.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Drogue

You realise it's common practice, if someone rules against you, to abide by the ruling until it's overturned? You don't get out of jail for a crime while you're appealing it. The rulings validity was known: a ruling is valid 100% until it is overturned.


The commission is a court, in the sense that it is allowed to make legal rulings. MS didn't action until it lost final appeal. It had already been ruled upon.

The problem is it's not a simple case of going to jail for the duration.

When you demand MS give things to others, you can't take it back afterwards. Giving internal secrets out on the initial ruling, then having the appeals court say you didn't have to do that, what good is that?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Drogue

This isn't execution. You do fine someone before you hear their appeals. And then you hand it back afterwards if it's overturned. You also make sure you don't keep breaking it.

Either way the decision is final -- divulsion of "trade secrets" and execution, no?

Unless you want to make the case MS can wipe the memories and harddrives of competitors who took the trade secrets if they complied before an appeal overturned the ruling.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Asher
The problem is it's not a simple case of going to jail for the duration.

When you demand MS give things to others, you can't take it back afterwards. Giving internal secrets out on the initial ruling, then having the appeals court say you didn't have to do that, what good is that?

Originally posted by Asher
Either way the decision is final -- divulsion of "trade secrets" and execution, no?

Internal secrets? I thought you said the patents wouldn't impact competition? Moreover, it's not about divulging trade secrets, it's about doing it for less money. Some people already had those patents, hence the information was already spread, at least somewhat. All this says is they should do it cheaper. There's no divulging where there was none before, just divulging to more people at a cheaper cost.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Drogue
Internal secrets? I thought you said the patents wouldn't impact competition?

Yep. The EU is demanding MS release the inner workings of parts of Windows unrelated to competitors. MS doesn't want to do so, because that would be beneficial to their competitors -- not for interoperability, but for their competing products.

Why do you think MS didn't comply until they had no other choice?

Moreover, it's not about divulging trade secrets, it's about doing it for less money.

It's about both...read the ruling. "Information" = trade secrets.

Some people already had those patents, hence the information was already spread, at least somewhat.

It was patents + "information"/trade secrets.

[Asher]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Perhaps Drogue has a better understanding of EU law than you do?

Nahh...

He may have the understanding of EU Law, but this isn't about some generic EU law.

It's about a highly specific ruling by a bureaucratic commission related to highly technical software products.

I don't think he has a greater understanding of what the ruling actually means.

[Drogue]

Now, you may be (and indeed are) more technically aware than I am, but probably less so than many of the experts who spoke at the trial, both on MS's side and the competition commission's. I'm guessing they would have looked at whether or not the information was required for interoperability. Now, if they didn't, I'm happy to admit it was a bad ruling, and that the courts got it wrong. But I very much doubt that those internal workings aren't beneficial to competitions in the applications market. And if they are, not releasing them would be using their OS dominance to try and gain dominance over applications, and would thus be illegal.

Does releasing that information make the applications market more competitive? If so, the ruling may well be sound. However I don't think either of us are in a place to answer that question.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Asher

He may have the understanding of EU Law, but this isn't about some generic EU law.

It's about a highly specific ruling by a bureaucratic commission related to highly technical software products.

I don't think he has a greater understanding of what the ruling actually means.

Actually I don't have much of a knowledge of EU law. I did however study the economics of competition, and even the Microsoft case specifically. Microsoft were squashing competition in the applications market.

I admit I don't have the technical knowledge to know myself on the specifics of whether that information could increase competition, but neither do you - you don't know what the application competitors wanted to do with it, or how it related to their proposed products, even if you do have the technical knowledge of what the information was and how it related to Windows.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Drogue

Actually I don't have much of a knowledge of EU law. I did however study the economics of competition, and even the Microsoft case specifically. Microsoft were squashing competition in the applications market.

Then you need to back this up technically if you are to make this assertion.

Please provide one instance where competitors were prevented from bringing a product to market that led to this trial.

(Hint: None were ever disclosed, for rather obvious reasons)

This whole case, both in Europe and America, is a waste of time and money. In both cases, competitors lobbied, begged, pleaded, and confused the judicial system/judges/spectators into thinking MS is somehow preventing people from releasing programs on Windows. In all actual fact, Windows is the most developer-friendly Operating System that's ever existed. The Microsoft Developer Network completely dwarfs Apple's developer support system and the "RTFM" Linux support system, both in terms of documentation, API access, examples, development tools, etc. If you need something, it's there and there's someone to talk to about it.

What the competitors pointed out was that Microsoft did possess knowledge of their operating system that they did not know -- because they developed it. This information is largely "trade-secret" implementation details, such as how the OS scheduler works. It should have no bearing at all on the implementation of the applications that run on top of the OS -- the whole purpose of the OS is to abstract the technical and provide interfaces for programs to work on top of that. The courts don't seem to realize how irrelevant this information is to actual development, but in theory the lawyers argued "if MS knows it and others don't, that's an advantage! ANTICOMPETITON!" and this whole ****storm started.

The real purpose of this whole thing was a strategic assault by MS' competitors to tie up MS in legal battles, to handcuff them to arbitrary restrictions that even they don't need to adhere to, try to force MS' competing products out of the market place via a legal avenue, and free access to MS' trade secrets. And it succeeds because the courts don't understand the technical enough, and the technical people on both sides can confuse the hell out of the judges to the point that the judges only look at the high level arguments like "MS has access to information the competitors don't...QED".

Now you've got Big Government stepping in on a sector they don't even come close to understanding and making technical demands about technical products and then fining for billions in the process. It's an amazing cluster**** of idiocy.

So yes, Drogue, I'm very thrilled that you studied this in your economics class, but I'm afraid that's inadequate for you to see why this is a royal screwup. The judicial system seems to think the answer is to simply let MS "unlock" a bunch of documents they've been hiding just to be *******s, in reality MS has been protecting their intellectual property because it's irrelevant to what Real Player wants to do when they make their media players. And, as you may know, the entire business MS is in is intellectual property.

This is a big deal to MS, and there's no way MS would fork over any of that until they had no other choice. Given the absurdity of the demands, I'm sure they thought the appeals court would listen -- but alas, stupidity is rampant in judicial systems everywhere.

[Wiglaf]

What the competitors pointed out was that Microsoft did possess knowledge of their operating system that they did not know -- because they developed it. This information is largely "trade-secret" implementation details, such as how the OS scheduler works. It should have no bearing at all on the implementation of the applications that run on top of the OS -- the whole purpose of the OS is to abstract the technical and provide interfaces for programs to work on top of that. The courts don't seem to realize how irrelevant this information is to actual development, but in theory the lawyers argued "if MS knows it and others don't, that's an advantage! ANTICOMPETITON!" and this whole ****storm started.

You made an awful lot of this paragraph up. How do you know the argument is largely trade secrets and that lawyers somehow duped the court into demanding completely irrelevant information about the OS?

[Asher]

Because the last time I checked the documents they requested were internal OS design documentation.


What did they ask for if it's relevant, Wiggy?

I am also completely in the dark as to what, exactly is impossible for developers to make for Windows without this mysterious hidden "secret sauce".

Which is a surprisingly stunning omission since it's apparently the whole reason behind the EU action.

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by Asher
Because the last time I checked the documents they requested were internal OS design documentation.


What did they ask for if it's relevant, Wiggy?

I am also completely in the dark as to what, exactly is impossible for developers to make for Windows without this mysterious hidden "secret sauce".

Which is a surprisingly stunning omission since it's apparently the whole reason behind the EU action.

Read the 2004 decision then. On pg 6 it is established that 8 years ago Sun sued Microsoft for "reserving to itself information that certain software products for network computing, work group server OS's, need to interoperability fully with MS PC's. This information is necessary to compete viably as a work group server OS system supplier." http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition...s/37792/en.pdf

If you don't even know why Sun initiated the complaint then you have no business making your ridiculous charges. Other complaints were added over the last 5 years or so.