So that covers my obligations. What will Microsoft do for all this money I'm expected to pay?
Send you a copy of the documentation. With the licence agreement, of course.
Wow. That's a lot of money for a piece of paper.
They will send it within ten days of receipt of a written request.
Is that all?
Oh, and you get 24 hours support.
Great, support around the clock.
Not quite. You'll get an automatic email receipt within 24 hours of logging a support call.
24 hours to get an automated email?
It will be sent through Exchange.
OK, so then what?
Then, Microsoft will try to fix any inaccuracies or omissions in the WSPP within a 'reasonable time'.
Not 24 hours then?
Probably not, no.
What if I have an implementation issue and Microsoft contends that the documentation is correct?
Microsoft can charge you at its standard rates.
And what happens when they update the WSPP?
You'll get a copy within 30 days of the commercial release of the product containing the updated specifications.
So what is to stop me passing the documentation on once I've licensed it?
Section six, which deals with confidentiality and which says you can only disclose the documentation to employees and contractors on a 'need to know' basis.
What happens if I do?
Don't. You'll end up in court.
Oh yes, which one?
The Southern District Court of New York.
Sounds expensive.
You ever tried to buy a house there?
So what is the EC's beef?
Well, aside from the level of the royalties and the specific exclusion of open source software, the EC also had concerns about the fact that the license does not have sufficient granularity. "Those taking out a licence are obliged to take out an all-in-one licence," said an EC spokesman. "They can't pick and chose so they potentially have to pay for things they don't need."
Companies need to be provided with more information by Microsoft prior to signing the agreement so they can gauge the value of the protocol information, the spokesman added. "It is very difficult for potential beneficiaries of the remedy to have access to the technical documentation necessary for them to assess whether it is worth their while to take out a licence."
Will the EC reject this?
We certainly hope so.
So where can I find a copy of the draft licence?
The full proposed server protocol licensing agreement can be found here.
Talkback
As usual, a one sided deal to the extreme.
Excellent article!!
Great digest.
What a stupidly one-sided view of the entire issue. Perhaps you should write comedy instead of business reporting?
Hi my name mitsu_pit, I'm an Alien, I came all this way, but I think I'll go home - your planet sounds horrible.
protocols != applications. Microsoft, in its capacity as an OS house, must freely pass out the protocols which allow applications to run on that OS. If, in its capacity as an apps house, it refuses to do so, it is in the position of being an illegal monopoly. The obvious remedy is to require MS to split into (at least) two separate companies.. One, OS & the other, Apps.
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Charging a company for the privelege of writing apps to run on/with their OS is kind of like Ford charging an after market company for the privelege of making after market parts. Is that next?
Mr Anonymous Salesperson: Microsoft wrote that license, not ZDNet. If you feel that any part of it has been misrepresented in this article then why don't you explain precisely where and how?
Microsoft's behaviour is clearly outrageous. What right do their shareholders have to a return on Microsoft's intellectual property? The EU should force them to hand it over for free to the free software community. We all know that Brussels is always right. The author of this story is a brave warrior on behalf of the EU's campaign for freedom and fairness. Losers of the new Europe unite and rise up! We can succeed where the USSR failed.
Sarcasm or reverse psychology, Boris? I can't tell. But all the EU is asking Microsoft for is the complete API to be freely available. And having the API means that you can (finally) have an intelligent conversation with the piece of Microsoft technology that you have *already bought*. So Microsoft's share-holders *are* getting a return.
The article is too cynical for me to understand it as a non-native english speaker.
So much for objectivity in reporting..
WTF?
Microsoft is required to LICENSE their protocols, not provide charity.
Open source makes MS's protocol visible to non-licensees, which certainly wasn't intended in the original ruling..
So in summary, Adam S, you believe that no-one should be allowed to program on a Microsoft platform without Microsoft's explicitly licensed and fully paid-through-the-nose permission.
Hence all Windows applications must exist at Microsoft's *sufferance*, because Microsoft should be permitted to dictate whatever terms it pleases to its licensees as part of its own punishment.
You *do* realise that the EC was seeking remedies for anti-competitive business practices, right?
Adam S, despite what you may think, a protocol is not the source code of an application. It is a set of specifications which other developers can use to write software that interoperates with the implementing software.
So you think Microsoft should be able to charge huge royalties and dictate the terms to any operating system that wishes to talk to a Windows machine.
You have much to learn.
it would be an interesting exercise to calculate just what Microsoft thinks the value of these interface specifications are. Having done that, compare the figure to the cost of the entire product - methinks that the interface protocols licencing would be more expensive. If so, is Microsoft guilty of "dumping" the complete product into the EC market?
Just as a point of interest; for those that did not follow the appeal to the Court of First Instance (and why Microsoft lost). Microsoft tried to use the "intellectual Property" & "Trade Secrets" argument to protect the interface details of the API's - the judge asked why they had not been raised these arguments in the original case and summised that, as Microsoft had never exercised a licencing strategy, persued prosecution for use of or, for the reverse engineering of API's, that MS had not asigned them any real materilal value before and, as such, could not expect to do so now.
Looks like Bill Gates is still treating the rest of the world like idiots. Unfortunately, there are too many people willing to let him, like anonymous and others above. Talk about anticompetitive behaviour! You know, there is a better way (just look at the glorious new MacOS or even BeOS) , you just have been sucked into the MS vortex and can't operate without them now. And don't talk about the cost of changing...the cost of continuing with the MS ethos is already too high, what with Windows' continued upgrades, security flaws, patching, viruses, and built in obsolesence, it's just that people are always being told how much they need Windows, and how good it is. Good, my arse. What a pile of crap. And to think they are now finding ways to force us to pay for it? Bill Gates said a long long time ago that this was his plan: get people hooked and then figure out how to charge them for it...seems like he is only being true to his word, the devious little hitler.
hey, blue screen, my old friend... how come we keep meeting like this?