Desktop platforms Toolkit

Story: EU rejects Microsoft's licence offer

• 
• 

I fail to see a justifiable reason why Microsoft should be FORCED to release their protocol for free; It's their protocol, let them do what they want with it.

On the other hand, they should not be allowed to restrict other companies from reverse engineering the protocol and making their products compatible with it. The protocol becomes public knowledge the second it's used to transfer data from one system to another over the internet, and is thus fair game for other entities to employ as they choose.

A protocol is essentially a garden hose, transferring data (water) from the server (faucet) to the client (nozzle, sprinkler, etc). Just because Microsoft invents the garden hose, doesn't mean other companies and organizations should be restricted from looking at the publicly available garden hose, and designing their own sprinklers and faucets that are compatible with the hose.

Again, this doesn't mean that microsoft should be forced to make it easy for companies to design compatible products, or that they should be restricted from liscencing the specifications of their protocol to companies that are (perhaps stupidly) willing to pay for it instead of reverse engineer it.

• 
• 

• 
• 
• 

Full Talkback thread