FSFE supports new antitrust investigation against Microsoft
"Microsoft should be required openly, fully and faithfully to
implement free and open industry standards," is the message of a
letter by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) to European
Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. To help achieve this goal, FSFE
offered its support for a possible antitrust investigation based on
the complaint of Opera Software against Microsoft. The complaint was
based on anti-competitive behaviour in the web browser market.
"Although Opera Software does not produce Free Software, we largely
share their assessment and concerns regarding the present situation in
the Internet browser market", FSFE president Georg Greve writes in the
letter and continues: "Some of the most successful browsers in the
concerned market are Free Software or contain large portions of Free
Software. This includes, Mozilla Firefox and Konqueror, a browser made
by KDE. Those products are highly innovative and widely recognized as
more secure than the dominant application. They faithfully implement
major international Open Standards relevant to browser technology."
So what is the problem in the browser market? FSFE explains:
"Precisely because they abide by industry recognized Open Standards
and cannot implement the undisclosed and non-compliant 'Microsoft
dialects' of these standards, they often appear limited when compared
with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer which establishes itself as the
closed, de facto standard due to Internet Explorer’s dominant
position. Moreover, these web browsers cannot be hardwired into the
dominant Windows Operating System as is the case with Internet
Explorer."
"For these reasons," Georg Greve concludes "we strongly support
enforcement actions that counter Microsoft’s strategy of 'embracing,
extending and extinguishing' multilateral Open Standards - a strategy
Microsoft already employed successfully in the Work Group Server
market addressed in the 2004 Decision. Default standards compliance by
Microsoft is of great importance to FSFE, as we are witnessing many
similar attempts by Microsoft in other markets to undermine public and
international standards that enable interoperability".
You can read the entire letter at
http://fsfeurope.org/documents/20071219-opera-antitrust.pdf
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation
in the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these
issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving
people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
central issues of the FSFE.
http://fsfeurope.org
Contact:
You can reach the FSFE switchboard from:
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Sweden: +46 31 7802160
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
EU antitrust case over: Samba receives interoperability information
In 2004 the European Commission found Microsoft guilty of monopoly
abuse in the IT marketplace and demanded that complete
interoperability information be made available to competitors.
Microsoft objected to this decision and was overruled in September
2007 by the European Court of First Instance (CFI). The CFI found
Microsoft guilty of deliberate obstruction of interoperability and
upheld the obligation for Microsoft to share its protocol information.
The Samba Team has decided to make use of Micrsoft's obligation under
the European judgements. Through the Protocol Freedom Information
Foundation (PFIF), network interoperability information has been
requested and a one-time access fee of 10.000 EUR is being paid to
give Samba team full access to important specifications.
"One case is over and interoperability won. The European Court made
clear that interoperability information should not be kept secret and
the agreement shows that Microsoft saw no way to continue its
obstruction of interoperability in this area. This establishes a
standard which everyone will have to meet from now on," summarizes Georg
Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE).
Jonas Öberg, FSFE's vice president, continues: "Other winners are all
users of Workgroup productivity applications: Samba will now gain full
access to all the information necessary for full interoperability with
today's and tomorrow's Microsoft Workgroup Server products. All users
stand to benefit from this, even those using Microsoft's products,
because increased competition is likely to put pressure on Microsoft's
pricing and decrease Microsoft's margins."
"Under the current situation, thanks to the improvements that we have
been able to obtain, the agreement is the best solution possible. It
does not solve all the open issues we have with Microsoft, it just
partially remedies an unfair and illegal situation. It is not a
settlement, it is compliance to the remedies imposed by the Commission
and upheld by the EC Courts. And at least it is now fully compatible
with Free Software licensing," comments Carlo Piana, legal counsel of
the FSFE.
Piana continues: "We have been able once for all to receive a list of
the patents that Microsoft claims to be reading on the specifications.
Incredibly we have never been exactly told which those patents were.
This should be helpful to stop FUD against Samba, and we hope the same
will happen with other Free Software projects. It is standard practice:
if you have an issue with somebody, you should tell what this issue is,
or shut up completely."
"The European Commission has been criticised harshly for its agreement
with Microsoft, in particular its failure to declare potentially
relevant patents of Microsoft invalid," Jonas Öberg continues: "The
system is broken and needs fixing, but it is not for civil
administration to declare specific patents valid or invalid. We need
informed, transparent and democratic dialog on this issue."
Georg Greve adds: "The European Commission got further than any other
antitrust authority in the world and was more successful. They deserve
our gratitude and support for having gone 80% of the way. All the same
one could have hoped for the courage to also mention the problems caused
by software patents for interoperability and thus competition, including
a clear request to the proper political places to address this issue."
"We should also not forget that this is only about one area in which
Microsoft is showing the same behaviour. There are outstanding antitrust
complaints from both the European Committee for Interoperable Systems
(ECIS) and Opera about different abusive behaviours in the office,
Internet and web browser area," Greve adds. "If the same methods are
abusive in one area, they should also be abusive in another. So if the
European Commission wants to follow the positive example it set since
1998, it should not fail to also investigate the other complaints."
"The overall summary is positive. When FSFE set out in 2001 to support
the European Commission in its antitrust investigation against
Microsoft, our goal was to make this information available to Free
Software. Working jointly with the Samba team since 2003, we managed to
do just that."
Jonas Öberg concludes: "Software patents were a problem then and they
remain a problem today. We will need to solve this problem politically,
and FSFE intends to keep working on this. Meanwhile I'd like to thank
all the volunteers and employees of FSFE and Samba who worked on this
amazing success for Free Software with little or no support while others
were allowing themselves to be solicited out of the case. Our thanks
also goes to everyone who supported our work over the years and helped
make this success possible."
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in
the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these
issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving
people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central
issues of the FSFE.
http://fsfeurope.org
Contact:
Georg Greve +41-76-5611866
Jonas Öberg +46-733-423962
Carlo Piana +39-347-8835209
Shane Coughlan +41-79-2633406
Ciaran O'Riordan +32-477-364419
You can reach the FSFE switchboard from:
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Sweden: +46 31 7802160
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
Welcome to FSFE's exceptionally full November newsletter. In Europe FSFE has
been involved in speeches, meetings, training courses and public betas of new
technology. On the global level we have been participated in the recent
Internet Governance Forum meeting in Brazil.
As always FSFE's work has been complemented by the contributions of the Fellows.
The Fellows in Nijmegen, Dusseldorf and Berlin are due particular credit this
month after participating in discussions on various topics. In Berlin the
increased use of Free Software on mobile devices was discussed, while Free
Software and business was the topic of choice in Dusseldorf and Nijmegen.
If you are interested in starting Fellowship meetings in your area please
contact the Fellowship at http://fsfe.org/en/contact_us
- Shane, FSFE Zurich Office
1. United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
2. STACS meeting in London
3. Trophees du Libre 2007 in Soissons
4. Training Courses in Stockholm and Nijmegen
5. FTF events in Linz, Lausanne, Nijmegen and Dusseldorf
6. Foundation activities in Sweden
7. Berlin Fellowship discusses Free Software mobile phones
8. FSFE revisiting software patent information
9. SELF public beta and bug fixing
10. Interview with Werner Koch
Forthcoming events:
11. Free Software Conference Scandinavia, Gothenburg, Sweden
12. FSFE informes on privacy and freedom in Schwetzingen
1. United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
The second Internet Governance Forum was hosted by the Brazilian
government in Rio de Janeiro and showed a strong emphasis of Open
Standards as one of the key issues, also thanks to the constant work
that FSFE has been doing over the years and the good collaboration with
many groups in the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS). FSFE's
president Georg Greve had a busy time participating in the pre-IGF
Standards Edge conference by the Bolin Group and several workshops on
the issue, including the general assembly Security Session. Open
Standards are likely to play a greate role in the future UN work.
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/igf/
2. STACS meeting in London
On the 2nd of November, the FSFE organised a capacity building session
for CSOs as part of the STACS project
(FP6-2005-Science-and-Society-19-044597), in order to increase CSO
awareness of Free Software and to demonstrate its use. The session took
place at The Hub in London and was attended by a nice mixture of
participating CSOs, both from the greater London area, from the rest of
the UK and from several other European countries. The session ended with
a wish from all participants to hold several more similar sessions for
other CSOs in other places around Europe.
3. Trophees du Libre 2007 in Soissons
The Trophees du Libre, organised by CETRIL, is the world's largest Free
Software award with several categories. The 29 November saw the 4th
edition of the Trophees du Libre, held at the Chateau de Villeneuve
Saint-Germain with participants coming from as far as Taiwan, Israel or
Montreal. Having participated in the jury last year, FSFE president
Georg Greve was invited to preside over the jury of this edition and to
moderate the award ceremony while FSFE intern Irina Dzhambazova was
using the opportunity to get to know more projects and supporting the
event as best she could.
http://www.tropheesdulibre.org/?lang=en
4. Training Courses in Stockholm and Nijmegen
On the 8th of November, the FTF in collaboration with Internet Academy in
Stockholm, Sweden delivered a course on the strategic implementation of
Free Software in business. On the 26th of November the FTF and ATComputing
in Nijmegen, The Netherlands delivered the same course. The FTF now offers
course in Switzerland, Sweden and The Netherlands and expects to expand into
more countries soon. For more information about FTF courses please visit:
http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf
5. FTF events in Linz, Lausanne, Nijmegen and Dusseldorf
It has been a busy month for the FTF. Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator,
delivered a keynote entitled 'Free Software, licensing and business
processes' on the 3rd of November at elce2007 in Linz, Austria. He also
spoke at the Business and Law schools of Lausanne University, Switzerland,
on the 21st and 22nd of November, attended a Fellowship meeting in Nijmegen,
The Netherlands on the 26th, and delivered a speech for the Dusseldorf
Fellows about Free Software licensing and business processes on the 28th.
For more information about FTF events please visit FSFE's events page:
http://www.fsfeurope.org/events/events.html
6. Foundation activities in Sweden
The Swedish team of the FSFE has been busy during the month, holding
several presentations about SELF and Free Software in Sweden. The first
presentation was held at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm
on the 7th of November, followed up by the University College of Borås
in Borås on the 9th, Umeå University in Umeå on the 12th, Mid Sweden
University in Sundsvall on the 19th, Karlstad University in Karlstad on
the 20th and Linköping University in Linköping on the 21st.
All events were quite well attended, with a mixture of students, teachers
and other members of the faculty. In the presentations, emphasis was
placed also on how SELF actually contributes, not only to further education
on Free Software, but also to encourage the Free Software philosophy of
sharing and cooperation in other areas.
7. Berlin Fellowship discusses Free Software mobile phones
On 13. November there was a local Fellowship meeting in Berlin. Fellow
Robert Schuster gave a presentation about the relevance of OpenMoko for
the Free Software community. There was an interesting discussion about
what that means for the freedom of private persons as well as the
possibilities these freedoms give SMEs who can offer special services
for their costumers. It was decided that the Berlin Fellowship group
will meet every second Thursday in the month at the Newthinking store.
Afterwards the meeting was moved into a pub to get know to each other.
More information:
- The slides (in German):
http://fsfe.org/en/content/download/33600/207464/file/OpenMoko-Vortrag-fell…
- Pictures of the event:
http://store.newthinking.de/blog/archive/2007/11/13/erster-fsfe-fellowship-…
- Mailing list for meetings in Berlin: berlin(a)lists.fsfe.org.
8. FSFE revisiting software patent information
We have begun to revisit the published information on out webpages.
There is increasing discussion of software patents within the institutions,
so we are revising the information published on out website. Some updates
are already online, and in the coming weeks, we will continue to provide
more documentation about the current status as well as summaries of what was
learned and what has already happened.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/swpat
9. SELF public beta and bug fixing
After the launch of the public beta version of the SELF platform, the
development team has been working extensively on fixing bugs and
implementing the missing functionality of the platform. However, more
work is still needed in this area, and if you want to help, we encourage
you to try out the platform at http://www.selfplatform.eu/ and report
whatever bugs you come across.
10. Interview with Werner Koch
For our German readers there is something of a treat this month. Gulli
has an interview with Werner Koch, creator of GnuPG and one of the co-founders
of FSFE. Werner talks about his perspectives on security and Free Software.
http://www.gulli.com/news/der-autor-von-gnupg-im-gespr-2007-11-23/
Forthcoming events:
11. Free Software Conference Scandinavia, Gothenburg, Sweden
The FSFE is organising the Free Software Conference Scandinavia (FSCONS),
taking place in Gothenburg, Sweden on the 7th and 8th of December 2007. It is
the first in its kind event in the region, inspired by the growing momentum
around Free Software.
http://www.fscons.org/
12. FSFE informes on privacy and freedom in Schwetzingen
The data retention directive has been put into German law and will be valid
from January 2008. And there are other threads as the German "hacker act",
the "on-line searching" or the electronic health card. For this reason FSFE
is organising an event to inform the public about the coming risk for privacy
and freedom.
https://privatsphaere.org
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
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