MS to be fined 2.4m per day by EU?

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well, sovereign nations have a right to determine commerce on their own soil. As much as I disagree with the EU's position (being that they're socialist), I have to respect their rights.
 
Surely an API set isn't the same thing as the code itself?

Right, they are different. Once the code is compiled to machine language, it is all but impossible to DEcompile it back to readable code.
The Application Programming Interface is a special means (through DLLs and OCX files and such) by which other programs can access and use the compiled functions in the OS.

For example, if you want to change your home page, you go in Internet Explorer options and change it, click OK and you're done. You have to do this "by hand". But let's say you get spyware on your PC, that spyware can also change your home page. How can they do this? Through the APIs that Windows has to allow 3rd party programs to access the registry.
How can you change theme colors? API. How can a 3rd party program change your system clock? APIs. How can a 3rd party program change your background picture, APIs.
If MS did not create API interfaces for 3rd party programs to hop on to, they could NOT do any of this, because the values would be "hard coded" into Windows with no external access.

Of course, those various things can be changed in the Registry, but even still, it is through API calls that 3rd party programs can go around in the registry and change values. Such as Hijackthis, in order to remove startups, it accesses APIs to access and change the registry. If Windows didn't have the APIs, HJT could only tell YOU where to go and get rid of entries manually.

Such is the beauty of APIs. But when a programmer creates no APIs to its programs' functions, no other program can use that function. It is closed in.
 
No - I'm from the UK, and I don't have a view - It was just that with all this talk of giving up code I wanted to clarify (for my own benefit) whether we were talking about code, or the API's mentioned in the EU ruling, and also to confirm that I did actually understand the conversation so far.

As for the EU ruling, I can see both sides of the coin - there is a pro-corporate argument, but there is also an equally valid anti-trust argument. Personally, I feel that both could be resolved by Vigilantes suggestion of removing all addon applications (IE, WMP, etc) and offering stand alone installers for them - or alternatively, just giving up the API's.

Either way, both sides need to be satisfied somehow in the interests of fairness.
 
Mictlantecuhtli said:
I'm European (and quite anti-American thanks to their foreign politics).
I'm american, and quite anti-European thanks to their politics!
 
LOL!
But seriously, would Microsoft have much to lose over this? I mean they can get the fines lowered to a very low amount and this would enable them to pay the fines without suffering a considerable loss. IMO, its the only practical solution that would allow both sides to have their cake, and eat it too. What do u guys think?
 
Mictlantecuhtli said:
I'm European (and quite anti-American thanks to their foreign politics).

And have no thoughts about EU politics. That's what my question was pertaining too.
 
lets leave politics out here.... as the old maxim states:

Politics and religion a friend doth not make.
 
Lol, I give my thanks to MS for the talking paper clip, an invention the world could never have been without.
Or another good one, the "Favorites Icon in IE 5". Like hello? THAT is an innovation? haha!
 
Spike said:
Surely an API set isn't the same thing as the code itself?
Not to you and me, it isn't. However, it looks more and more like Microsoft just doesn't have any documentation, except for the code itself. Thus, if they have to make the documentation accessible to third parties, they will either have to surrender the code (which they won't do, and shouldn't have to do either), or start writing the documentation - fast!
 
I heard someone say what is the EU really....can american's really be that ignorant?

I think the problem is that no one put regins on microsoft at the start because they hadn't the foresight to realise how powerful they would become..it's to late now there is no way they can force MS to pay more fines..what if they refuse? there are so many jobs in Europe dependent on MS there is no way they can pull the plug on them its never gonna happen...I'm sure MS knows this
 
I heard that Bill Gates was ordered to speak to Madalin Allbright, he rufused and was fined 1m a day untill he did. He sent a cheak for 30m and said, "I'm going on vaction this month."

I can't respect that kind of disrespect of athority. I think the EU might be a little upset about the media player thing, after all MS made a mockery of them.

The real question is do thay have the right to force MS to disclose specs. of thier code; the addresses API's and document how to use them. I don't know the law, but the EU should not be above it.

Honestly, once that much info is given it will not be long before the code is figured out.

MS EULA:
LIMITATION ON REVERSE ENGINEERING, DECOMPILATION, AND DISASSEMBLY. You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Product, except and only to the extent that it is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation.


This case is to help people that are doing just that.

Thier inovation or lack there of is irrelevant.
 
it's no more possible to backward engineer code from APIs than it is from a complete product. In fact, an API set is used to serve just that purpose - to negate the need to read and understand or reverse engineer the code in order to build better programs that integrate better with the OS. Disclosing an API doesn't help to reverse engineer code. A maojor reason they exist is so that code doesn't need to be disclosed, and so that there's no point in trying to reverse engineer it.

The EU has the authority to legislate on how business is conducted and how monopolies are deconstructed within its economic area in the same way that the US does.

It's worth remembering that while MS is based in Redmond, that only means that it's listed on the American stock exchanges. If MS wanted to, they could simply move their headquaters anywhere in the world and cease to be a US company. MS is an international entity, and as stated in many EULA's, local law applies, just the same as I could still get the death penalty for murder in the US, even though the UK doesn't have the death penalty.
 
I have no idea what you are talking about I'm afraid, but assuming you are trying to say that people who have already backwards engineered to code (which is never 100% accurate anyway) would then have the ability to better understand it...

..why would that have any impact at all? If you've already got the code, then you don't need documented API's to inderstand it. If you're clever enough and willing to put in enough time to dissasemble a pice of code, then you'r3e clever enough to read and understand it once you have it. API's won't help you with that process.
 
Mirob said:
MS is going to release the source code.
Yeah, right... That's just a joke, and a really bad one at that.
Here's the Microsoft Press Release: Microsoft Goes Beyond EU Decision by Offering Windows Source Code.

You won't even get the source unless you have € 50,000 to spare, and comply with a number of rather restrictive conditions.

That's NOT what the EU demanded - The EU wants the documented specifications, so anyone can write code that interoperates with Windows systems.

If you do not have access to any form of documented specifications, but have to figure out how everything works from just the source code, then how are you to know which part of the code is the bugs, and which part is the features?
 
I think MS programers have left alot of info in the source, enough any other MS program can use it. I sure it's more than enough for the EU to get off thier case.
 
Dissassembling Compiled / EXE or DLL code of Microsofts is (i think) against the end user licence (it don't stop you doing it :p lol) but i think it is against the agreement,

I didn't get 1/2 of what that article was saying, Giving out code of an OS is like giving my Spinal chord And Fluid to a 1/2 dead granny that some how "needs" a replacement because the "NHS" says so, it isn't happening IMHO,

I Don't See how EU comes into this... unless its some *** trying to scrownge money from a corprate giant, now its the baby stealing candy back from the Adult.

Documentation is fair enough giving Functions and how to call them and use them, from what i read they wanted Source Code to the OS not the Documentation but i haven't read it in detail (Skim read)

Thats just my 2 cents if you want free go Open Source, End of story , PERIOD.

Jim,
 
j4m32 said:
Documentation is fair enough giving Functions and how to call them and use them, from what i read they wanted Source Code to the OS not the Documentation but i haven't read it in detail
Nope, they did not want the source code, they wanted the documentation allright.

Compare the situation to the TCP/IP specs (i.e., the protocol that drives the internet), if you will: Any computer system that wants to do anything on the internet will have to implement a TCP/IP stack.

So, anyone who wants to develop such a system, and wants to do it reliably, will have to have access to the technical specifications of the TCP/IP communications protocol; some sample source code may help, but if you have nothing but the source code, and have no access to the specifications to which the code was written, you will have an awfully hard time figuring it out!

Similarly, anyone who wants to develop a computer system that can talk to Windows systems should have access to the communications protocols required to do it. Just the source code won't cut it.

Microsoft doesn't give out the technical documentation of the protocols, but only the source code--and, then, only to qualifying organisations that are prepared to pay a €50,000 (that's fifty thousand euros) fee! But no-one wanted the source code; in fact, once you get access to the source code, you are, for all practical purposes, banned from implementing the protocols in any other system, since Microsoft will then undoubtedly accuse you of copyright infingement--after all, you read their code, and then ported it into your newly developed system, didn't you? In addition, if you pay them their €50,000 (and, I'll repeat, that's fifty thousand euros) fee, you will be obliged to sign a license agreement, and chances are that your rights to use the code will be pretty limited; so if you subsequently dare implement a potentially competing system, you will be accused of violating the terms of the licensing agreement as well.
 
Seems the EC is none too happy,
http://www.the-inquirer.com/?article=29294

Microsoft may have briefed hacks and others on the elements of source code it is prepared to give its competitors, said an EC representative, but as far as the organisation was concerned it has still not complied with the terms of the agreement



The general counsel of Microsoft, asked about its decision to make the source code announcement, said the firm wanted to move away from talking about technicalities of source code. The Vole is fully committed to complying with the Commission's demands. It had offered to license the source code to competitors because that was the clearest way of complying. Vole had done everything the EC had asked. "Source code is the ultimate documentation."

They never will end this, they just want money.
 
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