FSFE engages in the EU browser case
Free Software Foundation Europe today announces that it will support
the European Commission's antitrust investigation against Microsoft
and to this effect it has formally requested to be admitted as an
interested third party.
The investigation began on the 16th of January when the European Commission
DG Competition reported that it had issued a statement of objections regarding
Microsoft's abuse of web standards and the tying of Internet Explorer (IE)
to the Windows Operating System product family. It is based on a complaint
submitted by Opera, a European company involved in web browser development,
which FSFE publicly supported in 2007.
FSFE considers anti-competitive behaviour unacceptable, whether it
occurs through 'tying' products, or in circumventing standards and
fair access. FSFE will seek to support all processes that ensure
competition and enable innovation.
FSFE promotes freedom of choice and protects Open Standards. This
includes working against abuse of standards through proprietary
extensions that unlawfully segment the Internet. FSFE welcomes the
participation of any company in the browser market, including the
optimisation of their products to work well on target platforms.
But no company should be in a position to dictate what the Internet
will look like by leveraging platform dominance into erosion of
standards through control of server and client.
FSFE President Georg Greve comments: "Antitrust law has to step in
when there is consistent and massive abuse of a dominant position that
is damaging competition in other areas. In this case, Microsoft first
used the platform monopoly to create artificial ubiquity for Internet
Explorer, and then modified the standards on both ends to
distort compatibility and competition."
"The design decisions that give IE better integration than alternative
browsers and to change web standards in undocumented ways were not
technologically justified. The consequences that made the intervention
of the European Commission necessary were intended, not
accidental,"Greve concludes.
"Microsoft's pleas to be in favour of competition and interoperability
must be followed by real acts of goodwill," states Carlo Piana,
counsel for FSFE. "So far we have seen little of it: recent actions
taken against Free Software are eloquent. We will be restless in
demanding that real competition be restored and that all players are
treated equally."
For FSFE's previous statements, please see:
http://fsfeurope.org/news/2007/news-20071221-01http://fsfeurope.org/news/2009/news-20090120-02
For FSFE's letter to the European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes,
please see:
http://fsfeurope.org/documents/20071219-opera-antitrust.pdf
Background
FSFE previously supported the European Commission's DG Competition
in its 2001 investigation against Microsoft's non-disclosure of
interoperability data. This was the first time the Free Software
community became involved in such a case, and helped lead to a final
decision in 2004 against Microsoft demanding that interoperability
information be made public.
The ruling was upheld by a 2007 ruling at the European Court of
First Instance, and eventually, Samba and the entire community
received access to the interoperability information upon conditions
compatible with the GNU General Public License, which is now being
implemented into better and more interoperable software that will
benefit the entire IT ecosystem.
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.
Further information about FSFE's work is available at http://fsfeurope.org.
Press contact:
Georg Greve <greve @ fsfeurope.org>
Shane Coughlan <coughlan @ fsfeurope.org>
Carlo Piana <carlo @ piana.eu>
Contact
* 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
The Fellowship of the Free Software Foundation Europe is proud to
announce its latest initiative: pdfreaders.org, a site providing
information about PDF with links to Free Software PDF readers for all
major operating systems.
"Interoperability, competition and choice are primary benefits of Open
Standards that translate into vendor-independence and better value for
money for customers," says FSFE president Georg Greve. "Although many
versions of PDF offer all these benefits for formatted text and
documents, files in PDF formats typically come with information that
users need to use a specific product. pdfreaders.org provides an
alternative to highlight the strengths of PDF as an Open Standard."
The coordinators of pdfreaders.org, Hannes Hauswedell and Jan-Hendrik
Peters, are pleased to present the latest revision of the site with
short and compact information how users can seize the full benefits of
both Open Standards and Free Software.
"Free Software gives us control over the software we use, and Open
Standards give us control over our data and allow implementations by
many different groups," explains Jan-Hendrik Peters. "We wanted to
show that with the Portable Document Format people can have both."
Hannes Hauswedell adds: "Similar to a Free Software project we started
off with an idea, provided a first implementation, received lots of
feedback, and worked that into a better version of the site. We are
grateful to all the people who got involved. This was a collaborative
effort that would not have been possible without all the contributors."
"The site offers buttons in several languages that we encourage
everyone to put next to PDF files offered on their sites," explains
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE's Fellowship Coordinator. "We hope that in a
year from now, no PDF is offered without the vendor-independent
alternative buttons of pdfreaders.org."
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/2009/news-20090202-01.en.html