[FSFE PR][EN] FSFE to Microsoft: stop complaining, and start complying!

Joachim Jakobs press at fsfeurope.org
Thu Feb 16 13:17:31 CET 2006


FSFE to Microsoft: stop complaining, and start complying!

"After several years of investigation, the original ruling in 2004, and
a European Court case lasting close to two years, we now have to conclude
that Microsoft never had any intention to comply with the antitrust
ruling," comments Georg Greve, president of the Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE). "We were forced to witness years of delays,
stalling and playing for more time during which Microsoft has made no
attempt to allow interoperability and competition with its
competitors, including Free Software such as Samba."

"It makes a very sad and worrysome statement about the quality and
reliability of software engineering at Microsoft if they indeed do not
have proper interface specifications and documentation for their
considerably complex and organic systems, as Microsoft have repeatedly
maintained," explains Jonas Öberg, vice-president of FSFE. "That
'hundreds of Microsoft employees and contractors' [1] were apparently
not able to produce this documentation in almost two years further
undermines the confidence in Microsoft's technological prowess."

"That Microsoft now questions the competency and integrity of a
Trustee they themselves helped appoint is outrageous. All the parties
involved in the case found the Trustee showed an intimate competence
and understanding," says Carlo Piana, the lawyer representing FSFE on
the case: "How do they now dare maintain that he is biased? Because he
is not willing to lie against all evidence? We support the Commission
all the way, and possibly beyond. And: If Microsoft wanted to know how 
it could easily comply, they just had to ring Volker Lendecke, member 
of the Samba Team, one of our technical experts, as we offered them"

"Microsoft has behaved as if they consider themselves above the law
and any decision by the European Commission. The aggressive stance
they now take towards a Commission that was unbelievably patient with
Microsoft further confirms that view," concludes Georg Greve. "Microsoft
strove very hard to be the first company to leave the European
Commission no choice but to impose daily fines for the first time in
European antitrust history. Microsoft deserves to be granted what they
worked for so vehemently and be brought to compliance the hard way."

About the Free Software Foundation Europe

   The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) is a charitable
   non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free
   Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may participate
   in a digital society. Therefore the freedoms to use, copy, modify and
   redistribute software - as described in the Free Software definition -
   allow equal participation in the information age. Creating awareness
   of these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and
   giving people freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
   central issues of the FSF Europe, which was founded in 2001 as the
   European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the
   United States.

   www.fsfeurope.org


[1] http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/feb06/02-15EUStatement.mspx



-- 
Joachim Jakobs <jj at office.fsfeurope.org
Media Relations - FSF Europe (http://fsfeurope.org)
Tel: +49 700 - 373387673, Ext.: 4004
Mobile: +49-179-6919565

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