EU rejects Microsoft protocol license terms
InfoWorld | at | by Mike
The European Commission has shot down Microsoft's proposal for opening up its workgroup server software protocols after receiving complaints over the licensing terms, the company said Friday.
The Commission sent a letter to the software maker Thursday night rejecting its plan to charge as much as $600 per server to license protocols that would allow competitors to build server programs that work well with PCs running Windows, according to a source close to the case.
The regulator's rejection of the proposal was in part prompted by complaints from the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe), which sent a letter to the Commission outlining its concerns with the licensing terms. FSF Europe, which has been admitted as an official intervenor in the antitrust case, argued that the per-server licensing proposal went against the idea that the protocols could be used to develop free software because there is no way of knowing how many servers will be using it.