Microsoft ii
Analysis of yesterday’s verdict in The Register:
[I]f Microsoft sincerely believed that its IP had been violated, it would have cried foul already. The fact that it hasn’t, after several years, significantly weakened its argument. Now not every Judge in every courtroom in the world can be relied on to follow such logic, but the fact that an important judge in an important case did should cause some cheer in the open source community.
The Judge even felt it necessary to record a claim by the Free Software Foundation of Europe that found “… a number of incompatibilities deliberately introduced in pre-existing protocols and then altering them with the aim of prohibiting interoperability.”
Summing up, Vesterdorf decided that that competition would be better served by documenting the protocols.
But:
Count the number of headlines this morning around the world containing the words “Microsoft” and “trade secrets”. After we took our shoes and socks off, we had to stop counting. Own the language, and the battle’s half won.
[x]#953 fan donderdag 23 december 2004 @ 12:46:31
