[Discussioni] selezione notizie FSFE

[Francesco Potorti`]

1. MS vs EU - Microsoft Releases Interoperability Information To SAMBA
2. FSFE Supports New Antitrust Case
3. Google Contributes To The FTF
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1. MS vs EU - Microsoft Releases Interoperability Information To SAMBA

In 2004 the European Commission found Microsoft guilty of monopoly abuse 
in the IT marketplace and demanded that complete interoperability information 
be made available to competitors. Microsoft objected to this decision and was 
overruled in September 2007 by the European Court of First Instance (CFI). 
The CFI found Microsoft guilty of deliberate obstruction of interoperability 
and upheld the obligation for Microsoft to share its protocol information.

The Samba Team has decided to make use of Micrsoft's obligation under the 
European judgements. Through the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF),
network interoperability information has been requested and a one-time access 
fee of 10.000 EUR is being paid to give Samba team full access to important 
specifications.

"This case is over and interoperability won. The European Court made clear that 
interoperability information should not be kept secret and the agreement shows 
that Microsoft saw no way to continue its obstruction of interoperability in 
this area. This establishes a standard which everyone will have to meet from 
now on," summarizes Georg Greve, president of FSFE. 

 http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/2007/news-20071220-01.en.html


2. FSFE Supports New Antitrust Case

Opera Software has formally complained about Microsoft's anti-competitive 
behaviour in the web browser marketplace and there is the possibility of a new 
antitrust case on this issue being launched by the European Commission.  FSFE 
has sent a letter to the European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes offering
its support for any investigation undertaken on the basis of the complaint.

"Although Opera Software does not produce Free Software, we largely share their 
assessment and concerns regarding the present situation in the Internet browser 
market", FSFE president Georg Greve writes in the letter and continues: "Some of
the most successful browsers in the concerned market are Free Software or 
contain large portions of Free Software. This includes, Mozilla Firefox and 
Konqueror, a browser made by KDE. Those products are highly innovative and 
widely recognized as more secure than the dominant application. They faithfully 
implement major international Open Standards relevant to browser technology."

 http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/2007/news-20071221-01.en.html
 http://fsfeurope.org/documents/20071219-opera-antitrust.pdf


3. Google Contributes To The FTF

FSFE's Freedom Task Force provides Free Software licence education, 
training and consultancy.  We do stuff like managing a pan-European 
network of legal experts and working with gpl-violations.org to resolve 
licensing issues.  Basically, the FTF helps to build infrastructure 
that encourages Free Software adoption and fair use.

Recently Google made a contribution to help the FTF deliver training
courses, attend conferences and translate documentation into more
languages.  Like all NGOs we have limited resources and Google's
assistance makes a significant difference.  We would like to thank Chris and
the rest of the team at the Googleplex for believing in what we do and
for making it possible for us to continue this work.

 http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf/

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