SCO May Sue Microsoft Over Unix Royalties techweb.com
This is basicly the same story that Gerald linked, this time from techweb. I got to comment on the Microspin on the story, it's pretty typical.
Microsoft said that the backwards compatibility rule was added at the behest of AT&T, which developed Unix, to prevent Unix fragmentation, according to Mark Murray, a spokesman in Microsoft's legal department.
Right, and it was just what AT&T had in mind that Microsoft use the bogus and obsolete clause to punish a little software company that inherited the cast off Unix mantle. I have no idea what AT&T was thinking when they did this anyway. Of course, AT&T was totally clueless on the value of the monopolistic death grip too, as the monopoly bits were what they spun off.
In light of the EC decision, Microsoft has modified the backwards compatibility requirement, so SCO is no longer obliged to use Microsoft code in UnixWare 7 or any future products.
As for a lawsuit, Microsoft said it is not aware of any.
"We value our relationship with SCO, and we believe that the changes we made to this contract are a good solution for everyone concerned," Murray said.
Yeah, right. The legal eagles had no problem enforcing bogus backward compatibility from the 286 era, and making SCO pay for it no less, but with this little setback now everything is copacetic. And from a previous article, techweb.com
Microsoft's associate international general counsel, Brad Smith, said in a statement that the company was "gratified" that the European Commission had decided to close its investigation of the 1987 deal, following Microsoft's decision to release SCO from its contract.
And of more direct relevance here:
Microsoft is being investigated by the European Commission over several competition issues, including the bundling of its Internet Explorer browser with the Windows operating system.
Cheers, Dan, always happy to see Microsoft legal eagles busy with things other than harassing little guys with Microskeptical web sites. |
