EU Orders Microsoft to Dance With Samba
Microsoft has been ‘ordered’ by the European Union to strike a deal with an open source software developer that should pave the way for third-party workgroup servers to work more smoothly with Microsoft’s Windows clients and own server software.
The deal is the first step towards meeting sanctions imposed on the Redmond software giant by the EU in 2004 for antitrust violations. The violations relate primarily to interoperability of third-party software with its Windows operating system monopoly. But the antitrust implications also extend to the open source, following the March 2002 publication by Microsoft of a document outlining how third-party developers can use Common Internet File Sharing (CIFS), a protocol developed by Microsoft that specifies how Windows PCs share files with servers.
Microsoft claimed that publishing the document will make it easier to write software that incorporates CIFS. However what Microsoft omitted to say is that contained a crucial restriction that has instead handcuffed some developers. Specifically, Microsoft requires programmers to sign an agreement that prohibits using information in the document when building software governed by the General Public License (GPL).
Among the products affected by that restriction was Samba, widely-used open source server software that lets Linux and Unix-based servers look like Windows servers. Samba competes with file sharing technology in Microsoft’s Windows operating system and uses CIFS to communicate with client systems.
“In brief, it sucks,” said Samba officials said at the time, and called Microsoft’s agreement “a direct attack” on Samba and the GPL.
Still smarting from the EU’s antitrust stick, it now seems that Microsoft has been coerced into signing a deal to patch up its differences with Samba. In October Microsoft bent to EU pressure to comply with key elements of the 2004 antitrust order that not only include making three “substantial” changes in the way it supplies interoperability information to competitors seeking to have their work-group server software work with Microsoft’s operating system., but also providing open-source software developers access to and use of its interoperability information.
Andrew Tridgell, who is the developer of Samba, hopes the deal will help other free and open source software projects that need to interoperate with Windows software and servers.
The Samba deal was brokered in part by the non-profit Protocol Freedom Information Foundation, which facilitates the exchange of information related to Free and Open Source Software.
Our View
Samba must be grinning like a Cheshire cat after this deal, especially after the slap it received from Microsoft back in March 2002. Forcing Microsoft to sign a rare open source deal could well now open up a new chapter of cooperation, albeit under EU duress, in the company’s traditionally prickly relationship with open source software developers.