M$ vs. EU (Open Source): Samba Wins!
This story has been back and forth like a long stroke piston engine, but it now seems as though for a one-time payment of €10k, the Samba team get the necessary stuff they need without prejudice and ongoing royalty commitments.
Microsoft, which has decided not to appeal the Court of First Instance’s September 17 ruling in favor of the European Commission and its 2004 antitrust order against the company, has also agreed to bend its terms to the open source business model and slash the price of its server communication protocols – just like the Samba Project wanted.
I know it isn’t quite free – but come on, €10k, they have already had two “donations”. I should think Redhat and Ubuntu could find that between them in spare change…
Samba always said it could deal with a one-time payment. It just couldn’t abide a royalty stream or a patent agreement. Kroes went to bat for the project and got Microsoft to agree to either a one-time payment of EUR 10,000, roughly $14,300, or a royalty structure, including a worldwide patent license, of 0.4%, down from 5.95% – less than 7% of its original price, the EC preened.
I think this is good news, but as I said it has been back and forth so perhaps this may change again…
Tags: EU, Microsoft, Open Source, Samba
