freedom bits

Whatever you were wishing to receive for X-mas, I am pretty sure it was not a fine of 2 million EUR per day.This however is what Microsoft is finally about to receive in response to its failure to comply with the European Commission antitrust ruling.

According to stories reported on several sites, including Bloomberg, the European Commission is finally running out of patience with Microsoft: After Microsoft lost their appeal to delay execution of the sanctions on 22. December 2004, so exactly one year ago, Microsoft has then dragged its feet for an entire year and even filed yet another lawsuit against the Commission to further play for time.

That is precisely what the Free Software Foundation Europe expected in its press release on 7. June 2005, and I can only congratulate the European Commission and in particular Ms Kroes, who was quoted in the Bloomberg article saying:

"I have given Microsoft every opportunity to comply with its obligations.
However, I have been left with no alternative other than to proceed via 
the formal route to ensure Microsoft's compliance.''

She's right. The Commission indeed was unbelievable patient in waiting for Microsoft to finally begin competing with its competitors. But whether or not the fine of 2 million EUR per day is going to influence their behaviour significantly remains to be seen. The monopoly probably makes them more than that, so Microsoft may just calculate that paying the 2 million EUR per day is worth retaining their stranglehold over European economy. They did after all pay somewhere in the area of 3000 million EUR to get SUN, Novell, CCIA and Real Networks out of the case, reducing the support of the European Commission.

But it is still a good sign, and the first time the European Commission actually has to use this instrument, AFAIK. While this is not the kind of history that I would like to make, I guess it can count as a genuine Microsoft innovation.

I noticed that some people started using Fellowship signatures.

Karsten Gerloff and myself go for the "keep it short & simple" approach:

Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom!   (www.fsfe.org)

Ciaran O'Riordan already goes for a little more fancy:

Ciaran O'Riordan, ___________/       Support FSFE's campaigns against IPRED2
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _/ and software patents by joining the Fellowship
___________________________/ and encouraging others to do so http://fsfe.org

But the coolest signature I have seen so far was by Sebastian Fontius, who also did the Firefox Throbber and some Desktop Backgrounds:

: Sebastian Fontius : https://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/smc
`--------+----------+--------------------------------------------------.
    []   | "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little |
  [][][] |  temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."      |
    ||   :                                     Benjamin Franklin, 1759 :

This makes it possible to show what we stand for with every email we write -- and possibly get others interested in our issues. Ultimately, building awareness is one of our most important tasks: Only if we can make enough people aware of these issues and get them to stand up for their freedom will we be able to maintain it in the long run.