Microsoft grants Samba access to workgroup protocols

Over the Christmas shutdown Microsoft signed an unprecedented deal with the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF), a non-profit organisation created by the US-based Software Freedom Law Centre, to make information available to free software projects such as Samba on the protocols required to fully interoperate with Microsoft workgroup server products.

In September 2007, Microsoft lost its appeal against a decision of the European Commission that found the corporation guilty of monopoly abuse. Under the terms of the appeal decision Microsoft is obliged to release interoperability information to its competitors.

After paying Microsoft a one-time sum of €10,000, the PFIF will make available to the Samba Team under non-disclosure terms the documentation needed for implementation of all of the workgroup server protocols covered by the EU decision.

Although the documentation itself will be held in confidence by the PFIF and Samba Team engineers, the agreement allows the publication of the source code of the implementation of these protocols without any further restrictions. This is fully compatible with versions two and three of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Samba is published under the GNU GPL which is the most widely used of all Free Software licenses. In addition it allows discussion of the protocol information amongst implementers which will aid technical cooperation between engineers. The Samba team has published details of the agreement and a history of the case on its website.

Andrew Tridgell, the creator of Samba, indicated that there were still some reservations about Microsoft's patent claims, but declared that "we are very pleased to be able to get access to the technical information necessary to continue to develop Samba as a Free Software project. Although we were disappointed the decision did not address the issue of patent claims over the protocols, it was a great achievement for the European Commission and for enforcement of antitrust laws in Europe. The agreement allows us to keep Samba up to date with recent changes in Microsoft Windows, and also helps other Free Software projects that need to interoperate with Windows".

The agreement will open up the market to competitors. Jonas Öberg, vice president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, which fought the case through the European courts, claimed that among the winners "are all users of Workgroup productivity applications: Samba will now gain full access to all the information necessary for full interoperability with today's and tomorrow's Microsoft Workgroup Server products. All users stand to benefit from this, even those using Microsoft's products, because increased competition is likely to put pressure on Microsoft's pricing and decrease Microsoft's margins."

Under the agreement, Microsoft is required to make available and keep current a list of patent numbers it believes are related to the Microsoft implementation of the workgroup server protocols, without granting an implicit patent license to any Free Software implementation. The Samba Team's announcement notes that "No per-copy royalties are required from the PFIF, Samba developers, third party vendors or users and no acknowledgement of any patent infringement by Free Software implementations is expressed or implied in the agreement," which removes one of the primary objections to the EU decision that had been raised by free and open source developers, that Microsoft would be able to charge licensees on a per unit basis.

The Samba team's statement notes that "unlike the highly dubious patent covenants recently announced by some companies this warranty extends to all third parties. Also unlike past agreements, this agreement has been carefully scrutinised by the Software Freedom Law Centre, the premier legal experts for the GPL and Free Software."

Jeremy Allison, a co-creator of the Samba project, complemented Andrew Tridgell who "did a superb job in negotiating the agreement with Microsoft. We will be able to use the information obtained to continue to develop Samba and create more Free Software. We are hoping to get back to the productive relationship we had with Microsoft during the early 1990's when we shared information about these protocols. The agreement also clarifies the exact patent numbers concerned so there is no possibility of misunderstandings around this issue."

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