Samba Team Gets Microsoft Protocol Docs

Microsoft preach interoperability but seem to fairly consistently practice just the opposite. It took the might of the EU and many years of effort on the part of many people to force Microsoft to grant (all be it limited) access to the specifications of their resource sharing protocols, but it finally did happen:

Groklaw - Samba Team Receives Microsoft Protocol Documentation

Have a look at the "Settlements" section in the above. Microsoft paid out over 3.5 billion USD to companies that were working with the EU on the case, and those companies duly walked away, seriously weakening the EU position. Thanks to the continued efforts the EU, and with help from the Samba team, the good guys won in the end, but Microsoft very nearly ended up being able to continue abusing the market.

Look again at the amount of money Microsoft paid out: over 3.5 billion USD. This is a huge sum of money. Enough to even sway governments, perhaps?

Now look at the shenanigans within ISO related to the Microsoft Office Open XML (MOO-XML) document format. Do we see another example of an international body being manipulated by the might Microsoft wallet. I think perhaps we do.