Microsoft, EU Battle Over Source Code

Microsoft has once again drawn the ire of the European Union. The EU on Friday said that tests showed that its system for allowing access to the source code of Windows' server software does not comply with the Commission's ruling. In fact, Jonathon Todd, spokesman for the Commission said, "it doesn't seem to be working at all."

The ruling originally came out of the record 497 million euro judgment against Microsoft made one year ago. The Commission found that Microsoft had abused its market position to push competitors out of the market. The penalty included allowing competitors access to server source code in order to allow better interoperability between different platforms.

Microsoft in turn decided to charge for access to its source code, and maintained that the Commission never said it couldn't charge for the code, which ranges from $100 to $600 per server.

Todd said that the EU felt this was too expensive, and told the media that Microsoft was also locking open source projects out of the process.

The EU again brought up the specter of fines totaling five percent of Microsoft's daily global sales if it did not cooperate to the Commission's satisfaction.

According to analysts, a major roadblock in any agreement between the EU and Microsoft is the Commission's insistence on allowing open source projects access to Windows source code. However, Matt Rosoff of Directions on Microsoft says the company may not have much of a choice in the matter.