Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/March 24

Today in 2004 the – unsuccessfully appealed – court decision was made that forced Microsoft to give competitors such as the Samba project access to documentation of the “secret” workgroup server protocols of Windows. Following a complaint by Sun Microsystems the European Commission had brought an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. An appeal failed on September 17, 2007. Microsoft had to pay an unprecedented fine of 497 million and another 280 million in 2007 for abuse of its quasi-monopoly. The Samba team finally gained access on December 20, 2007, albeit under a non-disclosure agreement, through the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF), a non-profit organization established by the Software Freedom Law Center.