Oh this sucks. While I understand Microsoft’s argument, I still really hope that Samba will not get caught in this crossfire.

The European branch of the Free Software Foundation (FSFE) has accused Microsoft of freezing out Samba, the open source work group server operating system, in its final attempt to comply with last year’s European antitrust ruling.

In this final offering, filed last week, Microsoft agreed to make some server interoperability information available royalty-free, but declined the EC’s request to allow free software developers to publish the source code of products that have been written using this information. The EU has not yet accepted Microsoft’s offer.

Microsoft’s decision to prevent developers from releasing the source code of products that have used its interoperability licence means that Samba will be unable to use this information, according to FSFE president Georg Greve. Samba is a widely used open source software package that allows Windows files and printers to be shared by Unix and Linux systems.

“The proposal specifically precludes the information from being used in a free software implementation, such as the Samba workgroup server software. As Samba is the only remaining major competitor of Microsoft in this market, the Microsoft proposal translates as: of course we will give you the specifications — unless you happen to be a serious competitor of ours, that is,” said Greve. [Read the rest]