In 2004 the European Commission found Microsoft guilty of monopoly abuse in the IT marketplace and demanded that complete interoperability information be made available to competitors. Microsoft objected to this decision and was overruled in September 2007 by the European Court of First Instance (CFI). The CFI found Microsoft guilty of deliberate obstruction of interoperability and upheld the obligation for Microsoft to share its protocol information.

On Friday FSFE sent a letter to the European Commission to support Open Standards and interoperability. In the drawn-out battle to retain at least a weak recommendation for Open Standards in the revised European Interoperability Framework, FSFE has countered a leaked letter by the lobby group Business Software Alliance with its own thorough analysis of the relation between standards and patents.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is pressuring the European Commission to remove the last vestiges of support for Open Standards from the latest version of the EU's interoperability recommendations, the European Interoperability Framework. FSFE has obtained a copy of a letter sent to the Commission by the BSA last week.

"...'This case is over and interoperability won. The European Court made clear that interoperability information should not be kept secret and the agreement shows that Microsoft saw no way to continue its obstruction of interoperability in this area. This establishes a standard which everyone will have to meet from now on,' summarizes Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)..."

The EU Commission and Microsoft have settled the browser choice issue, and the Commission will continue to monitor interoperability issues, with Microsoft posting a new and "improved" set of documents today about interoperability.

The European Commission today published its long-awaited revision of the European Interoperability Framework. This document aims at promoting interoperability in the European public sector. The document is the result of a prolonged and hard-fought process.

Nobody is buying it. Well. Employees, maybe. Microsoft is once again promising interoperability and adherence to standards, but its own version of each. Interoperability that is safe only for noncommercial software excludes Microsoft's number one competitor, Linux. It is noncommercial and commercial, depending on who is using it. So, right there it tells you that this is a promise to do nothing that matters.

The final version of the important Digital Agenda for Europe has been leaked – and shows that the European Commission has betrayed open standards. Where an earlier draft had an entire section headed “Open Standards and Interoperability”, the latest version only uses the word “open” once in the corresponding section “Interoperability and standards.”

Last year's explanation of why interoperability simply harms standards