eu

Eurowonks take fun out of open source

Paul Boutin · 07/14/08 01:40PM


The European Commission's Software Quality Observatory for Open Source Software has released a "software quality checking platform" called Alitheia Core, designed to formalize quality control over open-source code. It doesn't boost my confidence that the demo site is throwing 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable errors this morning. You'll have to settle for the press release:

Eurocrats to review Nokia's Navteq deal

Jordan Golson · 03/28/08 04:00PM

The EU will review Nokia's $8.1 billion buyout of digital mapmaker Navteq. The Commission believes the deal could hurt competition. Navteq only has one large rival, Tele Atlas, which is being acquired by GPS maker TomTom. The EU is already examining that transaction. [FT]

EU fines Microsoft 899 million euros — and the euro just hit an all-time high

Jordan Golson · 02/27/08 12:02PM

European Union regulators fined Microsoft 899 million euros — $1.35 billion and counting — for failing to comply with a 2004 antitrust decision. The order said Microsoft overcharged for patent licenses and documentation which developers needed to build applications on Windows. Compliance with this antitrust order is the reason Microsoft released 30,000 pages of documentation last week — all under the guise of being "open source" friendly. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the euro hit an all-time high against the dollar this morning, priced at $1.5057 to €1. If Microsoft had just settled this in 2004, instead of fighting, it would have saved $400 million. (Photo by AP)