Microsoft not forthcoming about APIs in court case?
updated 12:30 pm EST, Thu January 18, 2007
Microsoft hiding APIs?
In the Comes v. Microsoft anti-trust trial taking place in Iowa, Microsoft may not be disclosing APIs (application programming interfaces) required by the 2002 United States v. Microsoft settlement, writes Groklaw. The plaintiffs recently filed a motion for permission to show this to the court, and the judge has agreed, though it is now up to the Department of Justice to make a request if the information is to become public.
The 2002 case revolved around APIs, since it was argued that one of the ways Internet Explorer had an unfair advantage over other web browsers was the favoring of IE by Windows. It was also suggested however that simply by bundling IE with Windows, this discouraged the use of other products. The company has since been allowed to keep bundling its browser, which is now shipping with Windows Vista. Microsoft may face serious repercussions if the DOJ finds that it violated the terms of the past settlement.
