Microsoft Corp. will begin giving independent software writers a vast trove of information today about how the Windows operating system interacts with other computers and with smaller Microsoft programs, fulfilling key parts of its proposed antitrust settlement with the Justice Department.
The release of the technical information is designed to allow programmers to make alternative Web browsers, media players and other features work as well with Windows as do Microsoft's own products.
Microsoft critics said that until the paperwork is released and programmers try to make rival software work on Windows, it would be impossible to evaluate how open the company is being.
The software behemoth promised to make the disclosures last fall when it settled with the Justice Department and nine states, which had accused it of unfairly using its monopoly in personal computer operating systems to promote Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, Media Player and other programs.
A federal judge is considering whether to approve the settlement and whether to impose additional sanctions on Microsoft, as California, Iowa and seven other states are requesting.
Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith and other executives said the company would immediately offer licenses for 113 communication protocols, the procedures by which Windows interacts with larger server computers. That should let computer makers incorporate better non-Microsoft systems for sharing files, printing and other functions.
On Aug. 28, the company will disclose 272 internal interfaces, which cover how Windows works with other Microsoft programs for e-mail, Web browsing and the like.
As permitted under the proposed settlement, one server protocol and one internal interface will be withheld for security reasons, and one interface will be withheld to help protect content under a digital rights management system.
Those sound like minor exceptions rather than the truck-sized loopholes some had feared. But because Microsoft decided what was an interface at all, and what was part of the core code that didn't have to be released, "it could be meaningless," said Donald Falk, an attorney for a software industry group that has filed court papers on the government's side.
