Mark Doffman wrote a roadmap for the Python bindings of Tinymail. He just committed the possibility to implement Tinymail’s types in Python. Although I haven’t tested this yet, it looks like he’s making the bindings kick ass.
I guess this means that good Python bindings will be a feature of the first version of Tinymail. Thanks a lot Mark!
In the story of the power of big corporations vs. the power of Europe we reached a verdict today: if you want to sell to Europeans, you’ll have to play the game fair. Else, go home.
I truly hope European courts will do this kind of rulings more often. European economy and free market values are more important than Microsoft’s “feature integration”. The goal of an IT industry is to foster both the economy and technology by making the flow of information faster and more accessible. Its purpose is not to let Europe become a slave of a monopolist.
While I have a lot of respect for the fine professional technical people at Microsoft, their marketing strategists today learn that Europe will not bow. If you want to be a player in Europe, you’ll play it by the European rules. No company on this world is “big enough” to circumvent European law.
The apocalypse of nonsense:
I know some pro Microsoft people will try to make Europeans envision a Microsoft leaving the European market, spreading unnecessary fear. First of all, this wont happen. Second is that fear unnecessary because such an event would probably be an immediate and huge boost for the European economy. Especially in IT and technology sectors.
Can you imagine the vast amounts of technological improvements that would start happening from within Europe if millions of companies suddenly need replacements for their softwares? The growth the European IT industry would see? India would probably also become a huge (temporary) software supplier for Europe, indeed. This would likely end even more IT jobs in the U.S.
I also think the other big countries in the world would learn from what happens in Europe. I’m quite certain that Microsoft wouldn’t be trusted by governments worldwide anymore. Each large country would probably boost their own IT industry and start developing alternatives (in fact, some are already doing this). My own conclusion on this apocalypse of nonsense? Europe has a quite vibrant software industry. Although in the beginning it’ll be difficult, Europe would survive and probably outperform today’s IT industry.
The actual outcome? Microsoft will have to play it fair if they want to sell in Europe. Or, indeed, go home and watch how their European catastrophe is the start of all of their software titles and technical achievements becoming irrelevant.