In a rare deal, Microsoft has agreed to share its protocol documentation -- needed to fully interoperate with the Windows workgroup server products -- with a non-profit organization, Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF).

The deal is seen as a step taken by Microsoft to meet the sanctions imposed by the European Commission (EC) as regards antitrust violations, after losing its appeal against these earlier on September 17th, 2007.

As part of the EC ruling, Microsoft is required to make this information available to competitors.

According to the Microsoft-PFIF deal, the former is required to make available, and keep current, a list of patent numbers it believes related to the implementation of the workgroup server protocol, without granting an implicit patent license for free software implementation.

Microsoft must keep the documentation up-to-date with new products, and provide error correction assistance to parties signing the deal.

After paying Microsoft 10,000 Euros, PFIF will make this documentation -- needed for the implementation of all workgroup server protocols that are covered by the EC ruling -- available to free, open-source server software projects such as 'Samba'.

'Samba' is a workgroup server software, and is used by small groups in offices to sign-on to the system and print documents.

According to Andrew Tridgell, creator of 'Samba', the Microsoft-PFIF agreement will allow keeping 'Samba' up-to-date with recent changes in Microsoft Windows, and assisting other free software projects that need interoperating with Windows.

And although the protocol documentation will be held in confidence by PFIF and the 'Samba' team, the Microsoft-PFIF deal is such that it will allow publication of source code for the implementation of these protocols sans further restrictions.