The UK Government has angered the European Committee for Interoperable Systems which includes manufacturers such as Amstrad, Groupe Bull, Olivetti, Fujitsu, NCR and Unisys by appearing to ally itself with the opposing Software Action Group for Europe, supported by IBM, DEC and Apple: the issue dividing the Committee and the Group is the reverse engineering of software and the UK’s Department of Trade & Industry is adding its weight to the US heavyweight proponents of porprietary systems which argue that reverse engineering should not be allowed to create directly competitive products; Amstrad’s Alan Sugar has written a letter of complaint to the Department stating that if this legislation goes through his company will have to stop manufacture in the UK and move beyond the reach of the European Commission to the Far East; meanwhile Bull UK is also complaining on the grounds that such legislation would slow down the movement to open systems; the issue has already split the European Commission – which drafted the software bill, favouring the Software Action Group – from the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee which is representing the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (CI No 1,531); the Department of Trade & Industry is due to propose its measure at tomorrow’s Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels.
