Windows Azure at Cloud Expo

In a status report Tuesday the Justice Department said that Microsoft can go back to collecting nominal royalties under its Communications Protocol Program now that it's conquered its writer's block and provided "substantially complete" documentation of the stuff.

It's been seven years since the 2002 antitrust settlement that required Microsoft to make documentation available to other vendors so they could interoperable with Windows.

There are still some modules that need "substantial rewriting or reorganization" - in fact the DOJ said it "does not mean that the documents are finished or that no additional work remains to be done.

There is, in fact, much work left to do" - and Microsoft has to fork over the test suites for its WIN7 protocols. Some 55 companies license Microsoft's server protocol patents and 42 of them, currently on credit, will have to pay a royalty.