[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] has asked [DOJ press release] a federal court in Washington for a two-year extension [DOJ court filing] of a Microsoft antitrust order because the software giant has been slow to supply proper technical documentation to the licensees of its communications protocols. The remedial settlement between Microsoft, the DOJ, and nine states, approved in 2002 [PC World report; final judgment], attempted to address the anticompetitive nature of Microsoft's dominant Windows operating system by various measures including providing consumers with more choices between bundled utilities and requiring the company to treat vendors equitably.

Without the documentation sought by the DOJ, competing software vendors are at a disadvantage when developing software that works on the Windows system. The settlement is currently scheduled to expire in November 2007. Microsoft has already agreed [Microsoft press release] to the proposed extension. PC World has more.