  Milne-Eddington (M-E) inversion codes for the radiative transfer equation are
the most widely used tools to infer the magnetic field from observations of the
polarization signals in photospheric and chromospheric spectral lines.
Unfortunately, a comprehensive comparison between the different M-E codes
available to the solar physics community is still missing, and so is a physical
interpretation of their inferences. In this contribution we offer a comparison
between three of those codes (VFISV, ASP/HAO, and HeLIx$^+$). These codes are
used to invert synthetic Stokes profiles that were previously obtained from
realistic non-grey three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamical (3D MHD)
simulations. The results of the inversion are compared with each other and with
those from the MHD simulations. In the first case, the M-E codes retrieve
values for the magnetic field strength, inclination and line-of-sight velocity
that agree with each other within $\sigma_B \leq 35$ (Gauss), $\sigma_\gamma
\leq 1.2\deg$, and $\sigma_{\rm v} \leq 10$ ms$^{-1}$, respectively.
Additionally, M-E inversion codes agree with the numerical simulations, when
compared at a fixed optical depth, within $\sigma_B \leq 130$ (Gauss),
$\sigma_\gamma \leq 5\deg$, and $\sigma_{\rm v} \leq 320$ ms$^{-1}$. Finally,
we show that employing generalized response functions to determine the height
at which M-E codes measure physical parameters is more meaningful than
comparing at a fixed geometrical height or optical depth. In this case the
differences between M-E inferences and the 3D MHD simulations decrease to
$\sigma_B \leq 90$ (Gauss), $\sigma_\gamma \leq 3\deg$, and $\sigma_{\rm v}
\leq 90$ ms$^{-1}$.
