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Well, ladies and gentlemen, it has happened-as of 10:05 this morning, the United States Department of Justice and 20 US states have announced that they will be pursuing antitrust actions against Microsoft. This is an entirely different bird then the action against Windows 98, although prompted by it. Over in Europe, the EU has declared that while it is concerned, it is letting the DOJ handle it.

The talks between Microsoft and the US government have broken down this afternoon. It appears now that a full-scale legal battle will be brewing starting on Monday. Gettin' ready to ruuummbbllee!

guy ruth hammond writes "Microsoft source code? well, they're distributing their IPv6 in source and binary, if you want it... go here"

32 Bits online has an undated dicussion of the effect that free software will have on our Ferrengi friends

Microsoft may have some real serious issues next week, as the Department of Justice and several states are considering coordinating their anti-trust efforts, and issuing a new suit as early as next week. Just more spice for TMS.

Slashdot has a man on the scene, making timely reports from Comdex. Here's report numero uno: Just finished seeing Bill Gates keynote address to open the convention. It was basically a showcase of Windows 98, with a few wry, pithy comments about OS/2, Sun, and Oracle's NCs on the side. If you don't like Microsoft's Internet Explorer, you're not going to like Win 98. The IE interface has been expanded from 4.0 to cover the help system, and become an integral part of Windows. Microsoft has a white paper which outlines the address. Bill was forced to pay for his comments later, when his Win 98 machine crashed during a demo. That's about all from here. I'm headed over to the North wing to review the Linux Pavillion.

Peace,

Pater

Continuing the trends of the recent months, Microsoft was beset by more troubles. The US Department of Justice meet with Microsoft again, partly in response to complaints from computer makers that in exchange for putting Windows 98 on their machines in the future, Microsoft is attempting to cut out some of their revenue stream. This odd charge could prove to be very important, as even their customers turn on Microsoft.

The purchase of Firefly by Microsoft may cause some major problems for Netscape. Firefly was in midst of developing a privacy component for Netscape's eCommerce server, something on which Netscape was wagering a large portion of their future revenue on.

There may be a new charge against Microsoft by the US Department of Justice. This latest action, still rumored, maybe an action directly against Windows 98. The Wall Street Journal reported the main article, stating that the case "would allege 'illegal maintenance and extension' of Microsoft's control of personal-computer operating software, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act." Whew--that's enough maybes for me today.

Indiana University will be now using exclusively Microsoft products, in accordance with a contract signed with the software behemoth. This deal is being compared to the deal MS tried to make with the California Schools Group a little way back, a deal that was reworked because of a huge amount of protest. Microsoft has also said that they will be pursuing more deals like this, further indication that they mean to assimilate this bastion of anti-MS feelings. If you are an IU student, employee, or alum, I urge you to write the university in hopes of at least keeping the campuses at least nominally multi-standard.

Warren E. Downs has written an awesome editorial on the future of openness, Microsoft's monopoly, the browser integration issue and more. the following was written by Slashdot reader Warren E. Downs

The Problem of Integration By Warren E. Downs Systems Engineer
In the last few years, and especially in the last few months, Microsoft Corporation has come under increasing fire for monopolistic practices. While people are trying to define what is or isn't a monopoly, however, many have overlooked an important underlying issue: Where should the Operating System be separated from it's applications? While there has been some debate on this issue, most of it has focused on extremes.

On the one hand, Microsoft points out the desirability of integrating new features into operating systems and the past precedent for doing so. (See Microsoft's article on integration, and this news article about their latest attempt to halt the DOJ investigation). On the other hand, the U.S. Department of Justice is working to stop the integration of Internet Explorer into Windows. The average person, looking at this situation, might concede that, yes, it is desirable to have these features integrated into the OS. Never mind all the companies put out of business by such action.

I believe both sides are overlooking something. Yes, I agree, it is nice to have disk compression, defragmentation, virus scanners, browsers, speech recognition, etc. built into the OS. What isn't so nice is that, at least in Microsoft's case, users lose the freedom to choose alternatives. Oh, you say, but people can always choose Netscape as their browser. It's not that hard to download and install.

You're right-- Netscape (or your choice of speech synthesis, disk compression, etc.) are easy enough to install, but when you do install them, you'll notice they are never as integrated as Microsoft's solution. Never quite as full featured. There's a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with the technical feasibility of integration. It's called Legal Precedent.

In the case of disk compression, remember a company called Stac Electronics? Back in the days of DOS, their product, Stacker was _the_ disk compression for DOS. There was a competing product called DoubleSpace. Then it was bought by Microsoft. Then it was integrated into DOS. (Specifically, Microsoft modified DOS so it could load DoubleSpace _before_ loading the remainder of DOS. This meant you no longer had to maintain two copies of config.sys and autoexec.bat. This is a great feature-- if only Stac Electronics could have added it to their product.

Oh, now I remember! They did! They reverse engineered the proprietary interface between DOS and DoubleSpace, and modified Stacker so it would interface with DOS in the same way that DoubleSpace did. The only problem? Microsoft sued them. And now, about the only reference you hear to Stacker, is in relation to DoubleSpace.

Now, obviously, if a company wants to make a profit selling software, it can't just let people go around reverse engineering things, can it? In the hardware arena, reverse engineering is common. Take a look at the Intel processor clones produced by AMD and Cyrix. They were able to reverse engineer the "interface" between Intel hardware and the software that runs on it. Of course, a large part of that interface was documented, otherwise software developers wouldn't be able to use it. (Of course, there's no guarantee of equal access to documentation, what with all the NDA's-- Non Disclosure Agreements-- Intel requires people to sign).

My point is, however, it is possible to make Intel-compatible processors without having to copy the circuit traces using a microscope (which would definitely be illegal under U.S. law). But the line between legal reverse engineering of software and piracy of software is much thinner. Tracing the execution of an OS with a debugger doesn't suddenly halt when you move from an application into the OS. Furthermore, how do we determine where the applications end and the OS begins? What was once an application-- DoubleSpace disk compression-- is now part of the OS.

This is an issue I feel should be further studied by knowledgeable, unbiased, computer scientists. But I do have an immediate solution. I don't think we should restricting Microsoft from including new technology into the OS-- This would be unfair to Microsoft, but far worse, would restrict other OSs from integration, if it did become law. Take a look at the speech recognition being integrated into OS/2. Unix, too, has it's share of integration taking place. For example, KDE, a Desktop Environment for X-Windows, includes an integrated browser in much the same way as Microsoft. The difference is, the interface between KDE and the OS is documented. The interface between IE and Windows is not documented.

My solution to this problem is to require Microsoft to document the interfaces between any module (read DLL or collection of DLLs) and the other modules of the OS. After all, if Microsoft can easily interchange components of it's OS, it's only fair that others be allowed to do so as well. Just think what this would do for us. As users, we would have the choice of which Memory Management module, Disk Compression module, Browser module, etc., we wish to use. We would not be forced into only once choice by Microsoft's proprietary interfaces. (This assumes someone writes alterate modules, of course, but with the interfaces documented, I predict there would be a flood of new innovation in the area of alternate modules for Windows).

For Microsoft's part, it might appear they would get the short end of the deal. But, in the long run, it would be better for Microsoft and everybody. Having open interfaces between software modules is like having unrestricted trade between nations. It opens up competition. Microsoft's modules would have to get better to compete with all the other choices of modules out there. And as long as they were better, Microsoft would still get a healthy share of the market. But innovation wouldn't be stifled, as it is presently.

If Netscape wanted to make their browser a plug-in replacement for Internet Explorer, they would have to modify it heavily to support all the interfaces that IE does-- adding COM interfaces for other programs to make use of Netscape for the Win98 help browser, for instance. But, if Netscape (or some other company) was successful in doing this, we would have alternatives to using IE-- and they might even be better.

Now a few comments from Rob...

The major issue that I see is that Microsoft currently documents much of their APIs, and will try to use that to prove that they already are doing this sort of thing. The problem is that they design the API, and control both ends of it.

For example, when OLE came about a few years back, Microsoft Compilers were the first to support them. What office application suite supported them first? Office 4 of course. Microsoft created a spec, and because of their control of the operating system, it became defacto. And because they designed the spec, they had the first products to support it. And the rest is history.

This is happening with other specs as well- DirectX and Direct3d seem like a good example. Microsoft releases the first apps that support these standards, and integrates them into the OS so everyone has it. Can any other game company do that? Of course not.

If these APIs and specs are developed by a third party, and MS was split into seperate entities that had no special access to these third parties, the future would look much brighter.

What do you guys think?

Redhat has won the Jolt Software Productivity Award. This award recognizes computer innovations that "jolt" the computer world. On t'other hand, Visual Basic, from Microsoft (never knowingly missed an oppurtunity to slam Unix) won the Hall of Fame nomination.

Microsoft has had a busy day. Having a suit against them thrown out, attempting to use the VBI for their own good, and being written about in a fascinating Red Herring article. Read more... A Texas judge has dismissed the suit the State of Texas brought against Microsoft last year, a suit that attacked Microsoft for its ultra-secretive non-disclosure agreements.
Also, Microsoft is in talks with several TV content partners to discuss how the vertical blanking interface (a way of transmitting data through television signals, at about 9600bps, by my calculations) wil be used. Sounds as if exclusive content enhancment services will be available only to Win98 and WebTV users.
Finally, an amusing but fascinating article talks about how Microsoft is 'a good monopoly'. Aside from the obvious errors (I'm sure Microsoft forced SCO to include code in their OS to make it incompatible with Windows...). I particularly enjoyed the part about 'increasing returns', a concept that can be applied in other places besides economics, and one that I've been studying for a long while...

The US DOJ has decided to widen its investigation into Microsoft by now looking beyond simply IE4, but the deals that MS has cut with partners involving IE4. Several parties, including Wired and AudioNet have been served subpoenas to come and speak about their partnership and dealings with Microsoft. Good thing--in many ways the problem isn't so much IE4, but the deals that MS cut with people to get it into the market.

Wirehead writes "This article, found over at the San Jose Mercury compares how Microsofts present woes closely compare to how IBM was changed in the 60's and 70's by the DOJ as well. An interesting read, since it compares much of how IBM the and Microsoft now companies have and are reacting under the presure by the DOJ investigation(s). Perhaps Microsoft will end up alot like IBM? The Article can be read here."

This link tells of how Hotmail, one of Microsoft's recent acquisitions is taking on spammers. Basically Genesis Networks and a few other naughty companies have been forging spam headers with replies going to hotmail.

We have several MS Related Links that I figured I would just clump together quick a second before lunch. First Paul Mickus sent us this one where you can read about the other side to the MS story. Next up is this section at CNN. Jon Webb sent us the link, which is a special section devoted to all the "problems" microsoft has been having lately. Nothing new, but interesting to see it all bunched together. Finally, a bit unrelated, but Jay Kominek told us that a Linux Binary of NetShow is now available. I might have mentioned that before, but it probably is worth mentioning again.

Digital, signaling their entry into a broader relationship with Microsoft will be putting both of their server arichectectures in the NT realm, a definite tilt for the NT side in the looming Unix v NT wars.

Microsoft announced earnings that were higher then last quarter, and above analysts predicted earnings. Much of the profit was due to strong sales of Office 97, but the company does warn of possible future quarters problems, because of the current meltdown of the Asian economies. Most stock watchers are also keenly watching the next court date for the MS v DOJ case, which will be next week.

This is the first of hopefully many Slashdot.org Editorials. In addition to just reporting the news, the Slashdot Team really wishes to try to put out new ideas, or share other information that our readers may find helpful, interesting, or entertaining.

We're standing at an amazing crossroad here. The Free Software Foundation, and especially the Linux OS have gained amazing ground. The mainstream press (eg the ZiffDavis marketing monopoly) actually now regularly acknowledge Linux along side MacOS and Windows as being a "Real" Operating system.

And then there is the browser world, where the race was once one horse, then hundreds, and now 2. Microsoft and Netscape have been battling it out for some time now, and Netscape's once unstoppable 70% market share has begun crumbling.

Meanwhile the Free Software world is facing a battle of its own. The Commercial browser world has been reduced to the big ones, but the free world is producing Mneumonic, Gzilla, and various other smaller projects. Many talented programmers slave away on these products, but each day, Microsoft gains ground.

Add the final piece of data to the mix:Netscape is losing money as well as browser market share. What's a company to do? Maybe the solution is simple:GPL Netscape's Source Code.

So now that you've stopped laughing, let's talk about this seriously for a moment. Let's look at why Netscape should seriously consider this:

Talented programmers from around the world would actively improve Netscape's browser. The Free Software Movement has proven that if some control is enforced at the center (eg Linus) programs can develop communally. Netscape would not have to pay most of the development cost of their software. Coordination, and key programmers would be essential, but minor once coders around the world join in.

Netscape needs browser dominance to fuel its server market, and to remain synonymous with the Internet. If current trends continue, MS will = the Internet in another year.

Netscape is losing money on the browser market. They need to release their browser for free to compete with Microsoft anyway.

Source code would allow compilation on other systems- say a Pentium optimized version, or whatever other optimizations become available for platform X.

Excellent Publicity generated by such an original move would earn Netscape respect from the Free Software junkies who often have somewhat negative feelings towards Netscape. These Free Software Junkies are gaining control of much of the world's IS departments, and Netscape's good name will get them places in these corporate worlds.

So that's all well and good for Netscape, but what about the rest of us. Netscape has taken a lot of heat for its gapping shortcomings. In particular its bloated size and slow performance. Why would the Free Software World want to take on this project?

GPL means we would have a state of the art free browser.

Netscape could be ported to GTK or Qt for faster performance and lower memory requirements than Motif.

Various web browser efforts could focus on a single project (which could have many faces) which already has so many of the features they need. Instead of these projects dividing the effort, they could unify.

The superior programming talents of the world's programmers would make Netscape the superior browser, which would win over converts back from Microsoft even on Wintel boxes where MS is gaining support.

New browsers derived from Netscape for more specific tasks could share things like an HTML rendering engine for commonality.

Now I realize that there are problems. Large parts of Netscape's code aren't really Netscape's to give away. The "about:" screen of Netscape Communicator lists 12 companies besides Netscape including Apple, Macromedia, Symantec and many others. Perhaps these modules are removed. Perhaps these modules could also GPLd. Netscape does need to maintain the primary code base, and finding someone with the charisma of Linus to steerhead the development of code from hundreds of people will me a challange. Then there are problems with large portions of the Free Software world disliking Netscape. I really hope this could change, especially if they were given the opportunity to maintain it.

I really think this could be the answer to a lot of problems. With the power of an Internet full of programmers, even Microsoft's Billions of R&D dollars would be threatened. And we would be guaranteed a real choice even if IE4 becomes the standard on Windows boxes.

What do you think?

by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
malda@slashdot.org

Thanks to Dave DeMaagd for sending me this story where we read that Microsoft is going wacky over biases in their current case. Next we have Kurt DeMaagd (Dave's brother, and another of my roomates) who sent in this story at microsoft.com discussing the Microsoft viewpoint.