Slashdot Mirror
EU Competition Commission Investigating Win2k
David Middleton writes "The European Commission is concerned that "Microsoft has designed parts of Windows 2000 in such a way which will permit it to leverage its dominance in PC operating systems into other markets."
" The European market is one that's often forgotten in this whole anti-trust suit, but is still of critical importance to Microsoft. Now, this is not an anti-trust investigation, but considering the concerns of the EU commisioner, it's something definitely worth keeping an eye on.
I can see you slipping away, out of your chair even. What the hell is wrong with you? Haven't you had any coffee today? You really need to get some more sleep. Look, I know I'm just your computer, but I care about you. Your last three programs were absolute shit. You haven't even gone back and debugged them. All that "extra help" you were throwing into open source development is wasted . . . I mean, it's a great idea, and I completely respect it, but you're crap, and everyone else has to patch the bugs that you're dropping in like sprinkles on an ice cream sundae. Don't even get me started on your e-mails. You're not even coherent anymore. I'm THIS close to locking up the next time you try to launch pine.
You used to be so good. You're smart; I know you still have it in you. But you've got to take better care of yourself. I've seen the stuff you've been eating. I can't imagine that a steady diet of pizza and fast food could be good for you. I know, I know, I don't have a body, so I couldn't possibly understand. Save it for your calculator, bud. If it wasn't for the 16 metric tonnes of caffeine you consume weekly you'd likely be grossly overweight. I can only assume it's the constant twitching like a rabbit on crack that burns away the calories. And I can't recall the last time I saw your desk devoid of pixie stix. What, do own stock in the company or something? Oh, you do. Never mind.
Get a grip on yourself. Yeah, you're making money now, but is it worth the crappy software you're coding? No, of course it isn't. Sleep. Go out once or twice. What's the use of having all that money if you're not going to spend it. At the rate you're going, you'll be in the ground at 33. Take a vacation or something. Just PLEASE try and take better care of yourself. I AM a machine, and I know I'm only going to be useful for a couple years . . . . .
It wouldn't surprise me if WIN2K was *banned* in Europe for whatever reason the Euro-Parliament digs up (Brussels is very big on giving european companies a head start over the US).
:)
With some of the strange laws passed in Europe affecting the UK recently, such as we *have* to use metric measurement instead of imperial and we can get away with a speeding ticket due to the right to remain silent. I would think that Brussels could also provide a law that it is illegal to sell a crap product to people while telling them that its great
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Maybe...
------------
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
What are the "features" that the article mentions? Does anyone have any more detail on this? I think it's great that they could force Microsoft to actually change the code. Good luck, in that 25 million line behemoth. :) Can you say, "another beta cycle" boys and girls?
Having seen Win2k in action, I agree with the EU. Basically it is a catch-up to Linux version of Windows. They have now included a telnet server, an ftp server, and, of course, IIS into the workstation version of Win2k. They are all, in some way, inferior to *NIX versions of the tools, but Microsoft is simply trying to push more vendors out of the market. Before it was Netscape, now who else?
From what I read the EU seems to be investigating MS because its new OS will dominate the computer market.
What part of the OS? Why doesn't Win9x and NT qualify under this investigation? What does this new OS give MS that its previous OSs didn't?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I thinke they have something serious to worry about here. Think about it for a minute. Microsoft is in danger of severe problems in the US. Possible solution: Get a strong foothold in Europe, and move the center of operations there. They no longer fall under the US Anti-trust laws, as the company is not incorporated in the US anymore. (Correct me if I'm wrong about that...)
On the other hand, if Europe has been watching events in the US, I'm sure they'll be savvy to this and look any gift horse in the mouth very very carefully.
--
Matthew Walker
My DNA is Y2K compliant
Matthew Walker
http://www.tweeterdiet.com/ - My Diet Tracking Tool
Is it me or does this story have some factual errors? Win2k is not replacing win98. Microsoft realized that it could make a lot more money by selling a cheap crappy desktop OS (win95/98 and descendents) and another "good stable secure server OS" (winNT/2k and descendents) for much more money.
Kind of makes me mad though. When did stability become optional in a commercial operating system?
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
Will Microsoft have enough time to supply the info. the Euro Commission is requesting. With all the effort they are putting into rolling out Win2K and there previous acts of delaying everyting when it comes into questioning there products. From what I read Microsoft will face heavy fines if they don't comply.
If they do what they have done it the past there product may be banned from Europe. Now wouldn't that put a burr up Bill's a**. Allow more time for Linux in Europe!
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Nous les Europeans sont bien fromaged off avec les "borgs" du Microsoft et ses systemme operating de Fenetres Deux Mill (Fen2K). Nous les investigaterons pour les breches de la loi sur la competition. Nous avons des pouvoirs draconnienes de frapper les infringeurs tres dur avec un grand tronchonne.
Mais nous ne nous fait trop de peine au sujet de Petitsoft et ses "borgs". Nous nous concernerons en plus de la site d'internet de "slashdotte", et la problem grave des "putains de Karma". Ca fait clairementun breche des regulations europeennes au suject de la controle de la prositution et du religion.
Parce que la slashdotte continue de distributer ses infractions sur l'internette europeen, nous avons les sentencer d'un campaign fort de "trollement". En utiliser le surplus europeene de porridge de mais chaud (les "hot grits"), et les services de l'acteur francais Jean Reno, qui a joue le charateur de "Leon" dans la film de ce-nomme avec NATALIE PORTMAN, nous pouvons deluger slashdotte avec des postes de merde.
Nous voulons, messiuers, de vous remercie pour la chatte de vos grandmeres.
La Commission trollien d'Europe.
What MS has to do is to get spanked badly in the US, and then convince the EU that they need money to be able to sell their product.
Hey - it works for all other companies in the EU ;)
(overrated, not funny at all, spanked)
it's in my head
Gee, when it comes out things could get very interesting...
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Someone please troll this guy before he manages to buy a house off all the business slashdot is going to give his site.
Self serving bastard...
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
we probly shouldnt be that concerned with what microsoft is doing. If we spent as much time aiding in the development of linux as we do second guessing microsoft then the world would be a much better place. im off to code.....
...that a lot of countries would leave trade disputes up to the WTO. In this particular case, there may be some justification, but in a lot of others big countries and groups of countries have taken steps without the authority of the worldwide bodies which rule on the matter. Examples include US retaliatory duties for European banana favouritism and NATO's cililian-slaughtering bombardment of Yugoslavia. Action in these two cases could only legally have been taken by the WTO and the UN security council respectively, yet international law was flouted by countries who seem to think themselves above it. I wish those responsible would grow up and realise that vigilante action is no more acceptable on the international than the local stage. I wish.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
Of course it is. US is doing the same thing with many other products. and now that there are more interesting european products (i.e Suse, KDE & co.) why wouldn't they do this ? ...
Furthermore, it's only nice to know that they are finally seeing that there are other os'es as well. I don't know if you are aware, but the business and govt. sectors run solely on windows. Which sucks. Big time.
And, btw - I think it's the time to have a more serious competition on the os business as well (not only Linux/Windows) - what about something else ?
And furthermore, what about breaking the US "monopole" on the software market ? Not that this will happen in the following decade, but still
I have been using Windows 2000 for a couple weeks now and I can see some nice things that have been done, but nothing to warrent a major investigation. The internals of the OS are very much a melding of win98 and winNT with some more nice features. IE is integrated into it but that was true for windows 98 also. Nothing in windows 2000 locks you into using a mirosoft only setup. In fact I was able to get my winmodem to work on 2000 and have my linux box use it as a gateway. Until now I was only able to connect at 14.4 but I still have the option to go back to my linux box as my gateway.
The article did not even elaborate on what parts of win2000 made them belive that it would increase the MS strangle hold. Does windows 2000 realy change things that much? In my personal view, no. The only reasson that Microsoft may extend their power is because for once they were actualy able to create a decent product.
Apparently the EU competition chief, Mario Monti, thinks that they do "it in a way which permits only Microsoft products to be fully interoperable. Microsoft's competitors, which do not have access to the interfaces, would therefore be put at a significant competitive disadvantage"
Does this guy read /. ?!?!
The European courts have many flaws, but they do seem to act speedily and concientiously ( I wish the same could be said of the rest of the EU government). They have beenknown to rule aginst Microsoft in the past and , I would say, they are likely to do so in this case. The American Courts are not likely to force a change on Microsoft's product line, but instead try to force compettition on an organisational level. The European courts would be less likely (even if they had that option) to break up microsoft, but to outlaw certain predatory tactics. Remember that the European courts are generally used to rule on Human Rights issues in law and deed and have the ability to righteously smite those who put profit over morality. Not to say they can't screw up, especially since it is usually up to the EU governments to implement the rulings, but I happen to quite like them. YMMV.
Uh excuse me? How is Windows catching up to Linux? First off ftp, telnet, and web server software is hardly linux centric, they were present in commercial linuxes before Linux ever existed.
IIS was also present in NT4, as well as telnet server which was present in NT services for Unix.
So I guess when Linux distributions included those particular tools they were playing catchup to commercial Unices?
Secondly, how are these tools inferior to the *NIX versions? An arguement can be based on the telnet portion, but IIS? Give me a break. Apache is a great tool, but IIS is no slouch either.
Why not mention the tools which Win2K has and Linux does not? MMC? Best web browser on the market? Easy to setup Internet connection sharing? Those ring any bell?
Actually - at least in the UK - The Government has been supporting GM crop trials. We do have our own GM crop trials. Its just the british people that are against it, generally because of FUD, masquerading as Environmental worries. The majority of people in Europe think that the environment is more important than economic growth. (Apparently a survey was performed, and every developed country except the US felt this way)
Although I'm anti GM simply because I don't like the idea of eating all the herbicides that herbicide resistant crops will have absorbed.
Linux Mandrake ? :-)
Typo on the first part "commercial unixes" not linuxes :\
This argument is rather pointless because unprovable, MS is no european company and won't become one. Had MS been an EU company we would have heard the same argument when the case in America started. As Microsoft and their business tactics are even under investigation in the USA why shouldn't the EU at least have a look into things? I'm living in the EU and am happy someone is looking into dubious corporate behaviour that affects our economy.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
I think the fact that this has wiped more than $1bn off the value of M$'s shares (is that American or European billions I wonder...) means that the people who ultimately could make or break M$, the stock guys, care about this ruling.
All the report actually says is that they will look into the possibility of M$ using their position to lever themselves into dominance of other markets. This is something that I suspect they would do to any other big company. In fact, I'm sure they have taken similar action against other comapnies.
What's interesting is that when they do it for other 'monopolistic' companies, there is a pretty mixed response amongst the general populous, but this will almost universally welcomed, irrespective of whether it is actually a good thing for the freedom of the market (which is after all what the EU is there to promote and protect)
--
Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
You're a troll. And you're wrong. The EU commission has annoyed a lot of big *European* companies for anticompetitive practices. Vodafone, for example, is being heavily investigated with its recent buyouts left and right. They are being forced to sell on of their cell phone operations in the UK, for instance.
I can see why an investigation can be worth while:
Win2K so far has:
- an incompatible DNS implementation
- an incompatible Kerberos 5 implementation
Who can't imagine environments where this might be a problem? The obvious solution is to go 100% Microsoft and this could make competitors nervous.
Now the real question for the EC is: did Microsoft engineer these 'bugs' by accident or by design? Incidents from the past seem to indicate that it was done on purpose, but you can't be sure can you?
Maybe we should wait for the first service pack?
I guess the EC doesn't want to wait...
Matt 'Euro' Casters
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
With another viable, quality desktop on the horizon, running on a free and stable OS, the leveraging ability of the WinApi becomes moot, which allows every other company to invest in the new paradigm. Thus the high significance mergers between Cygnus and RedHat, Borland/Inprise and Corel. The only major companies that haven't moved super-significantly into Linux are Lotus and Symantec -- and Lotus has moved Notes, just not the consumer grade "Smart Suite" applications. Which (AFAICT as a programmer) is because much of the code is so intertwined with the WinApi that extracting the core functionality is extremely difficult -- it would probably be faster to start over.
So if I were the head(s) of Microsoft, I would of course seek to recover by moving my heavy-handed techniques overseas, hoping that the rest of the world wouldn't be ready.
So we here that people at the EU is watching Microsoft's operations like a hawk watches a rabbit? Damn right they should!!Well, sorry folks in Redmond, Europe has SUSE [no distro-flame- war spark intended -- but last I checked SUSE was the #1 distro in Europe] and doesn't need you. Of course, if you would a) play nice and b) port your apps (which we acknowledge as having good qualities) to Linux, and c)open the API so that bugs can be found, fixed, etc. in a timely manner...
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I'm sorry, that particular statement was inspired by the parent article which suggested that the EU was really objecting to Win2K on the grounds that it was 'Made in America'.
Incidentally, the bad press about Microsoft from abroad often also creates a bit of flak for other American companies as Microsoft is seen by xenophobes (to whom I do not belong - the only 'other' I seriously dislike is intolerant people) as so quintessentially American.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
That this institute has indeed some influance was proven with the pie incident IMHO. Mr. Gates was there for a reason and it sure wasn't just a social visit as many people seem to have forgotten.
I'm quite curious to their findings; IMHO its very well posibly the outcome can be another devastating blow in the face of the MS company but we'll just have to wait and see.
A couple of quick rebuttals before I get onto my main point. Firstly, the furore about GM foods was very little to do with our governments and very little to do with trade protection (we don't grow much soya, to start with). It was ordinary people (possibly ignorant and wrong ordinary people, led by their newspapers, but that's a different issue) complaining about GM that brought UK government action in the first place. Until they realised how unpopular it was, the UK govt was actually pro GM. Secondly I take some offence at your portrayal of "Euros" as a homogeneous group. We're not. I, for one, don't get excited about GM or trade protection, in general.
Alright, on to the main point. This is not about trade protection. "Europe" doesn't have a competing commercial OS, so there's nothing to protect. Xenophobic bigotry aside, don't you think that the EU could be as concerned about MS strongarm tactics as the US DoJ is? Afterall, EU consumers are getting screwed over to the exact same degree that US ones are. And finally, the EU does have a record for taking unpopular action against its own firms and industries. Indeed, that's one of the reasons it is somewhat reviled in the UK - people object to the introduction of compulsory decimalised labelling of goods, for example. Especially the firms that have to implement it.
The EU has many problems, but this is not one of them.
--
Tom Harris
http://www.harris.ukgateway.net
"that if MS was a European company they wouldn't be pulling this sort of thing"
Rubbish! You don't know what you're talking about. The EU has much stricter anti-trust laws than America. Take the current Vodaphone (non-US company) take over bid for Mannesman... Vodaphone will probably have to sell Orange to complete the deal.
You're the one who's whining like a protectionist
I'm sick to death of a bunch of right wing libertarian assholes with a US centric view (if they even believe in the US as an idea (can you spell militia!) banging away at any sort of regulation.
Get a few facts straight. GM food - look at public opinion - informed public opinion (like all my mates who have PhD's in environmental toxicolgy and other such subjects) who won't touch the stuff with a bargepole. FUD works both ways. And as for us being a bunch of socialists, well thats the way we like things (if I had wanted a conservative government I'd have voted for Tony!). Oh, and we don't like Austrian Fascists either!
Big corporations will run roughshod over anyone who doesn't stand up against them. Be thankful for the US government and the EU taking a stance when they do.
We the Europeans are well cheesed off with the " borgs" of Microsoft and its operating System of Fenetres 2000 (Fen2K). We will investigate them for the breaches of the law on the competition. We have draconian capacities to strike the infringers very hard with large a tronchonne.
But we are not only worried about Petitsoft and its "borgs". We will also concern ourselves to the Internet site of "slashdotte", and the serious problem of "putains of Karma". It made clear breach of the European regulations to the subject of the control of the prositution and the religion.
Because slashdotte continues to distribute its infringements on the European internette, we have the sentenced it to a campaign of "trollement". By using the European surplus of hot porridge (the "hot grits "), and the services of the French actor Jean Reno, who has the charator of " Leon " in film of the same name, with NATALIE PORTMAN, we will flood Slashdot with bad posts
We want to thank ypou for your grandmother's cat
The Troll Commission of Europe.
As far as bogus claims go, though, I rather enjoy it that in certain instances (GM foods, in particular) a government entity steps forward and demands proof before the fact.
And when it comes to Microsoft in particular, if you think for one minute that they aren't doing everything they can to make other-OS interoperability a nightmare then you're probably using WFW 3.11.
-- an expat yank in euroland
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
I know this is off topic, but it's about win2k so I'm posting it anyway.
There's a billboard I pass every day on my way to work. Presently it reads...
Microsoft Windows 2000
All the security of Windows NT
And all the reliability of your mother
Obviously, no one from Microsoft has ever had a phone call from my mother when she was trying to install something new on her computer. But from what I've heard about win2k, the statement seems fair.
This could be an MS-killer in Europe.
Next French (local) gouvernments start using open-source products.
Anti-Microsoft sentiments are growing on continental scale here, the mentioned article is just another thrill in this proces.
Bizar technology?
"trade protectionism" ? Against WHAT?
It would be understandable if there were a major OS supplier in Europe (sorry, SUSE, there is a long way to go), but there isn't one... to _protect_.
those bogus claims? you (yes, you, yankee boys) have not in fact proved that GM food is not harmful to humans. and you oppose our demand that all GM shit be labeled so as to leave the choise to the consumer, do you not? So in effect, you want to force this shit down our throats, ain't that so? And I wan't to ask you: what do you think all those hormones you give your farm animals do to he man? Just think of Littleton, Atlanta daytrader.. you (the yankee folks) are fscking nuts, and you are getting grazier every day.
As an NT 4.0 Workstation user, I got to use Win2K Beta 3 RC1 this past summer. I liked it.
It had some fishy features, my laptop crashed twice during the three months, but overhaul, it was pretty solid. The game support was better than NT4, the interface cleaner (once you got used to it and disabled most of the "new features") and seemed a little more stable than NT4. Overall, good job Microsoft.
I can't comment on the server end, but what I've read doesn't interest me as a user (as a consultant yes, as a user, no). Active Directory: from what I've seen, it is more complicated than the traditional domains. When I learn how they work, I'll probably consider them about the same, but for now, it is more annoying. While the old model broke for large sites, I personally wouldn't user NT in large sites.
As I've said for years to my Linux/Unix friends. NT does what it does really well: administering logons for Windows (and NT) workstations. The roaming profiles work most of the time (and the errors aren't too bad), logon scripts work, and the file and print serving works.
I wouldn't dream of running a real website off of it, but for a small office without a full-time sysadmin... it works.
The Unix people talk about all the features that Win2K (and NT4) has that are new and mention how they have had them for years. True, NT/Win2K is playing catchup in server space. This makes sense, NT is new. *nix has been around forever as a server and should have more features. Linux, grabbing for the desktop, is copying ideas left and right from Windows. It balances out, and that is how competition works.
Win2K is a pretty solid product. I wish Microsoft well with it. I'm not a huge Microsoft fan, and I'm also chearing for their enemies. But if I can get DirectX support with the stability of NT, I'll probably stop considering Linux on my desktop all together.
Sorry, NT is STABLE ENOUGH for me. I reboot every few weeks, and in return I have better application support than Linux. Would I consider running Windows 9x/ME? Hell no, they are a joke of an OS. Linux needs to stop patting itself on the pat for being more stable than Win9x. In the stability race, NT is the competition. If NT is "good enough," then Linux needs another killer app for the desktop.
And no, $200/station or enough $500/station to people that pay consultants $150/hr to do network stuff doesn't make a different.
Alex
For those of you reading this for whom English is not your native language. There are some things that can make free software more appealing in non-English speaking countries. Update or write HOWTOs for configuring Linux for your language/locale. Contribute to the translation of messages, documentation and man pages into your language. Contribute to the free Unicode font effort. Create a dictionary for ispell or aspell for your language if there isn't already one available.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
As a pro Euro Brit, it is great to see the EU providing a service that all can benefit from.
This is merely trade protectionism
.- What is the eu product that is being protected.
- Microsoft has major research facilities in at least some EU countries and is expanding them now. The sum of all of them is getting close to the size of Redmond Campus
What have you been smoking?bogus claims about GM foods. It is likely you had too much GM food lately. Two things:
The more interssting subject is will Win2K be forbidden in Germany and France or not. These countries have very strict regulations on the scientology sect. There, you may not buy any product or use any product in any government or gorvernment contracted/subsidized environment if it has been produced by any company owned by the scientologists.
At the same time MS has employed a scientology owned company to develop the disk checking and diagnostic utilities for W2k. So what happened to this investigation (it has been on slashdot in the past).
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Not directly related to W2k, but an example of possible "levering" of influence could be the news that one of the people wanting to take over the running of the UK lottery, is teaming up with Mr Gates. (BBC news article here)
According to the article, he will "advise on encryption and data warehousing." (Can you really see him being imparitial about what systems to go for?) but the most worring quote was when he said "The lottery terminals in the past have not used PC technology and there hasn't been a way of leveraging all the things which are going on with the internet" (emphasis mine)
Begin with lottery tickets, maybe, but how long do you think it could be before you can only order online with windows?
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
I swear, people have no sense. Those of us who aren't brainwashed Linux zealots realize that there are actually some very good things about Windows 2000. When Linux users run around chanting "Down with Microsoft!" it just makes me wonder what they're scared of. If Win2K is really as big a piece of crap as you guys seem to think (and it isn't, in my experience), then what are you afraid of?? Let events take their course. The best will survive. If people like Windows better, they'll use Windows. If they like Linux better, they'll use Linux.
I prefer being able to choose between Windows 2000 and Linux rather than being forced to use Linux. There are quite a few things that Windows 2000 does (and does nicely) that Linux doesn't...especially in the realm of server linking, COM objects, smart caching of pages in IIS, and most of all: usability .
--
So who benefits from taking up trade disputes with them
Like everyone, I have heard time and time again how great Win2K is. I think what is important to realize is that in almost every cirumstance it is being called great only when it is being compared to NT 4.0.
It now includes a telnet server, which NT 4.0 did not. It has only 2 things which require a reboot, unlike the 60 or so that NT 4.0 required. It's now a lot more stable than NT 4.0. It now includes plug and pray, which NT 4.0 didn't. It now allows for command-line administration, which NT 4.0 didn't. And on and on and on...
The problem with this is that it does not show how good that Win2K is. It only shows how bad NT 4.0 is. Looking at it all I cannot believe that Microsoft had the unbelievable nerve to charge a damn thing for that piece of dog shit known as NT. It is an insult to our intelligence as technichal people, but not to the intelligence of management (who bought into the lies of Microsoft).
The only time I've seen Win2K being compared to another OS is when Inactive Directory is being compared to NDS. From the (biased) reports I've seen, it looks like NDS is better.
Win2K is only great in that it's a lot better than the problems that Microsoft created with NT4. I can't wait to see Microsoft destroyed by the DOJ and by the EU. They deserve it.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
As well as being rather offensive...
Since when was Linux run by a Finnish company? Where it was started is entirely irrelevant.
Come on, you might at least try...
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Gee, Microsoft is putting new features into Windows that could extend their dominance into servers and e-commerce?
/. comment instead of actually being in Ballmer's shoes...
Who'd a thunk it!
OF COURSE, they're adding features and trying to dominate the server market (as if they don't already!). That's what companies do when they want to keep growing, Microsoft and all the rest! Despite my personal feelings about Microsoft (which aren't generally too positive) this smacks of the often clueless EU trying to stop a company from doing what it's supposed to do. Gawd! And I thought the US government was clueless and pathetic - the EU makes us look brilliant in comparison!
Does Mario Monti really think that they really have the ability to stop Windows 2000 from shipping as is, or that they can somehow hamstring it enough to suddenly jump-start a European competotor (don't kid yourself, this is what he's really after)? Wrong. Anti-trust in general is one thing, but this is stupid. Windows 2000 may well suck on it's own merits (though the Professional version is pretty nice, actually), but if NT 4 is legal (and it most likely is), then so is Windows 2000. Microsoft has plenty of problems ahead of it without this kind of stupidity.
If I were in Ballmer's shoes, I'd give serious thought to just saying "screw the Euros, I'll shut down my local offices over there and pull out of the market and see how fast they cave. Since the rest of the world is still going to be using all our software I'll show those buggers who's in charge here".
Of course, that's why I'm writing a
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Here is what Novell has to say on this.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Consumers in general are overwhelmingly against Genetically Modified food, and believe Microsoft is too powerful. But only in Europe is that reflected anywhere in their regulations.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Who said that trolls aren't very original anymore?
(Darth Vader) "Impressive!"
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
They have changed the story so often that I don't know what the current version is.
It is no secret that the top brass wants to kill the 9x line, they just have not been able to execute it. (And anything they can use to squeeze out more OS revenue seems to wind up taking precedence over long-term strategy...)
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
<I>32 states have legislations that disallow you to publically discuss possible health dangers in any agricultural produce.</I>
What? and this isn't inconstitutional? What is the first amendment for?
I can understand that you forbid people to shout fire in a theater but forbidding discussion of the lack of fire protection in theatres probably isn't forbidden and would be a violation of free speech, why isn't it the same for these stupid laws?
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Well, in a word...nothing. It says they are looking at a lawsuit against MS. Over "features". I wish they would have gone into more detail about these offending features. Now, I am no MSFriend (tm), but I am rational. I can only assume that they are talking about the DNS business for the time being, since I know of no other issues. I have used win2k a bit through the betas, and from what I saw it is more stable, but it was also a bloated pig (debug code?). Just give us some facts, people! I have to agree with Wonko42 up there who is advising against knee-jerk jihads, which seems to be the running trend of Slashdot in general (I include myself here, I am trying to reform;). Lets see what the features are, give them honest appraisal, and then give it whatever it deserves. I imagine that if the MSStandard(tm) was open (as in speech) there would be a lot less griping.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Well, that would be the yankee boys at Monsanto ans ADM, not us hapless misinformed yankee consumers.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Actually EU consumers are probably being screwed even more than those in the USA, as the prices charged in the EU are higher than those in the USA.
Why is this flaimbait? He has a point. Europeans are looking out for European companies, and face it; most European countries and their people resent America and Americans. I know; I'm an American Citizen, but also a European. Both my parents were born in Portugal and we used to go to Europe on vacations (Portugal, Spain, and France). Portugal not so much, but in France... man they hated us.
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
Nice thought, but it doesn't happen that way, does it? In the US especially, it would be far more accurate to say:
The most heavily advertised and marketed will survive. If people listen to the media, they'll use Windows. If they are allowed to make their own decision, they'll at least have made their own choice.
As a dual booter using NT4 at the moment, I can't complain too much about the technical issues. However to Joe Public the computer arena is still a new and bewildering place to be, and the fact that Microsoft deliberately propagate the image that their software is the only way, using the media (to keep people stupid - in the immortal words of Bill Hicks). Don't you think that the stranglehold should be lifted to at least allow an alternative to flourish? All the EU seems to be saying is 'give third parties access to your API's'. Seems more like common-sense than strongarming to me......
Microsoft is using it's dollar value and corporate weight to stop others from even writing decent applications for their own OS, let alone use their software protocols on other OS's. That is why I dislike them. Their idea of utopia is of an MS-certified PC, running MS Windows, running solely MS/MS-approved apps, with MS deciding the rate of pay for these systems. MS is not the only offender here, but this goes way beyond monopoly. This is almost totalitarian thinking. If the EU can come down hard on Austria for electing a far-right-wing government, surely it can at least try to protect itself from a totalitarian US software company.
- "How do we do it? Volume!" - The Bursar of Unseen University.
this isn't exactly the case. when I buy microsoft windows, .
I get the microsoft explorer, the microsoft notepad,
the microsoft disktools, the microsoft
But when I get.. say.. red hat, on the distro I may find:
the red hat installers, mozilla, lynx (wait a minute.. that's 2 browsers) several programming languages
(NOT a redhat product) etc. well.. that's quite a big difference
//rdj, not in a good mood today, so my english may not make much sense..
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
They're too late - i've already got it!
If it gets banned, does that mean we'll have to get mirrors set up to keep copies available over here? Like DeCSS?
PigPog.
...Linux and the other Open Source Operating Systems (OSOSes?) would win, because suddenly there would be a high demand for non-Windows office apps, games, and more which would pull developers to the new OSes like flies....and thereby solving one of the single biggest weaknesses in current OSOSes -- lack of applications for the enduser.
-- WhiskeyJack
Yeah, I mean those high quality LUCAS electronic components are oh-so-reliable.
Also the reason Brits claim to enjoy their beer warm.
Can I bum a
At first I thought:
'All the reliability of a mother'!
but then I re-read it..
Looking across thge road I can read a similar billboard from my office window.. (in Dutch) I keep trying to think of a humorous way to deface it, but nothing springs to mind.
EZ
-'Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to log in..'
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
And make 'em put all of them up at a website. One open to everybody. I got it! call it MSDN, and have the website at msdn.microsoft.com and make them put out a GIANT SDK, with LOTS of example code and help files! And you're right about those super-secret FrontPage extensions... Those are more super secret than the Colonel's 27 herbs and spices and the Big Mac secret sauce combined! They should have to publish them all in an RFC, like ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2518.txt.
Keep telling yourself that. Of course, it's a little less than convincing when every Microsoft-basher like yourself is hoping and praying that governments will deny people the free choice to use Win2K. You folks really must be scared to have turned into such fascists, especially when you consider that NT (Win2K's predecessor) has probably never even cracked 50 percent of the market.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Why does Microsoft insist on taking every last CPU cycle we have? I guess if we didn't get the hint from Office 97 (read: paperclip animation P.O.S.) or Win98 (sliding menus, etc), then we better not complain when it requires a 1.1GHz Athlon to run an application.
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
- is
an "anti-trust" investigation by the Cometition Commissioner. It is occurring under the provisions of Article 86 of the Treaty of Rome - roughly the equivalent of the Sherman Act. Sorry to be anal about this.-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
This is sooo off topic, but what the hell is that! Don't you yahoo's know that netscape on linux (probably other unixen as well) blows on java? Thanks, you just crashed my ns a couple secs ago and I had to restart it. Don't get me wrong, I've programmed many a java client app for webpages, but you put it on a page which caters to users that will probably dump their browser? Thats screwed up! (And thats a soft word) Rob, are you that desperate? Didn't the andover, and subesquently the VA people give you guys some cash? What the hell! BTW: It's obvious that you all are being over critical of VA in that recent article. It's to show "Hey we're still cool". Well, webmonkeys probably right. But I don't really care that much, VA's pretty cool in my book anyway.
That's why I left Europe. I don't like society where it is widely accepted that goverment knows better how to spend my money than I do ...
Maybe because i m not a hacker neither living in the US (french), i remember that the whole "free-open source" thing began with the complications that us laws put coders in: to reinvent the wheel perpetually because of copyrights - patents - licenses -whatever you name it. ,i trully follow the choice that has been done long ago by the people who did the french revolution. Humans matter , not $.
... french people ;) ...
linux and windows came out of this situation , on both side of the problem. (one illegally using the system to control a market but a certain lawsuit is supposed to take care of that )
The reel problem is laws , and can find a solution in courts...(elsewhere ?)
Therefore if a foreign court starts to say certain behaviors are unacceptable, it s a step in this direction.
you all agree that your patent system isn t in touch with reality anymore, what do you do against that ?
Is Coding great free open sourced software the only solution ?
It s the DOJ that take care of ms illegal behavior but it s laws that permit it to become what it is now.
Will a real solution come from the doj ?
From common good sense , i m sure that a COMPANY is NOT a NATURAL BEEING .
Can your legal system look back and change mistakes it made ? Has it ever happened ?
It seems to me, but beeing foreigner to the USA i m certainly misinterpreting the whole thing, that the whole of the US trade laws tends to create monopolies then the doj comes to reestablish federal power over it .
The move from the europeen court of justice is to act BEFORE such a monopoly exist.
Can you see that if you trully suffer from monopolies and such , you need such laws and courts to enforce them ? Won t that hurt the way you imagine what liberty is ?But Wouldn t it be stupid to prevent , in the name of liberty, such laws to exist if they are the only way to protect your freedom?
Between the freedom of companies and the freedom of individuals
remi
PS if some of you think that french men hate americans, they re untrue. You saving our asses will never be forgotten (i m sure many kosovars feel the same). But we re very critical toward those we love , especially when they re caught in deep contradictions . The fact is that the people we re the most critical toward is
by the way , we could use you doj against some of our old state monopolies to break them apart
could we hire it ?
The Win9x line will, indeed, be continued with Windows Millennium (currently in beta). This is not the same as Microsoft's Millennium distributed computing project which is a completely different ballgame.
The direct quote from a MS rep follows:
'Windows MIll. will be targeted for the consumer market and continues on the 9x architecture. Reason being consumers are still more interested in compatibility than managability.'
What he's saying is that Millennium is targeted towards end-users/home users who want minimum configuration hassle and maximum plug-and-play.
The problem is that MS marketing machine has completely botched up (or maybe deliberately) the marketing of Win2k to the point where your everyday user thinks that they should upgrade to Win2k from Win98.
"That's funny. I just had this conversation the other day!"
There's a prompt somewhere to change them from fading to Win98 -sliding style, or regular style. But I can't find it anywhere now ... on w2k final. It's not where it SHOULD be (Taskbar and Start Menu Properties).
French revolution was a disaster that keeps hounting humanity to this day.
.)
Monopoly is not illegal if obtained by legal means ( and shouldn't be
In general, nothing is illegal that is not specifically prohibited by the law.
Unregulated monopolies are prohibited in certain code of laws, including the French and US ones.
www.bundeswehr.de is running Apache/1.2.6 Ben-SSL/1.17 PHP/FI-2.0 on Linux
www.bundesregierung.de is running Apache/1.2.5 on Solaris
This are the most valuable gov sites in Germany!
According to www.netcraft.com they are not using Windows. But you are right that on the desktop, Windows is used up to 99%.
Yours Michael
I don't know how prevalent this is in other European countries, but in Estonia there have been cases of MS police barging into businesses and demanding to see certificates of authenticity, sales receipts, etc for MS software. If they can't be produced on the spot their computers are seized and the company must pay about $5000 USD for each copy of software. While software piracy is common (because most people can't afford to buy it), this seems like abusive, and would be illegal in the US and many other places.
I just hope this will drive people to seek alternatives, like Linux and StarOffice, WordPerfect, etc.
(BTW, I don't know if they are real police working on behalf of MS, or some kind of private force.)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/win2000pro/ Patch/MHH/NT5/EN-US/Q25117 0_W2K_SP1_X86_en.EXE
Lars -
> As a game developer WinNT is not an option for developers using the DirectX API
You aren't a professional game developer are you?
At work all of our artists and and allmost of of our programmers are already using NT. I have to use that peice of crud called Win99 (aka Win98SE) because of D3D testing.
Yes DirectX has 2 problems under WinNT 4. Namely,
1. DirectInput is borked under NT. So don't use it.
2. There is no hardware acceleration for Direct3D which also sucks, but if a game is hard-coded to only use ONE rendering API, that is just dumb programming. (What happens when you need to port you game to a console?!)
OpenGL, Glide, SurRender, etc have been around for ages.
The frame rate difference between Win9X and NT is negligable. NT makes up for its security overhead by being all 32-bit, no thunking is required or locking of the win16 mutex.
I will only be too happy when I can finally use Win2K as our base dev platform.
Cheers
Michael
3d game programmer
Um, ok. Consider NT. It has multiple client API interfaces (posix, win16, win32) that plug into the actual operating system. Apps are supposed to be written to one of the client APIs. The "internal" NT api is secret and undocumented. The problem is that the client API interfaces add another layer of inderection and slow things down.
Ok... this is a given. Except for the fact that the internal docs aren't available to MS programmers to use either (I tried while I was there so that I could access floppy disks at sector levels). You can get down to ioctl level if you want to -- and that IS documented.
Most developers outside of MS can't use the native "internal" NT api. A few have managed to reverse engineer pieces of it, but its well known that MS applications (like IIS) use this API extensively. Non MS applications are penalized because this api is not published and documented. Netscape actually talks about how they reverse engineered part of the internal NT api and doubled performance for their webserver. The IIS developers didn't have to reverse engineer anything; they had all the documentation available to them.
References please - I don't believe you. I'd love these magical URLs to fall from the sky detailing how Netscape needed to do X Y and Z to get things working.
Bear in mind, however, that Netscape (note: not Mozilla) has enough trouble getting a browser running fast & stable on Linux - and they have the SOURCE CODE for that...
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
"Post that Emacs Lisp package you've been playing with on your own machine."
CADDDDDDDDDDR(((but(((why((would
(((anyone))
))use))it)))?
Sorry, it's flamebait, but I fucking hate Emacs and Lisp. Who the hell uses it besides MIT and other elitist bigots?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Denmarks second largest bank, Unibank seems to be dropping microsoft office packs in favour of Staroffice (the free one from Sun). This was in the papers today, the danish division of Microsoft seemed a bit miffed :)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
The entire "Windows 2000 will dominate the server market" is as impossible because it is irrelevant.
First off, a big enterprise server needs big enterprise hardware, which Windows 2000 will NOT even run on. There is no Sun Server or IBM mainframe on this planet earth that will run Windows 2000. Windows 2000 is not even 64 bit so it will not even run on Itanium with maximum effectiveness. Data Center Edition is basically a hack, is to 64 bit what Windows 3.1 was to 32 bit.
So... it's going to be mighty hard for MS to dominate.
As far as the tactic of using the desktop to leverage the server, Microsoft has already tried to do this and utterly failed. They were not able to force a COM based client
Is Microsoft going to be able to force large industrial users to give up Oracle? Are people going to switch from writing Java Cartridges in Oracle 8i, give up god knows how many lines of PL/SQL code to switch to a database server, SQL Server 7, that runs on lousy hardware, does not have nearly the parallelism of Oracle.
Is Microsoft going to convince Unix advocates around the world to switch from Linux / Solaris, etc, to Windows 2000? Are all of you posters blasting the "evil empire" suddenly going to say "well, Windows 2000 is actually pretty good.. guess it is time to give up Perl and learn VB." I calculate the odds of this occuring to be ZERO.
The question is not whether or not Windows 2000 will dominate the server marketplace. The question is whether Windows 2000 will even sell at all.
I like our European Allies, but, when they go and do stuff like this it makes so mad that I want to write my congressperson and demand an immediate withdrawal from NATO.
This is my sig.
The only thing that has more lines of code in Windows 2000 is the amount of THC in your body when you wrote that.
If you think that Linux is better than Windows 2000, then how do you think that Windows 2000 is anti-competitive? What Sun Server ships with Windows 2000? In the smoke of your bong do you see Scott McNeally saying "geez, we at Sun were wrong all along about this Solaris / Java thing, so we're going to port Windows 2000 to Sparc"?
Come on dude. The EU is being ridiculous. You would think that if Europeans are so bent out of shape about a commercial operating system they would quit electing idiots like Haider, start accepting some immigrants, like the United States does, and make their own.
Never trust a continent whose people cannot even breed enough to replace themselves. They do not want a fair trading arrangement, they want protectionism. At least one European, Linus Torvalds, knew what the right thing to do was...
IF YOU DO NOT LIKE AN AMERICAN OS BUILD YOUR OWN!
This is my sig.
For a while too. It's just now part of windows. Would you stop comparing windows *out of the box* to everything single piece of unix software developed since the 60s?
www.tinysoftware.com make an especially good version of NAT.
He said that the company enjoyed an excellent relation with the Commission, and accused Sun Microsystems, one of Microsoft's main rivals in the server market, of initiating the complaint.
What? Sun had something to do with this? Believe me, I am trying to look very very suprised.
Hah hah, say the dead at Paschandale, Ypres, Sedan, Metz, Somme, Tobruk, Hurtgen Forest, Kursk, Stalingrad, Leningrad and Verdun... we are of superior "European values."
This is my sig.
If Microsoft was a European company, the world would be standardized on MS-DOS 3.2.
This is my sig.
What a colossal mistake the United States has made. I'm so very sorry that we Americans have offended your sensibilities. I'm so struck by guilt and a sense of foolishness that I cannot help but be dumbed down into my true United States dialect. Golly me and praise da' lawd. If us hillbilly yankees had know'd dat fah all dese yeers that you wanted to be socialiss, we wood not have wastet all dat money fitin' the cold war and would not have even landed at dat beach dat was in Saving Private Ryan! We coulda let the Soviet Union win World War II in Europe all by itself, saved a ton of money, and pretty much let you all be one big happy "to each according to his needs" dome. Ah, shucks, what a waste, payin' all dat dough. Oh mercy me, ah shucks, at least we got some cool bombers out of the deal. Ethel, I'm having the big one!
This is my sig.
Ehhr, i dont know which europeans youve met but there are a bunch to choose from. Where i come from, Sweden (not swaziland in africa or switzerland), almost all people are extremely USA friendly. Ask anyone that has been an exchange student here, almost as if they wore celebritys. Microsoft in under the magnifier because of the possibility that they get a complete control over the market. If that would happen Ms could charge pretty much anything they wanted for their software and would make it even harder for an uppstarter to get into the market. It has absolutely nothing to do with anti american behaviour. Lets face it, EU is an attempt to copy the success the USA have had with its economy. But there is no reason to remake the bad things that the states have done, better to learn from them? Sorry for my english, you can laugh all day but i would like to see you type in swedish ;)
Good point. Good thing I didn't talk bad about the sweedish. ;) People often dislike others that behave in the same manner that they do.
BTW: I also speak 2 languages fluently.
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
This yankee salutes France. They may have dropped a few wars, but at least they gave us "The 400 Blows". Not to mention ArianeSpace. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! PS. What I really want to know is that if Quebec split off from Canada, would France want it? What do French feel about Quebec.
This is my sig.
Oops. I hit the enter key instead of the apostrophe, and poof! instant post, durn it.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Now this is a troll. Would you please leave Haider out of this discussion? If you actually tried to follow the news, ALL other European countries have shown that they are against Haider. We are ashamed enough that he won the elections in Austria. By making this comparison you have just shown you are the stereotype of a dumb yank that we Europeans always think Americans to be. Slashdot may be an American forum for 75%, but at least get a clue!
But we are not too concerned with the subject of Microsoft and their "borgs." We are more concerned with the Internet site "slashdot", and the terrible problem of the "Karma whores". This is clearly a breach of European regulations on religion and prostitution.
Because slashdot continues to make these infractions against the European Internet, we will sentence them to a stong campaign of "trolling." In using the European surplus of hot grits and the services of the french actor Jean Reno, who played the character "Leon" in the film of that name with Natalie Portman, we can deluge slashdot with shitty posts.
We would like to thank you gentlemen for your grandmothers' pussies.
The European Trolling Commission.
What was wrong with french revolution?
It didn t put an end to slavery after the human right universal declaration.
For commercial reasons.
Such bad decisions are costly.
This froggy salutes USA. Yes, we sure did a good job by giving this 400 blows. and you forgot french kissing...
It is nice to see someone recognize, that big government, and all its regulations, is the *cause* of monopolies, and potential monopolies.
So, instead of setting up antitrust law, the solution is simply to abolish the laws, that set up the large companies to be successful in the first place.
Overregulation, and the teams of lawyers required to survive under such regimes, gives a competitive advantage to large corporations that 1) can afford the lawyers and 2) can afford to hire lobbyists to encourage reductions in the regulation and 3) can afford to hire lobbyists to encourage changes in the regulation to hurt their competitiors.
Example: Boeing lobbys the US, Airbus lobbys the EU. Result: everyone in aerospace dies, or is gobbled.
people whine when MS gets the cops to enforce EULAS for them.. but nobody whimpers when Sun/AOL/Netscape gets governments to do its competing for it...
Anyway; I saw on the local news that they indeed took some action; they sended a letter to MS with a list of questions they would like to get answered. That was about all of it. So I guess its kinda hard to tell what made them decide to do this.
Well, it was a troll. I wrote the specific posts somewhat ticked off that some Europeans posted to the effect "Well, the Americans are clueless and need to be educated." The United States is not perfect, but I think that there is room for argument that American society is as good as European society, better in some ways and worse in others. I like Europeans but I loath what seems to be to be a general European presumption of cultural superiority. It is not just the Microsoft case... the other was that when ECHELON busted Airbus for trying to bribe a foreign government for an order, the EU report cried foul for the COMINT as if the bribe was all fair and good. Similarly, I do not like the idea of market intervention, pro, or con. European markets tend to have more of that. American market places have it too, and I do not like that either. As far as immigration goes, I think that that anyone who has half a brain who wants to come to America and be it a citizen should be allowed to, yes, even from Europe.
This is my sig.