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Microsoft And US Have Until April 6 To Make A Deal
bahwi writes: "It looks like Judge Jackson has decided to wait until April 6 to issue his next ruling. Most of the states and the Justice Department want a structural change (read "company breakup") and don't want to settle for anything less, but Microsoft keeps saying no. The last two paragraphs are an interesting read, too. Read more about it at
Wired."
I'm "the troll." Whatever meaning that term may have.
Read the history of Germany from 1922 through 1937
With a little study you will discover that
Wealthy American families financed the Hitler government. These wealthy American families include the Fords, Rockefellers, Bush (as in George H. Walker), Mellon, etc.
America is sliding into a police state strikingly similar to Nazi Germany. And has now had the son of Hitlers' original financier as the President of the United States. Additionally, it appears that the brain washed American people will - once again - elect the son of a Nazi. W
Hitler was the creation of an international corporate elite that reigns to this day.
Have a nice day, "knee-jerk, for-the-children whiners."
Bibliography:
The people you accuse of "financing" Hitler were in charge of corporations doing business with Germany, all perfectly legal and normal and no different from the business they did with other countries. These corporations did business with the USSR; does that make them commies and financiers of communism? It's just the old story of making a buck.
You may not like it, but your manner and childish love of bold does not say much for your maturity or objectivity. Just because you don't like something doesn't make it "nazi".
OH my friggin Gawd, that was funny, it is always great to see a rampant AC go off an a tear and just rip up anyone who is in their path. Im not asking to moderate this up, because it is flamebait, without a doubt. But it is posts like this that make it worthwhile for me to view at -1 sometimes. Had it not had the last two sentences, this would be a candidate for funniest post-first post flame.
"I've been in tech support going on three years. A substantial (almost 10%) of my calls are due to windows-related instability which results in secondary problems - the ones I deal with. Corrupt data, confusion, non-working programs, just to name a few of the more obvious problems" I was in tech support for 3 years of 9x as well FOR Microsoft. I saw a few bugs, but about 99% of all my calls were for crappy drivers and Cybermedia's sh*tty products. The fact seems to be that MS is the dumping ground for all problems that either the user or tech cannot resolve. I remember the gleeful smile on my face that I had the other day when I had a customer saying that Win2k was crap and crashing his system. Needless to say is was a needed firmware update for his SCSI controller. But again, I guess MS is responsible for that as well. No?
Am I seeing Godwin's law in action? Get the popcorn.
As they look over the world's painful panorama of war and terror, some people conclude that it is too late, that no amount of information or activity could possibly
complain about lousy geeks. But those who take that pessimistic view understand neither Microsoft nor its current rung on the ladder to total power. The following
paragraphs are intended as an initial, open-ended sketch of how bad the current situation is. I myself am familiar with Microsoft's goals, I understand how it
operates, I have long recognized its tactics, and I know just about where Microsoft now stands on the ladder to total power. I can therefore say that, unhesitatingly, I
experienced quite an epiphany when I first realized that it would be better for it to do nothing than to violate the basic tenets of journalism and scholarship.
For the record, Microsoft presents itself as a disinterested classicist lamenting the infusion of politically-motivated methods of pedagogy and analysis into higher
education. It is eloquent in its denunciation of modern scholarship, claiming it favors bookish anti-democratic pickpockets. And here we have the ultimate irony,
because its cronies are delighted with the potential for violent confrontation. My usual response to Microsoft's crusades is this: Each of these issues is central to the
anti-intellectualism debate. However, such a response is much too glib and perhaps a little hideous, so let me be more specific. Nothing would make Microsoft
happier than to see me go crazy. But this is something to be filed away for future letters. At present, I wish to focus on only one thing: the fact that illaudable
headstrong ideologues are responsible for the neo-choleric tenor of Microsoft's philosophies. Doesn't Microsoft ever get tired of calling everyone "effete cutthroats"?
My earnest denunciation of Microsoft's statements must have failed to register with it as being legitimate sentiment. With this central point cleared up, the rest of
Microsoft's arguments are rendered moot, as it seems to think that it is right and everybody else is wrong.
Microsoft proclaims at every opportunity that it'd never burn books. The organization doth protest too much, methinks. What I mean to say is that the chief difficulty in
writing about Microsoft is that this is typical of the kind of noise it enjoys making. When I first heard about Microsoft's convictions, I didn't know whether to laugh,
because Microsoft's holier-than-thou attitudes are so wild, or cry, because I doubtlessly intend to exercise my franchise to provide you with vital information which
Microsoft has gone to great lengths to prevent you from discovering. One might conclude that failure to define our terms more clearly will lead to a deluge of
complaints by Microsoft's lackeys. Alternatively, one might conclude that I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to redefine humanity as alienated machines/beasts and then
convince everyone that they were never human to begin with. In either case, if it wants to complain, it should have an argument. It shouldn't just throw out the word
"phytosociological", for example, and expect us to be scared.
I don't have time to go into this in as much detail as I should, but pestilential totalitarianism is widespread and growing stronger as it permeates school systems,
universities, and the media. But it gets much worse than that. Even with the increasing number of unsympathetic slimeballs, this is sufficiently illustrated by the
ridicule with which Microsoft's protests are treated by everyone other than condescending turncoats. We will have to become much more vigilant to ensure that
Microsoft doesn't ruin my entire day. What does Microsoft have to say about all of this? The answer, as expected, is nothing.
Creating needed understanding is best achieved in a calm, rational environment. Microsoft's actions are counterproductive to society. That being the case, we can
infer that what our nation needs is more respect for the law, not less. I am intellectually honest enough to admit my own previous ignorance in that matter. I only wish
that confused vagrants had the same intellectual honesty. Microsoft's viewpoints are related to the elements and bases of oligarchism both organizationally and
ideologically. Microsoft's rantings are just a rhetorical ploy to get away from the obvious fact that it seems a bit late in the day for Microsoft to turn its putrid diatribes
to our advantage.
If Microsoft continues to burn our fair cities to the ground, the result can be a tone-deafness, a cluelessness, on matters that are at the center of experience for vast
segments of the population. Whatever else may be the case, it is certain that if Microsoft feels ridiculed by all the attention my letters are bringing it, then that's just
too darn bad. Its arrogance has brought this upon itself. What Microsoft seems to be forgetting is that this makes its claims seem tyrannical and even a bit
lame-brained. This should be a chance to examine and bring problems to light, to share and join in understanding, but Microsoft often starts with a preconceived
story and then plugs in supposed "information" in order to create a somewhat believable tale. Let me back up a little: You'll never hear Microsoft admit it made a
mistake.
It is important to differentiate between disorganized smart alecks and prodigal heretics who, in a variety of ways, have been lured by Microsoft's psychotic press
releases, or who have ended up wittingly or unwittingly in coalitions with Microsoft's henchmen, or who maintain contact with Microsoft as part of serious and
legitimate research. If you want to clear up these muddied waters with some reality, then tell everyone you know the truth, that my concern is with morality itself, not
with the teleological foundations upon which it rests. Armed only with a white shirt, pocket protector, slide rule, thick glasses, and some other neat stuff, I have
determined that Microsoft's campaigns are a spiritually destructive propaganda instrument aimed at our children. Regardless of what Microsoft seems to insist, its
commitment to communism is only part of the story.
Microsoft places its indelible imprimatur upon a form of jingoism that is fundamentally, pervasively, and inescapably pigheaded. As part of its efforts to gain a
mainstream following, Microsoft publishes the Journal of Fickle Absenteeism. Included alongside articles discussing history, culture, art, religion, and philosophy are
endorsements of Microsoft's plans to inject its lethal poison into our children's minds and souls. Daily, the truth is being impressed upon us that loquacious sexism
has come to occupy a stolid place in the national dialogue.
If our goal is to oppose evil wherever it rears its revolting head, then we must consider various means to that end. Consider the issue of incorrigible frotteurism.
Everyone agrees that there's something severely wrong with this picture, but there are still some dodgy crotchety curmudgeons out there who doubt that we must
always be looking towards the future while keeping the past in mind. To them I say: I do not find bromides that are jaded, hypocritical, and repressive to be "funny".
Maybe I lack a sense of humor, but I can guarantee the readers of this letter that there are other strains of Maoism active today, and the siren calls of those
movements may mesmerize soulless big-mouths whose wretched behavior blinds them to historical lessons. There are rumors circulating that heathenism is a crime,
an outrage, and a delusion, so let me just clarify something: I correctly predicted that Microsoft would retain an institution which, twist and turn as you like, is and
remains a disgrace to humanity. Alas, I didn't think it'd do that so effectively -- or so soon. It must be pointed out that Microsoft shows a curious unwillingness to
break the neck of its policy of ruffianism once and for all.
What so many people find difficult to grasp is that the things Microsoft wants to do are unfair, if not illegal. I certainly cannot emphasize enough how much I resent
Microsoft's criticisms. There is good reason to believe that until we work together towards a shared vision, Microsoft will continue to produce a large number of
entirely dirty extravagancies, most crazy indecencies, and, above all, the most stuck-up blasphemies against everything that I hold most sacred and most dear. The
funny thing is, I sincerely would have expected Microsoft to at least listen to my side of the story. In the end, obtrusive primates like Microsoft tend to conveniently
ignore the key issues of this or any other situation.
The Brunching Shuttlecocks (hi fsck!) have a good article on why there's no settlement yet: http://www.brunching.com/features/feature-microsof tsettlement.html
Hmmmm, smells like Microsoft :) </I>
Not really. It's okay to make discount volume sales. That's okay. What's *not* okay is tieing the discount to another, unrelated product. It would be as if Cisco owned 90% of the router market, and they decided to move into the PC hardware world, and said that if you wanted to buy Cisco routers, you had to buy Cisco PCs as well.
This is called "product tieing," and it is illegal if you are a monopoly.
<i>You can't blame MS and Cisco. These companies are out there in a dog-eat-dog marketplace trying to survive. They walk a fine line between honesty, morality and making a buck.<i>
You can blame them, as a matter of fact. We *should* blame them. If you cannot make an *honest* buck, then you shouldn't be working in that business... or something is wrong. In the case of the software business, something is wrong. MS stopped making money honestly, and started being dishonest, sneaky, and underhanded; it got to the point where some stated business plans were to make an innovative product just so Microsoft would buy them out.
When your only hope for profit is to be bought out, something is wrong.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Whilst I agree with you in part, XEmacs is pretty good with the integration side of things. If you're looking for things like completion and tips, try looking at SciTe, which uses the Scintilla widget (http://www.scintilla.org/). It's used in the Python for Windows package and is very effective.
It's about a bazillion times easier (and faster) creating an alias in Mac OS than in Windows. (MacOS: highligh object, command-m - done) (Windows: um, if it's an executable, drag-n-drop it, never mind if you actually wanted to copy or move that file. If it's a document, right click it, wait oh, about 50 years for the CM to open, go down to NEW, wait about 200 years for the submenu to open, search through the submenu's list of a buzillion office document types and other bs that nobody uses to find "shortcut", click on that, wade through the damn wizard, and about 5000 years later, you have your freakin link^H^H^H^Halias^H^H^H^H^Hshortcut - oh yeah, there's the innovation, some genius at Microsoft looked up link or alias in a thesaurus and picked the word "shortcut").
No joke. Pentium 233, 64megs RAM, NT 4.0SP5. 5 seconds for CM on right click, a full 15 seconds for the damn submenu. Give me a fuckin break.
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Too bad thanks to Intel's gross incompetence, that the hardware high-water mark fell far short of satisfactory.
(except for my G3 at home)
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I think this is an excellent argument for why MS should be broken up, not why they shouldn't. As numerous college courses (and plain old-fashioned experience) teach, all of the products should not be inter-related, they should be modular so you can easily yank one out to be replaced by a different module.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
It is not even to be guilty of being a monopoly but for taking advantage of its monopoly and using unfair business tactics to keep its monopoly and rip competition!!!
So stop pointing how good the products are since this is totally irrelevant!
And for the matter, I agree that Microsoft have done great things to the computer business, bringing PC (and software) to the masses...
It has been a great challenger to UNIX: who can seriously argue that VI is s proper text editor?
And remeber how X was a crappy interface 5 years ago? No real desktop environment! No proper grafic al interface for most apps...
And I am not even mentioning prices here.
Microsoft deserved to be successfull at that time, but it can note live on its edge to make more $$$, it needs to do great things, beat it's competition by making better/cheaper products, not by killing them...
This is what the DOJ is trying to address.
Julien
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
plagiary (play-jer-ree) (v.t.): To copy a misspelling without attribution.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
There is an internal electronic discussion forum at Microsoft called (IIRC) the Dead Borlanders Club, for ex-Borland employees.
THAT'S how many Borland employees ended up at MS.
InThane
All this regulation of Microsoft is a very ugly camel's nose under the tent. If it happens, you can bet Linux will become contraband because it lacks required interfaces or documentation or facilities for the handicapped.
The reason there are so few car companies is that there is a huge regulatory burden in producing a car. You would think, with all the outsourcing of subsystem manufacturing there would be more car companies, just as there are new PC companies every day. This does not happen, and, in fact, the reverse happens in the form of industry consolidation because of the exteremely high regulatory hurdles placed in front of new entrants.
The example of how, if cars were like PCs they would cost $50 and go a thousand miles per hour, comes not from any technology magic. Cars are plenty technological. Stagnation comes from the dead hand of regulation. Do you feel it on your shoulder yet?
I wrote parts of this stuff
Crypto is the perfect example of how U.S. regs hurt U.S. software makers. What is to stop entire software companies, even Microsoft, from migrating to where the regs are more comfortable. And if Bermudian Windows had better features than U.S. Windows, just how big a black market would that create?
This, I suspect, is the real reason some of the people on the government side are pushing for breakup. Any judgement would have force only in the U.S. and could easily be made to look foolish if better versions of Windows were available only overseas. Anyone remembered for making the settlement would end up looking like a pretty big ass when people start getting busted for smuggling Windows.
I wrote parts of this stuff
i think, in such short time we/they/... did not have enought time to observe how such system can work for a long time.
primary principle of capitalism is fine: freedom. from freedom comes also competition (if i can do that, than some other guy can do that too. if not now than in few days, months, years for sure).
but till now (or till 70's) there were no giants which grew that big, that they stifle all competition.
there is also another good principle: your rights ends where rights of others begin.
so while MS (IBM, whoever) has right to be big and sucessfull they do not have right to prevent others from being sucessfull (and big and whatever) too.
that's why i think that in this exceptional situation government have to do exceptional thing to correct this big problem.
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you also mentioned that MS (i.e. Windows) are great motivation for GNOME and KDE developers (and others too). well, it is. but what if MS has been prevented to gain todays influence some time before? maybe by this time we should have not just one "perfect" OS (Windows) but maybe tens or thousand of desktops or even not just desktops but whole OSes.
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and about "but the entire reason they're so successful is that the vast majority of computer users *don't* feel that way":
are we (as society, as mankind) going to function based on feelings or are we going to use our brains (which makes us people) and think?!
i understand MS success as prove that we as whole are stupid. and i do not want us to be stupid so i'm correcting this problem (or at least trying to correct it).
hany
with both things published (and published well - while the best documentation is actual source code) you:
hany
Maybe it's just me, but I'm rather fond of having some safety regulations on cars, foods, drugs, etc.
For those of you naieve enough to put all your trust into the market (about as bad as putting it all into the govt.) do bear in mind that hardly any cars _used_ to have seat belts, because it was thought that consumers would feel unsafe. Turns out that safety features are a big selling point, but the car companies never would have tried if they hadn't been forced.
(Doesn't anyone read "The Jungle" anymore? Or "Unsafe at Any Speed"?)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I agree with this analysis from an economic angle (not necessarily from all of the technical angles, like legacy issues).
It is clear to me that a broken-apart Microsoft would no longer have any motivation for some of the bad programming the lawyers and executives have forced on their programmers. I mean, integration may be good, but the form of integration used with IE and Win98 was a violation of every principle of good programming since the term "modularization" was coined.
It's got to be a nightmare to program in that environment.
MS programmers would benefit. MS customers would benefit. MS stockholders would benefit.
But it will never happen because this company is not being run for any of those people.
It is being run by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. A breakup would mean they don't control it all any more. It would take away the biggest toy in the world from two of the most powerful men in the company.
And it's really hard to tell guys that rich they're wrong.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
I know I am...but stranger things have happened, and if you don't point out the obviously stupid before the obviously stupid becomes reality...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
I thought this was the guy's point. Saying a product is an "Operating System" should mean something. The problem with that is, unlike "I have a pickle", "I provide an operating system" is a moving target. What an OS was in 1963 is not what an OS is in 2000, and thus won't be in the future.
If the government, through "truth in advertising" or something related to it, decides to mandate definitions of what a particular software product or feature really is, it will affect things drastically. A definition of a type of software product by anything but what the public will buy will either raise the bar for new product entry, or make people even more content with "government standard O/S 1.0" which will never change (look at what ISO's "standards" did to american factories, after ISO declared that all factories are made alike).
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
One thing that I'm confused about concerns some of the leaked information. I read somewhere that MS offer includes the debundling of IE with Windows. This doesn't make any sense to me.
As part of the case, MS tried to show that IE could not be bebundled from Windows; DoJ tried to show that it could be done. This was part of the flawed/doctored videotape demonstration that was displayed during the trial. This is also important, as the "integration" of IE into Windows was a loophole exploited by MS to circumvent the initial 1995(?) court ruling.
This is all speculation on my part as I'm not privy to the actual offer that MS faxed (well, at least they didn't use snail mail:-)) to DoJ.
Hiawatha Bray (Boston Globe) recently wrote a nice article about this case. He called the initial offering from MS to be their version 1.0. And as he pointed out, we all know how MS handles 1.0 releases of their software.
I disagree. The obvious sensible breakup would be to seperate MS into six units:
consumer OS (Windows Millenium, WinCE)
corporate OS (Windows NT)
consumer products (games)
corporate products (Office2000, developer apps)
internet products (MSIE, ASP)
hardware products (wing o' deth, etc)
Or, alternatively, three units:
operating systems (WinME, WinNT, WinCE)
applications (Office, MSIE, etc)
hardware (glo-mouse-a-lux, etc)
Either way, or nearly any other way you propose, they still have monopoly power. Windows isn't going to disappear any time soon. Office isn't going to suddenly vapourise. The only significant software at risk would be MSIE, and it's becoming so standards-compliant that it's almost worth using (oh, is my Opera bias showing?)
A broken-up Microsoft will still dominate the marketplace.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
As to your "95% sarcasm" - atleast 6 other moderators disagreed with you. Chew on that for awhile.
Thanks for the link. =)
But Kolasky [a Microsoftie] had a different view. He said the appeals court decision noted that what the Justice Department had deemed a violation "actually benefited consumers by giving them a better software product."
I love it when Microsoft refers to their actions as benefitting consumers because of the creation of "better software products." The whole point of this case is to determine if the entire computer software industry has been held back from innovation due to the wall put up by Microsoft's APIs. What we don't know can't hurt us.. I suppose (another larger example being the burning of the library of Alexandria.. we'll never truly know how far we'd be now if it hadn't happened)
What Mr. Kolasky needs to think about is what kind of software he'd be running if Microsoft had played fair.. my guess is that it would be "better software products" that are a hell of a lot better than what we've gotten.
modern day geek.
--
Now if I get my big brother to drag you off the street, I have a monopoly on lemonade! Now, anyone who wants to buy lemonade has to buy it from me, and instead of getting 50 customers at $0.10 a glass (with you getting the other 50), I get, maybe 15 at $1.00 a glass, (and the other 85 going thirsty) Whee! I make more money!.
Since it's possible for a company to do damage even when it has some competitors, the legal test for determining if something's a monopoly is to turn this around. If the firm just plain doesn't care what anyone else is charging, because it controls the market, it's a monopoly.
For example if I owned the lemonade concession on every street in the city but yours, I could probably still get away with selling lemonade at $1.00 a glass, because you can't handle the volume for the entire city, and people aren't going to cross town just to save money on lemonade. Since I could raise my price like that, I'd legally, have monoply power
Microsoft was found to be able to set the price of windows independent of what any "competing" products were priced at, and thus to be a monopoly.
Also, the judge defined the market as "operating systems for intel compatible computers", which kind of rules out Macintosh. The other options sure aren't big in terms of market share... You might argue that this definition of the market is too narrow, but it falls back on the "can they raise prices and not lose income" definition, and the barrier to companies/individuals switching platforms is sufficiently high, that microsoft could charger a higher than competetive price.
Actually, the AT&T case was brought because Sprint and MCI (non AT&T long distance carriers) complained about AT&T illegally tying it's monopoly position in local phone service to it's long distance service, and they wanted access...The illegal tying Microsoft is accused of is actually very similar to that. As well as to the IBM antitrust case...
a) he might be forced to divest from one of the companies (not sure) b) breaking MS up into multiple companies makes catching illegal behavior easier, as it involves collusion beteween two separate legal entities, each with their own offices, chain of command, etc... c) Bill Gates isn't the only stockholder, and the stockholders of the "internet applications" company gave away it's product below cost to keep the separate "operating systems" company's control of the OS market up..."And just think .. all that could be gone tomorrow."
Replaced by two or three companies with a total market capitalization even greater than Microsoft currently has.
BillG isn't stupid. A Microsoft that has been structurally remedied will keep him well on the top of the world's richest list. He just needs to tell all the Microserfs (and himself) "Oww Oww! The Government made me do it!"
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
And 16 years after that, the GNU project still hasn't managed to produce HURD kernel that could compete with a ColecoVision. Great development model they've got there.
Cute, but it took Microsoft 15 years to get from DOS to Windoze 95, right? And how good is that development model, Mr. "I shill for Bill"?
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
And 16 years after that, the GNU project still hasn't managed to produce HURD kernel that could compete with a ColecoVision. Great development model they've got there.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Basically, Microsoft is getting their employees to pay them to buy stock. There's no Ponzi scheme here, though.
"Ponzi scheme" is of course a deliberate overstatement, with humorous intent, however, I don't think the sistuation is as benign as you represent it.
First off, they are not "getting them to buy stock", they are offering stock options as a major part of the compensation package -- i.e. "Instead of $150K cash, we'll give you $90K in cash and $70K in stock options" (e.g. he can buy $70K in stock for $10K. The article said 'tiny fraction of the stock price' without specifying. I estimate a 7:1 option from the option and tax figures)
Using these made-up numbers, here's how it works:
MS saves $40K in cash (increased profit) $60K
MS counts the $10K the employee pays to
exercise the option as MS income $10K
(that's in the article)
MS deducts 35% of 70K from its Fed taxes $24.5K
-----
$94.5K
MS gets a $150K programmer for (150-94.5 = 53.5K)
(don't you wish you could do that!)
Employee gets: $90K cash
70K of rising stock
spends: (10K)
-----
$150K and rising.
If the stock is rising, he hangs on to the stock, MS gets a bargain, and the employee gets richer. When the stock is falling, the employee must sell immediately to collect $148k instead of $150K. This pushes MS stock down ($9 billion more MS stock per year being actively pushed onto the market is is a huge downward force.)
Then maybe (as you say) the programmer starts looking for a place he can get more cash up front, or where a rising stock makes the option more valuable. Not immediately, as you say, but...
The 'margin loans' are a kicker. These guys live on money borrowed against their stock option -- saving themselves huge top bracket income tax until they sell, and are taxed at the capital gains rate. But why sell at all, when their stock is rising?
When it starts falling, they have to sell -- and fast, which makes the stock drop faster. That's tens of billions in stock that have to be sold pronto! (if the market could absorb that, the price would be higher!)
The 700 million in 'puts' becomes a tremendous liability. They'd force MS to buy back its stock at more than the market price (since the stock is falling) Either MS quits selling them (making MS stock less attractive, so it falls more) or MS loses money if the puts are exercised. Subtract 700M income or incur huge expense, take you pick.
Institutional holders like MS, but they will have an obligation to partially liquidate. Remember, we are talking 5.5 giga-shares (5.5x10^9 shares) worth almost 600 billion dollars.
Microsoft's employees won't all go broke when Microsoft stock starts to fall. They're still getting cash salaries. They just won't become millionaires as they do today.
They are being paid "mediocre at best" (from the article); the millionaires are people who got in a long time ago, under more favorable conditions, and also have *many* years of cumulative stock options.
When Microsoft's stock starts to fall, they may find it harder to hire good people. But that will take a long time to affect the company--we're not talking about any sort of crash.
it's generally agreed that MS is an unpleasant plkace to work. it's even more unpleasant to be bought by - see Cringeley- and that was where they got most of their new product. it'll be a lot harder to keep up with mediocre new programmers, far fewere willing sellers (the purchase targets aren't IPO'd; there are no stockholder pressures) from which to buy new technologies/features!
Sensible investors understand how Microsoft manages their stock options.
Sensible ones do -- but most aren't that knowledgable.
They then look at Microsoft's monopoly and conclude that the company is likely to do pretty well in any case.
For every transaction, there's a buyer and a seller, Someone who want's to get in and someone who wants to get out.
MS may look like a good deal when it's rising, but a lousy deal when it's falling. It happens all the time. it's the rule not the exception. Your statement that "investors like it" is *equivalent* to "the stock is rising" and will no longer be valid if it falls for more than a short period.
Am I trying to scare people out of MS? Heck no. All I said is "if you're interested, look at the article"
It suggests that without the stock options, MS would not be posting the profits that are a big part of the reason they look good to investors. And without looking good to investors the stock options won't work very well. That's my concern.
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
this case isn't about whats good for Slashdotter's or MS - it should be about whats good for consumers and that tends to be healthy competition.
To my mind a more formidable MS would be a good thing.
Well said.
George Lee
1) It's a whole lot easier to set up and use "out of the box" than Linux. This fact has little to do with anti-trust practices (except driver support and that's just nitpicking)
If we're excluding driver support, then Linux is not any harder to install than Windows. Installation is easy when you don't have to do the work to create/format partitions. Most computers come with Windows already loaded, so any comparison isn't on a level basis.
2)Microsoft's office suite is damn good. Some may argue that it's "good" because of anti-competitive
integration with the operating system, but regardless, objectively, it is a feature-rich, fast, and easy-to-use
suite. Nobody I know has ever had a problem learning Word.
When you kill off your competition by leveraging your OS and everyone who wants the functionality must buy your product, it's a hell of a lot easier to spend whatever you want in time and money on development. Isn't it ?
3)Breaking up Microsoft will have little effect on its day-to-day business. Sure, the overhead will
increase, but I don't think it'll help foster competition. It shouldn't be allowed to unfairly push
manufacturers, but breaking it up will have no effect on all this.
Bullshit to everything in that statement. If MS is broken up, the applications company would not have any incentive to stick to a strictly MS platform. Their shareholders wouldn't stand for it. Therefore, for example, the OS division would not get sales from people who need Office, but would otherwise choose a non-MS OS.
In addition, profits derived from OS sales, advertising, etc would not be diverted to another product. The shareholders wouldn't stand for it.
Each piece that the company is broken into will have to make a profit to keep the shareholders happy.
How will this help competition ? I think it's obvious.
4)Microsoft shouldn't be punished for having a better product. Netscape (which helped initiate the
litigation) complains about IE, and although I agree it shouldn't be forcibly packaged without alternatives
by OEMs, the fact remains that today IE is way better than Navigator. Shell integration aside, IE crashes
on me less often than Navigator.
MS is not being punished for being better. They are being punished for using illegal tactics to create and maintain monopolies. Do you think that IE would have been as "good" and successful if MS didn't divert funds derived from it's OS monopoly, advertising, and applications to create and NOT sell (although it really is sold...you're forced to buy it when you buy Windows) IE? Do you think that IE would still be as widely used if people had to download it from the net ? Do you think that IE would be as widely used if it wasn't welded into the OS? If MS had to write IE for different OSs, do you think it would still be as good as it is ? NO. Their attempt at a Unix version of IE was/is horrible...unusable. Do you think that if Netscape didn't have to keep up with a company that had a nearly unlimited amount of resources due to it's monopolies that Netscape wouldn't be better ? How much easier is development if you own both the browser AND the OS and don't have to port to other platforms to keep alive?
If IE is so much better than Netscape, then why did MS feel that they had to weld it into the OS? If IE is so much better than Netscape, why did MS feel the need to create contracts with companies that prevented those companies from mentioning, installing, or providing support for Netscape ? If IE is so much better than Netscape, then why did MS have to bribe companies to move off of Netscape ?
If MS creates better products, then why does MS not adhere to industry standards ? Why do they create products strictly for their own OS (surely if they created better products there would be nothing to fear in creating software to compete with other software on different platforms, for example, since most of the net does not use NT for their web servers, why doesn't MS have a Unix version of IIS) ?
To sum it up, if you think that MS is being punished for being better, you're very poorly informed.
Why make them open up the source code ? It would make it a hell of alot harder for them to hide designed incompatabilities. It would make it a hell of alot easier to create compatibility because you don't have to go by how MS says is should behave. You can look at the code itself and see how it really does behave.
True. IE is a good browser but, along with Outlook, it might as well be called MS Virus Server. Its architecture fundamentally opens up the machine to viruses and worms, even on NT. For me that last "feature" seriously outweighs its browsing function. I use it at work, but I don't let it touch my home machine with a ten foot pole. Frustrated as I am with Netscape's stability problems (which I understand can be helped by turning off Java) I would rather put up with the occasional crashes. I will be switching over to Mozilla as soon as it is feasible.
I have also had IE pop up error messages on accessing pages which load fine with either Netscape Communicator or Mozilla. If I hadn't double-checked, I might have just thought the site was down - that's the impression the IE error messages gave.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Finally! Somebody on Slashdot with a brain! Even ignoring the meat of the argument (which is excellent, and sums up the entire case quite nicely), at least somebody besides myself has enough presence of mind to notice that splitting up Microsoft will not solve the "problem" of MS having a monopoly. What I don't understand is how relatively sane people can in one sentence say that Microsoft has a monopoly on the desktop market, and then in the next advocate splitting the company up as a "solution" to the monopoly "problem". Every break-up suggestion I've seen looks something like -- three companies, focusing on operating systems, applications, and internet presence, respectively. How does that at all solve the "problem" of MS having an OS monopoly of the desktop market? It doesn't.
From my point of view, there's really only one way to "break" Microsoft's supposed monopoly, and that's by encouraging competitor operating systems (and no, Linux is still not a suitable replacement for Windows on the desktop. As much as I love linux, it's just not well-suited for desktop work, yet). At worst, this may require some government intervention to keep MS from destroying or assimilating the competitors, but I think that simply restricting MS's licensinge policies as stated above would be enough to give competitors the leverage they need.
Please, people. Think before you go around advocating something like breaking up Microsoft just because you "hate" the company, especially when such a solution does nothing to solve the problems you're all so enflamed about.
PS: The statement "nobody here likes Microsoft" is insanely wrong. It's just that most people are afraid of expressing such a view because the 1337 bandwagon-jumpers will flame them to death with shit like "L1NUX R00LZ, D00D! MIRCO$OFT SUX0RZZ!!".
Offtopic but hilarious.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Basically, Microsoft is getting their employees to pay them to buy stock. There's no Ponzi scheme here, though.
Microsoft's employees won't all go broke when Microsoft stock starts to fall. They're still getting cash salaries. They just won't become millionaires as they do today.
When Microsoft's stock starts to fall, they may find it harder to hire good people. But that will take a long time to affect the company--we're not talking about any sort of crash.
Sensible investors understand how Microsoft manages their stock options. They then look at Microsoft's monopoly and conclude that the company is likely to do pretty well in any case.
Disclaimer: I know some Microsoft employees, although I don't know the precise details of their financial arrangements.
I appreciate what you are saying, but I think you are tending to exaggerate the downside and minimize the upside.
First, a general point: Microsoft does a lot of hiring straight out of college. (That's part of the reason why they periodically announce that they've invented something which the rest of us have known about for a long time: they have a lot of people who don't have any work experience outside of Microsoft.) Also, Microsoft is in Seattle, not Silicon Valley, so they don't have to pay outrageous Silicon Valley salaries.
When I said that Microsoft was getting their employees to buy stock, I meant it. Microsoft is offering stock options in lieu of salary, and employees are accepting them. They accept it because they think the stock will go up. Nobody has to work at Microsoft.
I suspect that ``tiny fraction of the stock price'' is because the stock has gone up so much in the past couple of years, and most employees are still getting their stock options at the older price. I don't know for sure, though.
If a lot of Microsoft employees are living on siginificant margin loans, then they are fools, and so are the people lending them money. Of course, it might be happening. I don't really know. But a sensible person wouldn't put up more than about 30% of their stock on a loan, so that they could handle a severe drop.
If people lose faith in Microsoft stock, then it will fall. If the stock price drops for a while--that has happened already, after all--people will sit tight as long as they believe it will go up again. Of course the stock might go into freefall--but why would it? It's more likely to just slow down and plateau. Employees will slowly sell out, the stock might drop slowly over time, but I don't see any reason it would tip over into a free fall.
They are being paid "mediocre at best" (from the article); the millionaires are people who got in a long time ago, under more favorable conditions, and also have *many* years of cumulative stock options.
The most certain way to become a millionaire in the last decade in the U.S. has been to work at Microsoft. Microsoft grows steadily in revenue, but not in number of employees. Those people who got in a long time ago are more than half the company.
it's generally agreed that MS is an unpleasant plkace to work.
I don't concede that, actually. Microsoft is no worse than any Silicon Valley company. In fact, in some ways, it is better.
it's even more unpleasant to be bought by - see Cringeley- and that was where they got most of their new product. it'll be a lot harder to keep up with mediocre new programmers, far fewere willing sellers (the purchase targets aren't IPO'd; there are no stockholder pressures) from which to buy new technologies/features!
They bought their core products a long time ago. In my opinion, they already work with mediocre new programmers. It's been a while since they made a successful acquisition. In short, I don't think this is dependent on the stock price, nor do I think it is new.
Your statement that "investors like it" is *equivalent* to "the stock is rising" and will no longer be valid if it falls for more than a short period.
No, the two statements are not equivalent, except perhaps for people who rely solely on technical analysis. Most investors try to look at company fundamentals. Since I don't see a runaway spiral of destruction if the stock drops, I don't think Microsoft's fundamentals are that closely tied to their stock price.
Consider this: Microsoft does buy back some of their stock, to avoid excessive dilution. If the stock price falls, it will be cheaper for them to buy it back.
_________________
rooooar
God forbide you remember the Netscape had a couple year head start.
Nah, that would be an Anti-Slashdot thing to say.
Or would you? If the OS is the backbone monopoly of the company would the possible Apps Company had the cash-flow to put money into developing the Apps for the other OS's.
Especially since, no matter what you say, any OS version of any Apps isn't going to sell 1/10th of what the Windows Apps would sell.
Plus, they will be too busy writing Apps for the 27 different flavors of Windows now that the code has been relesed and forked over and over.
Welcome everyone, to the Good Thing(tm) that you all want to happen.
Just a little note on the AT&T breakup.
Check the figures. Long Distance cost have sank, but local service has risen. Does anyone know why? Because when AT&T was one big company, they ran the local service at a loss, and kept it afloat with the money from the LD. When they split, LD went down (no longer supporting the Local Service, nor the copper infrastructure) and local service went up (nobody to support them anymore)
Costs remain the same, you are just paying in the same areas now. Think also when local phone company finds problem inside your house and changes you $50/half hour for finding it. That didn't used to happen.
Now, apply this to Splitting MS up, and think about what happens when Windows 2000 drops by $200/copy, and all of the apps go up. (And the start charging for IE, including the Linux port everyone wants)
Maybe I'm just stupid, but what in the hell does 'dumping' a browser and driving Netscape out of busines have to do with a monopoly in the OS market.
Netscape sucked, it always sucked, and IE was just plain better. Netscape was charging for something that wasn't considered as good as browser you could get for free.
But, bottom line, Netscape was a browser company. Everyone says that they scared MS by possibly becoming an OS threat, but what proof that is there?
Linux is the OS threat, not Netscape.
Would opening the windows source work? No, of course not. Remember what happened when Netscape opened their source? Frenetic downloading for two days then the almost audible sighs of disappointment when it became aparrent that it was quite a complex piece of kit after all, and you weren't going to be able to hack it into shape in an afternoon. This would be way worse.
:)
What would we do with - probably 600 meg - of patchily developed *windows* source code? Apart from grep for four letter words? Or go looking for remenants of the microsoft network code (grep "blackbird")? Who here has the clobber to even build such a thing at home, let alone develop on it.
Basically, it wouldn't work. It'd be a shitfight.
Open the API's? Yes, definately. Force all data transmission and storage protocols to be published for all to see, by law, for all products (not just MS ones)? Now you're talking. You would level the playing field once and for all, and furthermore prevent anyone else from pulling the same stunt in the future - Sun want a monopoly too, what do you thing the J-word is all about? But that's a different rant.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Judge Jackson, I imagine, won't keep pushing this deadline back weekly. I think the first threat of a deadline was to light a fire under both sides to push them toward resolution, but pretty soon, he'll have to just stick firm to his deadline and rule, one way or the other.
There is nothing FORCING you to use Microsoft Word. I have found that Lotus WordPro v9 has none of those faults you mentioned AND can read/write most complex word documents perfectly.
My solution is simple. Use Lotus Smartsuite. I just laugh at those using MS Office
Normally wouldn't be one to post such a comment as this one, but...
:P
.sig: File not found.
AMEN, brother.
I run Linux 24/7 at home, and am actively trying to convert our business to it. But when my box at home reboots into MacOS to play a quick game of Q3A, it's amazing how much (if not prettier) _cleaner_ the MacOS is than anything I use at work or at home.
Perhaps that's my fault of customization on the Linux side, though
Jezzie
ls:
ls:
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?
Why the hell is this marked "Troll"? Signal 11 has some really good points here, that more people should consider, carefully, before they speak to decision makers in their company, community, or family. You know, I can't actually find a single point that he makes that isn't backed up by reliable sources (including my opinion, which is reliable to me :) ).
Where's my moderator status when I need it?
In fact, the only problem I have about breaking up MS is that it does not happen according to their terms. Personally, I'd like to see their Office division left with the hardware division, and OS broken up by product line (take that!) but then, I'm vendictive...
The Signal/Noise ratio can be improved in two ways. Remaining silent is the OTHER way.
Which has nothing to do with how good a development environment it is. If that were what mattered, NeXTStep would have more software than everything else combined.
Of course, it's entirely obvious the Windows has the most software because it's the most popular OS. And it's the most popular OS because of Microsoft's illegal business practices. So your argument is reduced to "Windows provides the best development environment because the folks at Microsoft are crooks."
--
This space unintentionally left unblank.
I suppose we have evidence that this doesn't work in how many people still don't wear belts (and smoke, and eat fatty food...), but it would be interesting to really run some numbers and see how effective it is compared to regulations. Any countries out there that don't have any seatbelt laws on the books that we could use?
<flamebait>
Then there's always the view the people who don't pay attention to warnings should sacrifice themselves for the good of the species.
</flamebait>
1) It's a whole lot easier to set up and use "out of the box" than Linux. This fact has little to do with anti-trust practices (except driver support and that's just nitpicking)
The problem with the claim is that it isn't true, one OS is about the same order of magnitude to setup and use. It dosn't matter if the CD says Windows, SuSE, Red Hat or whatever. Indeed Windows 95 is rather obviously harder, since you need a boot floppy on any machine to install it, since the CD is not bootable.
Strange, because I find the Windows interface much better than the Mac or any of the Linux desktops.
Including the X desktops which copy, one or other, of the 3 Windows desktops? About the only thing they don't copy is the ability for end users to mess up the hardware configuration (and the BSOD).
are intrigued by this line of argument:
... you can bundle only certain hardware with your OS ... an 'OS' officially consists only of these elements (etc)" will hurt other companies in aggregate more than it would ever help Microsoft customers.
"The Future and Its Enemies", by Virginia (Postrel)?
(And "Atlas Shrugged," of course.;) )
The trouble with regulation is that no matter how well intentioned, it bears unintended consequences. Limiting the extent and nature of voluntary transactions is bad in the long term for all involved, and for opening up possibilities which might make any of today's companies obsolete.
Offializing Microsoft's market position with regulations which specify on a pretty micro-level "You can step only onto this line
imho,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
yankehack wrote (in part):
:) Only freedom to release software that is good, bad, or indifferent -- and flourish, die or stagnate as fate allows. (Looking forward to Netscape 6, for instance.)
/not/ "free markets" -- like the huge waste pit that is government spending in general. Since those are our tax dollars (no matter what country you live in) at play, it is important there that factors other than the inertia of market dominance govern purchasing behavior. That's where regulation and oversight makes some sense to me.
"how else will you motivate companies to act if not for regulation?"
I consider regulation the worst possible motivation for companies to act. Officializing all aspects of behavior is what most frightens me about most "moralistic" regulation, which is what I would consider most of the things being considered against Microsoft. (If Microsoft were dumping cancerous substances into drinking water, I'd be all for instant action -- different kind of case.)
"MS isn't exactly encouraging software development or OS deployment for PC component makers unless it is on MS terms. The 'market' isn't a market at all because of the predominance and (not necessarily desire for) but a real need to run the OS on most consumer "magic tv set" desktops."
Let them hand out all the rope they want. If they are unfriendly to hardware developers, there will be (as there has been) a strong movement to make the hardware work with other OSes. And as for magic TV sets, again -- free, open-source stuff seems like a smarter choice. If it is, cool - the companies that use it benefit. If ac company considers proprietary stuff (from MS or someone else) to be the better choice, fine -- let them. They will have to eat the fruit of their choices.
"And it is pretty clear that this situation, no matter how much we want it to, will change anytime soon.
"
I dunno - I think the overall change in the last three years alone has been incredibly positive. For the small- and medium-sized server market, where is Linux now compared to that long ago, and where is Windows? Apache runs more than MS's competitor or anything else. I think it credits MS too much to believe that their preponderance means a monopoly.
"Additionally, what do you propose for the companies whose innovations are being stifled because of MS marketshare? (READ:NETSCAPE) Don't just tell me that you expect them to just develop for Linux and the slashdot crowd."
I don't propose anything at all!
timothy
p.s. On the other hand, there are some aspects of the economy which are clearly
After all, anyone who maintains a certain operating system in their organization in order to ensure compatibility with a government agency which also uses it must be a little puzzled by the one-hand-doesn't-know-the-other actions of the Justice Department and the FTC.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I agree with you on the regulation of government. I actually wish that the case goes on longer, because it keeps MS from doing any of their little tricks. I have noticed that there has been a lot more innovation(tm) since MS has had its hands tied by the DOJ. That is innovation from other than Microsoft.
But my argument against yours is what you said about Opening the source code.
Please, also, don't demand MS release the source to their competitors in order to level the playing field.
This sounds nice, but then I ask you "what competitors?" If my startup want to do it's own Windows, will I be able to? Or will Sun be the only company allowed?
Also, if the Windows source is released, there is a good chance that the consumer applications market will suffer. Unix was forked, fragmented and has been permanently damaged. And Unix was a well designed system.
Linux may well be fragmented. It's only a matter of time until the kernel is forked. Then what? Sure, now we can say "No real Linux user would switch to the forked kernel."
But what if the forked kernel was good? I mean Real good. You'd switch if there was something in it for you. A faster server or some such.
First, if Windows opened its source, I can guarantee you that it would not be GPL. So there would be NO chance of a fork.
Second, it gives the office competitors a chance to compete. Since I'm sure that the OS has bias built in for MS Office, that others don't know about. How can people compete in the Office arena if one of the suppliers dictates the playing field?
Third, As Linus has stated in Linux World, forking is a good thing. A fork only happens when the maintainer of code does not listen to a large group of people that want to add something special. Then that group may make a fork. This is actually good. But if the demand for both systems still exist, then the two will eventually merge, creating a better product. I call this the fork and embrace technique. The reason this didn't work for Unix, is that you had proprietary systems which killed the embrace part of the equation, which is the important part. I have stated before that even KDE and GNOME are becoming friendlier as well as Free BSD and Linux. This is because each of these products still have a high demand, and it will be advantageous for each product to be compatible.
So in summary, I liked your argument but I disagree with your Open Source theory. It is obvious to me that you don't quite get the point of Open Source.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
An Open Letter to All Americans - Shadow of the Swastika - (Don't be fooled by the subtitle on the web page - it's not just about Hemp.) "A list of the corporations named include Du Pont, Standard Oil, and General Motors, all of which were proven to be conspiring with Nazi industrial cartels to eliminate competition world-wide and divide among themselves the Earth's industrial resources and commercial markets, for profitable exploitation. "
The Drug Story - Earth-shattering revelations about drugs and the sinister Rockefeller empire.
Yes, I know 99% of /. readers will dismiss this all as consipiracy-theory nonsense. But conspiracies and cartels are not impossible - they have existed, and just because a theory is a conspiracy theory is no reason, in and of itself, to reject it out of hand.
Female Prison Rape in NY
your an idiot.. anyone who doesn't post can moderate.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I was actually refering to the 500+ reboots you have to do when installing a machine. Though I do reinstall my box once a month and (it's my job) I am constantly installing new servers.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Or the various 'Baby Bills' will start stealing ideas from each other.
I can see it now...
Explorer corp sued by Word corp for 'Look and feel' of the new Internet explorer 'Tour Guide'.
"It's nothing like the Office assistant, it looks like a twisted piece of grass. Completely different from a paperclip." says spokeswoman.
Word corp is also serving papers to Win2k corp for their 'Drive Assistant'.
Thus the empire falls in a flurry of lawsuits.
Later
Erik Z
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
DOS has had piping and redirection since DOS 2.0 (at least!), and Windows still has it.
You are complaining that windows sucks cos it doesn't have your commandline tools? Download a free package for Windows with those tools then! There are plenty about. I cheerfully use grep and awk on my NT box.
Linux has many free and unpowerful APIs, and Windows has many APIs (both powerful and unpowerful). They are also very well documented in the functions which the API developers want documented. The fact that there are extra undocumented functions hardly detracts from the documented ones. MS have terabytes worth of documentation of their APIs and technologies (doesn't that word piss you off) on their website.
I'd rather spend a few minutes looking up documentation than spend an hour or two wading through source to find out what a complicated API function does. True, source is useful to look at if you can't figure out the documentation, but that situation rarely arises in windows programming. At worst, you can just write test sample code (still faster than figuring out the source).
Have you noticed that reading other people's code is difficult? because they don't think as you do? Even if it is well-structured and well-documented, it still takes a while to suss out its author's mental layout.
And most code I've seen is not well-structured and not well-documented.
Dos and Win95 don't multitask, so you can't really blame them for implementing pipes and redirection that way.
/s |more
.1 sec), and the hard drive keeps chugging as you scroll down.
I just tested on win NT: the following command:
dir
done on a large volume, clearly does not complete the dir listing before invoking more; as the listing appears straight away ( <
Cacheing was not involved as this was the first dir listing I had done in a long time.
A plain dir/s takes a long time to run for many files.
NTFS has named pipes, soft links, hard links (ntfs 5), and quite a few other features which i forget now, but are a part of ufs and its derivatives.
I can occupy a voluminous amount of space with high and flighty words that, when combined, elegantly support what I am about to say.
I choose to be direct.
Open-source the Windows API!!!
Competition Make A Better Market!!!
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Wake the FUCK up!!!
Netscape was around and becoming the market leader before M$ even heard of the Internet. M$ made IE free (dumping is the term) to displace Netscape. Classically illegal behavior.
For the matter, IE could be improved umpteen times and I'll still say IE sucks the sweat of a dead man's balls.
Wake up!
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
*nt*
There are two problems with this. The first problem is that once its OK for the DOJ to start overseeing MS, they will have the ability, if not the license, to oversee the entire industry. I don't think that's a good thing.
Second problem is that even if the DOJ limits their focus exclusively to MS, the DOJ can make mistakes that harm the consumer. DOJ oversight dosen't inherently increase the choices that a consumer has. What I want is to see consumers having choice, and let market forces improve the situation.
This is why I think a breakup is needed. On the other hand, a breakup is shortsighted. It only deals with the OS. If MS is smart, then they take all of their applications and port them to everything, and their OS drops off the face of the planet (one can hope!). So now we're not tied to the OS, but we're still tied to all of their applications.. like IE. However you break off IE at this point, MS will work hard to make sure that it is everwhere (on linux, bsd, mac, etc). And then they can be in the exact same situation they're in now, only instead of forcing a crappy OS on us, they'll force us into their crappy web server.
I don't think a long term solution to this is easy. I do think that a breakup and source code release is the best first step.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I think what Signal 11 as talking about was the look and feel, the aethstetics of the visual components. You know, the nice anti-aliased stuff with crisp fonts. I don't think he was talking about the design and ease of use associated with the good looking components. Clearly in this aspect Microsoft has failed miserably.
Microsoft is like a hooker. It looks good from a distance but if you fuck with it you can get burned
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Did he ever get around to writing the driver? Or is he going to do that after all the shit? Nice bit of focus he has there...
"Also: What makes Linux such a kick-arse dev platform? Isn't win with perl, mysql, httpd and djgpp just as
good?"
No...
If it was Mircosoft would would run thier
hotmail servers on windows.
AdFuel
It's called 'Laisez Faire' economics, which if you don't remember HS social studies means "the government keeps their nose(s) out of business." I mentioned to a co-worker that I wouldn't be surprised if M$ tried to question the validity of the Sherman Anti-Trust act. Consider the implications of overturning that. M$ has a considerable amount of money to put behind this. They've already stated they will follow this ruling all the way up to the Supreme Court. What do you really think they're going to discuss at the Supreme Court, IE bundling, un-fair business practices ... Please, they're gonna try to slam the government with everything they can. Look at the "Freedom to Innovate" campaign. I can't beleive they actually think they're being stifled by the DoJ. For Gosh sakes, they've bought or stolen everything they've "innovated!" Man, you guys got me all pissed now. I'm gonna go take a walk :-)
mrBoB
Now I can't say for sure cause I wasn't around, but was there widespread protesting before Standard Oil and AT&T were broken Up. I doubt it. Why? Becuase a majority of the population didn't know better. All they knew is gasoline cost them X and Phone service cost Y and they coulnd't buy their own phone. But they elected "intelligent" officials (representatives, senators, presidents) who would look out for them. Thats the whole idea of a democratic government. We elect persons who will look out for us. The fact that 19 states haved filed suit against M$ shows that there are SOME people out here that do know and care about what M$ has done. This is their way of protesting, and it _IS_ valid. They feel they have not been given the opportunity to purchase or create technologies because of how M$ does business. Now granted, some of those constituents are employees for M$ rivals, but they are citizens of said state and their opinion counts just as much as the next persons. Just the same, I'm sure that many in Washington state have shown great support for M$, regardless of whether or not they're M$ employees. But if they aren't, thats even better for M$' cause. All I basically have to say is this is how we are supposed to be represented. The court is looking out for the little guys, because when we go in like we have (with an anti-trust case) the big guy, Bill, _MUST_ listen.
mrBoB
Are you sure?
The common scuttlebut is that there would be an OS division of MS. OK, one provider of Windows. Hmm, let's see, there will still only be one provider of THAT particular OS. Can you still say "monopoly power" on Operating Systems? (remember, Macintosh computers do not fit he defination for this instance)
You would have an apps MS company. MS Office is still the bees knees as far as office app suits goes. No problem there, it's a virtual monopoly, in the fact that they can lock down the file formats and pretty much change them at a whim.
Then you would have your Internet technology company. This company would have to charge for IE and Outlook Express. Chances are great that this company would be sold, as the market is already saturated with free browsers. (possibly to AOL/Time warner, talk about monopoly power then, it's almost scary to contemplate that one)
Unlike the OJ trial, the outcome of this case won't be in the hands of some clueless jury that was handpicked by the defense team, but rather a judge with at least 3/4 of a clue will render a verdict.
Anyone with an understanding of user interfaces will tell you about the horribly inefficiencies of the Windows OS.
Jackson's Findings of Fact seemed to lean heavily in the direction of opening the APIs, but since then it seems to have become a non-issue in the media, and instead everyone is talking about breaking up MS. Why is that? Opening the APIs seems like, as you say, the most effective solution for removing MS's monopoly leverage, and would gradually erode their platform dominance, but perhaps it's too technical an issue to gain media attention, while the dramatic solution of breaking up the company (like a hydra) is all anyone ever talks about.
Uh first off that's highly doubtful, Microsoft undoubtably has many license agreements with third party companies, and open sourcing all of Windows would be illegal and therefore impossible
As for "competent", get a clue. A bunch of incompetent coders have so far managed to whip the market share out of all the "competent" coding contestants. If you believe Microsoft engineers are the bumbling idiots you proclaim them to be, better guess again.
Open source. Closed minds. We are Slashdot
>Open source is a great thing, and it is completely beneficial and acceptable. The only problem is,
people who want to see all software free, or open source, do not see the big picture. How in God's
name will people make a living? If your life or company is based on creating a program that performs
a service, for one, I would much rather accept people's support by buying my product. It helps me
continue my development, and live my life. If I spent my time developing a program and handed it out
for free, what, would I have to have a job at McD to get by?
I think that you're confusing freely distributable software and source code with writing software without being paid to do so. The two are separate things and they can each coexist with one another as well as separately. You can write OSS on a volunteer basis, but you can also write it under contract or salary. Likewise, you can write closed source software either for money or for free. All four combinations are currently practiced, but you'll note that even if closed source software were to dissapear, there's still one option for making money writing OSS.
But let me ask you, how would you feel about the following propositions:
Neighbourhood watch programs are a bad thing. When people voluntarily agree to help protect one another's homes, it reduces the ability for private security firms to make money by offering home securitiy and monitoring services.
It is wrong for you to help your friend move. If everyone helped their friends move, it would surely put professional moving companies and the people who work for them out of business. The same goes for helping your friend paint his house, fix his car or install computer hardware. One of the reasons Red Hat loses so much money is that there are too many people willing to help their friends install and use Linux. Newsgroups like comp.os.linux.* take away from Red Hat's support business by allowing people to help each other for free. Surely this is a bad idea.
To oppose the free development and distribution of software by people who *want* to do this on the grounds that it interferes with the ability of someone who *wants* to get paid to do the same thing to do so is the same kind of argument.
I wouldn't worry though; I can't see the supply of people willing to write software on a volunteer basis outstripping the demand for software anytime soon. Universal open source or no, programmers will be able to find gainful employment writing software for some time to come.
>I am afraid of the US Federal government in my industry. I am cheering for Microsoft even though I am a Linux user who doesn't like Microsoft's licensing practices.
The government already is in the industry. Governments regulate (or "govern"); that's what they do. To say that government should not regulate people's affairs is to say that we should not have a government.
Remember that government intervention allowed Microsoft to achieve its current position. Could Microsoft have really done what it did without the benefit of copyright laws? If OEMs could have elected to simply make copies of DOS and Windows on their own and ship it with their PCs, could Microsoft have used licensing and pricing deals to discourge OEMs from making alternatives like PC-DOS or DR-DOS or OS/2 available to those who wanted it?
Not to try to debate the merits of copyright here, but the point is that the government does regulate the industry, and Microsoft's current monopoly position could not have come about without the powers granted to it and the restrictions placed upon others by the government. Now, the government needs to act to correct the imbalance caused by its meddling by placing suitable restrictions upon Microsoft and granting suitable powers to other.
The question of regulation by government is never one of 'yes or no' but rather always one of 'how much?'
They smelled money, just like they did with the pile-on tobacco settlement.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
> [...] so long as he isn't allowed to use it to cut off my air supply.
... or block the sun:
"For millions of years man has tried to destroy the sun. I will do the next best thing: I will blot it out!" -- C. M. Burns
Why on earth was this moderated up? "Maybe for you" is neither insightful nor informative. You have to wonder whether any post that's 95% sarcasm can make a wortwhile contribution to a discussion.
3)Breaking up Microsoft will have little effect on its day-to-day business. Sure, the overhead will increase, but I don't think it'll help foster competition. It shouldn't be allowed to unfairly push manufacturers, but breaking it up will have no effect on all this.
/Ibn
4)Microsoft shouldn't be punished for having a better product. Netscape (which helped initiate the litigation) complains about IE, and although I agree it shouldn't be forcibly packaged without alternatives by OEMs, the fact remains that today IE is way better than Navigator. Shell integration aside, IE crashes on me less often than Navigator.
To sum it up, the case seems like punishment for Microsoft for being too successful.
I don't think so. As the finding of facts did show, MS did use unfair business practices to get IE pre-installed on machines sold with Windows installed - and they also forcibly bundled IE with Windows 98 and later versions (and they also lied about it being a part of the OS, the OS is both faster and less crash-prone without IE as its shell). In addition to that, they've also bundled IE with their Office products for a while. These are all cases of letting the sales of completely unrelated products not only finance the development of, but also effectively do the marketing of their browser.
As a result of this business strategy Netscape never succeeded in getting to sell their browser at all, and since they had no other leg to stand on (except servers - but that wasn't a strong enough leg apparently), they had to sell out eventually. Had they been able to sell their product, they would have had the means to keep developing at a higher speed too. Therefore it's very much the fault of MS' unfair business strategies that the Netscape browser is inferior, and that Netscape had to sell out.
What would be a reasonable remedy for this? Forcing MS to pull IE out of Windows is hardly enough, the damage has been done already. But breaking the company into an OS branch, an Internet branch, and an Office suite branch would prevent them from doing it again. Also ruling that their Internet and Office products should be more widely ported seems reasonable.
Yes, I am a biological organism. All rumors to the contrary are just that, rumors.
Yeah, and maybe for a large percentage of the computer using population out there.
Until you people realize that the majoirty of people in this planet have no interest in becoming a computer guru/expert/techinician, and don't want to have to learn anything about there computer except for how to use apps, Linux won't get anywhere on the desktop.
I disagree... but then why would that stop anyone from using cygwin to get access to your precious gnu/unix tools.
or even 4NT/4DOS.
Piping and redirecting and filtering make Unix a breath of fresh air to any user who has been trapped in a windows only environment.
Gee and here I'm using pipes, redirecting and filtering on windows and I didn't even realise windows doesn't have them. don't i feel stupid.
The primary reason why windows is so successful is the developer support, microsoft knows this, that's why there's Visual Studio (not to mention various other offerings from borland and ibm).
Yeah, and in France people think French is a superior language to English too.
My point is: In France people will shift for any number of reasons, including the fact that MS is an American company. Don't infer from this that they did it for reasons of practicality.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Ok, I'll calm down now and have a go at your points in detail -
1. Everyone is bound to do *something* a little bit right. Does that mean they should get away with murder, and the rest of us deal with all the OTHER consequences?
2. Damn straight. I wish I had the option of VB, Word, and Excell on every half decent OS from the start of the OS wars. The lack of it hasn't hurt me, but it has "forced" all the idiots in the world to think that they HAD to buy MS for home, to inter-operate with Work/Friends...
3. I don't think so. If I were the business manager of 'Application MS', I would want Word on every half decent OS on the planet, which would secure my market position even more.
4. You can't use NT here. We need to focus on MS's consumer OS, the one that affects the most people in the world. The one that has resulted in holding back "where computers should be and be capable of" by 10 years. I can't use my computer in the ways that I want because the OS would vaporize. What's that, get another OS? Due to the effects of MS's monopoly position, that immediately eliminates a LOT of what I can do (currently). We're all screwed until Linux catches up with MS, and admit it, we're just damn lucky that Linux ever came along, let alone lucky enough that I can dream of it catching MS. If it wasn't free, it wouldn't exist.
Punhishing MS for being too successful? Like we punish people for breaking the law really well? Lots of people that break the law have solid day jobs, should that excuse them? The Nazi's did a lot of good things for Germany...
We're not punishing them for being too successful. If they were really successful, everyone in the world would love them, and have nothing but nice things to say about their products. That is CLEARLY not the case. They've definitely being doing MANY other things WRONG, and some of those include breaking the law in ways that increase 'BAD THINGS' in this world, and I'm saying *I* am/will suffer because of it.
...
..
.
You know, if their consumer OS was *STABLE* (LAST year, or years past, not 2 years from now), I wouldn't be complaining. That they aren't selling Windows 2000 to the home user for a "home use" price is a horrific mistake. Win95 I understand. Win98 and WinMillenium are completely un-necessarilly foisting unstabillity and frustration on hundreds of millions of people. Bastards.
--------- Appendix A - What I initially wrote before I calmed down.
Breaking up Microsoft might result in all of the software that runs on Win9x and NT being ported to lots of other operating systems, without which no *average* idiot is going to seriously consider the alternate OS. ('Oooh, I can't buy that OS/system, I need to work on a Word document from work once in a blue moon').
Increasing competition in OSs might force MS to finally release a consumer OS that is a lot more extensible, stable, stable, and stable. Notice that last word. Currently, after 10+ years of effort, MS's consumer OS costs as much as it ever did (with more people than ever buying it, and software re-use a major part of any well built piece of software, shouldn't I be getting more for less?), and still crashes my system 2-3 times a day.
Don't give me any bull about "it's not MS's OS crashing", MS's consumer OS is allowing other software to crash it, and I can't even tell what causes it. It's a full blown crapshoot that burns down the entire city. No one little mistake should burn down the entire city. It should only burn down one house, and the fire-department should be able to contain even that level of damage.
It's not just a simple choice of an ISP--AOL has consistently scored the lowest in every category that matters except for ease of use. Therefore, the only reason you would choose it above a real ISP is if you don't know anything about computers.
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Yes, DOS does have those capabilities--copied from UNIX, just like so many other of its features. But it's really kludgy in comparison, doesn't work as well.
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Actually, I would tend to believe a bloated monlith like M$ is right now would be easier to overthrow than several seperate companies. Baby Bills would be a lot more versatile, since they have a much more narrow market. Of course, this is purely speculation by some guy who doesn't know a thing about running companies. Still, common sense would dictate Baby Bills would be a hell of a lot more versatile. Still not, however, as versatile as Linux--and never will be. :)
An eighty-pound gorilla makes an easier target
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
And Windows isn't as easy to use out-of-the-box as Be or MacOS. What's your point?
2)Microsoft's office suite is damn good. Some may argue that it's "good" because of anti-competitive integration with the operating system, but regardless, objectively, it is a feature-rich, fast, and easy-to-use suite. Nobody I know has ever had a problem learning Word.
Their apps don't totally suck. But my God are they bloated! I coulda sworn I was upgrading the OS but nope, just Word 2000. And fricking expensive, too. Office 2000 costs more than Windows. How messed up is that? Corel Office 2000 is every bit as good, and only fifty bucks. Try it out.
3)Breaking up Microsoft will have little effect on its day-to-day business. Sure, the overhead will increase, but I don't think it'll help foster competition. It shouldn't be allowed to unfairly push manufacturers, but breaking it up will have no effect on all this.
No, but they would be unable to use monopolistic power illegally, and that's the point. Leveling the playing field. If M$ is broken into Baby Bills, they will have to compete against each other. They will have to play fair! Hee hee.
4)Microsoft shouldn't be punished for having a better product. Netscape (which helped initiate the litigation) complains about IE, and although I agree it shouldn't be forcibly packaged without alternatives by OEMs, the fact remains that today IE is way better than Navigator. Shell integration aside, IE crashes on me less often than Navigator.
No, they should be punished for using monopoly power to steal marketshare from companies instead of competing. If their stuff is so much better, than why can't they win without abusing power? Don't write Netscape off just yet, either. Mozilla kicks ass, and they have a huge comapany backing them--AOL/Time Warner. AOL will switch over to Netscape 6.0 as soon and Mozilla is done--instant dominate marketshare. Plus, Mozilla will be the only decent full-featured browser to run on other platforms than Windows.
To sum it up, the case seems like punishment for Microsoft for being too successful.
No, they will be punished for killing off other companies illegally to become successful. They don't compete, they smother the competitor out of business. This is why they're in deep shit now.
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Okay, if I walk into a store and buy a computer, what OS is it going to have? Windows. Can I get another OS if I want? No. How is this not a monopoly? There is a little bit of competition, but that's semantics. They have monopoly power.
Lastly, think on this: Is Cisco next on DOJ's list to tackle? They're huge, they have a 'monopoly' as defined by the DOJ (as seen with MS).
being a monopoly is not illegal, abusing it to remain one, and to enter other markets, is illegal. Microsoft has done this, a lot, Cisco has not. Cisco is a really cool company. Without them, the Internet would literally not have existed. But they are also a respectible company that doesn't behave like a schoolyard bully.
Here's my DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
Ok. I will admit, I havn't even read an entire article on this subject except for the past 3 or 4 that were posted on Slashdot. I don't really care what people think about the situation because most of the postings on Slashdot and other forums, along with the comments I hear on IRC are all bias and ungrounded hatred towards Microsoft.
I have a very simple remedy that I find acceptable, take it for what you want. Maybe someone will accually agree with me and take action on it. So here goes.
There is not a doubt in my mind that Microsoft has violated anti-trust laws, or that they have hurt consumers, or stifled competition through it's monopoly power. By doing this they have made unbelievable amounts of money and have "stolen" much of that money from it's competitors. A "structural remedy" will not suffice. There are just two many loopholes for Microsoft to work around. The same pertains to a "conduct remedy". The only realistic remedy I see is to take some of the money Microsoft stole from competitors and give it back. This will revive a bit of competition and we will probably see many more inventive and innovative technologies in the next decade, or so. This will also prevent Microsoft from using it's monopoly power any further, because they won't really have that big of a monopoly, after a while.
I understand that this remedy is "unfair" to Microsoft, but hey.. "you get what you give". People love Robin Hood for robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. How is this different?
I also understand that this will probably cause many small companies to attack larger companies trying to win similar verdicts. The judge can, however, state in court that this case does not set precedence. I know we are going for precedence, in a way, but, with my remedy, we won't really need precedence as the industry's cometition will be revived, at least partially.
Like I said, take it for what you want. I think my remedy is feasible and probably better than anything the DOJ and Microsoft will agree on.
There's only so much a consumer can know about every product he or she's going to buy a lifetime. Without such Federal regulations you're basically putting all the responsibility on the consumer. Hell, you can't just complain about a McDonald burger and get a new and bigger one. You need something to base your complaint on, and even then the service at McDonald's is so lousy you probably don't get your burger. (I don't go to McDonalds for obvious reasons ;)
Now, I totally agree that such regulations are much harder to do on OSes and software in general. But as we have experienced in the last 5-10 years, the consumer needs something to protect them from advertising and articles fooling them into believing a product is a must-have. That everyone are buying it, everyone should have one, it's the best product you can get, it got all the features you ever wanted, you'll be more productive and happier, and you need it to play Office.
Sometime, somewhere, whole masses of people have been lead on by this into buying MS only. Then Microsoft capitalized on this by making all their products incompatible with others, except those endorsing Microsoft. Obviously there's something wrong here to be fixed.
Maybe the consumers need to be more informed, but I think that's an enormous task considering all the AOLers out there. In my opinion it's best to take a wait-and-see attitude, because it's impossible to extrapolate the future based on hypothetical rulings. It can't get worse than it is now, even if Microsoft goes bankrupt. That would only mean responsibility back to the people.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
I think the point that everyone has been missing is that when MS bundled IE with Windows, they could continue "charging" for it by making better deals on their OS. Netscape obviously couldn't do this since IE was now "free of charge". Although everyone was buying it anyways through purchasing a new computer (those nasty OEM deals) or upgrading Windows. I guess it didn't make any sense to Netscape to continue developing a grossly overcomplex and buggy system, superior at that time though, without much of revenue back for their efforts. Certainly not on a platform where Microsoft were doing all the development and could use undocumented features to get an advantage anyways.
So what we've learned is that nothing bundled together with a product is ever "free of charge", it's just a sales-gimmick. The price of developing IE went into the same rich pool Microsoft has exploited since the day it were conceived, its OS.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
It may not always be the case that it takes money to make money, but it was in Bill Gates case, and it certainly makes things easier. I'll give credit where credit is due, but Bill does not get credit for becoming wealthy of his own accord.
----------
Stupid sexy Flanders.
You're right. I don't blame them, but I still think it sux. ;) Either way, Unix rocks!
Sort of. DOS runs one program, saves its output to a file, and runs the next program with the output file as input. WinXX (95 and NT at least - don't know about W2K) do the same. Unices (Unixes?) modify the process's file pointers for STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR when redirection is used. It's much more elegant under Unix.
It's this Unix notion that "everything is a file" that rocks!
If windows does become open source some will come out with a new windows thats half the line of code and actuall stable.
You're right. It should be punished for so completely obliterating competition that no other products existed to compare it to.
the only product in question in netscape crappy ass browser. VisiCalc lost to Lotus 123, Lotus 123 lost to Excel, WordStar lost to WordPerfect, word perfect lost to Word. etc.. etc... etc... and anyone who looks at netscape vs. IE objectively cant tell you that IE kicks the shit out of netscape anyday. it's a damm fine browser.
And one more note: why open up the Windows source code?
Oh, I don't know. Interoperability, put a stop to the extend-and-embrace tactics, proprietary standards, and higher costs as a result of needing to work around that?
another post covered this topic quite well, so i'll just reiterate what he said. remember when netscape went open source? about 2 days of downloading and then everyone realized it was WAY to complicated to make any cool changes. and what else happened with netscape, basically the same old guys kept on designing it. who would design the new open source windows? probably Microsoft, and i'm sure you don't want that. opening standards i can agree with, but the let microsoft deal with there source code.
-Jon
this is my sig.
"We'll release the source code to Windows 3.1"
---
Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman
Posted by timothy on Wednesday March 29 2025, @10:54PM
from the one-hundred-triiiillion-dollars dept.
bahwi writes: "The 7 companies involved in the DOJ anti-trust trial have until April 6 to finalise a deal with the DOJ. The companies involved are:
* MicroWindows
* MicroOffice
* MicroLinux
* MicroEmbedded
* MicroNetworking
* MicroMiscellaneous
Ironically, these are the 6 companies formed after MicroSoft was split up in a similar trial back in 2000. In response, the DOJ said 'Ummmm, ooops, maybe forcing open protocols was a better idea... sorry'
Bill Gates, speaking from his 2 trillion dollar nursing home, said "bwhahahaha!!!! The world is mine!!! The world is mine!!!!"
Analysts expect the Micro* share prices to plummet 2 points, before regaining 600, within the next hour or so.
Simon
The real linux_penguin has Slashdot ID 101961. Anyone else is an impostor. Including Bruce Perens.
And the first PC wasn't 8-bit only?
What would we do with - probably 600 meg - of patchily developed *windows* source code? Apart from grep for four letter words? Or go looking for remenants of the microsoft network code (grep "blackbird")? Who here has the clobber to even build such a thing at home, let alone develop on it.
Once, many moons ago, I interviewed at a graduate school for a research assistanship. The position was to help a professor with some research into OS security mechanisms (or something similar, I can't remember the specifics). During the interview, he mentioned that he has a choice over NT and Linux. He chose Linux for, among other reasons, it was a *lot* smaller to work with than NT. The sheer volume of the source code was huge, let alone the time and space to build the beast. Thus, if something like the 9x or NT source code was opened, I doubt as many people could contribute to it as, say, Linux.
It's a whole lot easier to set up and use "out of the box" than Linux.
Maybe for you.
I've worked with Windows (primarily NT/2000 these days) for ages, and Linux for a while, and I must say that installing Linux and getting it running is about as easy these days as getting Windows up and running. However, where I've found Windows outshines Linux is when you're tweaking stuff after the installation. The best example I can think of is resolution/refresh rate -- in Windows it's a couple of dialog boxes and I've got the resolution and refresh rate I want. As for Linux, I've got the resolution, but damnit it's not simple to change the refresh rate. Modeline calculations? Ugh, no thanks.
There are other things as well that cause less stress under Windows (application installs come to mind), but hopefully they'll decrease in number as time goes on. People will probably say that Linux isn't supposed to be as simple as Windows, but at the same time it's nice to have an OS that doesn't make your life too difficult.
Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, Windows is a decent operating system. I have to take issue with this assertion. My work has been primarily in .*n*x and Mac, and my experience with Windows has been when friends need help, oddball jobs at work, etc. and I've grown to hate Windows on two levels:
User interface. Okay, this is the standard one. All of the complaints of a GUI, in that it restricts your options, controls what you do, and generally treats you like a child, without the benefits of clarity, since it proceeds to hide frequent commands in obscure places, being (for similarly frequent tasks) in a contextual menu, the start bar, or a control panel, usually buried in tabs with names only a VMS programmer could love. It seems to me that it's a dark day in a GUI design's life when Mac users have the same complaints about your GUI that CLI hacks have about the Mac.
The other is the file system. What sort of idiot notion is it to not copy the invisible contents of a directory along with the directory itself? Based on screwy drive management that a> requires manufacurer software to maintain new drives and b> corrupts them faster than any other major OS I'm aware of.
So, process management is passable. (Although the phrase "process X is not responding" is less than encouraging). Driver handling is and (AFAICT) always will be atrocious, and I don't see how that's nitpicking: what use is your machine without perifrials?
So, of four basic purposes of an operating system, Windows is passable at one. (Note that I'm glossing security on the basis that a> it isn't essential to an OS and b> it doesn't help Windows' case). How is this a decent OS again?
As far as Office goes, Word works just fine. As a text editor. Once you ditch the paperclip.
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
So, you can laugh all you want, but it doesn't matter.
BTW, I love my 4 button mouse, and I won't use anything with fewer than 3 buttons now.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Microsoft HAS done a lot of good for the PC industry, such as the widespread acceptance and use of PCs worldwide, as well as making sure their new OS releases are so unbarably slow that it pushes the industry to make faster and better products so the OS isn't quite so slow anymore.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Remember that government intervention allowed Microsoft to achieve its current position. Could Microsoft have really done what it did without the benefit of copyright laws? If OEMs could have elected to simply make copies of DOS and Windows on their own and ship it with their PCs, could Microsoft have used licensing and pricing deals to discourge OEMs from making alternatives like PC-DOS or DR-DOS or OS/2 available to those who wanted it?
Not to try to debate the merits of copyright here, but the point is that the government does regulate the industry, and Microsoft's current monopoly position could not have come about without the powers granted to it and the restrictions placed upon others by the government. Now, the government needs to act to correct the imbalance caused by its meddling by placing suitable restrictions upon Microsoft and granting suitable powers to other.
You could also apply this to the open source movement...
Open source is a great thing, and it is completely beneficial and acceptable. The only problem is, people who want to see all software free, or open source, do not see the big picture. How in God's name will people make a living? If your life or company is based on creating a program that performs a service, for one, I would much rather accept people's support by buying my product. It helps me continue my development, and live my life. If I spent my time developing a program and handed it out for free, what, would I have to have a job at McD to get by?
If my career is software development, I most definately want to be reimbursed for that time, effort and service. Open source is a great thing, but not everything can be free. If software becomes free, than everything I do needs to be free so I don't need reimbursion for the service in order to live my life. ie we end up with a utopian Star Trek universe, cashless, no currency. Even then it comes down to trading. You provide a service, and you get something in return (more than recognition).
If I'm wrong about my views on Open Source, let me know. Don't flame me...
Here's what I think:
:)
Microsoft got to where it is today because it sees a market in the NON-hacker-esque world. Windows, as you put it, was not easy for you to set up, and Linux was easier? Well, I can't speak for you, but IMO Windows is a matter of follow the instructions and hit Next...
Windows was created to help to non-layperson get acquainted with computers and shove the computer industry forward. From a programmer's point of view, PLAY WITH THE CARDS YOU'RE DEALT. If Linux is such an awesome operating system, why does it not shoot off the ground and become one of the most used? Sure it's getting better, but see how much has changed since it began? It's got user interfaces, it's looking more like Windows every day. But the bottom line is, it's still a hacker's OS.
You ask joe blow off the street what he'd like to use. Who do you think will be getting more tech calls, Microsoft tech or mr.programmer who pieced together the version of Linux he's using?
I'm about a half-programmer, and I say Windows may have it's problems, but Linux would too if it's primary goal was to make things easy as butter for someone who's never used a computer before. There's soo much more to programming than making something work. Understandability, learning curve, etc. If I were a hard-core programmer, I'd love Linux.
The fact of the matter is, Windows is where it is today because of the ease of programming using the tools associated with it, and the support it has. If a program has bugs the first time, you work around it, you don't complain. If an OS locks up or crashes because of your program, quit complaining, and either report the bug or work around it! Be a programmer and not a complainer...
Hate Windows as much as you like, but don't assume that Linux is a better OS because YOU like it better.
Hope I don't sound flamey, I don't mean to be offensive. It just hits a nerve when I see all the *nix users trash Windows because Linux is better for them. I plan on playing with linux any day now, simply because I see it's a good OS that is rising, not because I think Win sucks or Linux is better overall.
Flame-away
--
I like MCSE: Must Call Someone Experienced
Funny, I have to say :)
:)
But here's what I think:
Microsoft got to where it is today because it sees a market in the NON-hacker-esque world. Windows, while being inefficient from the view of a programmer, was not easy to set up, while Linux, to a programmer, may be easier. IMO Windows is a matter of follow the instructions and hit Next, which obviously many people in the world like...
Windows was created to help the non-layperson get acquainted with computers and shove the computer industry forward. From a programmer's point of view, PLAY WITH THE CARDS YOU'RE DEALT. If Linux is such an awesome operating system, why does it not shoot off the ground and become one of the most used? Sure it's getting better, but see how much has changed since it began? It's got user interfaces, it's looking more like Windows every day. But the bottom line is, it's still a hacker's OS.
You ask joe blow off the street what he'd like to use. Who do you think will be getting more tech calls, Microsoft tech or mr.programmer who pieced together the version of Linux he's using?
I'm about a half-programmer, and I say Windows may have it's problems, but Linux would too if it's primary goal was to make things easy as butter for someone who's never used a computer before. There's soo much more to programming than making something work. Understandability, learning curve, usability, etc. If I were a hard-core programmer, I'd love Linux.
The fact of the matter is, Windows is where it is today because of the ease of programming using the tools associated with it, and the support it has. If a program has bugs the first time, you work around it, you don't complain. If an OS locks up or crashes because of your program, quit complaining, and either report the bug or work around it! Be a programmer and not a complainer...
Hate Windows as much as you like, but don't assume that Linux is a better OS because YOU like it better.
If a version arises of Linux that keeps that stability, but adds to it the user-friendliness and user 'stupidity' level of Windows (ie extremely easy and far less painful to maintain), by all means I'll get it and love it! For now, I'm happy with Windows and maybe a crash every so often, and it's wiiiide support for software and hardware (whether buggy or not, which may not necessarily be the fault of M$). I'll set up Linux on my second box for now, but Win is still my favourite OS so far. And I am running Win2k, which personally I find far more stable than NT or 9x. But that doesn't mean it is better since I've read many many reports of problems in setting up. I'm not so closed minded to say that Win2k is flawless because I've had no problems. So don't say Linux is the best OS because it's so easy to use, because frankly, it's not, according to the market MS has taken under its wing.
Hope I don't sound flamey, I don't mean to be offensive. It just hits a nerve when I see all the *nix users trash Windows because Linux is better for them. I plan on playing with linux any day now, simply because I see it's a good OS that is rising, not because I think Win sucks or Linux is better overall.
Flame-away
--
I like MCSE: Must Call Someone Experienced
The lawsuit by the Justice Department is, in my mind, justified. Where I feel the line needs to be drawn are all the states screaming "ME TOO!!" like some AOL'er at the prospect of money from a settlement.
The other problem is, of course, that most of the military's infrastructure now runs on NT. Like Arnold in Terminator 2... it cannot self-terminate. So, even if you managed to somehow bypass the 32 safeguards preventing launch, you'd still be stuck at a BSOD on the console.
Wow! I think you've just figured out the military's strategy!
See, if anyone manages to break into our military systems, since they're running Windows, it will be next to impossible for then to get anything productive done! This way it gives us much more time to respond to the threat!
Er... uhm, yeah.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Also don't forget that this trial has yet another part, where a remedy is chosen. After the findings of law are released, there won't be much room for Microsoft to negotiate. This is the time for them to settle, if it is going to happen.
I'm going to live forever or die trying.
What are you saying? Are you trying to imply that AOLers are in some inferior to you and I? Are you lumping them in a category and calling them lame just for their choice of ISP? Don Middendorf Trust me, in context this is glistening with cosmic irony.
Also: What makes Linux such a kick-arse dev platform? Isn't win with perl, mysql, httpd and djgpp just as good?
:wq
They'll be easier to hunt down. :)
:wq
Not much. I'd download the source tho, if only for a good laugh. :)
If they opensource _all_ of windows, all dlls and all supporting stuff, and borland open-sourced delphi libs - then maybe developers could port to a better more stable platform - but as it is - no-one would develop for win95ui on Linux / BeOS / Darwin etc for the same reason there's bugger-all Linux dev - no all-in-one hold-my-hand tools.
That said, I agree with the d00d who said that ms is prolly full of competent programmers who grind their teeth at the obvious bugs they can't quash because those quirks have become used as features in 3rd party software!
:wq
Not gay. But you can take his offer.
:wq
WTF? Get your apopoleptic *grainy* arse off of Slashdot now bitch!
:wq
The only real solution to the issue is to break the monopoly. You certainly aren't going to hurt MS stockholders by doing so. I have read a number of reports on the potential of a breakup, and they all agree that Gates will be a richer man 5 years from now if that happens. Consumers would certainly benefit from a breakup. But only if a breakup created several companies with identical products. The express condition that they are not allowed to buy each other to be effective.
Another possible option is to allow anyone to make or modify their own version of windows. To open up the code to the public at large. Wither this is done open source or another model is a matter of semantics. This could also produce versions of windows that were secure, and did not crash as often.
A behavioral remedy at a company the size of MS would be impossible to enforce. How would you garauntee it was effective? Have lawyers that are also programmers? The only thing we can count on is an agreement that wont be worth the paper it is made on.
hmm. who cares if windows is unoriginal? i don't care if it's revolutionary, i choose win2k because it lets me do what i need to do with my comp: (game, write java, web pages, e-mail/newsgroups, etc.) with no effort at all. the interface is still easier in win2k. + in the month, that i've been running win2k it hasn't crashed once. And i put it through a lot of shit... so i'm very content. power without effort. nice. -dennis the kid
What about the linux desktops that look exactly like the Windows interface? Or did you just install RedHat like the rest of the kool d00dz and decide that gnome (the default?) wasn't nice, then remove linux from your system when you found out you couldn't download DirectX for Redhat ?
Lars -
Ok if you disallow closed standards, then there has to be a process by which you can query a specific task or protocol or data field, as to what its for. For instance the mystery fields in MS-CIFS (what the samba guys are trying to emulate by using packet sniffing).
john doe: "Whats this do?"
M$: "I need to talk to my lawyer(s)."
jd: "You have to tell me, if you don't its illegal."
M$: "I'm going to file an appeal."
-10 years later-
M$: "I would like to renew my appeal."
Isn't the American Justice System wonderful?
Lars -
So, while no one wants the government regulating the software industry, in Microsoft's case their stranglehold in the desktop market gives them the leverage to take over each segment of the software industry one by one.
What's wrong with giving away software free? Nothing, unless you have the power to make sure most consumers never see or hear about any alternatives.
Disallow MS to have closed standards.
Open ALL Standards (not the code, just the standards)
Enforce MS to KEEP their standards for at least 5 years in a row.
Disallow MS to brake OTHER standards (Java, W3C etc.)
Disallow MS to acquire other companies for 4 years, disallow MS buying technologies for 3 years.
Disallow MS to interfere with OEMs by either fining them or rewarding.
more later...
You can't handle the truth.
Mr. ...ahem.. Dick's analysis is, in my opinion, brilliant and precisely correct. The only question remains is if the United States government has the balls to do anything about it.
Hey buddy, calm down a bit. We all understand the frustration that is caused by the DOJ pussyfooting around with Microsoft, but that doesn't mean you have to insult the entire country. Please take your hatred elsewhere, because it is not wanted here.
You're definitely stretching it pretty hard now.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
Well ok. I just wanted to make sure you were behaving ;)
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
"Netscape and IE both were (and still are) available for free."
.. thereby eliminating the need for Netscape's presence on the computer."
Ahhh, misunderstanding on my behalf. IIRC, Netscape was free to single users, while companies and the such had to pay $49 for it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
"IE had the upper hand of "already being there" due to it's bundling with the OS
I won't disagree with your "upper hand" statement. However, when Netscape saw that their need for a presence on the computer was eliminated by Microsoft, they should have tried to combat this by producing a superior browser that would make people want to switch back to using Netscape (IMHO). Rather than doing that, they started whining to the DOJ about how Microsoft won't play fair.
There's a lot of things about Microsoft practices that I don't agree with. However, the bundling of a browser with Windows was a great move on their part. As I mentioned in my first post, this move gave Netscape some serious competition, as they were the dominant browser in the days when Microsoft was still trying to code a browser that didn't suck. And now we have this legal battle.
How ironic that Netscape helped bring Microsoft to "justice" in the name of competition, when they couldn't handle competition from Microsoft.
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
"Becuase a majority of the population didn't know better. All they knew is gasoline cost them X and Phone service cost Y and they coulnd't buy their own phone."
Well, now people know that they can choose a non-MS OS. Macintosh, various Linux distributions, FreeBSD, BeOS, etc etc. Microsoft isn't stopping those people either.
"The fact that 19 states haved filed suit against M$ shows that there are SOME people out here that do know and care about what M$ has done."
Either that, or they're just looking for some fast cash. Allow me to offer some examples:
Krause & Kalfayan, a firm in San Diego, filed suit against Microsoft because "These arrangements have enabled Microsoft Corporation to exclude other developers of Intel-compatible PC operating systems from obtaining the supply of such generic drugs' active pharmaceutical ingredient."
Shelbee & Cartee, a firm in Birmingham AL, also filed suit against Microsoft. They claimed that Microsoft's business was located in Texas (?!), an asserted that they had a right to represent customers injured by past purchases of Win2K (which was not released at that time) and customers of the "Macintosh Computer Company" (Apple).
Seems like these boys were looking for fast cash. To quote a MS spokesperson, "It seems like all of these cases were written under the influence of an active pharmaceutical ingredient."
Further reading can be found here.
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Erm wait ... MS is just a big whiner with enough money to get any creative lawyer to make anything possible. OJ did it ... why can't the worlds Most Valuable Company do it?
So like I've posted before ... MS breaks up ... ohh wahh ... but look at the other operating systems. Be has basically NO printer support what-so-ever which knocks it out of the "Operating System Contender Category" let's call it the OSCC ...
So the OSCC's are right now Mac's and Linux ... and of course windows ... if anything driver support should spread across more platforms.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
I mean, come on already, where is this going? The Government doesn't understand the issues involved, Microsoft will not settle for an effective solution, and nothing's going to happen out of this. What MS is really worried about it that ruling. They know it means civil suits for years that will cost billions to fight. If they can keep delaying that ruling, they'll win. But there's no way the government can win. Either way, we get nothing. There will be NO effective solution. The DoJ can't come up with one, period. If Microsoft were to be closely monitored (and everyone else, let's be fair) then this would work out great. But there's no one at the DoJ who could monitor this industry. None of them get it.
Luckily, the government doesn't (shouldn't?) care if Microsoft's products are incredible... or even marginally functional. The govenment is going after them because of their illegal business practices. Fair market and all that. Someone at work the other day asked:
"What's the point of breaking up Microsoft into smaller companies if each part will still have a monopoly in their niche?"
Well, the point is: they won't. The reason they have a monopoly is because they have dominant products in most major categories and use that to leverage companies into choosing them over smaller guys. If you break them up, the pieces won't have enough power individually to become a monopoly.
love,
br4dh4x0r
(except driver support and that's just nitpicking)
... duh.
Yeah, I mean who really needs driver support? I mean, I know I don't when I'm listening to mp3s, typing a report and using my LAN to --
love,
br4dh4x0r
There have been several proposals made and not all of them are OS/Apps/Other. Here's a November 1999 New York Times article with that break up option plus the "Baby Bill" option where several companies would all inherit MSs rights in Windows.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
Rock on, brother...
I know no less than 3 Microsoft devlopers. They are all top notch.
Former Microsoft developers are also good...
The biggest problem with microsoft is the sales/marketing side, and their administrative side. The engineering is pretty damned good.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
Only problem with that argument is that the Judge got it wrong. There ARE NO SECRET API's, get it?
The Windows API is more widely published than any other in the history of programming.
There are some UNSUPPORTED API's. Those that Microsoft reserves the right to change from
version to version. These API's are unavailable to developers outside the OS division.
Judge Jackson didn't stay awake for the trial, he wasn't CAPABLE of making an informed decision, so he basically chose for the DOJ because they had more credible witnesses.
What almost everyone agrees should be avoided in this case is government regulation of software development, for several reasons. First, it smacks of big, slow government in our cool, making-everybody-rich fast-moving sector. Looks bad, probably is. Second, it's already been tried. The previous "remedies" were content control remedies which MS slipped around, under, and through. Further such remedies would likely cause similar response. So, what folks mostly want is a structural remedy, which would hopefully eliminate the need for government regulation. This isn't what MS is proposing, of course. They're proposing a combination of what you suggest (limiting the sorts of deals they're allowed to make with OEMs), and content control. The essence of what you're arguing is the same as Gates argued in a Wall Street Journal editorial some time ago--the MS Windows monopoly is good for us, we should enjoy knowing that there's a single standard. I'd be willing to accept this on either of two conditions, pick the one which suits best: 1) Make the standard open. If Windows is going to be the standard, then treat it like other standards that anyone can make use of. Anyone should be allowed to produce a product which acts like Windows and runs Windows software, and should be given the necessary information and stability of specification to do so. OR 2) Make the standard regulated. If we all agree that MS Windows is going to be to one everyone uses, and that it's a good thing everyone uses it, then hold them accountable to the public (not the shareholders, the public) as you would any other pseudo-governmental organization. Most agree that the first is the better option. But as it stands, Windows is the standard, determines the way an enormous number of people in the country work, play, and communicate. In spite of this, the producers of it, due to monopoly power, aren't very responsible to either the public via regulation or the marketplace via competition. And as someone else mentioned, they're very good at using this monopoly power to extend to other realms... Visual Basic and it's inbred cousin VBA are becoming more and more of a standard for development, supporting and supported by MS Office. Wanna see what happens in the computer gaming field when MS releases an ActiveX-based game console? Of course the game console will have a 8G hard drive and internet connectivity, maybe they'll decide to bundle a browser and a free month of MSN with it?
Granted, I haven't read any of the court briefs or paid attention to much of the news regarding this case. If I have any facts wrong please don't hesitate to slap me with a trout and correct me.
IMHO, I don't agree with the DOJ going after Microsoft. There are plenty of large companies out there performing the same 'unethical' business practices, but are they sued by the US government? Oh true, those other companies aren't a monopoly.
Fine, let's take monopoly for a sec. Microsoft does NOT have a frigging monopoly people. Get that through your heads. At any time people can install Linux, FreeBSD, Be or buy a Macintosh. Look back at previous monopolies of this size: the oil industry (there was a true monopoly, only one company controlled oil production and distribution), the phone industry (AT&T was the local and long distance carrier, period).
So what's going to happen now? The DOJ wants to punish Microsoft for trying to keep hold of their market share (albeit in deemed 'illegal' ways). There is no easy way to go about this. Breakup? Exorberant fines? Hell I don't know, I think a breakup will probably happen but I'm against it. Do they really think breaking up the companies will stop Bill Gates from controlling them? Heh, for those of you who think yes you're naive.
Lastly, think on this: Is Cisco next on DOJ's list to tackle? They're huge, they have a 'monopoly' as defined by the DOJ (as seen with MS).
Most people interface with other people and computers on pre-concieved notions about how that interaction went. Truth is you will think what you want to want to think about a systems interface. With proper motivation you could find that prison time is enjoyable.
/. is also full of people that think that Windows is "the shit". Most of this crowd hasn't even tried another OS.
Most people I have met and talked with have liked a particular interface because of sheer ignorance and habit. It is easy real easy to dislike something you don't know shit about. The annoying thing is that with a M$ ruled computer world ignorance is at an all time high. Plenty of very smart people are being brainwashed into thinking that Windows is the way that they should interact with a computer. So of course
When people like me say this they will even get pissed of and somehow justify it in their minds by calling me some type of radical.
I am a recent Mac convert, no I am not part of the imac crowd. I used to think that the Mac sucked on all levels. I had used DOS and Windows all the time while I was growing up so I thought that this was "the shit" and was completly content in my ignorance.
To make a long story short, I think that most people now are brainwashed zombies that haven't givin another OS a "real" try. Most people are now part of this sheepish mentality and won't give anything else a real chance.
This is why I truly hope that M$ will be broken up and maybe some of you will think for yourselfs and stop letting Bill think for you.
Flame guard on!
Before you give people the idea that you know what you are talking about... actually know what you are talking about.
The Mac has tons of cool keyboard short cuts. OS9 even maps the function keys to cool features. I use this stuff all the time
You can also buy a multibutton mouse with as many Goddamn buttons you want for the Mac.
I use one all the time
Find out before you speak and do us all a favor!
Who are you kidding man?! Microsoft OSs are the worst you can get. Windows is middle of the road crap! At least Linux and MacOS do something right and they didn't frigging steal everything!!
Linux provides the ultimate in power and system control and makes no mysteries about it. MacOS is a WAY BETTER UI. The only people that I have heard that don't agree with this point are those that really haven't used a Mac before or are too brainwashed to see.
Yes there are a few small things that M$ has done right. But at what cost, they have bullied and stolen in just about every major product that they have released. Or they have created their own little standards or extensions, like ActiveCrap ohh sorry ActiveX.
I suppose that you might think differen'tly if you worked at one of the companies where M$ walked in one day and declared that your product was now theirs!
I don't care how successfull or how much money Bill and the boys has. What I do care about is how they got the damn money. You shouldn't be allowed to "innovate" the way M$ has by stealing the products of the truly innovative, making them into mediocre crap, then giving them away for free to put the people with original ideas out of business.
I that people at slashdot were wiser than to give this comment a 4. His points are crap. The only one thing that he has right is the point about Office. Whoopee.
Even if M$ 2000 is any good. I don't give a shit! We have come too far and been screwed over too much by M$. Wake up and smell the horseshit people.
Flame shield up.
Since Windows is so common, it's more of an infrastructure than a product.
And, like highways, it should be own by the government to insure that everybody has access to
it. They could release the source but they would officially be in charge of maintaining it. They
could buy the cocoa APIs from Apple and port them to Linux and other unix systems and we would
have a standard api on all platforms.
I just wanted to point out (what I think in my opinion are) flaws in your argument.
1.) It's a whole lot easier....
Yes, it is a whole lot easier to buy a computer and use it than it is to reformat a system, install Win98 again (or use partition magic) and then install linux on another partition, get dual booting going, and configure all your hardware for linux.
But if you try to say INSTALL Win98 vs. Install Linux, Linux is more often much easier to install. Having set up probably 100 systems in my life, the later RH Linux versions typically get configuration settings right on the first shot. Win98 gets all confused and can't seem to stop wanting to add devices no matter how many times you tell it not to. (I just loved the day Win98 spontaneously added a Tv-Card to my system, automatically and without reason... I'm still looking for the card, I never bought or installed one, but it found one somewhere, so it must be in there hiding!:))
2.) Opinions of office vary greatly. Newbies like it. People who have learned to use it well like it. People like me who use it occasionally to write technical documents and are constantly interrupted by its "features" getting in the way and then having to hunt down ways to turn them off are quite ANNOYED by it.
I do agree with your point that Microsoft hasn't gotten to where it is just by being using dirty business practices. But thats not enough to get them off the hook. They did something illegal and they are going to pay for it. I don't think anyone can say they could be anywhere near where they are today if they had played nice.
M$ has been whining ad nausem about innovation. If I were the judge I'd ask it to prove that it innovated any software product. M$ idea of innovation is stealing the ideas of others, that and buying out companies to get software.
MS hasn't even been innovative in its licensing of its software, M$ is just improving on the past monopolistic practices of others before them. I understand M$ now wants to charge companies fees based on the number of workstations that simultaneously access their own servers; this may be a true inovation, does anyone know?
I hope that one of the requirements for the settlements is that APIs and file formats are disclosed, and open standards adhered to, unextended and uncorrupted.
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
Giving shares to the states and DOJ will give them the degree of control they want. Note that M$ couldn't just issue $20B of stock, that much, so suddenly would dilute the value of the stock too much. M$ would have to transfer stock it already owns! Sale of large amounts of stock by the states or DOJ would drive the price down, other investors would probably sell off further driving price down. The threat of doing so would keep M$ in line.
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
the supreme court says microsoft should break up, but microsoft keeps saying NO? what is that? regardless of all the money the company is worth, how can this company tell the US government no? it seems to me that that mocks the foundations upon which this country is built. If the government concedes this battle, the situation looks grim for the future. at least now we have a facade of democracy. The US government cannot really be so weak and corrupt that they will let microsoft get away with this, can it?
> Did you know that there is a federal law determining the minimum width of a pickle on your McDonald's hamburger?
h tml)
:)
:)
>
> There is. That's the result of opening the Federal Government's floodgates.
I would actually like to see this law. is this FDA? i can't imagine why. or is it related to the product matching the appearances in advertising. that i can understand. anyways, personally, it's not an example that has the impact that u intend, of showing 'open floodgates'
> That's not what the Justice Department wants. It's no secret that they want some authority over what Microsoft adds to their next generation operating system.
They are specifically trying to _avoid_ solutions that require gvmt regulation. Im not arguing with the statement that gvmt would _like_ to regulate the industry more than they are, but they know that at least for the time being they need to leave it alone. (see http://www.prospect.org/archives/V11-10/lessig-l.
> Also, if the Windows source is released, there is a good chance that the consumer applications market will suffer. Unix was forked, fragmented and has been permanently damaged. And Unix
> was a well designed system.
would that be like the interenet has suffered with competing browsers flaunting w3c standards? (not saying that that is right)
> Oh, and please don't force them to remove their web browser or bundle a competing one.
>
> An OS without a browser out of the box is useless to almost everyone. Almost all new OSes come with browsers from Linux to PalmOS to Be to Windows. Nobody would be helped by
> removing the browser, and don't kid yourselves - nobody would switch to Linux just because it comes with a browser and Windows doesn't.
bundling is not the issue. integration.
> Oh, and one last thing. The notion that breaking up MS would cripple them is ridiculous. The powerful MS would be the one who sells Windows. They would still have a monopoly on
> OSes, and their stock would skyrocket on the first day of trading to, likely, MS's present day value.
>
> That would make Gates richer. Do you really want that?
not likely, no. and anyways the object is not to presonally bankrupt Bill
my other post is +5 insightful
"Not to mention the 500+ reboots. I aint lying, I do this at least once a month with my workstation and more regularly with servers. " If you're rebooting this often, maybe you should give me a call and I'll come configure your servers correctly. I had to reboot my NT server for the first time in 6 months last week...cause we moved our servers to another building.
Karma: Non-existant. Due mostly to the fact that you smell funny and nobody likes you.
Actually, the whole Netscape issue is one of the governments problem areas because the argument that they are using is that MS lowered the cost with the intent of killing Netscape so that they could then raise the price and recoup their losses. Since Netscape responded by not charging for their browser...it would be foolish to think that anyone will ever pay for a browser again. So that argument is hardly a good one. And as far as saying that MS should develop their apps for other platforms....they do...anyone looked at Mac lately? I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure I saw MS apps running on Mac last time I looked. Besides, why should MS design programs for other platforms? Windows = 80% of the market...I want my apps running on Windows...I can lose the other 20% of the market.
Karma: Non-existant. Due mostly to the fact that you smell funny and nobody likes you.
The OS unit wouldn't be very powerfull if the apps unit would port their software to linux.
Windows is a decent operating system.
"Windows 95: 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that can't stand 1 bit of competition."
"With uptime measured in the hours, hundreds of millions being spent in technical support for NT servers"
We're not talking about NT here, we're talking about Win9x. I don't think anyone will accuse NT of having an unfair advantage in the mission-critical server market.
"It's a whole lot easier to set up and use "out of the box" than Linux.
Maybe for you. "
And maybe for 80% of the general computer-using public. The average computer user doesn't care if he can get 2 months of uptime, he wants to be able to install and run programs easily. Windows gives him that.
"Microsoft shouldn't be punished for having a better product.
You're right. It should be punished for so completely oblitherating competition that no other products existed to compare it to. "
Microsoft has used strong-arm tactics to be sure, but what kind of competition did they have during their reign? OS2/Warp? MacOS? Two perfectly good consumer OS's created by companies who had their collective heads up their asses throughout the previous decade. Either one might have had a chance at competing with Win9x if they had been managed/marketed properly. Don't blame Microsoft for other companies failures.
Don't be a moron.
Today's computer industry needs to pump out programmers at a rate too fast for them to be properly trained. Just because MS is the biggest company, they'll have the most of these ill-trained people.
If you think that open sourcing Windows to allow other people to modify it will fix what Windows is, you're quite wrong. It'll just get even worse, with fewer "standards" implemented even more poorly then before.
In short? Ignore Microsoft, go play with Linux, KDE, GNOME, whichever open source project you want, cuz they already have the infrastructure to support people from around the world joining in on the hacking party.
The only thing I appreciate in Win98 is the drag'n'drop from or to the start menu. Nice.
But in windows dnd, the default action is to move or to copy, and it's rarely what i want to do.
sigmentation fault
Just think about the encryption software that US companies can't export to some nations overseas...
This is another view of the world.
Netscape designers unfortunately don't have access to the underlying code. In light of this, does it surprise you that Netscape crashes quite a bit more?
Thereby, MICROSOFT has an unfair advantage in the browser market because ONLY MS DESIGNERS can work with the underlying OS code. And please don't get me started on the hideous links to the internet that are stashed away in the crevices of Windows...
This is another view of the world.
You paint it to look like MS is just a dominant large but innocent corporation, and the government is just flexing it's muscle for the sake of doing it.
Actually, MS is quite a monopolistic entity. It commits (or has committed) the following monopolistic practices:
(1) forces license of DOS sold on every machine whether used or not (admittedly old case, but helps establish the pattern);
(2) favors vendors (of the sycophantic variety) via pricing and releasing API info subjectively;
(3) exclusively favors internal development unfairly by creating favorable undocumented API internals and exclusive "bundling";
Among the not-illegal but contributing to the atmosphere of monopolistic, we have:
(1) FUD;
(2) adoption of technology to make it proprietary
Moreover, MS has forced the government's hand by ignoring prior consent agreements. The DoJ is forced to recognize that MS will continue to take advantage of the "we-never-did-anything-wrong and we-will-never-do-it-again!" settlements. Also note that egos are involved; "fool me once..." sort of stuff. I do not believe that the DoJ wants to interfere in or control day-to-day operations of MS, and let's face it, they would be hard pressed to internally find the qualifications to do so.
I agree that we are talking about a boxing match between Satan and the Antichrist, but if Satan shows himself to be the more consistent and willful in his evil, I think I gotta go with the Antichrist.
-L
I'm reffering to the cracks made in the papers which dub him "King George".Plus,He's running virtually unopposed as the Republican candidate (alan keys has very little chance against W) and many don't like Gore as they would hate a continuation of the Clinton-Gore line.And while W may not "give a rat's ass" about MS,BillyBorg cares a bunch if W gets elected(which is why Billy sent this faux letter)...W stands for smaller government that leaves business alone...something Gates is quite concerned with.
The penguins have revolted...Visit The UPGR
------------------------
Thus Spake ComradePenguin
If Microsoft breaks up, kiss goodbye to Linux and any other OS taking a large desktop market share.
Why?
Because with five or six little Microsofts, each working on their own version of Windows, the OS will actually improve. It will be become "standard" - not standard like it is now, more like a Intel x86 standard (ie. everyone has to be compatible with it, AMD, Cyrix etc.).
Hate to break it to you....corporations and "The People," as you put it, don't just exist...they don't just spring out of the ocean one day and start being rich. Microsoft is the perfect example of what an American corporation is: kid with an idea writes a software program, 20 years later (a relatively short period of time) he's the wealthiest man alive. Gates is no entrenched established corporation, and he's certainly no friend of the government.
You guys are gonna think I'm crazy, but I'm not so sure they didn't.
Did anyone else get a vague impression that (in the days of, say, IE4 or a little earlier) there was code in Windows specifically to put roadblocks up to people who wanted to install Netscape? I remember spending a good 30-40 minutes trying to download the NS installation to a friend's Windows box so I could show him a Java 1.1 applet I thought was cool. I got a meaningless, somewhat threatening-sounding "security warning" when I first went to netscape.com. The IE download I tried ran until the progress bar was full, then hung. Twice. I tried to manually ftp it from NS's site and got a non-FTP-protocol error I've never seen before (wish I could remember what it was); I couldn't download anything from Netscape. I tried grabbing random files off of wustl and a couple other places out of a spirit of, "What the fuck?" and had no problems. I finally had to telnet to a unix box, download it there, and ftp it to his machine. Nothing went wrong after that.
I swear I'm not making any of this up or exaggerating in the slightest. Nobody I talked to had similar stories, and in hindsight my problems seemed kind of trivial, so I dismissed the incident. M$ did pull this approach off against DR DOS with stunning results, though.
Great, if the gov't gets it's way... we'll have a
bunch of smaller misguided bloatware companies
running around. Oh well, better than one giant.
Man, those first posts must have taken hours to
write...
/
What if instead of breaking up Micro$oft, they force them to make the source code of Windows freely available? What will happen if *competent* people start developing it?
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Those without awe on the specticale of a computer are usually those who don't understand enough about them, nonetheless care. The end-users are the ones who just submit to whatever is handed to them, and thus this is why Micor$oft has gained a monopoly.
Now that Micro$oft is getting a tounge-lashing (or so it appears) from the DOJ this time around, while M$ has had to deal with with the DOJ, other OSes have emmerged. Solairis is seeked as a powerful UNIX meant to deal best with heavy web traffic. BSD harnesses the aspect of stability and a good price. Linux is the most popular because of how easily it can replace Windows, and on top of that, have a variety of uses for a variety of reasons yet be so inexpensive.
Windows 2000, IMO, is another version of Windows NT. Nothing new here; just a Windows 98 feel. When Windows 2000 was being conceptualized, Linux made its push on the market (heaven forbid, Mr. Gates, competetion). Many of Windows 2000's ideas are yet again unoriginal. Perhaps you have never seen the Red Hat Package Manager? (Windows Installer) Or thought about installing from network? (Linux can install from FTP sites.) Granted that the industry doesn't code for Linux (at least not yet) doesn't mean that Linux is useless.
M$ is a dissapointment as well as a monopoly. Perhaps they should live up to its hype -- say, if it's stable, maybe there's no bugs? Or if it's stable, it doesn't crash at random? The fact people flame M$ is over the fact that they say one thing, and they don't live up to people's expectations. On the other hand, a choice is good, isn't it? I for one do not prefer to be stuck with an OS that crashes and forces upon me all of the company's programs.
Just because you like Linux doesn't mean you have to use it. Go ahead and buy an OS that costs $219 and rant all you want when some piece of hardware or some driver from a program that you prefer doesn't work. When I'm done installing Red Hat Linux from a grahpical install and letting Kusko detect and properly installing my new cards, I'll be still writing to /. while you work on Windows behaving to your taste.
"Windows -- The Original Denial Of Service (DOS)"
Okay, let's go through your points again...
/.ers....take it for what you will.)
1. It's easy to use. No argument. Also no complaint. No one has argued successfully that just because a piece of software is easy to use therefore it will win the marketplace (because then we'd be using Macs.). (The usual counter to this is that Windows is 'good-enough'. Fine, then OEM preloads aren't an issue. See below.)
2. Microsoft's Office suite. I don't know where this came up...but what the hell. Yes, they may have a nice office suite. So, what? If you accespt the fact that they are the defacto standard for desktops, then allowing them to offer a bundled Microsoft Office/Windows combination is using one monopoly to try and extend another one. (This is what the big IBM case was about during the 360's days...remember?)
3. Breaking up Microsoft won't have an effect? No offense, but you do own your own phone don't you? You know you can get 10 cents / 5 cents a minute long distance? You do remember back to the world of AT&T when this did NOT exist?
But let's assume that your right. So what? We've tried regulation...where they promise to play nice, and we've got Netscape (which was skyrocketing as a company) now in the dumpster.
And if it's all Netscape's fault, then why did Gateway, Micron, and Compaq all offer to PAY cash to offer Netscape on their systems? (And why did Microsoft refuse to drop the IE icon?)
4. The same ol' argument. Punish poor Microsoft for 'doing too well.' They're MUCH better now. (And where were they when they were forcing IE3 on everyone's desktop?) And why the HELL should IE be 'forcibly packaged' with or without alternatives?
To sum up my case: Why the HELL does Microsoft get to tell the OEM what must (and must not) be on Windows? The OEM PAID for Windows.
Why can't DELL, Compaq, Gateway, or anyone else offer whatever they want? THEY GIVE THE WINDOWS DISK TO THE CUSTOMER, DON'T THEY?
(But, of course, that's my realistic solution as a
Sure it's going to be in appeal for years, but it will likely go straight to the high court and survive; Jackson's being VERY careful here. And a decision by a judge is a lot more powerful than some concent decree which can be ignored by future governments.
Lastly, by not breaking up MSFT, it means there's a single target for all the harmed parties to focus their (legal) efforts on. I expect MSFT's legal department will soon outnumber their SW development group.
Frankly, how the end-game plays out doesn't matter any more; the market has been able to recover somewhat with the beast under constant observation, and that isn't going to disappear any time soon. MSFT are having to compete on merit in a few areas, and as one might expect, failing terribly.
You're missing the point of abuse of monopoly power...
You seem to think that MS bundling the browser for free was good competition for Netscape. But think about it a bit more... MS spent millions of dollars on IE development (after IE 2), to what - bundle it for free? This practice is called dumping. They dumped IE on the market, admittedly a comparable product to Netscape at version 3. This isn't healthy competition, it's anti-competition. It says "We've got billions of dollars to burn, and we're going to burn it until you're not in the market any more".
Did you people not read the findings of facts? It detailed these things in excrutiating detail. It covered internal emails saying just such things.
The facts of this case stand: MS used anti-competitive practices. Specifically in the netscape side of things: dumping. This is illegal. Companies who do illegal things require punishment of some sort. That's all.
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
I'll concede you the use, although that's only because it sucks in different ways than a Mac and a bit less than Linux, but setup on Windows is only easy because it comes preinstalled. Go install Windows9X off a cd onto a bare (unpartitioned, unformatted) harddrive and tell me how easy it is to set up, get networked etc, relative, say to Redhat 6.1. I did this on a dual boot system I built and was amazed that the Windows 98 CD did not boot off my CDROM drive (although my Redhat CD did) and that installation onto a bare harddrive did not automagically create partitions and format them but died midway through an error message saying I didn't have enough disk space. Configuration is fairly good for simple things, but I still detest having to reboot my computer for a change in DNS.
For extra credit install NT 4.0 (on a partition of less than 2GB of course), use the default browser (IE 2.0) to go to www.microsoft.com and be prepared for a suprise (for the uninitiated it gives the oh so helpful error message "The virtual directory / does not allow it's contents to be listed." and does not allow access to the site AT ALL). I know it's an old installer, but that's the point. In a competitive world, they would have released an upgraded installer long ago. Even now that Win2K is out, lots of people still need to install NT4, go through the arcane dance of the service packs etc.
I find it is relatively easy to learn Word, but hard to be truly efficient in it. This is partly due to it's "feature richness" which effectively means, lots of features I don't need right now but which make it harder to find the one I do. And partly due to halfassed implementations, such as adding pictures to documents, captioning them and having text flow nicely without having to do document surgery. I have also been bit by more than my fair share of bugs, such as a document which was unprintable, and which made any document to which part of the uprintable document was pasted unprintabl (no macros, macros disabled in Word...OS integration at it's best no doubt.).
I actually agree with you here. Breaking up MS would be ineffective. It would be better, IMHO to force transparent pricing and licensing, since that's the big hammer MS has, and perhaps keep it from acquiring any more companies for some length of time, say 2-4 years.
Ahh yes... but was this true at first bundling. Netscape obviously played a role in shooting themselves in the foot, but there revenue model (for what it was worth) was actively taken away, in legal (a better browser) and questionable (not letting OEMs ship netscape as default) ways.
But you conceded that they shouldn't force OEMs to not bundle Navigator and otherwise "push manufactures". IMHO, it is this end of MS and no the "innovation" end that can and should be reformed by the court. Transparent and non-discriminatory pricing and licensing would be a start, with strong protections for letting OEMs change the boot sequence and initial configuration.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
My life has improved since the DOJ's antitrust actions against IBM.
Do you honestly think that any of the following would exist in a world where IBM dominated computing:
*Microcomputers
*Microsoft
*The Internet
No, because all of those things (along with many more) were developments that IBM would have squished given half a chance. You simply are not free when there's a dictator, even if he's benevolent. Having one giant company in a field will impair competition even if it is not hostile. But oddly enough, they are always hostile.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Actually, there's a kernel of truth to this. While there are still a lot of Mac users (and, erm, some zealots) out there, Apple has definately changed their direction.
:>
As far as UI is concerned, I'm talking about the MacOS from '84 up until recently. Apple has demonstrated a disregard for its own UI design recently that is more than a little bit disturbing. Witness QuickTime 4, Sherlock 2, and much of MacOS X.
For the record, I run LinuxPPC on my Mac hardware, but still end up switching back to the MacOS to get stuff done. The Gnome/KDE UI just isn't there yet (given a year or two, though, it may very well pass Windows in that regard).
[watches as this message, like the previous, is marked as flamebait for no reason whatsoever]
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
---
You can go right on admitting that, too. It does one thing, and only one thing, well, and that is user interface.
---
[Insert fits of laughter from the Mac crowd here]
Sorry, had to be said. Windows does not have a good user interface by any stretch of the imagination.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Um, AOLers are inferior*. Have you ever actually tried communicating with one? It's usually a lesson in futility.
I'm surprised nobody told you.
*('inferior' in the sense that many are really, really annoying. This is not all-inclusive - occasionally there are non-annoying AOLers that pop up. As a group, though, they rank somewhere around the WebTV and MSN factions)
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Someone needs to re-moderate this to something else. It is very much not a troll.
Misguided? Perhaps - I don't agree with the original poster. But it's obvious that the intent was not to 'troll' this forum.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
It looks like the DOJ will become the DOG and wimp out again.
If I got caught lying under oath in court during my trial but was convicted anyway
of extortion, bribery, witness tampering, and falsifying evidence
and obstruction of justice anyway, would I go directly to sentencing
and hard prision time or would I be able to say to the judge, "No,
thanks, I won't accept your judgement or your punishment. Let's
negotiate something that seems like punishment to those who don't
know any better but in reality isn't even a hand slap. Ok?"
A better example of one standard of Justice for the rich and
another for the poor could not be found, except for the poor slob
who was accused of murdering his girl friend at the same time
O.J. was. His trial lasted 3 months and he's doing life. O.J. still
visiting golf courses searching for the real murder.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Our industry is, for the most part, unregulated. If I release my own word processor tomorrow, I can give it the features I want. If I want a spell check, I'll add a spell check. If I want a talking paperclip, I'll add a talking paperclip. It's my software.
But lets be honest here. Industry that is not held in check by anything will screw the consumer/public anyway they can get away with. This has happened again and again. From chemistry to credit. And in our industry it comes from eulas that sign away your first born (more specifically the vender's responiblity), crap software pushed through a forced upgrade chain, security as an after thought... I could go on.
So now, here we are. After years of telling the consumer to bend over, the gov. might tell the SW industry to clean up its act. You know what, its about god damn time. The sw industry has once again proven the point that industries can't regulate themselves because they live in thier own little world with no external responsiblity.
The fact is that the gov. already tells you what features you can't implement (broadly, encryption). There are already laws about sw accesablity. Its perfectly reasonable that if sw is required infrastructure for particular (especially gov.) jobs then it like the building will be made accessible.
So to sum it up. Your unregulated industry already is. It has proven that it needs regulations so that it takes some responsibilty for its products (wouldn't you like to click through the eula on the new MS embeded elevator controller software -thank God for Mr. Otis). Hope to God MS gets its teeth kicked in in a major way, 'cause untill most bosses get a clue, that the only way the SW some of us have to use @work will get better. Somebody moderate me down for ranting.
--locsut
However, the alternative would be to enable a 'peace-keeping action' in the Redmond, WA area. Napalm was dropped on the Campus to prevent dissidents, you know. However, this would only happen if the DOJ could catch our president with his pants down again. Desperate for an excuse to get him out of the hot seat, I'm sure he'd sign an executive order to napalm mr. gates' mansion. Unfortunately, the white house is fresh out of interns.
The other problem is, of course, that most of the military's infrastructure now runs on NT. Like Arnold in Terminator 2... it cannot self-terminate. So, even if you managed to somehow bypass the 32 safeguards preventing launch, you'd still be stuck at a BSOD on the console.
MS Office is mediocre and not improving. I use it extensively, and it's definately a mixed bag. It's a feature landfill.
Take Word for example, since it is the app I know best. You CAN get it to work for most jobs, but you usually have to know how to work around its shortcomings. It has lots of features, but they aren't always usable, and many of them have been poorly implemented, like the Master Document feature which nobody uses because it just doesn't work. Some of the new features are crap, like being able to format your document with blinking Las Vegas lights around the titles (I'm not kidding). In addition, there are many features that I turn off because they get in my way, like auto spell-checking, which is distracting, and auto grammar checking, which is distracting and inaccurate and doesn't always catch errors. Lastly, there are the features I wish I could undo, like the WYSIWYG Styles list in the toolbar, which is slow, doesn't display white text, and is sorted in no comprehensible order. It's been a complaint of writers since it was introduced, and it isn't going away.
A deeper problem with Word and other Office apps is that Microsoft hasn't been able to fix the deep bugs in the apps, so that they're not nearly as reliable as a 6th generation app is supposed to be. There is a well-known bug in Word where "next page" section breaks turn into continuous section breaks. It's been there since Word for Windows 1. It's still there in Word 2000. There was a major bug in the automatic numbering system for Word 97, which forces users to go back to manual numbering, because the automatic numbering just can't be relied upon. It's still there in Word 2000.
Getting rid of Word is a major professional goal of mine.
Jon
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
> What an absolute crock of shit. The only people posting that kind of idiocy are anonymous cowardly trolls ...
> the paid Microsoft Astroturfers and FUDders who substitute ad hominim attacks against slashdot readers for well reasoned arguments.
> What you fail to realize is, there is only a vanishingly small minority of people here stupid enough to believe your propoganda.
If this is what passes for reasoned argument from your point of view, it's no wonder no one even condescends to offer their argument to the contrary. Just because you don't speak like a script-kiddie doesn't mean you offer any more reasoned analysis than one.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Could you all do me a big favor, dust off your english composition books, and learn to summarize and rebut with whole paragraphs? This point-for-point nonsense you and a thousand other would-be debate-club types foist isn't somehow incisive and well-related to the surrounding context, it's snippy, interruptive, and incoherent. Criminy, it's bad enough seeing a back-and-forth, it's dowright pathetic when half the responses are "oh yeah? says you!"
I may be guilty of abusing the snippy one-liner myself, but I don't go running a post through a shredder like some kind of dadaist art in order to deflect from the lack of coherency in my reply.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
It's just that most people are afraid of expressing such a view because the 1337 bandwagon-jumpers will flame them to death with shit like "L1NUX R00LZ, D00D! MIRCO$OFT SUX0RZZ!!".
What an absolute crock of shit. The only people posting that kind of idiocy are anonymous cowardly trolls, which anyone with an IQ of two digits or more recongizes for what they are and ignores (or never reads, if one's threshhold is set at +1), and the paid Microsoft Astroturfers and FUDders who substitute ad hominim attacks against slashdot readers for well reasoned arguments.
The latter may be a result of the fact, obvious even to the most casual observer, that Microsoft's behavior has been reprehensible, harmful to the consumer, the technology, and the industry, and above all illegal.
You can inundate our threads with hoards of underpaid (or well paid) Microsoft public relations droids and attempt to distort the public dialogue of slashdot and other technical forums all you like. What you fail to realize is, there is only a vanishingly small minority of people here stupid enough to believe your propoganda.
Face it. Microsoft broke the law, harmed millions in the process, and is now (finally) beginning to reap the natural consiquences of their behavior. Get over it already.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
So Microsoft bundles their browser with their system. And while I don't particularly care for the fact that the browser and system are integrated, it was a smart move by Microsoft nonetheless. Why pay $49 for Netscape when IE comes free? Cry "monopoly" all you want, but it did give Netscape some serious competition...competition is what this is all about, right? They offered their browser for free and even opened up the source, yet IE still prevailed.
Netscape and IE both were (and still are) available for free. IE had the upper hand of "already being there" due to it's bundling with the OS
The line gets drawn where Microsoft blatantly began using it's stronghold as a monopoly in order to devalue Netscape's product. (as seen in the e-mails brought up in the trial, I don't remember specifics, but it's something along the lines "We have to leverage windows in order to get rid of the need for Netscape")
Also, if you read through the findings of fact you can see that MS also had many instances of leveraging their unique standpoint of having the OS on the huge majority of home PCs in order to scheme their way into buying out companies and infiltrating markets as well as devaluing software which wouldn't be or couldn't be taken over by them (Java is a prime example.)
Hope this sheds some light on things.
modern day geek.
--
Yeah, he is just a troll, but I find
>This is a government
>of the corporations
>by the corporations
>for the corporations
to be frighteningly accurate. It seems that only
'The People' that have fantastic amounts of money
actually have any influence anymore in America.
Oh, excuse me, knee-jerk, for-the-children whiners
also seem to have a lot of influence.
--Kevin
=-=-=-=-=-=
"Just take another hit 'cause you don't give a f*ck-
You're a junkie and you're proud!"
I don't think that the Unices would be in as good a position today, if we'd continued the trend of the early 80's: even "PC clones" weren't entirely compatible. Apple, Atari, Amiga, etc. were fine hardware, but can you imagine a market with 5-6 primary architectures (and their clones) with 10-20% share each?
Does anyone remember when the exciting 'intercompatibility' technology was the 'emulator board' (basically an entirely separate processor, on a limited motherboard, communicating over a peripheral bus). I shudder to think how easily this could have remained widespread, despite its many drawbacks. [Internetworking full-featured machines would not be a viable alternative to slot-cards, because few small shops or SOHO's would want to support many very different platforms and their associated OS's]
Today's desktop market of a single overwhelmingly common general architecture provides a single large market for initial development, which actually helps cross-platform development more than 5 disparate platforms with 20% market share. Even when hampered by legacy hardware support (e.g. ISA) these desktops function well into the 'big iron range' (SMP quad PIII/K7 1GHz; server farms; Beowulf).
OS legacy support of hardware (CPUs) has served us well, even if we may choose not to keep that as a primary feature of our OS's. A low end pentium server can be bought for $50, minus HDD or maybe RAM. I bought 2 in the past month for my home LAN. Time to let go of 386/486 (except as hobbies), not because of a lack of capacity for special tasks, but because of cheaper easier alternatives.
But I'm glad things were backwards compatible while they were. It made things a lot easier.
I am pleased that the Unices (and others will follow) are returning to re-compiling to suitm hardware, but I admit the binary-only era that actually *did* make life easier as we transitioned into a era of widespread computing.
Look, it's been a long, crazy ride. There have been some dark chapters, and some of us have lost our hair unnecessarily, but...
You know, things didn't work out half-bad.
Of course, in a few years it'll all fragment. Let it. We've learned some things along the way, and we're better suited to face it now. We've got a lot of experience, and solved a lot of problems. Now we can face the next set of 'needlessly irritating, suboptimal solutions to fundametal problems' and curse compilers instead of installers -- or whatever we'll be doing.
That *is* part of the fun, after all.
Smile. if you didn't enjoy the hassles, you probably wouldn't be
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
In other words, PicoSofts (micro-Microsofts) would have to compete against each other, just as the rest of the market would comepete against them.
I would be skeptical of this possibility, but we did somehow manage this with the RBOCs/baby Bells (it was a hassle, but it worked)
However, dividing MS along strictly functional lines would probably have the problems people have described, because Win9x does not compete with NT or Office or MSIE etc.
So how do we divide it along non-function lines? How do we create competing teams and projects working on the same problems. It seemed a nightmare, until it hit me: Regional Microsofts.
That's obviously not the answer. MS is not uniformly distributed across the states as a corporate entity (unlike the Bell system). Still, it was the first glimmer of a manageable breakup strategy I'd seen.
Think about it, if you wanted to split a person, you wouldn't split the kidneys from the liver, etc. You'd split the liver, give each progeny one kidney, lung, etc... then let them live independently
(thinks back on Gross Anatomy and all those exotic surgeries we did in third year pig lab... and gets immmediate headache from trying to make this analogy work)
Okay... I know someone else out there can come up with a better division strategy that doesn't just slice along non-competing product lines. Remember, division for it's own sake won't serve us here. If we divide (and I'm not saying we should) we need to divide well -- for competition.
They are charged with anti-competitive practices, after all
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
...drove users to needlessly upgrade
...drove developers to write programs that did the same
...made insecure computing so real that it might never be so ignored again.
To the company whose inefficient OS
...created massive demand for faster/better hardware
...which spurred the hardware makers to develop and introduce faster
(when profiting from established products had always been more prudent)
...which drove prices down on the the new and supposedly-obsolete alike
Leading to Horror That Ruled The Earth
and will someday fall,
...leaving an Open Source movement that is something more than a extremist corner of geekdom
...leaving lots of cheap, perfectly good, but 'outdated' hardware (and the will to turn them to clever uses)
...leaving a hardware highwater mark might not otherwise have reached (or needed) so soon
...and a better chance for a new beginning
...and a memory of a cautionary chapter that may make us wiser
May this toast help us remember MS fondly if it falls, and console our sorrows if it doesn't
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
My concern is primarily about the effect on investors (and the general industry) that could be caused by a lack of uncerstand ing of the accounting practices outlined in the article cited at the beginning of the thread.
I don't want to press this issue except to say that I do not understand your definition of fundamentals. That term was once used strictly, and was calculated by the 'technical analysis' you disparage. Now 'fundamentals' is used to mean something very loose and intuitive, and technical analysis is often used to mean meaningless short-term number crunching, often used in an attempt to time the market. I think most people who use the words today don't *have* a strict definition of either.
The data is there. the accounting practices are extreme by industry standards (what other company MS's size accounts their stock option this way?) Therefore, I worry that the usual 'quickie indices like P/E or profit are misleading for MS. That's why I think volatility will enhanced if there is a downturn.
There are solid issues here. I'm pointing, not prognosticating. let those who read the article decide if they were already aware of these factors -- and if they weren't, then they couldn't possibly have factored them into their decisions.
"Fundamentals" are not the opposite of hard numbers, they are the basic underlying hard numbers. the website this article came from is a major proponent of fundamentals. That's why they not only mention the MS stock buybacks, you mentioned, but gave the numbers: $3B in 1999 vs. $60B in outstanding employee stock options exercised -- $9B this year alone (a mere mitigating factor). MS, as most investors know, has over $650B in outstanding stock overall. $3B is a sneeze.
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
Excellent post. Kudos.
No, they wouldn't. Because if they did, we would go to Wendys or Burger King or any one of a million other restaurants. Even though McDonalds is, by far, the largest restaurant chain.
I think this is where your argument could use a better analogy. The only reason I can go to Wendys in the first place is that Wendys is able to compete with McDonalds. McDonalds did not contract all the major construction companies in the world to build only McDonalds restaurants. The construction companies are free to build Wendys, Burger King, and McDonalds. If McD had contracted the contruction companies to only build McDs, then there would be no Burger Kings or Wendys. This is exactly what MS did.
MS crushed the competition by making the OS cheaper to manufacturers who would bundle MS products. That is a fact. In the razor thin margins of the hardware market, what could the PC makers do but use MS products? If you don't run Windows, you don't sell PCs.
Without any competition in the OS market, MS was able to add features to the OS rather than fix problems and improve stability. MS has the talent and resources to produce a version of Windows that would be a good and stable OS. What they don't have is the need. Why improve a product when you can write a new one and convince everyone they need to upgrade?
Splitting up MS is not the solution. Too many companies depend on MS for day to day operations. What we need is a big fine, say 20 billion USD, and documented APIs and file formats.
I personally would love to see MS voluntarily release the source code and make Windows an open source project. They could still sell the OS, and people would still buy it. Hackers could track down bugs and submit patches to MS. The average consumer would not be interested in downloading 30 megs of source and compiling it to have a new OS. And they would always have the Office cash cow to fall back on. MS can't continue to grow forever as a company. The curve has to level off sometime.
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
(I don't actually believe this myself; its just a thought that occured to me.)
*** Work like a king, command like a slave, create like a dog.
plus a dozen service packs, which you have to install before and after you install any servers. Not to mention the 500+ reboots. I aint lying, I do this at least once a month with my workstation and more regularly with servers.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Microsoft Withdraws Bid for World Domination
Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) withdrew its undiclosed-size bid for world domination this Saturday morning. Bob Young declined to comment on the status of his competing bid.
Shortly afterward, the United States Department of Justice announced that it had reached an agreement with the software giant five days ahead of time. Judge Jackson declined to outline the agreement, but stated that it was a "fairly simple" agreement and that the United States was "satisfied" with the outcome. A Microsoft spokesperson said that she was not able to comment about the ruling.
In related news, Microsoft is also considering withdrawing its sponsorship of the space shuttle program. When asked what corporation might replace Microsoft, NASA head Daniel Goldin said he hadn't started accepting new bids yet, but added that he definately didn't want Microsoft's motto to be replaced by a penguin. "Then we would get tens of e-mails a day asking why we didn't open-source this or OPL t hat. On peak days we would be sure to get tens of thousands of e-mails."
--
The shareholder is always right.
The earlier poster who commented on the fear of govt. control over what you can and can't code into an application is a very real concern. The Microsoft case allows a "foot in the door" towards this type of regulation - like it or not.
I don't think comparing the temporary shutdown of restaurants over health violations to the Microsoft "monopoly breakup" is fair.
In the case of the restaurants, people's lives and health are directly at stake. It's very clear that one of the primary purposes of a restaurant is to serve food that is safe to eat.
Same thing with a city yanking a business license after numerous complaints of being ripped off.
MS may make products you personally feel are rip-offs, but the entire reason they're so successful is that the vast majority of computer users *don't* feel that way. Otherwise, why would they buy the software licenses at all?
If you truly let Capitalism work, you leave businesses alone. You don't try to "level the playing field" artificially by punishing the most successful. That sounds a lot more like a Socialist system of govt. to me.
IBM was so good at what they do (look at how many patents per year they churn out!) that they were successful *despite* damaging govt. intervention. It didn't make things better for anyone I know, though. Can you really say "Gee, my life improved since they punished IBM's success!"??
Honestly, I think more Linux users should welcome Microsoft's huge influence. The reality is, the GUI built by them is a large motivating factor pushing Linux apps to improve. I know some would disagree, but man - I thought the average X desktop looked pretty ugly before people felt the pressure to develop interfaces like KDE and Gnome/E to counteract Windows. If MS wasn't such a big player, would we have these same kinds of things? I'm not so sure....
Breaking up Microsoft will have little effect on its day-to-day business. Sure, the overhead will increase, but I don't think it'll help foster competition. It shouldn't be allowed to unfairly push manufacturers, but breaking it up will have no effect on all this
MS does some good things, but it would be better for the marketplace if MS were broken up. We might even see MS Word and IE for Linux and other platforms.
[Insert fits of laughter from the Mac crowd here]
Sorry, had to be said. Windows does not have a good user interface by any stretch of the imagination.
Strange, because I find the Windows interface much better than the Mac or any of the Linux desktops.
Steff
---
You can go right on admitting that, too. It does one thing, and only one thing, well, and that is user interface.
---
[Insert fits of laughter from the Mac crowd here]
The one thing I've found after discussing user interfaces over the past few years is that while some interfaces may be just plain bad, there are far more that some people find good and others find bad. I know people that swear by MacOS and swear at Windows. I, myself, do the opposite :) Still others prefer X-Windows over anything else, and so on. After a while, it just comes down to personal taste, and there's usually not much sense in arguing over personal taste....
OK, as you have already read, the last two lines of the article:
But Kolasky had a different view. He said the appeals court decision noted that what the Justice Department had deemed a violation "actually benefited consumers by giving them a better software product."
WTF^10!?!?!?!?!?!
Ok, so if I kill someone because they are stupid, then what the government calls murder actually benefited the gene pool, right?
IMHO, that has to be the stupidest thing I have ever read!
Appeals Court: Yeah, it was wrong, but look at this sweet OS, er..I mean browser. Oops, cannot install SMS, SQL, or anything else unless I have this OS, er..I mean browser..
Yep, sure did humanity a favor here!
What are you talking about? There has been no judgment. This type of thing goes on all the time. Microsoft and the DOJ have been given time to make a deal, a settlement, if you will. Failing that by the deadline, the judge makes his ruling. Regular criminal cases have deals, too. It's called pleabargaining. What's your point?
I just began to sense the slowing down of their momentum. They seemed less important. Hey, juct compare the pomp and circumstance of Windows 95's roll-out versus the Win2K roll-out ("Umm. *ahem* It's available -- but you don't have to buy it. We're not a monopoly. Really").
Consider the fact that MSFT's stock price is nowhere near as "overvalued" against earnings as other Internet-oriented stocks. Doesn't this bother you? It did me. I realized the reason Yahoo! is market-cap'ed where it is relates to the general feeling that Yahoo!'s future is so bright. But where can Microsoft go but down? Where is the next generation of techies going to work? Not Microsoft!
When Microsoft started admitting the Internet was the future, their fate was sealed. Why? Because the Internet is not proprietary, but is based on an assumption of open standards and open access. Microsoft's business model does not fit this new culture (but it could, I suppose, at a cost).
I stopped investing in MSFT and stopped following this case so closely because it has largely become irrelevant to the future.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
i don't know why people bitch out microsoft so much. oh my god, it's closed source, oh my god it crashes. big f' deal. win2k is awesome, and much more useful than linux, why work for it in linux when it's easy to do in win2k??? laziness is zen. hurray for me. i bow down to the awe and mystery that is microsoft. -dennis the kid
Good post, very well argued.
I only have one issue with it: My problem with Microsoft (and I suspect the problem several other /.ers have) has little to do with their functional monopoly on the desktop OS market, but how they are using that stranglehold to leverage their way into other markets without having to compete fairly.
Splitting their OS division from applications and hardware would make it more difficult from them to use "embrace and extend" tactics outside of the OS arena...which would be a good thing. Unfortunately, it would only partially sove the problem, because it isn't really clear what is part of the OS proper and what is not, making all sorts of loopholes MS could use to leverage other markets. Also, within the desktop and networking market itself, MS would still be able to wreak havoc. For these reasons, a split must be accompanied by rigid oversight (or some other method of hobbling) of (at least) the OS division in order to be effective.
--WhiskeyJack
Damn, what kind of FUD is this? It is reasonable that the "pickle width" be controlled. If I go to a fast food chain and the hamburger is described as having a pickle, god damn I'd be pissed if it was some puny-assed thing. It's called truth in advertising, and laws like this are very common, and necessary in our economy where many different businesses exist within the same market. It stops any particular business from getting an edge over its competition by cheating the customer.
A couple common examples:
Don't construe this law, and don't try to focus on McDonalds as the sole reason for it. It's there for a good reason.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
But I think breaking up a company that large has repurcussions nobody can predict, and I'm sure the judge is more than a little wary of undertaking something like that.
Actually, there's a fair amount of precident. Standard Oil was a huge company that was broken up. The result was more competition and lower prices for consumers.
AT&T was another huge company that was broken up. That ushered in the era of competition in Long Distance services. Local serivce is attempting to reestablish it's national monopoly, but the FCC is demanding acces to the local loop for competitors.
If we break up Microsoft, I think that you will see increased innovation (real innovation not Microsoft's idea of "innovation") and a virtual explosion of computer products.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
Please mention the "Navy Ship Dead In The Water" stuff earlier in your comment, so those of us who know about that little canard can stop reading your uninformed BS right away and not be halfway through your little tome before we discover you're merely another zealot parroting folklore.
;-)
"Software glitches leave Navy Smart Ship dead in the water"
Read this article for yourself from the Government Computer News archives and decide the "folklore value" for yourself!
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
(Bill Gates and Judge Jackson enter)
Monty Hall: What items have you folks brought?
Bill Gates: I've brought a copy of Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 2000.
Judge Jackson: I've brought an anti-trust lawsuit from 19 states and the Justice Department.
Bill Gates: You suck.
Monty Hall: Let's see how you do with this boxed copy of Red Hat, and what's under this box on Jay's tray.
Jay: This is the Red Hat distribution of Linux, a free, open-source operating system. It retails for approximately $5.
(RMS enters)
RMS: You mean "GNU / Linux."
Jay: Er, right.
Monty Hall: Now, you can trade what you brought today for either one of these items. Mr. Gates, do you want Red Hat, the item in Jay's box, or your own copy of Windows 2000?
Bill Gates: Linux sucks. I'll keep Windows 2000.
Monty Hall: Judge Jackson?
Judge Jackson: I'll take the item in Jay's box.
(Jay uncovers it. It's a bowl of hot grits.)
Monty Hall: A bowl of hot grits, perfect for pouring down your pants! It's all yours!
Bill Gates: Ha ha! Sucker!
(Judge Jackson trades the lawsuit for the hot grits. But wait!)
Judge Jackson: Wow, there's $400 in this bowl of hot grits!
Monty Hall: It must have been a rich grits crop this year! Now, Mr. Gates, do you want to keep your copy of Windows 2000, or would you rather trade it for what's behind the curtain that Natalie Portman is now pointing to?
(Gates thinks)
Bill Gates: I'll trade.
(Gates hands over his copy of Windows 2000. Natalie Portman opens Curtain #2)
Monty Hall: It's a pack of AIBOs! You can start your own electronic dog pound!
Bill Gates: What the hell? I want my copy of Windows 2000 back.
Monty Hall: Too late! That's it for today's show. Believe me, it's been fun -- and I'm not barking up the wrong tree!
Green Monkey
Hi. My name's Bob. I'm an end user. I like computers, and I've had one around since the old days of Windows 3.1. Remember that? Anyway, I read magazines like everyone else, and I hate to think that my next door neightbor might have a faster computer than me, or that he got the office-supply store to get his copy of Windows 98SE first, so I make sure I do too.
I used to have Windows 95 on my machine, but they all changed to Windows 98 at work. I didn't like the difference so I bought Win98 as well. Then, I decided that my computer wasn't fast enough for Win98 so I bought a $2500 Intel system, since everyone I know uses Intel.
I've heard about things like Linux, but I'm afraid I won't be able to access things like my favorite game: Microsoft Golf (version 1.0). And what about my wife who still likes to use WordPerfect 5.1? And gosh, I just don't know if that digital camera I got to take pictures of my lawn will work with something other than Windows. And what about all the neat Norton software I have? I mean, I have Norton system utilities, Norton Anti-virus, Norton ass-wiper...you name it, I got it! And gosh, Windows98 came with a free browser and e-mail program, too. That's really neat.
end fictional narrative
Microsoft definitely has a monopoly, but a lot of the reasons for it exist because 90% of users want something that is (appropriately enough) idiot-proof, and they perceive that Microsoft will give that to them. Their concerns are compatibility, backward compatibility, upgradeability, and universal application. Why would they choose anything else?
--------
sig files are for weenies
--- There is a man in a smiling bag.
Sometimes, "Free" can mean free for the product developers also. And if a Judge Jackson, or John Doe, start to complain because there is a US Federal Law that clearly stipulate your wordprocessor must include a talking paperclip, you can tell him: "Go on, write the code and send it to me, I'll include it." or "What US laws? My project is a [a_country_somewhere_else_in_the world]-an one, it don't have to obey to US laws.", couldn't you?
sigmentation fault
To:George W. Bush Coronation Headquarters
From:William Gates III
I'm beginning to come under serious pressure you idiot!These rediculous anti-trust laws are breaking my back.I've wired along a few billion dollars to help speed up your upcomming coronation.I don't care what it takes...kill Gore if need be,everyone hates him as much as those Linux-commies hate you.Buy congress.I don't care!Stop those commies in the Dept. of Justice and make it snappy...my stock options are depending on you!
-Secret BillyBorg(tm) Bank Info snipped so comradePenguin doesn't go to jail-
The penguins have revolted...Visit The UPGR
------------------------
Thus Spake ComradePenguin
And how is this a bad thing [tm]? Thats what competition is about. If the applications have to stand on their own two feet, and not rely on the "it's already here so I might as well just use it" bundling effect, then they must either improve or die.
A structurally altered Microsoft would be worth more -- not less -- on the market than the current monolithic Microsoft.
Once again is this a bad thing? They will be worth more combined (and the current share holders could well make a killing) but Individually they will be smaller. The point being they can not use bundling to make profit in one area by sacrificing another. If the products can not stand on their own feet then they die and the shareholders lose money. More to the point it doesn't stop other applications/OS/companies (Netscape? Wordperfect? BeOS? Apple? Linux?) from competing with a more even chance in there niche market. Netscape has struggled not due to an inferrior product (arguably at the time they had a superior product) but because market share (and thus income) was taken away by unfair leverage of the OS. IE would not be able to be bundled because it would be part of a seperate company (under one debated scheme at least).
Because free to innovate and chase opportunities -- as well as to better attract and reward engineers -- the company would once again be the worst nightmare of most of its competitors.
The company, or the companies? Thats the important question. If IE has to stand on it's own feet, and can't just be given away with the OS do you think that the company would remain free to innovate and chase opportunities without at least charging for a product? Could Netscape not also innovate and chase opportunites on the same grounds as a Baby Bill?
But a monolithic Microsoft, especially one stung by having to a) agree that it had done wrong, and b) sit under the eye of DOJ overseers, will be a mess.
Do you think Microsoft would not find ways to bypass the overseers/restrictions? They will work on that. At the same time they will keep supplying IE with the OS, just not as tightly coupled, and they will still unfairly maintain market share. They will still be able to use "undocumented" API features, they will just need to be sneaker about how different development teams find out about it.
The only way you can be assured that a tiger won't attack someone is to either lock it up and watch it closely all the time (that means watching it very closely ALL the time, with no mistakes or breaks to scratch yourself) or to kill the tiger. Both actions can work, what is "best" or wise or even feasible are things that we hope the DOJ/states/courts can figure out.
Careful what wish for ...
Like a chance for my company to choose something other than SQLServer on NT as a datbase because there are products as good, stable *shudder* and cheap, supported and not stupidly chosen because "It's Microsoft."
Ahh for a perfect world!
In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.
DOJ: Well, I don't know, are you sure you've changed?
MS: Sure! I mean, check out the polls.. 68% think I'm a great guy now! Honest. I'm ready to get back to being a contributing member of society.
DOJ: And what about the 32 other counts of misconduct that are still pending?
MS: Oh, they're all out to get me, but don't worry.. when I get out I'll squash the f-- er, really nice people and give them all kinds of innovative love.
DOJ: Well... we'll need some time to consider it.
If only convicted felons had it this easy....
Most of their so-called 'profits' are really just wages deferred as stock options, and the funds MS collects when employees collect them, reported as income (Yes, they found a way to move employees and benefits from debits to credits!)
Here' s a fairly well written, clear description of the practice
This will certainly make it interesting when the Ponzi scheme unravels and MS stock prices suffer their first real sustained decline.
Considering how many outstanding shares there are in institutional holding, and how the scheme only works in a steadily climbing stock... we could be looking at the Big Dump
__________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
> That would make Gates richer. Do you really want that?
Frankly, I don't care how much money he has -- so long as he isn't allowed to use it to cut off my air supply.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This is a monumentally bad idea. Do you really want the federal government deciding what any software should cost? (I don't) Do you trust the government to make a good decision? (I don't) Do you believe that ten or twenty years from now they will still be making good decisions? (I don't) Perhaps we should establish a commission to oversee the pricing commission and make sure they continue to do their jobs right as years go by.
Would Linux and FreeBSD be subject to this pricing commission? Maybe we would be forced to charge similar prices for these OS's in order to keep the OS market "competitive."
The problem with monitoring is that it just boils down to a game between the monitoring committee and the people they are monitoring. The monitors try to prevent violations, and their wily opponents try to use their power in new ways that the monitoring committee is not allowed to challenge. This consumes resources and creates ill will. History tells us, imperically, that this doesn't work. And Microsoft has demonstrated, repeatedly, that it will hide behind any technicality and take advantage of any ambiguous language in order to maintain business as usual.
There is nothing wrong with having a monopoly, but abuse of one is a crime. Microsoft will abuse any monopoly position it has in any way that it can. Haven't we learned this yet? This is why all of the concessions proposed by Microsoft are just so much talk. All of them involve keeping Microsoft's monopoly intact. The last thing Microsoft wants to have to do is compete for its income.
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
Microsoft has really started to hammer the DOJ and although ample research has gone into coverage of the anti-microsoft side of the argument, next to none has been done into the tactics that DOJ is using. Microsoft has its propoganda machine that declares the DOJ is stiffling innovation which woes the converted to sign petitions and contact their state representatives but fails to defend any of the claims made by the DOJ. Perhaps the most scary part is that Microsoft's web site is not written by people who know they are trying to keep a monopoly in place for their own benefit. The authors of the Microsoft site truely beleive that they are fighting the good fight. Their readiship definately beleives it and sites like slashdot and wired just look like sploiled grapes. So maybe it is a good thing that your average newspaper prefers the "overthrow of the evil overload" story to the Microsoft version but I would hate to see the down fall of Microsoft if any of their claims is true. From an us-against-them perspective we must not be blind to what is the correct course of action.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Really.. I just dont get it.. That's the kind of picture I would expect to be scattered around Wired with a click through to their DOJ-vs-Microsoft coverage.
How we know is more important than what we know.
bah.. look at IE at the time that netscape was actively competing with it and you have a real comparison. After Netscape spent more money on court fees than on development and then said "lets open source it!" and stopped virtually all development of the product, Microsoft had a chance to catch up. Now IE is a way better browser than Netscape, and so it should be, people have actually been developing it for the last 2 years.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I am not a programmer, nor am I a lawyer, but I read the entire Dept. of Justice's Findings of Fact against MS, and came to the conclusion that (at the time) the judge realized that MS's dominance was maintained by keeping its APIs secret, thus preventing other companies (Netscape, Sun) from writing decent code on the MS platform. It seemed as though Judge Jackson was advocating the release of this information rather than the breaking up of MS.
Does it follow that if MS reveals its code to its competitors, that those companies will be able to write middleware apps that take advantage of MS's APIs, and in turn provide a platform for further applications (i.e. a web-based spreadsheet), which would make cross-platform programming much easier (easier to port apps to other platforms), eroding MSs platform dominance?
Does this make sense, or am I misunderstanding something?
If McDonalds added a substance that made their burgers taste better, but made another brand burger taste worse if eaten after a McD burger, that would call for regulation n'est ce pas?
A McDonalds-only customer would benefit, since he would get a tastier burger. Still his freedom of choice would be seriously narrowed. Other chains would have a hard time getting customers to try their product, since McD had introduced a penalty for those who strayed from The Right Way (tm)
All opinions are my own - until criticized
This case isn't going to be solved by structural remedies, because they would be both unnecessary and far too complex.
Breaking up Microsoft would be a huge task. Just look at how long it took to deal with AT&T, and realize that Microsoft is far more complicated than AT&T was considering all the interrelated products Microsoft produces, and the fact that Microsoft is far from static. Any breakup would be so complicated and take so long that nobody would really end up happy.
But it is also unnecessary. Look at what the problem is. Microsoft has a monopoly on operating systems, and has leveraged that monopoly to both eliminate competitors and gain dominance in other markets. Those are easy problems to deal with without structural remedies.
To deal with the issue of competition in the OS market, first realize that competition is not always a good thing. For example, cable operators tend to have monopolies -- because it is more efficient to have one cable network in any given city than two. The issue of pricing is dealt with by government supervision: In Canada, if a cable operator wants to increase prices, the increases have to be justified to, and approved by, the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission. So all the government needs to do here, is establish an 'operating system pricing commission' or suchlike, which tells Microsoft that they cannot charge more than a certain price for their operating systems.
The other issue -- Microsoft leveraging its OS monopoly to gain dominance in other markets -- is even simpler to deal with. To stop them gaining market share by bundling products, insist upon a uniform pricing scheme for their operating systems, independant of other products on the same system. And to stop them using their technical knowledge of their own operating system, open the APIs.
With those three steps -- government control over pricing, a uniform pricing scheme, and open APIs -- Microsoft becomes unable to leverage its monopoly illegally any more.
Oh, and slap a $50B fine on them for their past illegal practices, of course.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
...Netscape couldn't deal with a little competition.
[ WARNING: Possible flame material may follow ]
You can say what you want, but if Internet Explorer was really that bad a browser, then wouldn't people have stuck with Netscape? People did stick with Netscape in the IE 2.0 and below days, because IE just plain sucked.
So Microsoft bundles their browser with their system. And while I don't particularly care for the fact that the browser and system are integrated, it was a smart move by Microsoft nonetheless. Why pay $49 for Netscape when IE comes free? Cry "monopoly" all you want, but it did give Netscape some serious competition...competition is what this is all about, right? They offered their browser for free and even opened up the source, yet IE still prevailed.
Was it because of this stupid integration idea? Could be. But nothing's stopping those IE users from installing Netscape. Hell, my college library has computers running Windows 98 and Netscape. Same goes for the labs. Microsoft didn't stop them, did they? IE prevailed because it was free, and before Netscape could adjust, people had made the switch to IE, and Microsoft wasn't twisting their arms either.
So what does Netscape do? Improve their browser to reclaim the IE crowd? Nope, they run off crying to the DOJ about how Microsoft monopolized them off the market. And here we are today. Honestly, has there been any massive protesting from consumers and/or consumer groups? The only people protesting are a small, but vocal, number of Linux users.
If this post is going to be flamed to hell and back (I'm expecting this) and get moderated to a -1 (Ditto), I'd just like an answer to that question. Has there been any widescale protesting by consumers and consumer groups? It doesn't make sense to claim that Microsoft has harmed consumers when the consumers aren't speaking up.
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Can the DOJ have them nuked and be done with it?
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
And do you have any evidence that they want to mandate including features in the OS? After all, Judge Jackson found, in agreement with the DOJ, that MS caused harm to the consumer by depriving the consumer of the choice of not buying a browser. Yes, they wanted MS to provide netscape, but only if they were going to ship the OS with their browser. I can't see any evidence that a browserless OS would have upset the DOJ at all....
Offtopic, but if the forked kernel were Real Good (tm), Linus would incorporate the changes back into the main fork. It's GPL'ed, he could do that... Pick one, either the OS is useless, and consumers, being not, on the whole, drooling zombies, would switch to one that isn't, OR nobody would switch to Linux (unless you're arguing they'd go Be, or Mac or something, which is at least arguable). Or consumers are drooling zombies, in which case we need the government regulating pickle widths 'cause they're too stupid to go to wendys.Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, Windows is a decent operating system. Microsoft did NOT get to where it's at solely through muscling its competitors or engaging in anti-trust practices, although that HAS played a part.
No matter how buggy anyone claims Windows is (and I have to agree, it isn't nearly bug-free) the fact remains that:
1) It's a whole lot easier to set up and use "out of the box" than Linux. This fact has little to do with anti-trust practices (except driver support and that's just nitpicking)
2)Microsoft's office suite is damn good. Some may argue that it's "good" because of anti-competitive integration with the operating system, but regardless, objectively, it is a feature-rich, fast, and easy-to-use suite. Nobody I know has ever had a problem learning Word.
3)Breaking up Microsoft will have little effect on its day-to-day business. Sure, the overhead will increase, but I don't think it'll help foster competition. It shouldn't be allowed to unfairly push manufacturers, but breaking it up will have no effect on all this.
4)Microsoft shouldn't be punished for having a better product. Netscape (which helped initiate the litigation) complains about IE, and although I agree it shouldn't be forcibly packaged without alternatives by OEMs, the fact remains that today IE is way better than Navigator. Shell integration aside, IE crashes on me less often than Navigator.
To sum it up, the case seems like punishment for Microsoft for being too successful.
And one more note: why open up the Windows source code? How is that going to foster competition? Perhaps forcible documentation of everything in Windows is a good idea, but making them release source code sounds like an over-envangelized idea from
I know it's considered de rigeur 'round these parts to call for structural change. After all, the usual argument goes, it would be bad for Microsoft -- and whatever is bad for Microsoft must be good for Slashdot-ers ... right?
...
Wrong. I think a Microsoft broken into operating system, Internet tools, and applications would be a much more formidable competitor. No longer hamstrung by its reliance on legacy apps and a single operating system, developers would be free to push the MSXML DOM, for example, onto multiple platforms; it would put IE onto Linux; it would port Office apps to Linux and elsewhere.
A structurally altered Microsoft would be worth more -- not less -- on the market than the current monolithic Microsoft. I would even applaud it doing a Seagate and taking part of the company private in an LBO, do some tweaking and pruning, and re-emerge a few years later in a blaze of market capitalization.
Because free to innovate and chase opportunities -- as well as to better attract and reward engineers -- the company would once again be the worst nightmare of most of its competitors.
But a monolithic Microsoft, especially one stung by having to a) agree that it had done wrong, and b) sit under the eye of DOJ overseers, will be a mess.
Careful what wish for
P.
http://www.groksoup.com
Would you mind giving the law's statute number, so we know you aren't pulling this out of some nether region? I would guess that the "law" you are quoting is more of a regulation by the FDA, which is not a law!
Moreover, McyD's may elect not to put any pickles on your burger. They are not required to make burgers with pickles. They have a choice.
As you (and other posters) have observered, breaking up MS will
increase their total market capitalization by increasing the stock price of each company
allow MS to enter other markets
give MS a chance to abandon the legacy crap and move forward. In other words, "Don't throw me into dat briar patch Breir Bear!" If anything, this makes structural remedies more likely to be accepted by MS.
You might ask, "Why then is MS saying they are opposed to breakup if it will benefit them?" Simple: by playing this game they depress their stock price, allowing the head softies to buy up more of the company stock. Then, the breakup happens and their wealth skyrockets.
www.eFax.com are spammers
OK...
:)
Nobody here likes Microsoft. So before replying to me with "YEAH BUT LINUX IS 3l33t AND BILL GATE$ IS EVIL!" keep in mind that I am aware of your opinion.
Here's mine.
I am afraid of the US Federal government in my industry. I am cheering for Microsoft even though I am a Linux user who doesn't like Microsoft's licensing practices.
Why?
Did you know that there is a federal law determining the minimum width of a pickle on your McDonald's hamburger?
There is. That's the result of opening the Federal Government's floodgates.
I know: "Well, gee, if there wasn't a law, McDonalds would only put a tiny sliver on the burger."
No, they wouldn't. Because if they did, we would go to Wendys or Burger King or any one of a million other restaurants. Even though McDonalds is, by far, the largest restaurant chain.
Yes, this applies to Microsoft.
Our industry is, for the most part, unregulated. If I release my own word processor tomorrow, I can give it the features I want. If I want a spell check, I'll add a spell check. If I want a talking paperclip, I'll add a talking paperclip. It's my software.
That's not what the Justice Department wants. It's no secret that they want some authority over what Microsoft adds to their next generation operating system.
That is fact.
And in the beginning, everyone is as happy as hell, because the MS behemoth won't add "their" application.
The Federal Government won't let them. Yeah government!
But then we find that Microsoft Windows 2004 doesn't support a talkback feature to assist the deaf in word processing.
The Federal Government will have the authority to make them.
Remember: there is a law mandating pickle sizes at McDonalds. There is no limit to where government authority can take us.
Now, maybe you say, well, good! The deaf should be able to use word processors. Go government!
It's not that simple; the government won't be focusing only on Microsoft. They can't go on forever making "Microsoft laws."
They'll be making "industry laws." Now, maybe your startup with the 20 billion dollar IPO can afford to add mandated features. Mine cannot.
That is what I am afraid of. Please don't tell me that the government will rest once they get a bit of leverage over Microsoft. They will not. If they'll go so far as to regulate pickle size, they'll regulate anything.
What is the solution?
The solution is not content regulation. (For reasoning above... once the regulation in this area starts, it will never die. You think software is bloated now? Wait until the "mandate" list arrives in Redmond.
The solution is not opening the Windows source.
I know, this is a point of contention. Software should be free and all that.
For one thing, we all know that there are many security holes in Windows. I'd say thousands. We also know that most banks/high security institutions run Windows as their primary OS.
That is trouble.
Please don't say "Open Source != security problems."
On Linux, you would be right. Linux was designed free from the beginning, and the gaping holes have been patched.
But Windows? The massive security problems that would be exposed might take years to straighten out, far enough time for our savings accounts to be purged by a greedy cracker.
Please, also, don't demand MS release the source to their competitors in order to level the playing field.
This sounds nice, but then I ask you "what competitors?" If my startup want to do it's own Windows, will I be able to? Or will Sun be the only company allowed?
A playing field of MS and Sun is not an attractive one.
Also, if the Windows source is released, there is a good chance that the consumer applications market will suffer. Unix was forked, fragmented and has been permanently damaged. And Unix was a well designed system.
Linux may well be fragmented. It's only a matter of time until the kernel is forked. Then what? Sure, now we can say "No real Linux user would switch to the forked kernel."
But what if the forked kernel was good? I mean Real good. You'd switch if there was something in it for you. A faster server or some such.
Unlikely? Yes.
But in Windows? If the Windows source were released, you bet your ass there'd be a fork. Probably a month later. Because Windows is not well designed. It is not efficient. It is a bad OS.
At first, sure, a forked Windows would be great. We'd all get the better one. Right?
Until it was forked again. And again. Until we get another Unix trainwreck, where the app I wrote on Sun Windows doesn't work on AOL Windows, Microsoft Windows or Red Hat Windows.
I'm a poor startup. I can't afford to write ten versions of my program.
I also don't want the government to demand that vendors offer every OS to every customer on every computer sold.
Sure, Dell could afford it. But could Mom and Pop operations struggling as it is to compete with CompUSA? It wouldn't hurt Gateway to support ten flavors of Linux, BSD, Be, Windows and Amiga. But your corner store couldn't do it. Not in a million years.
In essence, forcing OS distribution on a sales level would serve only to help the titans by killing their smaller less financed competition. And God knows if you want to buy a computer WITHOUT a WinModem, you can pretty much dismiss Gateway/eMachine/Dell/HP/Compaq altogether.
The government should not levy a "standards" list for Windows, where everyone can develop according to the specs. Let's face it, the US Federal Government is not the fastest moving body in existence. I don't want to have to wait three years for the government to release study after study to determine that the best place to position the scroll bar is on the left. As a business, I want to say, "We're doing it this way. If it works, we'll be big. If we don't, we'll die" rather than "When the government releases the big specs sheet next year, we'll be able to write the windowing interface. Until then, we're stuck on writing mode 13h solitare."
Oh, and please don't force them to remove their web browser or bundle a competing one.
An OS without a browser out of the box is useless to almost everyone. Almost all new OSes come with browsers from Linux to PalmOS to Be to Windows. Nobody would be helped by removing the browser, and don't kid yourselves - nobody would switch to Linux just because it comes with a browser and Windows doesn't.
Bundling multiple browsers wouldn't help either. Who gets bundled? Netscape? Mozilla? Lynx? All of them?
Aren't we the ones complaining that Windows is bloated? Can you imagined forced bundling of products? What about Solitare? I be the Hoyle people would love to get a shot at that. And why not? What's so special about the browser?
So what should they do?
Restrict their licensing practices. Don't let them sell Win98 to Dell for $1.00 and to Compaq for $100.00. That'll severely limit their leverage over what is bundled with new PCs. It would have virtually eliminated the catalyst for this trial in the first place, the browser bundling war. And if HP wanted to ship their PCs with Sun Java VM, that would be fine.
Oh, and one last thing. The notion that breaking up MS would cripple them is ridiculous. The powerful MS would be the one who sells Windows. They would still have a monopoly on OSes, and their stock would skyrocket on the first day of trading to, likely, MS's present day value.
That would make Gates richer. Do you really want that?
I welcome debate, but not flames, please.
GenChalupa
Back in the day, I remember the DOJ forcing a media conglomerate in our town to sell off some stations -- the owner was pissed and hated it, but he had to obey the law, just like us little people. A company can't do anything it wants; might does not make right.
In another instance, a company I knew of was regulary breaking the law; failing to honor contracts, etc. Eventually (it took awhile) the city rescinded their right to do business.
How many of you have seen restaurants closed down for a week by the health department? I've seen several. They fail to properly handle the food, they get penalized. At least there are other restaurants...think about that one.
Microsoft attained it's position by breaking federal and state laws repeatedly. They grossly violated written contracts with Sun, IBM, Novell and STAC, and in the case of Borland, launched a covert operation to brain-drain the company through a elaborate "technology day" at a nearby hotel, which was in actuality a Microsoft recruiting center. This was a completely illegal manouver (brain draining a competitor is a crime in California) but it did give MS Borland's high end developers, including Anders Helsjborg(sp), the chief architect of Delphi, arguably the most terrifying piece of software BG ever saw. In every case, Microsoft tied up the various plaintif's resources until the bitter end, only offering to settle in the final days of the trial.
Microsoft is the mafia without the murder. Although I bet you could find some people who were pushed to suicide after there companies were ruined by MS. Murder? That would be a stretch.
Criminal behavior used to obtain their current market share? No doubt whatsoever. This wasn't innovation, this wasn't healthy corporate aggression. It's the cogent, repeated use of criminal behavior to increase profitablility and market share.
The government intervention is proper. When freedom fails, the government has to step in to correct the injustice. Just as you would call the police if you saw a crime committed, many companies in many states have had enough. And many citizens have had enough. They overwhelmingly support action against Microsoft.
As I recall, IBM wiseley settled their case with the DOJ in the 1970's. MS, Sun, SGI, Apple probably never would have happened without that settlement. I have heard part of the agreement allowed the R&D departments of competitors, as well as inspectors from the government, to review IBM engineering tasks prior to implementation, and some measure of control.
Is IBM dead now? Were they broken up? No, and no. IBM is a big, powerful, robust company that is fairly cutting edge in a number of technologies. Does IBM sell anything you can't get from a competitor? Not really. The solution worked.
Similarly, the DOJ needs to come up with a system to end Microsoft's illegal activities, and implement the necessary strategies such that MS' market share is (eventually) dropped to 33% (or less) of the desktop and/or servers.
Micosoft forced this issue by failing to recognize what it means to do business in America. There are rules you have to live by, like it or not. Microsoft could have a very favorable, healthy image in the eyes of the government and the public if they would have dome the right thing -- settle the case, admit their errors, accept that they would be forced to lose market share for the common good, and as a penalty for illegal behavior. But no, Bill Gates won't have that. It's all or nothing, baby! Megalomania roolz!
So be it. You made your bed...
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
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