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Microsoft's Watered-down Version Of DOJ Remedy
reuel writes: "Here are Microsoft's comments on the DOJ's proposed break-up plan. Looks like
they want to preserve the chance to play the same old tricks -- special and secret OEM deals, required but unpublished interfaces, extend and extinguish, and an interesting new one: rights to inspect the source code of competitors' products!"
Ok, it's mostly whiny rubbish, but Microsoft makes some excellent points. Their motive for doing this is to provide loopholes by pointing them out from the word go (slime). The clarifications they ask for are very necessary however.
/usr were copied into /etc, with only a handful of directories to seperate thousands of unrelated files, the problem would be obvious.
It's obvious to us where a Browser stops and an O/S begins because we have a well designed O/S.
Windows is an organizational catastrophie. If every file found in
Microsoft's position that the DOJ should define browser with precision is essential to the victory at hand. It's current definition:
"that software which allows the user to browse the Web."
Is far to vague. Some competent Windoze programmer should be hired to go through the mess file by file. Library by library.
The rest of the doc. however is pretty comical, save yourself the ugly read, here are my two favorites:
Since Microsoft's software products are all comprised of software "technology" and nothing else, the semantic distinction the government seeks to draw is not sustainable.
When are they going to learn that refering to software as "technology" doesn't scare us or make a point. We can, in very clear terms, define where an O/S stops and an application begins, they just won't like our definition.
"Microsoft should be permitted to continue providing incentives to OEMs to do things that increase demand..."
Blatant phrases of contempt for the court's finding may create the atmosphere of "brutal justice" that the perpetrator obviously need to experience.
Dude where have you been in the past few years?
MSFTs competitors have been making better products for years... Netscape, Borland, Novell, Sun to name a few.
Maybe you need to read the findings of the fact and see how MSFT punished OEMs who tried to include competitor products in their installation packages, or how MSFT has deliberately reneged on contracts, agreements and deals they have made with both the government and other corporations when they thought they could get away with it. Frankly I am as much against the government becoming involved in the world of software as the next guy but this is a case where it is needed. For instance, do you think Linux would be such a mainstream success if not for the DOJ investigation? Hell, no. Do you think the Dells and Compaqs would be selling Linux servers today if not for the fact that they are sure there will be no reprisal from MSFT? Heck, they didn't even have the balls to defy MSFT and preinstall Netscape Navigator on their machines when Netscape was still clearly better than MSIE. And remember that these sell more linux servers than pure linux companies.
Dammit, I have to go, the girlfriend's getting mad but a quick wrap up. No matter how good Linux, Mac OS or BeOS etc are MSFT would still control the desktop server market by any means necessary and is now using all sorts of bundling and machinations (Kerberos, MS Java, etc) to leverage that into forcing a server monopoly. They need to be stopped and it looks like the market would never have done it.
I am no microsoft lover by any means, but in this case the government did a sloppy job of writing up the document. When a company Reorganizes they are shifting things around internally for some reason, like taking the best people in your company to make a new Open Source division. Divestiture on the other hand is when a company takes some portion of itself and spins it off. I believe that HP just had a divestiture when they spun off Agelent Technology. I have seen a lot of flame microsoft posts (big surprize). If you actually look at their mark-ups their are a typos and parts that make little sense. The thing that M$ brought up that was really important is that they not only have to split the OS and Apps apart, they have to split the IT, marketing, sales, HR, and support divisions into two seperate entities, in like 75 different countries. There is no way that they could do that if they were motivated, let alone when being proded by the DOJ :) --Jason
"Gates and Balmer are brilliant!" "Microsoft plays hardball!" Yeah, right. How about a different theory: they're nucking futs!
Look at one end of the paper tube and you see a company with true moxie, with genuine chutzpah, that with a conviction on Sullivan Act violations still in the public's memory buffer is willing to keep up the tempo of scumbag activities because they've got it all worked out in advance how they're going to win hands down and nothing that anyone does or knows matters.
Look at it the other way, though and what you see is a bunch of supremely arrogant squirrels who couldn't get laid with a gun, doing the only things they can do because the voices in their heads tell them to. Corporate culture goes a long way.
It's an interesting way of looking at things, and only time will tell whether or not it will really work for them.
TygerFish
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
Can i see their code too then?
Instead of having an intelligent exchange about MS's statement the moderators have decided to up an obvious troll or a very ignorant opinion that anyone who even remotely ignores slashdot would realize has little to do with reality.
I love the line about MS not doing anything illegal, its like the anti-trust case never happened to this guy.
Lets all do our part and hope we get this post during meta-moderation so we punish these moderators.
Fire away I got tons of karma to spare.
I have heard time and time again that Microsoft's integration of IE was of benefit to consumers and that they should not have been found a monopoly for that.
However, the fact remains that Microsoft is a monopoly and this monopoly is causing harm to consumers. In order to intervene in this situation, the government first has prove that Microsoft is a monopoly. They chose to pursue the IE integration angle because it was relatively easy to prove that IE integration harmed competitors and leveraged Microsoft's monopoly power.
Similarly, when the government sent Al Capone to jail, they did it with tax evasion laws, because it was much easier to get him on tax evasion than on his other crimes. The end result is the same, Al Capone was a criminal and Al Capone went to jail.
The end result for Microsoft will be the same: Microsoft is a monopoly, and there will be remedies applied to address this problem.
>Microsoft has definately abused it's power as a
> market leader (maybe even a monopoly)
MS was found guilty of illegal business practices. In the real world of corporate life, when a company repeatedly and illegally abuses monopoly power (and I do belive they have monopoly power), they are punished. They way monopolies are punished is by breaking them up.
The reason the DOJ is pursuing this admitedly extreme remedy is that MS has repeatedly ignored or circumvented other less drastic injunctions. If they had not shown that prior disregard for government imposed remedies, I would not support a breakup. However, while it pains me to see the government interfering in the private sector so much, it would be worse if when the next Big Thing(tm) came along, MS could use it's dominence in the OS and productivity applications market to stifle honest competition for market share.
Nothing in this breakup plan is likely to weaken the stranglehold MS holds on certain current technologies -- if Linux (or anything else) is to unseat MS as the OS of the masses it will have to be soley on vastly superior technology and lower cost. However, hopefully we can protect as yet undiscovered markets from unfair and predatory business practices.
No matter how this plays out it is going to be a pain in the ass for a lot of people for some time. However, I think this is the price we have to pay if we want better competition in the long run.
Both for AT&T and NSI, the breakup of a monopoly (though obviously very different) caused concerns of incompatability and consumer harm. Yet when all was said and done, people figured out way of making things work together and the benefit to consumers has been great. I don't know how MS will do it, but I am sure it is possible.
And who is to say that the Apps division will only develop for Windows? They might, but on the other hand assuming the OS division doesn't backstab them early, they might see it as an opportunity to turn the OS into a commodity market. Consider that if every major application ran on Windows, Linux, BeOS, and *BSD, the choice of OS would be kind of like choosing between Dell and Micron... you get slightly different bells and whistles but you can do your work on any of them basically the same. This is probably going to happen sooner or later anyway, so if I were a major application vendor I would want to be in on it early.
Sheesh. I didn't get even half-way through the court document, and already I can see that the breakup would be a long, drawn-out mess, for Microsoft, for the Justice department that has to oversee it, and for the public.
I'd prefer to see a much simplier solution. Fine them, oh, say $30 billion USD and call it a day.
That would take the wind out of their sails. It would also keep them from buying up a bunch of other companies and technologies, slowing down their encroachment into other areas.
In 5 years, Microsoft (left whole) won't be nearly the factor in the computer industry it is now. The market will be more diverse, and we'll have more and better choices (not that we don't have some good ones now). Let the market decide fairly if it truly wants buggy shit from Redmond.
We don't need another Clinton/Lewinsky affair, dragged out over two or more years. Let's get on with our jobs.
who are you?? Do you know me?
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
A distinction that shouldn't be missed.
Microsoft is offering to let other software development firms view the source to key Microsoft technologies. Under NDA.
They ask to be allowed to review the output of said firms. Under NDA.
Don't wet yourself thinking it has anything to do with open source.
Hey, he might work at the patent office... that'd explain some things...
Think that was flamebait? You've obviously never met me in person...
$email=~tr/.@/
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Microsoft shall disclose to ISVs, IHVs, and OEMs in a Timely Manner, in whatever media Microsoft disseminates such information to its own personnel, all APIs, Technical Information and Communications Interfaces
Note the squirrelly use of "Timely Manner." In a normal legal document this might mean something. I think Microsoft will likely interpret "Timely Manner" as meaning oh, some time after the product isn't even sold any more. Perhaps they will start by providing DOS 1.0.
What if I'm configuring a telecommunications server that will run in a rack for its entire lifetime and the users will never even know they're using it? I don't want it slowed down by unnecessary "enhancements" to the OS.
It really depends on how you define "OS". IE is not part of the Kernel, but it is part of the shell. IE is an object in the same way that KDE has a browser object integrated into their shell (their file browser, for example).
Unfortunately, most people just hear "IE is part of the OS" and start screaming, rather than realize that both KDE and Gnome are doing exactly the same thing.
Also, it's not going to slow down the OS having an IE object that's not used sitting around. Anymore than KDE is slowed down by the ability to display web pages.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Why is no one addressing the other major elements of the Microsoft proposal?
1. the insistance on having this classified as a divestiture, instead of a reorganization (and the attendant legal benefits) (see below)
2. The fact that Microsoft is an international entity -- and could easily remain monolithic abroad, with only the US units being separate (and unified control manifesting to an overseas unit!)
3. That under such an arrangement, American law would be of limited effect. (If you thought MS had clout with the US govt etc., imagine the consideration it might get from a small 'unfriendly' nation.
4) That its overseas units can only participate in the divestiture *in accordance with local laws* -- which can prevent the final overall divestiture indefinitely, certainly for many years (I think CitiGroup tried this trick a few years ago)
In fact, as I go down this document, I see more pitfalls and minefields than tha Maginot line and the former BDR/DDR (E/W German) border combined. And IANAL
Surely others are interested in the substantitive issues that will affect the Real World break-up far more than our (largely unheard) M$ bashing
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
"Does the fact he is anonymous make him any less correct?
No, of course not, and he is correct. It is not about being punitive, but about remedies.
"But once again, the typical Slashdotter shows his incredible ignorance."
THIS is what I was talking about when I said, Typical Microsoft Zealot showing his incredible attitude.
I _never_ use windows.
And I never felt forced in anyway to use it.
I took a job that does not use windows, don't use windows at home, my girl friend does not use windows, and even at my school Library I use a terminal instead of windows.
I don't play many games so I guess that helps but as far as I know there are a lot of games avable for Mac(I happen to love Macs but I love Linux more).
So there are more games for Windows (again I don't play games so I am just guessing on this one) what if there were more games for Linux. Should that not be allowed? What is your point? Force is a strong word you should use a word more like encourage.
If Linux is so great why does it not have more games for it? Easy! Because up until recently it did not make that good of a desktop OS but thanks to our good friends at KDE, GNOME, Enlightenment (and the list goes on) it is now becoming an option.
If you don't like it don't use it, Simple.
Hey most of us here think that Windows is not all that good, give it time Linux will catch up and thats when my mom will be using it, and you will be able to play all your games in it.
Thanks
Will
...on a corporate level?
The reason Microsoft has their monopoly, is because they control both the applications and the OS. They control the entire desktop.
This allows them to lock the user in. By splitting the company into an apps co and an OS co, the reasoning (hope?) is that the applications company will now be free to write apps for other OS's. And that the OS company will be more willing to work with other application vendors.
So the point is to foster innovation (!) and competion with companies other than Microsoft. If Microsoft was split in three companies that do the same things all you have is Microsoft competing against 'itself'. Other companies would still face the same barriers to entry they have today, only more so, since they have three 'Microsofts to contend with.
You are correct in observing that both companies will have a dominant position in their market. But neither would control the entire desktop. And that's the point.
Steve M
Anybody understand why so much of this document
has been crossed out. Is that MS's way of dissing
the Justice Department's plan??
Just wondering, I don't get it.
The Information Revolution will be fought on the command line.
I know we all hate to see Microsoft go but the breaking of a monopoly is actually good for us since it rejuvenates competition. Take a look at what has happened in the domain name business with the breakup of the Network Solution monopoly, prices have dropped dramatically and companies are now offering more and more services with registrations all at a better price. I say nothing but good can come of breaking up Microsoft.
It won't hurt Microsoft that bad, I mean do you really think the breakup of Microsoft is going to make Windows go away? Of course not. There is still too much money to be made.
If I was the DOJ I would be severe as I possible could since Gates and Microsoft are known to be hard hitters and even with a breakup they will still fight their hardest to maintain the monopoly they have now. They'll go down kicking and screaming, you can count on it...
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Which part deals with them bundling Internet Explorer with their operating system, the entire reason the trial was started?
And yet you prove my point without my trying. You owned and maintained multiple machines. Does the average consumer do that? No. You owned and maintained multiple Operating Systems. Does the average consumer do that? No.
Are you some sort of pathetic idiot? I've read most of the posts here without feeling the need to reply, but you just take the cake. I mean, what the hell are you talking about?
Alright. Before this post gets hit as flamebait, let me make my point. A corporation, even if it has 100% of the target audiance buying from it, is not a monopoly until there aren't competitors. By owning a non-Microsoft operating system (what was it he had, five or six of them?) that were all competing with Microsoft's OS, Microsoft wasn't a monopoly. Microsoft doesn't send somebody over to your house with a shotgun and force you to use Windows. If you want to download Linux, or BSD, or buy BeOS or SCO Unix, or even run a port of AmigaOS or MacOS, or use FreeDOS or DrDOS or PCDos, or use any of a number of other operating systems, many of them free, then you have your choice. If you could use only Windows or only MSDOS and Windows, then Microsoft would be a monopoly. But there are plenty of alternatives. Just because the average consumer doesn't use these alternatives doesn't mean that they aren't there.
The knowledgeable people can always circumvent these problems, but we have trouble educating the masses, that's what the courts are there for.
WTF?! The courts are there to enforce the laws, not to educate the consumers. If Microsoft prevents Win3.1 from running over DrDos, then the courts apply the punishment. If Microsoft runs over your cat, then the courts apply the punishment. If Microsoft launches a sucessful marketing campaign and picks up a large percentage of the consumer market, then the courts aren't there to tell everybody the Microsoft is crap. The courts are there to enforce the law, not to counter sucessful marketing campaigns.
How available were QNX, BeOS, Linux or FreeBSD to the average computer geek five years ago when this all hit the fan? The various flavors of Unix and Linux and whatever are recent developments in the scope of things (and still aren't fully fleshed out in terms of the depth of applications, utilities, games, etc and definitely weren't ready for it then.). You really DIDN'T have a choice then. Now, you definitely do. But not if you're anything but a basic user. The monopoly affects the basic consumer and that's the issue.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Obviously the feds think they did something illegal. Personally I think the feds are committing a far more heinous act than anything MS ever did. IMHO, antitrust laws are complete bullshit, and this trial is complete bullshit.
:) I never liked MS OS's or their manipulation of standards, and so have always exercised my option to use other operating systems. If MS had a monopoly I wouldn't be able to do that.
MS does not currently and has not ever had a monopoly on the OS or applications market. They managed to suck up 90% of the consumer desktop computing market because nobody else came even close to striking the right balance of technology, usability and marketing.
OS/2 is the only OS in the last 10 years that I can think of that even had a shot at mainstream adoption. It had great momentum for a while, but IBM chose to develop and market it only half-heartedly, and then eventually killed it. As far as MacOS, that didn't go downhill because of Microsoft so much as mismanagement by Sculley & Co. Very user-friendly OS, but with expensive proprietary hardware and a primitive technological undercarriage (cooperative multitasking, no protected memory) that made it extremely crash-prone.
So what if MS played a little hardball? If the OEM's didn't like the terms they were free to contract with a different supplier for an OS, or to develop their own OS (separately or cooperatively), or to ship no OS. Obviously the OEMs felt the contract terms were acceptable enough to stick with Windows and not explore these alternatives.
IMHO, the companies who urged the DOJ to bring this action are a bunch of has-been crybabies who couldn't compete in the marketplace by offering better value to the consumer, and decided to play dirty.
Despite all that, I can proudly say that I have never owned a Windows machine
It seems that many people just want Microsoft to suffer, without considering the possibility that what the government is doing is anti-freedom, anti-competition and just plain immoral.
2:Microsoft has open API's. Ever read msdn.microsoft.com? Didn't think so.
It's a well known fact that Microsoft's applications call undocumented functions in Windows. And were you asleep during the whole Kerberos fiasco?
BTW, since msdn.microsoft.com is so useful, tell me where I can find the spec for the CAB file format. And I don't mean source code that can only ever compile on Windows because it calls special CAB-generating Win32 functions, unless you can tell me where the exact operation of said functions is documented precisely enough that one could reimplement them on a non-Windows platform.
I think that the Appellate judges (or the Supremes, if the 3 judge ct is skipped) will send it back down. Hopefully Jackson will keel over with heart failure in the meantime.
IANAD. I think Judge Jackson will disappoint you in his continuing robust health.
IANAL, either, but I agree that the appeals court will probably send it back. My bet is "affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded."
I'm almost certain those evidentiary hearings Jackson denied will be required. I think the Judge was pissed enough. I don't think the breakup plan is fatally defective, though, but four months is too short a time to split it up.
Adding the ability to render HTML documents into the file browser is a great idea. (As a module or inate - who cares?) It's so great, in fact, that everyone is doing it (MacOS, KDE, Gnome...)
Complaining about that is like complaining that you have to use their kernel AND their window manager AND their task manager... geesh! Why don't they just distribute the W2K kernel by itself!
These days an OS is many things. I want an OS that knows HTML. It's the right thing to do.
Note: I'm a Linux user and I do think MS is evil, but I also think that we should let natural selection decide.
Here's a conspiracy theory for you: Vancouver is a growing software hub. It's less than 100 miles from Redmond. It's out of reach of the US Govt. Microsoft already has another "campus" there. They've code named their next PC OSes after two Vancouver ski-hills... Tax shelter after relocation would be a simple matter of paying off a bribe of sorts to Ottawa. Microsoft's revenue is somewhere within a few orders of magnitude of Canada's GDP...
Forgot:IANAL.A bit late though,since I've already been nailed by everybody.
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Thus Spake ComradePenguin
No one is forcing the consumer to use IE, they're just making it slightly more convenient, and everpresent.
But don't you see that "forcing" and "slightly more convenient" are almost the same we're dealing with Joe Q Public who just bought is Compaq? He doesn't know there are other browsers out there, let alone how to download/install them, and so he is content to click on the blue E.
If a contractor who made houses also made refrigerators, and he gave me a fridge with every house I bought, why the hell would I even bother looking at the other fridge makers? Microsoft cut out the competition (Netscape) in the exact same way. They stole the consumers right to choose.
--
"And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Not true.
monopoly n. a business or inter-related group of businesses which controls so much of the production or sale of a product or kind of product as to control the market, including prices and distribution.
Rest of definition here at law.com.
This does not preclude there being competitors, just involves control of the market. In any case, Microsoft isn't being broken up for "being a monopoly." Being a monopoly does not violate the law in and of itself. Microsoft is being broken up for violating the Sherman Act as well as other similar state laws governing the conduct of corporations.
But here's my thing. Suppose Ford (god forbid) forced Chevy and all the other car makers into small market share. Even worse, Ford came into some proprietary knowledge by purchasing BMW and brainwashing their engineeers. Now suppose they make this great new car. Everyone buys this great new car simply because Ford had the market share. Now, if we wanted super speed, we had to buy a Chevy (hehehehe yeah right) or if we wanted the color orange we had to get a Hyundai (likely story :)). Now, since these cars were small market share, we can't find mechanics or gauges, or any of those important things that cars need. THAT's the problem. The inavailability of programs and such forces people to use Windows. Just try and buy Mac software at Fry's Electronics. It can't be done. Try finding good help for Macs at CompUSA. Can't be done. That's a monopoly thing.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
OK, advance warning - I saw this on TV, and have done no research whatsoever, but apparently Bill Gates (again, unsure whther he has gone through a "real" company eg. Microsoft to do this) has purchased the broadcasting rights for English Premier League soccer. They used to be owned by Murdoch's Sky B (if I remember correctly).
I seem to recall he also has part-ownership of Aston Villa as well.
Now, this could either be cause:
a) it's cool
b) content for broadcasting (set-top boxes anyone)
c) so TimeWarner/AOL can't have it
d) so Murdoch can't have it
e) wants to target new product "Microsoft Hooligan" to English soccer lager louts
f) to pick up chicks
So maybe your comment is valid - maybe Gates has had enough......though I _do_ find it hard to believe...
Cheers,
SuperG
Of course there's good reason to put down some of the specifics of this proposal. But what do you expect? Is MS supposed to make suggestions that screw them even harder?
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
Ever heard of LinuxPPC? If not, I've even seen Linux run on a phreakin iBook.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
remind me never to mention other people on Slashdot again.Imature bastards
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Thus Spake ComradePenguin
Win95 does not have integrated IE. 98 does but it can be removed with 98lite. 98 remains fully functional at this point. What does that mean? IE is integrated into the SHELL. 98lite replaces it with the win95 shell. 98lite is a free, small utility that runs quickly and effectively.
You could always buy a PC without windows on it, just not necessarily from Dell. But you have always had a choice. Even in 1995 small computer stores were everywhere, providing choice.
As to MS's practices with OEM's, no argument here.
Marcus
they don't give a rat's fanny? Um, sir, how exactly, without an economy, do you expect this country, in our current system to work? Last time I checked, this is a capitalistic republic... without money, governments of that sort go off the deep end... If our stock market crashes, this country has no money. no money, no government. That's not the DOJ's goal (unfortunately).
god you are ignorant.
Think that was flamebait? You've obviously never met me in person...
$email=~tr/.@/
The only possible reason they would want to read the source of thier competitors is to get the Aqua GUI.
Think about it, a great deal of Apple's OS X is comprised of open source software.
Microsoft really wants a lickable user interface.
People didn't want to lick Bob I guess.
Also, it's not going to slow down the OS having an IE object that's not used sitting around. Anymore than KDE is slowed down by the ability to display web pages.
The difference is that parts of IE are always running in the background whether it's being used or not; they're loaded at startup and whir away and consume resources until something inevitably crashes. If it were merely trying to be a shell, then it would be designed differently. As it is, it's not designed to be a shell or perhaps even a well functioning web browser. What it's designed to be is a monopoly extender/preserver (remember how ubiquitous browsers were supposed to make the underlying operating system irrelevant until MS killed that plan?), inseparable from the rest of the operating system, with the potential for client-side features that exclusively tie in with whatever proprietary server stuff MS throws at consumers next.
And your reference to KDE is inappropriate. Unlike IE, KDE can be completely removed from any linux system, and what's left is perfectly functional. IE is like a car radio that's had the ignition system wired through it; there's no reason why it should be required for the system to work, except that that's the way MS has specifically designed it. It's just so brutally dishonest.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
responsibility of the industry to provide a market in which freedom of computers AND operating systems are available to compete
I'm not sure if that legally stands, but it sounds right, so I'll start with it. Linux is competing with Microsoft. So is BSD, UNIX, FreeDOS, PCDOS, DrDOS, etc. Now, there is certainly competition among the physical computers. I mean, what are Apple, Sun, etc.? There is also competition among the operating systems, as I said before.
It's like reupholstering a couch, you can't install an OS without some degree of expertise, just ask my mom or my grandma
Personally, I found the Redhat Linux install relatively painless.. however, I understand that there are those that won't. Now, IBM is starting to package systems with Linux installed, Sun always had it's operating system, Apple has MacOS, so there are plenty of alternatives. If Microsoft picks up consumers by default, more power to them, it isn't illegal to make the most widely understood (possibly besides MacOS) operating system around. It's not monopolistic practices, it's just good marketing.
I agree that IE is a part of the windoze shell, and the file browser is part of KDE. But KDE is not part of Linux. KDE is a desktop environment. Linux seperates the GUI and the Kernel so that they can work together but they are also completely modular. This is the difference. Windows merges the browser, GUI, kernel, and everything else into one monolithic lump. Users have no ability to interchange components.
Also, it's not going to slow down the OS having an IE object that's not used sitting around. Anymore than KDE is slowed down by the ability to display web pages.
It may not use up CPU, but it will use up memory. IE is a bit like a non-modular kernel driver, it sits around in memory (or swap?) any time the computer is running. Netscape may load a bit slower, but that's because it actually loads instead of just making itself visible.
-- 2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2
IBM dropped the ball on marketing.
SUN didn't make a desktop OS.
Apple screwed themselves when they fired Jobs.
That's not a monopoly thing, that's a business thing.
Marc p.s. if you would like to continue this discussion feel free to email me from here on I an dead tired.
Just wondering, but what the hell do you do for a living that you can afford hours each day in front of the Glass Teat O' Tomorrow writing parodies?
.sig: Now legally binding!
But it's too late for this trial. Microsoft officially lost when the judge's Conclusions of Law came out. We're now in the remedy (i.e. sentencing) phase now. Microsoft is trying to confuse the issue enough that the Court of Appeals will stay the interim remedies pending appeal. That's the only way they can win. Whether the Court of Appeals will fall for it remains to be seen.
Judge Jackson did a good job on this case. For two years, he let Microsoft have their say, including showing their faked video (remember?), and making their bogus claims. He saw through it all and wrote those Findings of Fact. If you read those, and you're familiar with the industry, you'll see that he got it right.
In the previous Microsoft antitrust case (1995), the judge took a more activist role during the trial itself, for which he was reversed by the Court of Appeals. That was a wierd case; the judge refused to accept a consent decree agreed to by both parties because he thought it wasn't strong enough. He was probably right, but exceeded his authority. That's not the situation this time. The current case is a straight loss at trial by Microsoft.
As for the remedy being overkill, in previous antitrust cases, the courts have broken up AT&T, Standard Oil, and a number of lesser companies. Courts have imposed tougher interface disclosure requirements on IBM and AT&T than are proposed for Microsoft. There's precedent for everything in this judgement. Microsoft gripes in their brief that there's no one previous decision that contains everything that's in this one, but that doesn't mean anything.
> "an interesting new one: rights to inspect the
> source code of competitors' products!"
They must think the DOJ are idiots! If I was that judge I would feel extremely insulted.
-- Ted tsikora@powerusersbbs.com
If they really want the government to take them seriously, they need to compromise. I mean, their proposal basically says "fuck you, we want it all our way..."
I would of thought that if they had even half a brain, then they would try to make some subtle changes, that would allow them to use some nice loophole a few years later.
But it's obvious to even me, who understands shit all in legal-speak, that they aren't trying to to change at all.
Come on - make it look like you're trying compromise and maybe, just maybe, the changes will get accepted...
On second thoughts, DON'T! It would be better if MS was blown up into a billion pieces.
Better to stay silent, and let people think you're an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt
sounds like some moderators read your post. heheh
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
And through the courts we can educate the citizens. It wasn't the ad campaigns that brought people to Win95. It was the lack of VIABLE options that is the problem. Worse off, Microsoft made it hard for these viable options to get their products out there. Sure FreeBSD has always been there, but out of 100 normal people (I'm not saying that people who use BSD variants are weird, I use one, I use OS X DP 4) how many know how to use it? Probably 1-5 IF YOU'RE DAMN LUCKY. I don't know my way around most of it.
You said: Just because the average consumer doesn't use these alternatives doesn't mean that they aren't there.
Says WHO? If I walked into a computer store and said, I want to use another OS aside from Windows, the salesman would probably fall down and roll around on the floor laughing. The conversation would go like this:
ME: I want a computer.
Salesman: Ok, here's a nice IBM running Windows 95.
ME: I don't like Windows, couldja sell me something else?
Salesman: MUAHAHAHAHA *salesman spontaneously combusts leaving me covered in bits of spleen*
ME: ick.
Now I am generalizing, but hey, so does everyone else here, so why not. As for Monopolies, get off your horse, if someone has EVERY consumer, they have a monopoly, they can do what they please with supply cause demand will ALWAYS be there, if it's an inelastic good.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
1. The government's proposed final judgment is defective in numerous respects, making the document vague and ambiguous.
Just like our software.
2. The government contends that "Microsoft Has Not Engaged Responsibly on the Issue of Process." ...Finally, Microsoft "secreted" nothing.
We were always completely open about everything. You were just friggin blind
3. Microsoft's comments on the government's revised proposed final judgment are, of course, without prejudice to its positions on the merits and as to the relief that should be awarded to remedy the antitrust violations found by the Court.
Any finding to the contrary would be in direct violation of our extended EULA agreement, which we just revised, and states that defamation of our company symbol with, or without proof, is grounds for being sued by us.
[1] Under the government's revised proposed final judgment, Microsoft is not being "reorganized" in any meaningful sense of that term.
And we at Microsoft HATE meaningless stuff. Like Easter Eggs, and dancing paper clips.
[2] The timetable proposed by the government for the divestiture is unrealistic. As Microsoft has previously explained (see Mem. in Support of Mot. for Summ. Rejection at 16-24), the forced breakup of a unitary company like Microsoft is unprecedented, and dividing the company in half would be an enormously difficult task.
You see, it's just too difficult evenly dividing the number of twits we have, given the obscene number. If we are forced to do it, we may have to switch to either a Slackware, or Mac OS so we don't get a BSOD
etc...
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
I think even if George Bush wins, it'd be far too late for him to get this dropped. The verdict has already been reached, the only issue now is the form of punishment.
IA, of course, NAL
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
Just try and buy Mac software at Fry's Electronics. It can't be done. Try finding good help for Macs at CompUSA. Can't be done. That's a monopoly thing.
Incidentally the unavailability of Mac software and hardware at many retail outlets has less to do with Microsoft than with the demented control-freak way that Apple handles their distribution network.
I worked for a retail outlet which was an authorized Apple dealer, but this required a certain minimum amount of sales (reasonable enough in and of itself). Apple gave a massive discount to the local university, thus allowing the university to undercut all their dealers. Then, right when they were gearing up to sell the iMac, they suddenly jerked the rug out from under us, leaving no other Apple distributor but the university in the area, and that distributor only dealt to people associated with the university, which was the primary market for Macs.
Thus, NOBODY within a fifty mile radius could get one of the damn things without the nightmare of dealing directly with Apple. Further, if they got them, nobody within a hundred miles could do the SERVICE for them. Scenarios like this played out all over the country. Hence, a fantastic product which should have seized a significant chunk of market share back from the PC manufacturers is now, like the rest of Apple's products, just another niche market for Mac bigots.
This isn't the only insanely stupid thing Apple has done. Any other company that acted like this would be long out of business, and only because their products are so great have they been able to continue to exist even in a niche market.
In that situation...i believe that Joe Q. Public deserves the crappy computer and the fridge he got.
If you don't look to see what else is out there...that's your fault, not the maker's.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
If you use Win95 OSR2 or any windows after that, you are forced to use IE,
.....
Who is forcing you to use Windows? IE is part of Windows. If you don't like it run Linux, or FreeBSD, or BeOS, or QNX, or
Microsoft never used physical force (as far as I know) against anyone. They did not _force_ anyone to use anything.
Now if they were beating up store managers that would be a different story all together.
Will
To my knowledge the freedom of capital per se has NO place in ANY constitution on this earth...
It exists as a manifestation of many personal freedoms but has never been an end unto itself, merely a widely acknowledged means to the end.
Capitalism serves the people, not the other way around...
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Marc
You said that microsoft hasn't done anything illegal. I disagree.
BUT EVEN IF THEY HAVEN'T: Under the antitrust laws of the United States, entirely legal actionwhen performed by a monopoly, become illegal if they are done to unfairly maintain the monopoly.
But its been a while since I've had econ...
James
I thought that just like in the fameous episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets "bought out" by Bill Gates Microsoft just takes what it wants :) Well seriously I thought that a company that big would just simply buy the exclusive rights to any program or library that they needed without hassle, fuss or muss.
What is power if not for the furtherance of power. Power is a gift in it's own right and a means unto itself.
Any one have a good synopsis of the main points. I'm too tired to read it all right now.
What is power if not for the furtherance of power. Power is a gift in it's own right and a means unto itself.
My point wasn't that Apple doesn't sell enough shit, my point is that NO ONE sells enough shit to make a difference against their juggernaut right now. Linux, in five years maybe, but aside from that.... Microsoft is at the point where they could buy just about whoever they wanted, fire their personnel, gut their libraries and push on. They need to be broken before they start really f'ing things up. As for Apple doing stupid things, I still love my PowerBook, I still love Final Cut Pro, and I really like DP 4. They'll make it.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
In our next installment, a convicted bank robber asks the judge to give him the keys to all the vaults in the country instead of sending him to jail.
you might also want to thank rms. linus wrote the first kernel, but nearly every other system utility on a linux system comes from gnu. plus gnome! :)
The "Kerberos Fiasco" has nothing to do with open APIs. You must be a complete moron.
There's a vanishingly thin line between APIs, protocols and file formats. Any non-moron would know this.
That's BS. If you are running Windows you are already running core components of IE.
Where at? Nagoya? who are you???
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Obviously the feds think they did something illegal. Personally I think the feds are committing a far more heinous act than anything MS ever did. IMHO, antitrust laws are complete bullshit, and this trial is complete bullshit.
You're free to hold that opinion and I'm free to laugh at you. If it weren't for antitrust laws, you would now be paying five bucks a gallon for gas (like in England) and your telephone wouldn't have Caller-ID or voicemail or any of those fancy features and you'd be paying twice as much for it.
Ever hear of Mobil, Exxon, Sunoco, Texaco and these other competing companies? None of those would have existed without the breakup of Standard Oil.
Shareholders made out like bandits after the breakup and the economy boomed.
You would think they would fix that for an official legal document - since court documents are basically formatted to look as much like typewritten text as possible, why not just leave it in ASCII and move along?
I know Microsoft isn't likely to change, but I thought I'd bring up how stupid this whole '?' thing makes them look, as well as many websites that are generated by MS software.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
1. As a domain name holder, I am willing to take on the risk of having the name hijacked, sexually abused, and whatever else you might be suggesting in order to have the option to work with a company that does not have a contractual provision that they may revoke my possession of that name for whatever reason they deem appropriate, at any time they see fit. I give them money, and I damn well have paid more in the past than is necessary to provide for someone to enter one DNS record and update my address (every two or three years) even at the most exorbitant rates. Now, to act as they have (and still do) is their right, and it is also my right to ensure my ability to do business with their competitor. The 'chaos', as you call it, is more than worth it to me.
2. I hate to break it to you... All software 'fricking' sucks. The reason I prefer free (or very cheap) software is that I'm paying less money for the same agreement, not for any idelogical reason...'You can use our product, but we neither guarantee it works nor agree to provide you any reparations if it does not do what you need it to do. We''ll do what we can to keep you up-to-date, but hey...If you don't like it, don't buy it'. Add on to that, I actually prefer many such packages (such as StarOffice) based on their own merits. More than a few of my users (especially my 'technologically illiterate' users, such as marketing and sales people, admins, etc.) do not like IE. At all.
3. I certainly hope so. I really, really hope that the company I work for faces such a crisis. I am not an OS bigot. These things are tools, and every tool has its optimum place. I no more believe in putting UNIX on every desktop than I do in putting Windows on every server. To make this approach work, however, they have to be INTEROPERABLE. If linux and the free software community were to begin cutting off the integration of other OS'es and applications, I would gun for them with every ounce of strength that I presently spend fighting the dissemination of Windows into aspects of the business it is not suited to fill. Also, your belief that businesses with 'Strong Windows Integration' have disposed of the paper trail leads me to believe that you live on Mars, or perhaps in Oz. "Ooh, we'll get filing cabinets? Good, we'll put them in next to the filing cabinets we already have, as we keep a paper copy of everything important anyway, since we don't trust our software not to suck". (See beginning of this point).
4. Still won't be able to find companies that will install Linux-served LANs, or be able to find competent Sys Admins? They must live on Mars or Oz, as well. I can. I still can. It's a pain in the butt to find _any_ competent technical people; their specializations notwithstanding, but it can be done. I've dealt with more clueless MCSEs than I care to count. Yes, that's anecdotal, but I can judge the truth of it, and let's be honest: When it comes down to the wire, enlightened self-interest rules the day. Will it benefit the Linux community? Let's be honest... Will it benefit me? You bet your ass it will.
What it all boils down to, is that I am tasked on a regular basis with implemeting business solutions. When it comes down to it, the manager who decides we'll do it the Microsoft way will not be penalized for choosing the improper solution for the task at hand, I will be... So I damn well better be able to make a fair case for the tools that I think are appropriate. Let's be honest, if the MBAs/CEOs/CFOs really had a grasp of any way (much less the Microsoft way), there would not be such a shortage of talented technical people... I would be working in a different field, and probably could not care less. I may not go with Linux, but I sure as hell won't have to be forced into using Windows, if this goes down right.
I'm all for it, and will be puhsing for the maximum sentence, chaos and all.
And yet you prove my point without my trying. You owned and maintained multiple machines. Does the average consumer do that? No. You owned and maintained multiple Operating Systems. Does the average consumer do that? No.
The big thing about this trial is that they forced software on the unknowing public. The average consumer, caveat emptor not withstanding, need protection from monopolies like Microsoft, and that's where we're going. The knowledgeable people can always circumvent these problems, but we have trouble educating the masses, that's what the courts are there for.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
That's exactly what I think.. Long hours in front of a PC, the generic boredom that comes from the endless tirade of [l]users asking the same questions, the caffiene-inspired delusions..
.sig: Now legally binding!
FWIW, You can't buy a Mac without Microsoft software!!
Microsoft Internet Explorer is the default browser in Mac OS 8/9, even if it can be changed or Netscape Communicator by using the Internet Control Panel.
MSIE ships pre-installed with every new Macintosh sold (since 1997), and comes with every recent version of the Mac 0S -- which in most cases don't make MSIE an option -- you have to install it if you are going to install the Internet Applications suite in Mac OS 8/9 installer. You can however remove parts of it easily by hand -- drag it's folder to the trash by hand -- but it still tends to litter the System Folder (it might have a uninstaller, I don't remeber).
So, you might think you can get away from Microsoft by getting a Mac -- but you are only kidding yourself -- all Macs come with MSIE, and many have Microsoft Office or even some Microsoft games (like the iMac).
Personally, I think the MS lawyers have given up on this trial and are now moving on to the appeal. They are hoping to waste time if nothing else, until things change in their advantage if they can. At one point it seemed like they were hoping to wait until the next election to see if a change in the presidency might improve their chances of winning. Now I think they're concentrating on winning on appeal and have given up on this case, short of a huge oversight by either the judge or the DoJ.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Well consider these little points. 1. Getting a great deal of money takes skill, guile, cunning, or luck. 2. To keep the money in your posession you have to work hard to have people not deceive you and also further your own agenda while making it subtly appear to not be your own agenda. 3. While doing both 1/2 you also have to appear good to the public and to shareholders. Now this is significantly more complex than this but it illustrates a really good point. That is that people who are at the level of billionaires don't usually do foolish things when their power is on the line. Now taking these logical arguments aside Bill gates may be in fact doing what has been costly for a great many generals, statesmen and politicans for thousands of years and that is not listening to or having competent advisers. Truth be told they are most likely doing the legal equivelent of running scared.
What is power if not for the furtherance of power. Power is a gift in it's own right and a means unto itself.
...that deciding what to do about one of the largest companies on the planet that has been found guilty of monopolistic practices is as cut and dried as sentencing a murderer or rapist? Or are you asinine enough to think that depriving the average clueless newbie of choices is as bad as taking that person's life?
:) but let's be reasonable. AFAWK, M$ has never actually killed anyone.
Ignore for the moment the types of actions here. With violent felons, the decision typically is a) do we just kill them (for murders and occasionally for those convicted of treason), or b) how long do we lock them away?
With a large multinational like M$, you have to take into account a great many more issues... stock splits, business reorganization, splitting the work staff, how to handle satellite offices in foreign countries, etc.
This is much more like divorce proceedings than sentencing. With a divorce, one party submits a list of items they believe they should get, then the other party responds with corrections, etc. This goes on and on until both sides have reached an agreement. The only real difference is that, in this case, a 'third party' is forcing the 'divorce' of a large entity into separate entities.
Now, I detest M$ practices/policies as much as the next Linux Zealot (TM
Eric
I did a little research and found an article on CNN from April. For the most part, it states that Bush would be more "friendly" towards Microsoft and that he wished for early settlement. It also has a blurb about Gore, which generally says that he is staying silent (swaying to neither side) and quoted him on saying that it is "being handled according to due process of law."
Actually as good punisment, Microsoft should release an open source version of their XENIX OS
And what about their monopolistic business practices? They FORCED people to use IE to browse the web when Netscape was still selling their then viable product. They destroyed Java for their own uses, outside the license agreement.
Back to the point. Are all these OSes application compatible? Certainly not MacOS/Windows. Does it have to be? No, but when you start to steal market share by less-than-scrupulous business practices (Apple and QuickTime, look into it) then you are trying actively to destroy others, and that IS illegal. And it's not marketing as much as it is saying, "you have no choice."
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
That's something I havn't heard yet could you point me at some source for this quote/idea? I thought that from the legal analysis in the original DOJ paper finding that he didn't prefer any one particular thing as long as it wasn't Microsoft.
What is power if not for the furtherance of power. Power is a gift in it's own right and a means unto itself.
Does MSFT think they can get away with this??? Do they honestly think they can buy or con the DOJ? (I hope not)... Personally I don't think MSFT should have any say in this - do murders, rapists, theives, etc. get to say what they want their sentance to be? I think not! Why is it any diffrent with MSFT???
-Mr. Macx
Moof!
They have balls, I'll give them that. Balls but no brains. It takes some serious testicular fortitude to drop a dingleberry like this:
providing to the other any APIs, Technical Information, or Communications Interfaces, or technical information that is not simultaneously published, disclosed, or made readily available to ISVs, IHVs, and OEMs; provided that this provision shall not apply when (a) representatives of the Operating Systems Business and the Applications Business are engaged in technical discussions to ensure (1) that their products work well together or (2) that developers in one Business take into account input from developers in the other Business; (b) the two Businesses are working together cooperatively to develop new software technologies;and expect anybody to let it slide. It defeats the entire purpose of the breakup, and the DOJ certainly understands that. Do they expect that the DOJ of all groups would get bored by the legalese and overlook it?
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
/*
instead of 2 or 3 I prefer the idea of just fully documenting formats and all system calls (all information needed to write code under Windows)
*/
Sounds nice but won't work. MS claims to document the MSWord format and anyone can download this documentation off the web site. Ask the people working on KWord how useful it is. Hint: They must reverse engineer *.doc files to get working filters.
Running filter code is the best possible documentation. It's also very hard to claim a 100% working filter that can't open any significant % of files.
/*
GPL and BSD is to protect open source.. Microsoft dosn't have any intrest in protecting open source... there should be no reason to force that on them.
*/
The Author is liable for faults in Public domain software. The only real difference between the BSD license and Public domain is that BSD indemnifies the author.
MS and *ALL* it's competitors are careful to not be liable for bugs in the stuff they sell so why should that change now?
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Ok, but the bugs don't :)
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
/*
On cause 2, its easy to obsficate source code, and I believe that they already have a automated system for doing it.
*/
It's harder to do this than to simply falsify documentation.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Whats the point? They can do business however they like, they are the most powerful software company on the planet. And yes sometimes the pen is mightier than the "computer".
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Fine, let them integrate IE. That's their right. I like the integration idea. It improves the functionality of the OS. The problem isn't the integration(well, they could have programmed it a little better), the problem is that they should give other companies the same right.
No one has ever taken away other developers/companies rights here. It would have been a much more intresting world if netscape had let go of some of thier cross platform compatability uptightness and given what the app developers wanted from the browser... Access to thier parser and embedability. People are still free to write these things themselves.
I would like to see some other companies develop something that can integrate into the OS like IE does.
Ie is only as integrated as other code uses it. This is why microsoft can do intresting things, One team produces something potentially useful, publishes the interface on msdn and then trys to convince all the developers in the company (and out) to use it. If you can convince upper management that your functionality should be everywhere, then they can push groups to use it. Most ms products now depend on the existance of the html parser as much as they expect the existance of file system. If a third party creates something that everyone uses, ms will try to licence (and in some cases buy) that product for windows. This is why there are a number of third party codecs that ship with the os for example.
That would be competition. Allowing other companies to integrate their own software into Windows should be a must. But they don't allow for a company to do that. It is always a program that runs on top of Windows, never with Windows.
There are plenty of applications that integrate with windows. A virus scanner is a great example. These things hook into file io and network io to scan for viruses on the fly. Another thing would be like oracle's internet file system thingy, where they integrate into the gui shell. Namespace extensions for the shell are great for merging seamlessly into the gui environement.
A disadvantage of closed source is that you can't just copy and modify the existing implementation/framework. You either write to what the framework lets you, or you don't use the framework and write the same functionality yourself. If you want to do more then what the shell allows, then you check msdn and write what you want. You are then reinventing the wheel to a degree but that is the price you pay. Once you have your competing framework you must convince others that it is the way to go. Say you really hate ADO/OLEDB/ODBC as a common way to access databases for some reason. You write your cool nifty cross platform database methodology, and now need to convince people to use it. Soemtimes you win sometimes you don't. The media player "wars" are an example of that. MS has a system of os wide pluggable codecs and generic controls to use thoose codecs. However real media and apple with quicktime are each providing thier own api's for integrating video/sound to developers. It's not clear who will win in this space. I'll bet you that whoever does win will get an offer to have thier technology licensed and shipped with the next windows os release.
Make IE be taken away from the original install of Windows. Let it be an added feature
And instantly break the last 4 years worth of software development.... "Okay we took the html parser out, and now nothing works but the stuff from before '96... geez that sucked."
Unfortunately, most people just hear "IE is part of the OS" and start screaming, rather than realize that both KDE and Gnome are doing exactly the same thing.
A more accurate way to put it is to say that IE is part of the GUI. KDE and Gnome also make a browser part of the GUI. The reason why Microsoft's approach is lame for the previous example (the comms server in a rack) is that they make the GUI part of the OS. If it was a Linux box, you wouldn't angst about KDE/Gnome containing a browser that you didn't need for your comms server - you just wouldn't be using KDE or Gnome (or even XFree86 probably).
Also, it's not going to slow down the OS having an IE object that's not used sitting around. Anymore than KDE is slowed down by the ability to display web pages.
A lot of IE's code is pre-loaded at boot time, to allow the browser to start up quickly and give an illusion of superiority over Netscape. This is a non-trivial waste of memory, which you have to suffer through even if you never browse a single HTML file.
The DOJ seems to think their counter proposal has enough merit that they asked for Judge Jackson for an extension in the case to review the merits of MSFT's proposal and will issue a response.
Of course, they may simply be doing this to cover themselves when (not if) the case is appealed and thus will be able to say they gave MSFT every chance and considered every option.
instead of 2 or 3 I prefer the idea of just fully documenting formats and all system calls (all information needed to write code under Windows)
The programming documentation should be allowable under some liccensing fee...
but the formats should be public documented... not gpl or bsd.... Public domain...
No excluse for binding liccens that then dictates what one may do with the document...
If Microsoft selects to document it in souce code that will be totally acceptable.. but it must be public domain not under any liccens or restrictions...
GPL and BSD is to protect open source.. Microsoft dosn't have any intrest in protecting open source... there should be no reason to force that on them.
I don't actually exist.
then you are trying actively to destroy others
;)
IANAL, but isn't that the goal of every company? To have total and complete market share? I'm not saying that Microsoft's marketing practices were at all legal or moral, but that they shouldn't be judged as a monopoly simply because consumers choose to use their product. Have they eliminated competition? Yeah, of course. By producing a better product they eliminate competition. If Linus had went back in time with a 2.x release of the Linux kernal and marketed it back when only 1.x was around, he would have been eliminating competition (decreasing the market share of the 1.x kernal)
They FORCED people to use IE to browse the web when Netscape was still selling their then viable product. They destroyed Java for their own uses, outside the license agreement.
Um, did Bill Gates personally come to your house with a submachinegun and FORCE you to use IE, or did he simply integrate a web browser into the operating system, leaving you FREE to install Nyetscape or any other browser that you want. Actually, cancel that. He integrated IE into the Shell, not into the OS. However, being that Windows is closed, very few members of the Linux community realize this, being that they typically do not take much interest in Windows unless they can bash Microsoft. Infact, it is possible to not even use 'Explorer' as your Windows shell. Check out your System.ini under shell=. There are several replacements that you can use, in addition to simply making an emacs port your shell (Which is rather fun
bill gates sat at his computer. the worry over the antitrust case had weighed heavily on his shoulders for so long. bill loaded up internet explorer. he admired the sleek, user-friendly interface. he smiled at the accomplishments of his grand company as the microsoft attorneys and upper-level management bickered about the details of microsoft's remedy proposal.
bill clicked his way through the internet, sailing from one site to the next. he decided to do a search on "microsoft." 3.141 million matches. he clicked the first link and waited. slowly, the slashdot home page rendered onto his screen. he browsed the list of articles on the page.
something caught his attention. bill looked fondly upon his aibo. he clicked "read more" under a story labelled, "SONY ANNOUNCES NEW AIBO: SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN MAGIC PETRIFICATION RAY A REALITY!" bill was intrigued by the multitude of insightful, informative, interesting and funny comments. he reached the very bottom of the page. his attention was taken by a fascinatingly titled post, "OPEN SOURCE NATALIE PORTMAN"
bill read the post. he became aroused. he thought a moment... "hmmmm. open-source natalie portman..."
bill jumped from his chair, his genitalia stimulated, his face red. he rushed down the hall and burst into the conference room. shocked, everyone looked up.
"we must be allowed to see the source of our competitors!" he screamed.
i like german girls. and nannies.
Hold on. We live in a free market society. Noone was FORCED anything. You always had a choice. You can't compare MS to AT&T. With AT&T there was truly NO choice. If I go and buy a Ford because there is a Ford dealership next door to my house, has Ford screwed me because they make shitty cars? No, I have screwed myself for not looking down the street at the Toyota/Mazda/Honda/Olds/Lexus/BMW dealerships.
I know I am not the average computer consumer. However I am the average car/dishwasher/carpet/furniture buyer. If I don't make an informed decision, and don't get the best for my value, I am an idiot (and I am because I owned a Taurus at one point `;^).
Marc
What struck me most strongly about this was the amazing continuation of MS's attempts at obfuscation and confusion. They appear to believe that their courtroom tactic of challenging the definition of every word was so successful that it deserves to be repeated here. At some point their apparent inability to understand simple English has to irritate someone besides me; for example, for Microsoft to complain that they don't understand what the term "web browser" means is disengenuous at the least! And is anyone besides me as tired of MS claiming in one breath that their applications developers have no special access to the OS and in the very next breath claiming that the applications and OS portions of the company are too closely linked to be successfully separated? This gets more amazing every day. What do you suppose are the chances that Uncle Bill just closes the whole thing down and starts a new enterprise in Fiji? :)
rights to inspect the source code of competitors' products! " Would it work bother ways? If M$ had to show their competitors their source code aswel, then It would get rather interesting.
EOT
George Bush has all but directly stated
that if elected, he will instruct the Justice Dept to drop ALL anti-trust cases, that includes Microsoft. Competition is bad for profits, that means it's bad for contributions and hence bad for George Bush and his friends.
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
If you read the document, you'll see that they're not charging for access to the API's, they're requesting the right to charge for access to the SOURCE CODE of the API's, and demanding reciprocity. You-can-see-my-source-if-I-can-see-yours. Elsewhere in the document stringent conditions were laid down regarding how source code access would be handled.
No, they are saying "You can see my source if I can see your source and an as yet undisclosed amount of money for the privelage."
Then entire industry would be benefitted by MSFT playing nice with everyone and opening their APIs, just as it would be benefitted by every other company that has closed APIs opening them up. Maybe the next version of Windows would actually be stable of some of the people programming the Apps for them knew WTF they were programming for a little better....
Of course, even MSFTs own programmers couldn't make that happen... so I dunno...
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
MSDN is not really a realistic resource for useful data for interoperability with windows. There are a few nuggets spread thinly about the site but it is awesomely hard work to track them down, links are forever moving around and the search engine sucks. Formats are usually described in terms of their windows api interfaces and MS always invents new terms for existing standards and mechanisms. Concise and complete descriptions are hard to find
On the other hand people are very quick to assume that a format is secret or not documented, this is not always true so it is a very good idea to check msdn before simply lying back and saying "ack its proprietry, we can never support it". There are a lot of MS formats which could be supported right now from working with the available documentation. Simple examples which I did some fiddling with include the wmf format, emf format, pe and ne executable formats. In addition windows and dos programmers have often made source available to parse some of the undocumented formats already and just need some massaging to make that source crossplatform. And note that theres ole2 stream support for linux as well, so thats no barrier.
Wander over to wotsit.org and take an unsupported windows format and write a linux converter today.
C.
I sometimes write stuff
NOTE: I can't use the strike tag here, so stuff in square brackets was struck out by Microsoft:
.doc so that a linux filemanager can recognize them and add the appropriate icon. Aha! Interoperability! And if they make available a windows bitmap of an icon that can be used (subject to the appropriate licensing terms, of course)...that's just plain generous!
.doc), you want to write files a windows box can read? Save them as text-only. More interoperability. Look how well Microsoft shares toys in the sandbox!
"Technical Information" means all information regarding the identification and means of using APIs and Communications Interfaces that competent software developers require to make their products running on any computer interoperate [effectively] with Microsoft Platform Software running on a Personal Computer. [Technical information includes but is not limited to reference implementations, communications protocols, file formats, data formats, syntaxes and grammers, data structure definitions and layouts, error codes, memory allocation and deallocation conventions, threading and synchronization conventions, functional specifications and descriptions, algorithms for data translation or reformatting (including compression/decompression algorithms and encryption/decryption algorithms), registry settings, and field contents.]
I guess Microsoft didn't think they could avoid interoperating, they left it in. They just change the wording so they don't have to effectively interoperate. So: they tell people that word files end in
Unpublished APIs? What unpublished APIs? We don't officially use those anymore. You don't need them to interoperate. Ignore the fact that everyone uses them because that's what they were written for.
Now that you can read Word files (remember: they end in
Yech! Look at their revisions sometime. The stuff they took out, added, and re-worded is just sick. They claim the government's definitions of just about everything are too broad, so they narrow them, making them apply to just about nothing.
And just look at the big section of nixed stuff at the bottom. Despite complaining throughout the document of imprecisely defined terms, Microsoft objects to the precise definition of this term, and wants to scratch it all out. This is almost starting to sound familiar familiar familiar familiar...
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Bill Gates (played by Anthony Michael Hall) says, "You know success is a menace, it fools smart people into thinking that they can't lose." This was said after licensing DOS to IBM. blintz "my door is ajar"
2) The Judge gave the DOJ until Monday to view and assess these changes and then gave Microsoft until Wed. to comment on the DOJ's comments and appeal if they want to. Duh. . This is going to be a long ride. I wonder how many of our tax dollars are going to be spent on this if it drags out for 18 months to two years? Personally I'm sick of it already, it's going to be worse than the OJ trial.
Microsoft's demand that companies using its source code pay royalties - and that Microsoft be allowed to inspect the code afterward - ensures that a Microsoft-Slashdot friendship remains as unlikely as a Beatles reunion.
:)
No commentary, this speaks for itself
Finkployd
Not really, MS has alot more trouble squashing bugs than it does competitors =)
--
At NASA Dryden Flight Test Facility (now it has been promoted to a Center) , I was running slackware (installed from ~30 floppies) before Windows NT came out.
I can still remember the MS developers showing the real-time/MPX/Unix programmers all of the "innovation" that windows NT was going to bring to the computing world.
We had a good laugh at their expense when they were defining/explaing "new" OS terms that Microsoft was going to provide starting with NT.
Terms such as:
Multitasking
Memory protection
Priv/Unpriv code sections
etc...
so, don't worry about OS availability way back when...Linux was there---and don't forget about alternative OS'es such as DrDOS---whatever happened to that?
oh yeah--squashed like a bug by MS
---
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Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
Microsoft , by putting proposals on the table and offering new witnesses/evidence is simply building evidence for the Appeal, in which such actions can bear consideration.
Personally, I believe the decision is being held til Friday at 4 to avert the stock market actions that will transpire.
Always good to give a couple days to calm things down rather thatn upset the market in the way this will!
Brent
One way to look at File Formats is that they are essentially APIs for non-volitile data storage.
In any event, in addition to open APIs we need open file and data storage formats. No more forcing people to standardize on sub-standard software (such as Word, for example) simply because other programs have a perceived difficulty reading or writing to the same file format.
In the free software community, a library of file format filters to which all programs which store text or data to disk link would be fantastic - then people could truly run the Word Processor, spread sheet, image editor, and presentation manager of their choice with complete confidence that others will be able to read and share their documents.
While the free software community can do much, at some point someone needs to step in and require, be it through customer pressure or outright legislation, that APIs and File Formats be both published and adhered to. I favor the former, but would take the latter over the current state of affairs.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
You are correct on all counts. Unfortunately, while tech-heads can think of half a dozen solutions to the case, Judge Jackson cannot. It's not his fault, of course, he's a law-man, not a binary-man. I think the proposed "splitting" solution is very old-fashioned, can't be enforced without a lot of work, and will most likely not be as good as Open API's, open office file formats, or other possible punishments.
I don't know what M$ is whining about, they're getting off pretty easily.
--
"And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
The point i'm trying to make is that, rather than bitch about how windows is a monopoly and begging the government to do something about it. Let's follow the examples of people like Linus, or organizations like GNOME. Time to stop complaining and just make something undeniably better. MS gets to stay intact, albeit smaller. The product that's the best wins...then we all win.
Well, everyone else has already pointed out where they think you?re wrong, but I'm going to say that I think that you?re point (at least the above paragraph) is something that I agree with. I'm fairly indifferent about what the government does to Microsoft. In fact, I prefer to leave the government out of the picture. I think your points other than what I quoted are inaccurate, but I think the best OS will win. I was already a Linux fan when Win95 beat out OS/2 Warp despite the fact that OS/2 was a stable true 32-bit OS. And I was certainly disappointed that MS was so good at marketing their OS and even more disappointed that IBM dropped the ball when they had something better. But now MS is dropping the ball. They haven?t had the ball technology-wise since we moved to 32-bit CPU?S, but now they're dropping ball in PR too.
They?re not hiding their true colors and no one wants to rely on them. Even though there are a bunch of corps buying W2k licenses, no one is using it. They stick by it, toe the MS line, swear that they?re going to dump their Novell servers for Windows, but is there anyone actually running W2k? Slashdot is news for nerds--there have to be some nerds that are using Win2k...
I'm curious:
How many of you would say that you'd recommend W2k Server for your networks?
How many of you work for a company that is using W2k for servers or end-users?
How many of you work for a company that claims to be a W2k shop, owns thousands of licenses, but are still afraid to move past NT 4.0 SP4?
I hope the best OS will win, but it already seems to me the worst OS is losing on it's own. Evolution is taking care of this one. That?s why I think you are making a good point despite the fact that I disagree with most of the rest of what you've said.
numb
PS: sorry bout the ?? stuff, just kind of struck me as funny reading MS's dispute and seeing a direct result of their unwillingness to maintain compatability with non-MS products.
You're wrong when you say it's not the money. The point is not that they have "staggering revenues," which they probably do. The point is that this breakup will reduce their revenues from what they would otherwise be. Those revenues might seem staggering to us, but keep in mind that investors only care about the revenues as a fraction of the invested capital. MS's P/E ratio is around 30 if memory serves, so it's not that high. If a breakup reduces that further, stock price will fall, costing Gates and all of MS's investors further money.
So the money (and the ego-trip of having your stock continue going up) is the whole point.
After yet again witnessing Microsoft's open and notorious giving of the finger to the DOJ, I've figured out Bill's strategy.
He wants out of the spotlight.
See, it's like this. Ever since Bill put Steve Ballmer in charge, he's been trying to loosen his ties to Microsoft more and more, so that he can pursue other ventures...biotech, aerospace, etc. But he's stuck running this damn Microsoft. He looks over to his friend and fellow billionaire Paul Allen, wishing that he too could own such cool things as the Portland Trailblazers. But alas, Gates is too conspicuous. Too famous. Too rich.
So the plan is, to REALLY piss off the Judge and make Microsoft stock drop like a bloody rock; and also to break Microsoft up into a bajillion little companies, each one stuck with one particular product (like Bob or Golf). And then Bill will own bits and pieces of all of these companies, but still be a minority shareholder in all of them. Most will die; some will live; and he'll be able to use the proceeds to start going into other ventures.
Gates Pharmacuticals? Gates competing with Boeing? The mind boggles and the Washington state government salivates at the thought of all those jobs, all that taxable money...
And Gates himself? He returns to a life of relative un-noticability. Much like his less affluent friend Paul.
The Second Amendment Sisters
Finding God in a Dog
Excuse me, but how is it fair for Microsoft to charge for access to it's API's, while at the same time demand access, without any expectation of payment, to their competitor's?
--
+&x
I was looking at the comments when I came by this: "... "Millennium," "Whistler," and "Blackcomb," and their successors."Is Blackcomb the next NT?
Also, does anyone know why Microsoft has a thing for Canadian Ski Resorts?
----
For the latest Napster news visit Napster Online
http://www.icashex.com/napster/
Although you are the 13th post, I assume you read through the document, and didn't just take the submitter's word for the interpretation.
Boy, you read fast. That's amazing.
The text says:
i. pay a reasonable royalty to Microsoft for use of its intellectual property; [7]
ii. disclose to Microsoft any APIs or Communication Interfaces that such persons have implemented in their products to permit them to Interoperate with Microsoft Platform Software; [8] and
iii. allow qualified representatives of Microsoft to inspect the source code for such persons' products in a secure facility for the sole purpose of ensuring their compliance with the requirement that Microsoft's source code be used only to enable third-party products to Interoperate with Microsoft Platform Software. [9]
...
[9] This compliance provision is also contained in the undertaking that IBM entered into with the European Commission in 1984. See Undertaking given by IBM, Appendix B, 6, Bulletin of the European Communities, Vol. 17, No. 10 at 102 (1984). If the government believes what it says about the small risk to Microsoft of having its source code studied by competitors under the conditions specified, then the government should have no objection to giving Microsoft the reciprocal right to inspect the source code of competitors' products under the same conditions to confirm that they are not using Microsoft's source code for an improper purpose. Absent such inspection, it would be effectively impossible for Microsoft to determine whether competitors that had access to Microsoft's source code had misappropriated Microsoft's programming methods for use in their own products.
Microsoft is NOT an open source company. Moral issues aside, closed source companies jealously guard their intellectual property. This means that when they license their source code to other companies, they often charge for it, and the license often includes provisions so that they can ensure the other company is not misusing the code.
I read this entire document, and I find myself agreeing with just about every change Microsoft made to it, as well as their reasoning (which is contained in the document itself). I did think that the Microsoft's tone was almost belligerent, though...
They both need to learn this fact:the more you beg,the less likely you'll get what your begging for.
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Thus Spake ComradePenguin
I suppose you can't blame MS for trying. Like a condemed man shouting "But I'm innocent!!" on his way to the gallows.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
OS, Software, Internet, Marketing, Legal. Then Microsoft Lawyers can really fsck with the US Legal system, and what company wouldn't want to hire out the Microsoft Marketing department? That way, OS, Software, and Internet contract marketing to hype their products, and hire legal when they get in trouble.
This is kinda bordering the line between seriousness and funny isn't it?
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
Salesman: MUAHAHAHAHA *salesman spontaneously combusts leaving me covered in bits of spleen*
ME: ick.
Funny. Of course, it wouldn't happen that way. It would be more like this.
Me: I want a computer.
Salesman: OK, here's a nice IBM running Windows 98.
Me: I don't like Windows, couldja sell me something else?
(Now, this assumes that this isn't a PC only store. Due to consumer demand, more and more stores are becoming not only PC stores)
Salesman: Sure, you can get this nice cherry flavored iMac.
Me: No, I don't like Macintoshes. They are underdeveloped pieces of graphical junk that play to the lowest common denominator of the computing community. Do you have anything else?
Salesman: Ummm... just a second... *Salesman runs off and finds the one member of the 20 person sales team that knows how to use a BSD varient*
BSD Salesman: Do you want to use our repackaged distribution of BSD for only $50? (Note: No salesman in his right mind will tell you about a free operating system as free. That's not Microsoft's work, that's capitalism.)
Me: No, I don't support the elitist additudes of the founders of BSD. Do you have anything else? *Salesman runs off to find one of the members of the sales team that groks Linux*
Linux Salesman: Would you be interested in buying the Redhat distribution of the Linux operating system?
Me: No, I don't support the anti-corporate near-anarchist additude of the Linux community. Do you have anything else?
Salesman: Are you stupid or something? *salesman spontaneously combusts leaving me and the surrounding hardware covered in bits of spleen. All nearby Windows equipment GPFs.*
If 5% of the population (at least, of the population involved with technology) understand BSD, that means that one member of a 20 member sales team will understand it. And Linux has been getting a lot of press lately, so I wouldn't be surprised if 25% of the tech population has heard of it. Maybe 10% use it. Now, I haven't actually tried talking to a salesman, but tomorrow I'll go out and see what they know.
BTW, I don't disagree that Microsoft sucks. I just don't believe that creating a sucessful product, and trying to provide the (vastly computer illiterate, who wouldn't use Netscape anyway (how would they get it, if they didn't have internet access with something like explorer, and they didn't know how to use DOS-box FTP?)) market with tools to be able to use the product to its fullest extent.
Microsoft includes IE in the shell (not the OS) to make Windows 'Internet Ready'. It's all about marketing. Grok?
I throw things at the television whenever I hear Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer say "freedom to innovate". I shake my monitor when I see it on a web page. I crumple up the paper when I see it in print. I'm sure you do, too.
There is a monopolist that could have argued that case. But it is not Microsoft. AT&T had a monopoly on phone service, and with it, they could charge everyone in the United States a nickel, and fund Bell Labs. Take a look at http://www.bell-labs.com/history/.
Are you a control geek? I am. It blows my mind to think that Black, Nyquist, and Bode all worked together at Bell Labs. Ask the nearest Electrical Engineer if they've ever used Black's Formula, the Nyquist Stability Criterion, the Nyquist Sampling Rate, or a Bode plot.
Ever heard of the transistor? Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain all worked for Bell Labs. Want a humbling experience? Read Shockley's book. By 1950, he had it all figured out: electrons, holes, bolch waves, brillouin zones, etc. *cough* Nobel Physics Prize *cough*.
Ever heard of the Laser? UNIX? C? Personally, I would be willing to put up with a monopoly that is capable of this kind of research.
Are we supposed to believe that Microsoft is?
--
My word processor was written by Stanford Professor Donald Knuth. Who wrote yours?
Really? I'm sure I remember hearing him on NPR around Super Tuesday and he was virtually reading off of an MS-written speech. It had all the usual language (innovation being the big one - MS wouldn't know innovation if it bit them in the ass)
Course I loathe Bush and Gore. I don't like greens much, but I may vote for Nader. This country really could use a 'Sensible Party' instead of all these jerks.
-- 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.
We do live in a free market society and while it is the responsibility of the purchaser to make an "informed decision," it's the responsibility of the industry to provide a market in which freedom of computers AND operating systems are available to compete. And no, the average consumer DIDN'T have a choice. You bought a machine from CompUSA or someother trashy chain and it came with windows, so you used it. It's like reupholstering a couch, you can't install an OS without some degree of expertise, just ask my mom or my grandma. Some of us just bought Macs instead :) However, the degree of availability of software is a bit less than optimal...and that's the problem.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
The URL contains "may00". I guess MSFT hasn't fixed all their Y2K bugs yet...
If you read the document, you'll see that they're not charging for access to the API's, they're requesting the right to charge for access to the SOURCE CODE of the API's, and demanding reciprocity. You-can-see-my-source-if-I-can-see-yours. Elsewhere in the document stringent conditions were laid down regarding how source code access would be handled.
You would think that Microsoft would have become aware of it sitution by now. The court is no longer clueless on the technical/business issues, nor is it amicable to Microsoft's behaviour.
I must wonder seriously, however.... Is this midless struggle a delay tactic? Does microsoft hope to be bailed out if the republicans get the white house in the next election? Nothing against the republicans, but they have a decidely pro-business track record.
By changing the time necessary to submit a plan of separation from 4 months to 12 months, they place the window just barely on the other side of the 2001 pres inauguration.
Call me crazy, it seemed like an interesting theory at the time....
monopoly n. a business or inter-related group of businesses which controls so much of the production or sale of a product or kind of product as to control the market, including prices and distribution.
So, Microsoft is a monopoly because IBM, a major member of the distribution is forced to distribute only Microsoft's operating system?
So what's the deal with this '?' thing generated by Microsoft software on platforms other than their own? What's going on with that? Anyway?
OS, Applications, Internet, Publishing, Hardware, Marketing, Legal. MS seems to be building a publishing company (many MS games for example are just published by the giant, not developed) Cut that division off and watch it go belly up. Fun stuff.
Hardware has to go somewhere...probally downhill until Logitech buys them out.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
I respect your right to laugh at me, but of course I still disagree with you :)
Standard Oil never had a monopoly either. Before the breakup it had eight other large oil companies competing with it. It did indeed amass a dominant market share, but did so by undercutting competitors prices and dramatically expanding the market for oil. Like Microsoft, the government action against it came at the urging of its smaller, less successful competitors.
During the 1970's OPEC crisis, oil prices skyrocketed, there was gas rationing, the whole nine, but the market adapted. Auto manufacturers started making energy efficient cars (haha, Ford Pintos rock) instead of giant gas guzzlers, and for the first time people started seriously exploring other energy sources.
If the feds hadn't broken up Standard the same dynamics would apply. If Standard tried to raise prices too high, other energy sources would become popular, and as happened in the 70s, businesses that provided them would spring up faster than mom & pop ISPs in 1994. Standard's market share would drop, and they would be forced to cut prices to compete.
Maybe if Standard had been left alone things would have worked out differently and we'd now be using something less primitive and environmentally destructive than fossil fuels.
I know less about the AT&T breakup. IIRC, they actually had what I would consider more of a monopoly, because the government made it illegal for more than one phone company to compete in a given geographic area, with something like the government-granted cable tv franchise monopolies we have today. The old 'natural monopoly' argument - the idea that it was impossible for two communications providers to coexist in the same geographic area because of rights-of-way. I think the existence of the Internet pretty much blows that argument to hell, eh?
Not to dis your precious Caller ID, but maybe if the government hadn't created the monopoly for AT&T in the first place (if I am remembering correctly) we'd have something slightly cooler, like 3D wireless IP videoconferencing in 1986.
My core argument is that governments cannot promote or create competition. The only thing they can do is hamper it by taxation, regulation, and generally hindering and hampering the free market from doing what it does best, which is basically to route around inefficiency and price-gouging.
My point behind making the car anology was to point out that IE is not free. If you pay 30k for the car and they give you a tank of gas for free, you could say you've payed 15k for the gas and you've payed 15k for the car. You could also say you've payed 28,080 for the gas and the car was 20 dollars. You can use any acounting method you wish, but in the end, you've payed for both items.
Why does this analogy apply?
Windows 98 is free. Free? yea, free.
You pay for IE. Like it or not, and ms throws in the OS as a distrobution method in the same way Corel throws in Linux to help distribute their Work Perfect Office suite.
Now, I know what some of you ms droids are thinking "I never wrote a check to microsoft for the use of their browser, they gave it to me because they love me and they think I'm special." They love you and they think your so special, they charged you for the browser and they threw in an operating system for free.
To bolster my point, I quote item 137 from the text of Judge Jackson Finding of fact in the case:
137. In early 1995, personnel developing Internet Explorer at Microsoft contemplated charging OEMs and others for the product when it was released. Internet Explorer would have been included in a bundle of software that would have been sold as an add-on, or "frosting," to Windows 95. Indeed, Microsoft knew by the middle of 1995, if not earlier, that Netscape charged customers to license Navigator, and that Netscape derived a significant portion of its revenue from selling browser licenses. Despite the opportunity to make a substantial amount of revenue from the sale of Internet Explorer, and with the knowledge that the dominant browser product on the market, Navigator, was being licensed at a price, senior executives at Microsoft decided that Microsoft needed to give its browser away in furtherance of the larger strategic goal of accelerating Internet Explorer's acquisition of browser usage share. Consequently, Microsoft decided not to charge an increment in price when it included Internet Explorer in Windows for the first time, and it has continued this policy ever since. In addition, Microsoft has never charged for an Internet Explorer license when it is distributed separately from Windows.
___
Hey buddy, guess what? The world is not run on capitalism. Now I'm not advocating communism (naive at best - Russia was more of a fascist dictatorship, not communist at all) or socialism.
But economic systems are here to serve people. Capitalism is the best of the lot because it pretty accurately follows how human beings actually behave and how our freedoms are used. But it's not perfect. Monopolies are the giant failure of capitalism.
And capitalism is just how we happen to do things. Lord knows the law takes precedence over capitalism as long as it doesn't impact on human rights (which are a seperate matter; it's unlikely that property is a human right if you actually think about it seriously)
Please tell me how a single entity with no incentive to compete against anyone (they can squish them instead; this is not competition) and no incentive to do anything for their customers, only to protect their monopoly is capitalist. It is not. Monopolies hinder competition, and competition is at the heart of capitalism.
This is why we have laws which regulate the economy. Because when the economy begins to harm people the people must necessarily win. There's no other tolerable solution.
Futhermore you should turn in your Nobel Prize for Economics, because you'd realize that a monopoly doesn't have to be 100% in order to be a monopoly. It need only have such a commanding presence that it is unassailable. Think of a guy with a stick trying to invade a castle. It's not going to happen.
Linux is getting better all the time. But it's not a big player yet in most of the fields that MS is a big player in. MS's monopoly has not been successfully challenged yet in the market, because the market is broken as long as MS is around. (or any other monopoly; IBM was about the same many years ago. MS wouldn't be here if not for IBM being forced to tone things down)
Besides... you're apparently fond of the idea that if you don't like the rules you don't have to play at all. Well the rules have been on the books for a century and MS agreed when it decided to do business in the US. No one made them.
The govt is (suprisingly) acting in a way that is pro-freedom (protecting ours from MS), pro-competition (making MS get off their fat asses and compete for a change) and actually quite moral. MS is amoral anyway, by definition.
I don't want them to suffer. I just want MS to stop befouling the industry. MS has harmed innovation a hell of a lot more than the government ever has.
-- 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.
The point i'm trying to make is that, rather than bitch about how windows is a monopoly and begging the government to do something about it. Let's follow the examples of people like Linus, or organizations like GNOME. Time to stop complaining and just make something undeniably better. MS gets to stay intact, albeit smaller. The product that's the best wins...then we all win.
"Your post sucks! Microsoft doesn't play fair! Fuck you" you say. Sorry, but now you're talking about morality (i.e. - what responsability does a company have to the consumer, morally). Unfortunately, if you pull that card, you've already lost the argument. Microsoft didn't become the company it is today because it played "fair" and it certainly didn't become the most popular OS in the world because it sucked. Make something better! (retrospectively - thank you linus)
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
3:SOAP is an open standard created by Microsoft, and supported by IBM and countless other companies (aside from Sun)
Yes it is supposed to be an open standard - have you heard of extend and exterminate? Here's a very interesting article about MS lawyers hindering a presentation on SOAP:
MS sends in lawyers to stop 'open' SOAP info getting out
4:I like the fact that you expect Microsoft to give away their API's and source code, and don't expect the same from others.
Actually, i don't really want to see MS source code other than device drivers, file formats, and API's. Since, MS holds a monopoly power and abused it, this is perhaps one of the BEST remedies. (Forcing MS to OPEN their APIs) It will allow for greater competition and innovation. (M$ should be able to remain a strong company even with Open APIs.)
It's is NOT a question about killing M$, just one of allowing better competition and choice for the consumer. (Isn't this what M$ says it wants?)
In fact, I would like to see OPEN API's from all vendors.
Wow, watch Microsoft squirm! It'd be entertaining, if it wasn't so serious. I'm not a lawyer by any means, and I started to skim heavily after a few screenfuls, but even I got the impression of stalling and whining.
Altogether too similar to a young boy arguing with his parents over the punishment he is to receive.
One question, though: I didn't find this part in the document, but if they are claiming the right to inspect competitors' source, do we get to examine the MS source?
"Am I missing anything here?"
.
yes, perhaps the first amendment. .
I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
But if the developers owned the company like you are asking, where would the money come from? The reason that investors exist is because they give the capital for the business. Without investors innovation would happen even slower, since no one would even have the ability to start up companies.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Does anyone remember what happened to Standard Oil's overall value when it was broken up?
That's right: it went up.
More than likely, just like Rockefeller did, Gates is likely to make an extraordinary amount of money (even for him) if the company is broken up.
So, no, the power hypothesis makes more sense to me.
DNA just wants to be free...
Microsoft really, unfortunately hasn't done anything wrong. The consent agreement prevented them from using their market power from pushing into other related areas and pushing competition out. It was not to limit or discourage the development of integrated products. What is IE really? It's, again unfortuanately, an integrated product. Unless you use Windows 95/NT 4 without IE4 or earlier or a non-windows OS, IE is the program that you use to browse directories. It's even integrated into Windows Explorer, but less blatantly. It uses "HTML Templates" a proprietary XSLT-like technology which reads your directory and pumps out an HTML file which is sent to... guess what?!?!? the IE engine. Therefore, it's pretty much agreed that IE is an integrated product to Windows. That's the discriminant of the equation, the loophole clause. It let's Microsoft free and there's nothing you can do about it... unless you bend the legal system. --OT Below-- The 16th root of 65536? Why, that would be 2! 65536=2^16 (2^16)^(1/16) Multiply exponents raised to powers: 16 1 16 --*--=--=1 1 16 16 2^1=2 --End OT--
Sig, meet "end user."
"[9] This compliance provision is also contained in the undertaking that IBM entered into with the European Commission in 1984. See Undertaking given by IBM, Appendix B, 6, Bulletin of the European Communities, Vol. 17, No. 10 at 102 (1984). If the government believes what it says about the small risk to Microsoft of having its source code studied by competitors under the conditions specified, then the government should have no objection to giving Microsoft the reciprocal right to inspect the source code of competitors' products under the same conditions to confirm that they are not using Microsoft's source code for an improper purpose. Absent such inspection, it would be effectively impossible for Microsoft to determine whether competitors that had access to Microsoft's source code had misappropriated Microsoft's programming methods for use in their own products."
This basicly says if our competitors' get to look at our source code... we get to look at theirs. That insures that neither are stealing from each other. Duh! What's the big deal with that? Too much for you fools to understand?
Tom the Sigless
Nope, sorry, actually it is illegal. The legal term for that behavior is "collusion".
DNA just wants to be free...
Several times in this thread, /.ers state emphatically that it's "a well-known fact" that MS uses Undocumented APIs to give their software an edge over the competitors software. I am beginning to think that should be "a well-known anecdote." Has anyone ever uncovered conclusive proof of this, that I could be directed to? I find it a difficult claim to swallow without concrete supporting evidence. Is there any to offer?
It's a well known fact that Microsoft's applications call undocumented functions in Windows. And were you asleep during the whole Kerberos fiasco?
Oh yes... those secret MakeMicrosoftProductsBetter APIs.
BTW, since msdn.microsoft.com is so useful, tell me where I can find the spec for the CAB file format. And I don't mean source code that can only ever compile on Windows because it calls special CAB-generating Win32 functions, unless you can tell me where the exact operation of said functions is documented precisely enough that one could reimplement them on a non-Windows platform.
http://www.wotsit.org/download.asp?f=cab
It's windows source but there are no Win32 APIs required.
Tom the Sigless
No, they are saying "You can see my source if I can see your source and an as yet undisclosed amount of money for the privelage." Then entire industry would be benefitted by MSFT playing nice with everyone and opening their APIs, just as it would be benefitted by every other company that has closed APIs opening them up.
Please... GET IT THRU YOUR THICK SKULL! 90% of windows APIs are freely avalible on msdn.microsoft.com.... the source that implements those APIs is not freely avalible. Contrary to what most penguin dicks lead you to believe, you don't need the source code to the implementation of those APIs to write windows apps. Sheesh!
Tom the Sigless
e.g. Professor Davis would testify to the following general propositions
and Microsoft anticipates that Mr. Capellas would testify to the following general propositions
Microsoft expects that Mr. Katzenberg would testify to the following general propositions
Microsoft anticipates that Mr. McVaney would testify to the following general propositions
etc...
ok, so they might all be in bed together, but can they really 'anticipate' what they're going to say in so much detail?
HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!
When I posted that conspiracy re the same, above, I was half kidding. Vancouver has been repeatedely voted by the UN to be the nicest city in the world in which to live, with Melbourne, Australia, running a close second; being a vancouverite myself, I really don't want Microsoft stinking up the place. But shit, they _did_ code-name their next two OSes Blackcomb and Whistler...
Typical Defense of MS:
The Bottom Line:
What they have done is NOT illegal for most companies, but IS illegal for a monopoly. When you are a monopoly you must play by a different set of rules than everyone else in the industry. The Double Standard (tm) is NOT some anti M$ crusade. It IS the LAW. - A law that's been around a lot longer than Monsieur Gates has walked this planet.
Please, if you want to defend M$, whether you genuinally beleive their innocent or just enjoy playing devil's advocate, please, please come up with something more creative than "they did nothing wrong".
--Aaron Greenberg
First of all, Thanks for the link.
I'm not a big fan of George W. but I liked Gore less, I'm not sure now. All I do know is politics is dirty in more ways then one.
While Bush has begged off the question in recent days, he did say Tuesday: "I wish there had been a settlement early on in the case. I was hoping there would be an agreement between the two parties."
Actually I agree on this one too, and I'm sure most people would, he leaves a lot unsaid. I'm sure the government would have loved it if MS said. "Whoops you're right, sorry we just didn't realize what we were doing. Flat rate pricing and open APIs, heck we'll even split into 4 companies or whatever you want. Just tell us what we should do." I know that MS would have loved "Ha we caught you, ok we're on a catch and release policy. Don't do it again" (This might have given support in other cases pending against MS by companies, hey speaking of which what would happen with those lawsuits if MS is split up?) And I know most of Slashdot wants "Yep you're right GPL everything, long live the geeks"
During a February stop in Seattle, Bush also indicated support for the company's position.
"I'm not going to comment on the particulars of the Microsoft suit, but as president, the question should be innovation as opposed to litigation," Bush said.
I'd have to agree with this one, I didn't really favor the whole Ken Starr thing either though. I think everyone in the government has a job to do, the president leads the country, Congress passes laws, and the often ignored by most the Supreme Court determines the legality of those laws that were passed. I usually think of congress as the patent office and the Supreme Court as what we need before patents are granted (a nice review of the law and existing laws:-)) So its not the president's job to get involved in it IMHO.
"I am unsympathetic to lawsuits. You can write that down. I am worried about the effect of lawsuits on job creation," he added. "If you're looking at the kind of president I'll be, I'll be slow to litigate."
Ok you got me here, the whole reason I'm rethinkig it...
I'm unsympathetic towards most lawsuits, when we can can find ourselves in court at the drop of a hat for talking bad about someone else (random example pulled from the air, don't know if its really happened yet... I'm just talking the plain stupid ones here, the ones where the only people who win are the lawyers)
I don't think job creation is much of an issue, this might help or it might hurt the job market in the US. 50/50 in my book, depends if americians are as smart as we claim to be.
I already said what I think about lawsuits, but slow to litigate?!? Ok even if he is playing the political fence he should have said something like "I'll support litigation when the case warants it" or even "Propery used litigation can provide a balance" I might be over reacting, it is a bit late here but that statement does sound like he doesn't support the lawsuit. Oh well, I guess I'll have to wait and see if it becomes clearer what his stance is, needless to say I'll watch for a new candidate too.
Have you ever read the source code for the Micrsoft implementation of the STL?
I thought that MS just licensed the STL from Dinkumware. You can hardly blame them for the format of third-party source code.
The operating system is only what's needed to access hardware: splitting up CPU time, allocating memory, talking to a network card, etc.
Anything else belongs in a shared library or an application. Yes, browsing the internet is a bit of functionality most people want on their computer. But does that make an internet browser any more part of the operating system than a word processor? Even functionality that many apps use, like possibly HTML rendering should be no more part of the operating system than ncurses or readline.
Microsoft's PR (it's _all_ part of the OS) not only misleads customers but leads to an OS in which you couldn't separate the libs, the kernel, and the apps with a crowbar.
-- #include <.sig>
-- 2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2
Proprietary
Microsoft's ways come to haunt
In Redmond they weep
Microsoft's "management, sales, products, and operations" are all tightly integrated, reflecting the fact that Microsoft is--and always has been--a unitary company.
From testimony in the trial:
"I will be honest with you," answered Schmalensee, an important witness for the company. "The state of Microsoft's internal accounting systems do not always rise to the level of sophistication one might expect from a firm as successful as it is."
When Boies pressed him, Schmalensee added: "They record operating system sales by hand on sheets of paper."
(source: zdnet)
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Billy boy, you'd best be glad I'm not the judge, 'cause I'd be a-reamin' you.
this is why you're not a damn judge. judges are meant to be impartial arbiters of the law. they don't write law or make value judgements beyond the intent of the law.
the judge's job is to decide if microsoft broke the law, and if so, to initiate action against microsoft that will fix whatever their breaking the law did - within the means of the laws.
you don't just get to kick their ass.
ianal, and all that, so here are a few things that I couldn't figure out just by using google or yahoo:
What is the (legal) difference between the (legal) terms "Reorganization" and "Divestiture". How does that rewording change the document.
MS has the following item: "[1] April 27, 2000 is an arbitrary date. For simplicity and internal consistency (see, e.g., Section 4.a, infra), the operative date should be the Effective Date of the Final Judgment established in Section 6.a, infra."
Is that common legalese? It strikes me as more of a techie way of thought than legal (which has a different flavor of logic to it). I also like how they corrected the "typo".
Seems that they have extended every deadline by about a third again the court length (60 changed to 90 days, 90 to 150 days, etc.) is this legal 'haggling' over the figures common, or uncommon.
As for how I read it, they seem to be extending the dates, covering their asses (adding "Knowingly and willingly" so that they can wriggle out via "It wasn't company policy!" later), and making a few valid points, especially:
Microsoft shall not take or threaten any action adversely affecting any OEM (including but not limited to giving or withholding any consideration such as licensing terms; discounts; technical, marketing, and sales support; enabling programs; product information; technical information; --information-about-future-plans--; [1] developer tools or developer support; (Where "info about future plans is crossed out").
That makes sense. You want to cut the company down to managability and so they have to compete again, not gut them. At first I thought that disclosure to a arbatraitor or government agent might work, but then - what would they look for, and what would they do if they saw it.
I also agree with MS that it's a bit vague. Possibly intentionally so? Maybe so it can be reworked through appeals and survive rather than being thrown out because of one stickler point?
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
All it takes is the first few lines of this document and you can clearly see it is the usual Microsoft BS they are trying to shove down DOJ throats not to mention everyone else. Die, Microsoft, DIE!...
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
At this point, I think about 75% of the benefit has been felt from the case. Practically every major computer company has embraced Linux one way or another, and the whole world has had a chance to see just how MS has behaved and make up their own minds about it based on the facts, not just MS's marketing.
We truly have choice in x86 OS's for the first time since OS/2 was introduced.
Cheers.............
Without laws I could kill people for no reason. But so too could I be killed.
By the way, laws against murder, theft, etc. are fundamental to society, because they are as close to absolute evils as anything. But the moral status of monopoly and business powers is as subjective as the Christian doctrine that premarital sex is evil.
Morality is not a cut-and-dry as it may seem to the majority believer. So what's the better path? Coming to power and enforcing your morals on whoever you reign over, believers or otherwise? No, I say the way to go is to allow people to make up their own minds, as long as they don't interfere with the ability of others to make up their own minds.
----------
"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
Legally or not, MS is being punished. The lawyers would do well to realize that.
...I responded to the one that offended me least...
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
Hey Moron, Microsoft hasn't done anything wrong. They will be cleared because they aren't a monopoly. They are the big fish, but when this finally gets to the supreme court, they will be cleared. There's nothing wrong with microsoft except that you don't like that they run themselves like a business (which is good) and aren't communists, like open-source businesses. Now cry for me. Please cry. Go back to your dorm ninny.
Now, Microsoft could try and flee to another country to avoid US court action but I doubt that would go over well with anyone: the court, the rest of the government, or even the US public. I think that's about the time we start seeing either extremely high import tariffs or an outright ban on Microsoft products (the court could concievably declare them contraband because Microsoft would be in contempt of court).
Basically, Microsoft trying to run from the decision would be a very bad thing for them. Remember, the US is a very large computer market and it would hurt Microsoft significantly to lose it and by leaving the country they'd be risking that too greatly.
Matt Leese
"IHV" means an independent hardware vendor that develops hardware to be included in or used with a personal computer that includes an Intel x86 or compatible microprocessor. [1]
[1] This change ensures that hardware vendors, particularly those with access to Microsoft's source code under Section 3.b, are manufacturing hardware that is used with "operating systems for Intel-compatible PCs," the market defined by the Court.
Interestingly they have added a limiation that puts Alpha (and other) based systems completely out of the picture.
--- This meme is memory intensive
Thy already lost you morron.Jackson found them guilty of violating the Sherman Act(1895...what an irony,MS,the software monoploy,beaten by a 19th century act!)and no matter what happens now,MS will face some form of punishment.Given the evidence against it from the antitrust case(Yeah,IE4 and Windows are iseprible without serious damage to the OS...unless you count 98lite!)MS will have an uphill battle getting an appeal.
Try listening to the news...other than
-------------------------------------------------
------------------------
------------------------
Thus Spake ComradePenguin
What people are arguing is that 90% access is NOT ACCEPTABLE, and puts them at a competitive disadvantage to Microsoft's own apps division, and that this behavior is anticompetitive. Is that so hard to understand?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Thad
Thad
This explains everything. They do everything they can to piss off the judge so that he gets mad and makes mistakes which gives the Appeals Court reason to overturn his judgement.
Microsoft have a contingency plan, they're going to sod off to Canada instead. All Canadians, write to your elected representative to demand that convicted criminals should not be allowed to continue committing crimes by moving to your country. After all, would you allow any other crime organisations to escape justice in the US by moving over the border. I don't think so.
In connection with any disclosure of APIs, Communications Interfaces or Technical Information required under this provision, Microsoft may require the persons to whom such disclosures are made to:
i. pay a reasonable royalty to Microsoft for use of its intellectual property; [7]
Bites!
ii. disclose to Microsoft any APIs or Communication Interfaces that such persons have implemented in their products to permit them to Interoperate with Microsoft Platform Software; [8] and
How about everyone disclosing their APIs?
iii. allow qualified representatives of Microsoft to inspect the source code for such persons' products in a secure facility for the sole purpose of ensuring their compliance with the requirement that Microsoft's source code be used only to enable third-party products to Interoperate with Microsoft Platform Software. [9]
I don't think so.
BS - we really should encourage OpenAPIs - what MS has done with Kerberos and doing with SOAP is BAD for ALL.
If MS wants to make suggestions that will be taken seriously, may the lawyers should base suggestions on negative effects to people outside MS. Arguing that losing the right to make pricing deals with OEMs will result in higher prices for consumers is more effective that just saying how unfair it is.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
The DOJ ruling is enforcing a separation of intellectual property between the two proposed companies.
Now, for those two companies to openly exchange source code would be a violation of the separation, they would just be acting as if they were one company. So...
Microsoft shall create a secure facility where qualified representatives of OEMs, ISVs, and IHVs shall be permitted to study, interrogate and interact with relevant and necessary portions of the source code and any related documentation of Microsoft [Windows] Platform Software
i.e. MS(app) can look at MS(win) code to "see how it works". MS aren't going to allow other app companies to look at windows code. No chance.
iii. allow qualified representatives of Microsoft to inspect the source code for such persons' products in a secure facility for the sole purpose of ensuring their compliance with the requirement that Microsoft's source code be used only to enable third-party products to Interoperate with Microsoft [Windows] Platform Software.
i.e. MS(win) can look at MS(app) code "check for compliance". No sane app company is going to let MS look at their code!
So, MS is trying to permit the very collusion which the separation would put in place!
From this, I disagree with those suggesting that MS wants to be broken up.
-Ian Woodhouse
"We can admit that we've been wrong," a spokesman for Microsoft said. "And it's time we corrected our mistakes. So, beginning today, we will release all of our software under the MGPL."
"Of course, there have been some changes," the spokesman continued. For one, the "click-wrap" license says that, by agreeing to it, the user agrees that all source code written by the user, upon any computer, using any operating system, shall be immediately emailed to Microsoft.
The license goes on to say that its terms "shall be utterly binding, without recourse, upon all entities, whether living or dead, everywhere, forever", and that the user "shall enforce the terms of this license, as a member of Microsoft's unholy Army of Terror."
The spokesman said Microsoft anticipated a positive response from the government. "And I think the public will be quite happy to help Microsoft defend its right to innovate -- after all, they will have the most important role."
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and writer of the original GPL, could not be reached for comment. An anonymous source at the FSF said that Stallman was "running for the hills."
Carousel is a lie!
The part I don't understand is why no one can show that MS does price their operating system and other products monpolistic. Consider that Windows 98 upgrade was priced at about $90US. For that price you get bug fixes, a nominally free IE user interface, some more device drivers, and that is about it. I don't know about you, but I would consider $90 for an upgrade, monopolistic pricing. And, notice no one mentioned how much it costs to buy Win 98 non-upgrade. Setting that point aside. What about monpolistic pricing of IE. Anyone who says IE is free doesn't realize that you are paying for it when you pay for the OS. So, MS can charge money for their web browser and netscape can't. That sounds liek monopolistic pricing to me. I am amazed at how many people out there canb't realize that MS is giving them the shaft, and they love them for it. Finally, has anyone else noticed that everyone newspaper opinion piece that is in MS favor is either written by some one who is currently eing paid or has at sometime in the past been paid by MS. Just a thought. Dastardly
Maybe, but MS has known about the security issues with LookOut for a long time. Just how many of these attacks have come trough that piece of junk for how long?
My employer has never been hit by those beasties because we refuse to use eith outLook or Exchange Server because of these very issues.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
-Oh Granny your eyes are BIG and RED!
-it's from rebooting WinNT servers all night, said the wolf
According to Radio 5 Live (a BBC news/sport channel), it's a bid by NTL (cable company), the offer is around £40 billion over ten years, giving NTL rights to broadcast on demand from every match played. Gates owns 5% of NTL
it's still a bid though, the announcement isn't due for a while. Whoever gets it will have a license to print money, if Sky's record is anything to go by.
TomV
If I were to kill someone, that would be a crime. If I were caught, I'd do at *least* 12 months or so... My point is, (and as always, I could be wrong) If Microsoft has broken the law, why are they still in business? If I had committed a crime, I would first be locked up, then given a trial, If I was found guilty, I would be locked up again until my sentencing. When I was sentenced, I would *Immediately* begin to serve my time. Microsoft has been accused, tried, and convicted. They have now been sentenced. Whats wrong with this picture? Could I as an individual get away with, "But I don't wanna go to jail, give me a few weeks so I can figure out something else instead..." I think Not. Were it not for the complete idiocy running rampant in this country, I might be offended. But I've figured out that it's the complete lack of logic that keeps the good old U.S.A. on top and in charge.
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Banning differentiated pricing helps. Forcing all their APIs to be open would make it useless to them to waste vast amounts of money trying to snuff out Netscape's layer of middleware [i.e. browser].
Also, the trial wasn't just about them bundling IE. It was also (amongst other things) about them punishing vendors for preinstalling Netscape. So banning differentiated pricing does help.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Gee, it's nice to see that they've finally embraced the concept of Open Source. Too bad they also "extended" it.
They can have all the source they want, if they're willing to disassemble the binaries and read the opcodes in asm!
Other than that, they'll only get my source <heston>"when they pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.</heston>
Or if I place it under the GPL. (O Ye Double-Edged Sword of GNU!)
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
it's for MS Research, and can be found here
this is my sig.
If these complete jokes are what they actually want you to see, imagine what they've their legal team has managed to hide in that proposal.
They are not stupid- they are _crazy_. I think you could safely call them psychotic, because their idea of how the world works is wildly at variance with reality. They not only think it would be capitalism's finest moment if they sold _all_ computer software (100% of the market), they also believe implicitly that they are morally entitled to override the government anytime they want. It's not stupidity that's caused their astonishing actions- it's hubris on a mind boggling scale. That is the reality. We're talking about people who respond to threats with "Okay, next let's buy a President and get the Supreme Court replaced" kind of thinking, without a _thought_ to how outrageous this seems to a normal person.
Oh and so I won't get modded down as flamebait.
Go Linux Go! Go DOJ!, Boo Microsoft, Bill Gates is Evil.
But the shareholder isn't even a real person (well, most of MSFT is Bill Gates), in most cases shareholders are transient, disconnected, and usually uninterested in anything other than increasing their portfolio. Who the hell sinks $100,000 into a venture.capitalist.com because they want to improve the standard of living and services available to people? Only a damn fool excuse for an investor.
Real innovations come from people who usually start out not giving a damn about how much money their going to make out of it -- they're usually driven by curiosity and and imagination. Not stock options. People who spend more time thinking about the money they might make off of something tend to fall short of the "innovative" range and end up somewhere in the "marginally improved" area.
My solution? Well, perhaps not one specific to MS, but I would suggest that these companies should be run (in other words, owned) by the people who would be doing the innovation: the developers (and the supporting personnel, of course). Not by shareholders.
But I suppose that would just people too much to ask for, huh, if someone could receive the fair share of profit made from their blood and sweat?
[pink beam of light]
Sure, it's far-fetched, but MS has shown itself to be positively Clintonesque; I don't doubt that they have many people looking for any possible workaround to whatever is finally adopted.
The government's proposal contains language to create a mechanism to ensure that Microsoft has to answer for any technical tricks that break compatibility with other products. Microsoft modestly proposes to change the language from "effectively interoperate" to just "interoperate".
Does anyone besides me smell a rat?
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Good thing you posted as an AC. I can envision a multitude of people hunting you down. HAve you calmed down yet....? Racketeering...extortion..? I think you would be better served spending less time jerking off and more time reading the dictionary. (Particularly the definition of extortion) You sir, are a complete clusterfuck.
Thanks for agreeing with me on this one.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Yup, and the Beeb have a report on this. Never mind Terence and Philip, I think this is something that might start a war.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
What with Microsoft and all the other crap lately involving MP3's, the UCITA, I just really do wonder what kind of world we're living in today. It makes me both angry and sad to see a world that is run by corporations, and seeing Microsoft make their suggestions as to how they should be punished just makes me realize how screwed we, the people who frequent /. and actually keep up on the all the in's and out's of the industry, are.
Go in peace my friend. These are dark times.
In court, Microsoft takes an aggressive, stance, not budging an inch, even trying at every turn to gain ground in an exasperating defiance of judgment against them. And in the business world they have not mellowed their activities, even stepped them up, showing apparent mad recklessness in continuing a strategy that has landed them in court already. At first I found this all outrageous, but it makes perfect sense. They are simply trying to grab maximum territory before the borders are drawn. I don't think their executives and laywers are deceived into thinking they have full control of the situation. They are planning and acting like mad behind the scenes for the next step in the game. Their behavior in court is buys time, useful for many reasons, among them running rampant in the remaining good months to offset any eventual rollback.
This is an excellent idea.
There is nothing wrong with the BSD license for this. Even if that requires you to insert "this portion based on code that is (C) MicroSoft" into your code. It will allow anybody (free and commercial) to read the files.
I don't think obfuscation of the code is a problem. The output only has to be usable. There should be a requirement that the "usability" of this output be agreed to by independent parties.
"encoding" is not necessary, only "decoding". This could actually be a revenue source for MicroSoft. They may come up with extremely clever compression schemes and can keep those secret as long as the result can be decoded. If they are clever they may figure out a scheme that everybody can read, but nobody can produce as good of a file as they can.
This rule should be applied to all companies producing information appliances, not just MicroSoft. Or require it for government purchases.
The clueless moron wrote:
"What M$ has done is worse than killing people."
I'll give you a choice: I could kill you now, or force you to use Windows for the next 10 years... which would you choose?
You are entirely full of shit if you believe M$s actions are worse than murder and rape.
Go back and hide under your bridge, you clueless troll.
They also wouldn't pleas Microsoft and wouldn't satisfy the "hang them high" crowd. Here they are. Very simple and with details that can be worked out latter.
1. Volume Pricing. Simply put they can't sell to the goy buying 1,000,000 units for less than they sell to the goy buying 2,000,000 units.
2. For each program they produce which generates document files or communicates across the network they must produce a simple file viewer or packet catcher ( where appropriate ) that is 100% compatible. No bells or whistles at all required. The catch is that this viewer must be under a BSD license and come with the full source code.
3. At Microsoft's own discretion they can use an IETF owned format instead of following #2 above. When they do it this way the I*ETF must approve the compatibility of each release.
Note that MS may interchange 2 and 3 at it's own discretion but not ignore them both. #1 is not optional however. They would of course need a whole new set of arguments to combat these remedies. After all they have no impact on what MS claims it wants aside from posibly increasing development costs a little.
For the user it would solve all the choice issues in one fell swoop.
PS: Too bad the Judge in this case won't ever here or care about this sort of thing.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
I know it was a lame post, its late, get over it.
tcd004
Here's what Microsoft wants to do.
I searched the doc on the words "source code" I recommend you do the same the doc is very large and boring you will get the the good parts with in 4 or 5 hits. This seems to be part of a sudo open source argument that will not work. They state that third parties can look at Microsoft source code with in a secure area (no taking it home to study) for compatibility purposes and they want to be able to do the same. They claim they don't want people stealing there technology with out paying royalties. This all sound fair and good so far kind of like an open source club Microsoft style. The catch is that they state that they will not let anyone see code that has third party code in it for it will violate the third parties intellectual rights. Quick how much of Microsoft stuff has been written by others a shit load of it They are infamous of buying what they cant or will not write for them selves. They mix enough some one else's code they license or they license all of the code and only get exclusive rights to sell and everyone is back where we started. They don't seem to want this added code to be open like it would be under the GPL. This is why half-harted attempts at open source and or Free Software dont work and the and the GPL does. NICE TRY MICROSOFT WE KNOW YOU TOO WELL TO FALL FOR THAT CRAP.
1:You don't even know how to spell Microsoft.
2:Microsoft has open API's. Ever read msdn.microsoft.com? Didn't think so.
3:SOAP is an open standard created by Microsoft, and supported by IBM and countless other companies (aside from Sun)
4:I like the fact that you expect Microsoft to give away their API's and source code, and don't expect the same from others.
Doesn't matter anyway. This case is paper thin, and won't make it through appeals. I'd encourage you to read "Trust on Trial". Of course, it has lots of big words, so keep a dictionary handy.
The quick comment: Did someone at MS run this through the sarcasterizer at Brunching or something? A lot of "phrases" are being surrounded by "quotation marks" at odd times. Or is "MS" being run by "Dr. Evil"?
The short version would be:
1) The government is being vague. Really, really vague. How should we know what a "browser" is, anyway? It's just part of our operating system, like IE 5 for "Macintosh" is.... oh.
2) Microsoft shall, for a period of 60^H^H90^H^H120^H^H^Hperpetuity, conduct "business" as usual.
3) Where it shall not "conflict" with item (2), Senior officers and Managers of Microsoft shall fling boogers at "David Boies" on sight.
4) We didn't do "it". Nobody saw us do "it". You can't "prove" anything.
That about sums it up...
p.s. Yes, I feel dirty after reading that whole thing.
The point isn't that Microsoft integrated IE into the OS. Nor is it that Microsoft is a monopoly.
Both of these are ok.
The problem is what Microsoft did with its monopoly power, of which integrating IE is just one example.
Microsoft didn't integrate IE because they thought it would benefit users. They did it to lock Netscape and any other browser out of the market, Why, because Microsoft saw the browser as a new platform that could make the OS superfluous.
As I said this is just one example of Microsofts behavior, aka extend and embrace. And that (along with an incompetent legal team) is why the DOJ is looking to break them up.
Steve M
what exactly defines an operating system? Is it the software? is it the applications? something more abstract?
.02 - that make .04. If we keep this thread up for a while we'll have a dollar.
You argue that IE is not a part of Windows. My argument is that it doesn't necessarily *have* to not be. With the immensely increasing popularity of the internet, one could successfully argue that one distinct feature of their os is the inherent ability to allow you browse the internet. You can't really say that this is *not* a part of an OS.
just my
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
>been following? No one is suggesting breaking
>them up.
actually, the guy whose post i was responding to seemed to be advocating breaking them up.
>>> it isn't an issue of what benefits the consumer or the industry, but an issue of basic right and wrong.
>Correct. They broke the law, they get punished.
I said "right" and "wrong," not "legal" and "illegal."
>Or is being rich & successful an excuse to be
>able to ignore the law
This is not at all what I was saying. My point was that it is wrong for the government to intervene and publish companies who succeed in their business; not that such companies have the luxury of ignoring the laws, but that the laws themselves should not be in place.
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"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
Netscape made good software. Then they were eclipsed by MS.
:)
Do you think it had anything to do with the drastic change in income that MS caused? I do.
Of course, I may not know what I'm talking about, but it sounds good.
-jay
So they want to look at competitor's source code? Like they did with Quicktime a few years back? Lets hope they don't accidentally Copy and Paste it into one of their projects like they did the last time.
Thank you for playing, now step to the back of the class.
Al Capone was "a little shady". Stalin was "a little shady". Yet they both rose to the top of their perspective fields. Do they deserve my respect for their achievments? No.
As the old saying goes, it's not weather you win or loose, it's how you play the game. Micros~1 has spent years making enymies around the software industry and, in Washington. All thet bad Karma(and Greg) has finally caught up to them and they're going to get a taiste of the cluestick. I just hope they learn from their mistakes.
On the issue of bundeling, I would like to provide you with a small example. Suppose you're offered a free tank of gas with the purchase of a new car. It would be factual that you payed $29,980 for the tank of gas and got the car for $20. It would also be factual that you payed $30,000 for the car and got the gas for free. The fact is, you've payed for both.
They only reason ms chose the bundeling route is that they were not gaining share, and they had abide by the consent decree they agreed to with the government.
___
Maybe they needed some time to stop laughing and compose themselves.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
MS's real problem isn't the DOJ or JudgeJackson(JJ), but windows itself. Windows increasingly is turning out to be a malignant cancer infecting MS's image and long term income potential. MS would have jumped on the Linux bandwagon eons ago if it weren't for windows... ...rite...
What are the options? 1)'fix' the problem; 2)kill/paralyze it; 3)cut it away.
2) is excluded for obvious reasons; 1) is economically and technically unviable, so only 3) is left: cut it away... but how?
3a) Spin it off into a daughter company (vertical split)? And have the parent start working on Linux applications? How do you explain that to your shareholders(doh)? to your market? What would be the effects on the parent company? Could have worked (but would have been unnecessary and suspicious) before Linux (really) entered the arena, but isn't a viable option any longer.
3b) 'Split it off'? (Horizontal split, Microsoft doesn't own stock of the new company) = the unthinkable, unless...
Unless someone else does it FOR YOU. (After a 'brave' fight, of course...)
Someone like JJ 'n' da DOJ, for instance.
So Ballmer shouts:'Do NOT... S P L I T U S U P !'
Of course MS will have to appeal/settle, so JJ comes up with a cool appendix: the IE corporation(???); to be appealed/settled away...
And so MS gets its 2-way split into the Windows Corporation (WC, Flemish abbrev. for toilet) and Microsoft'sNotWindows Corporation (MSNWC). WC obviously develops and markets (and whatevers) the windows OS, while MSNWC focuses on all the other ex-MS products. Although some initial cooperation might occur, MSNWC quickly goes on to develop Linux (and *BSD,...?) versions of MS office, IE, games, etc. and even creates their own Microsoft'sNotWindowsLinux (what's in a name), effectively 'forcing' WC to open up the secret api's, to develop versions of windows for other platforms, or even go open source in a desperate attempt to stay ahead of the competition. Needless to say, windows will no longer be a threat to the long-term survival of the new MS, MSNWC.
MSNWC (...to be continued)
(Wonder if MSNWC's gonna be barred from OS development...)
As far as monopolistic business practices otherwise. Would you step to the front of the room please if you would have done any different (open source developers, you don't count because you're not entirely greedy :P ) The point is that M$ followed valid business practices.
That is besides the point of antitrust law.
In antitrust law, a fundamental tenet is that you cannot take actions that hurt consumers in order to hurt your competition more. M$ dumped billions on IE for no profit and no benefit for consumers - in order to hurt netscape. M$ made consumers pay more for Windows on IBM machines to hurt IBM, who at the time maintained the right to sell OS/2. M$ threatened to withdraw M$ Office for Macintosh unless Apple got on board and preloaded IE - expediting the killing of netscape. M$ strongarmed all the OEM outlets for netscape in order to cut off netscape's air supply - and remove choice from the consumer who was less likely to download and install netscape.
The list of violations goes on and on. M$ made consumers pay so that it could eradicate the competition in browser space. That is what antitrust is about.
Standard Oil used to put up gas stations across the street from existing gas stations and sell gas at a loss until the competition went out of business - then the maximal possible prices were extracted. That is the sort of violation antitrust law seeks to stop. M$ was horribly in violation - and separating the monopoly with leverage (Windows) from the products with competition (all apps and the internet business) is appropriate and fair.
Billy boy, you'd best be glad I'm not the judge, 'cause I'd be a-reamin' you.
On a side note, myself and a friend find it very hard to believe Microsoft fucked this case up so badly. At worst, they could have tied it up in court for ever. We're wondering if they didn't plan for this to happen. The alternative is mind boggling -- that the executives of a company that managed to capture the majority of the software marketpace could be so blind, stupid and/or niave as to think they could actually win the case with the strategy they used.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I was figuring that poor M$ didn't do much but be too succesful. I was remembering that they really did do a lot to standardize the industry and introduce people to the internet...and really, even as big as they were, they were the underdog that came from behind, building a company from nothing through hardwork.
Well, thank you for showing your true colors M$. Thank you for reminding me to put off my nostalgia until you are succesfully 6 feet deep.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Typical Microsoft Zealot.
"Firstly, let me say that I hate MS Software as much as the next guy."
Yeah, right. This is to make one think he's not a Microsoft Zealot. But the truth comes out later.
"MS is not a monopoly because other OS' exist."
Under antitrust law you don't have to have an absolute monopoly. It is the degree of market share, something like 65% ??, and the abuse of market power that is the problem, not the degree of your monopoly.
This entire case is a witchhunt supported by Nazis like Stalinman and McNealy. One is motivated by a bunch of libberish, while the other is motivated by sheer jealousy. Scotty boy, you had your chance, you lost. Quit your bitchin. That goes for the rest of you too.
Be sure to get the pissy flame bait in there. Another indicator of a Microsoft Zealot.
and be broken up by this consent decree? It sounds like not only does Microsoft want to be able to continue doing business as usual, they want to force the government to do the company's research. Imagine if they had done this kind of "action" with the Bell System? We'd still have cr*ppy phone lines and no choice.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses