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Netscape Co-Founder Wants IE To Stay With Windows
Wister285 writes: "In a rather intersting turn of events, Netscape co-founder Jim Clark said that he would rather see Microsoft's Internet Explorer stay with the Windows software, should the company be broken up as planned, despite Microsoft's promised appeals. He says that the Microsoft-Other-Software-Company could use the software in a more harmful manner than Microsoft-Windows-Company would. Makes sense... Microsoft-Other Software-Company has a larger grasp on the market (which would most likely be all OSs)." The difficulty with directed outcomes raises its ugly little head again. Where's Harry [that's "Hari" -- mea culpa. timothy] Seldon when you need him?
The trick here is that when the trial started, Netscape was griping that IE would somehow find its way to being the dominant browser due to Microsoft's sneaky tricks and evil influence.
The year is 2000. Educated guess is that MSIE claims more than 60% of the browser market. If Windows and IE had been split two years ago, it would have been a whole different story-- Netscape could have retained its dominance on the Windows platform before MSIE and Win95/98 had all their APIs happily fused into a homogeneous juggernaut.
On the other hand, at this point, two companies would see the IE people leverage their Windows dominance to grab the other OSes. If MS's breakup does as much damage to the Windows monopoly as [we] all hope, then it will be much more critical for Netscape (AOL?) to retain cross-platform dominance.
Look at that, my Loonie is up.
As a pure app company, the-company-formerly-known-as-Microsoft would surely port the IE browser to other platforms, most notably Unix/Linux. Considering that the Windows version of IE (IMHO as a web developer) soundly trounces Netscape, seems that Jim Clark has a vested interest in protecting his browser's remaining strongholds and preventing a "full-strength" multi-platform IE from taking his weaker browser's market share. After all, Netscape has shown that it would rather compete with litigation instead of providing a rich, full-featured product.
In a way yes, in a way no. There is nothing illigal about MS bundeling there browser with windows. There is on the other hand a lot illigal about MS barring there OEM's from bundeling Netscape (or some other compeating technology) in addition/place of it. This is the point that many people seem to be missing. Saying that its illigal for Ms to simply to bundle there browser is akin to saying it illigal for them to include notepad for solitare simply because there are other third party clones compeating with those products too. Its the fact that Microsoft flat out threatened and barred there OEM's from distributing NS that is what made it an illigal product tie.
--
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
-John Gilmore
So, does this mean that AOL should be broken up too?
If they were using illegal practices to exclude competitors from markets, yes. Give me evidence of that, and I will be happy to call for them to be broken up. Given that AOL has nowhere near 90% of the Internet/online market as Microsoft does in the OS and office software markets, I see little reason to think they are a monopoly.
Or Apple
A company that has, what, 5% of their market?
Its not being big, or being successful that is what is wrong with Microsoft, despite their whining to that effect. It is the fact that they got that way and stay that way by doing illegal things.
Actually, so long as IIS is separated from NT, we're probably safe. Right now, IIS is `free' (i.e. bundled) with NT. This means any company with NT servers automatically has an NT+IIS WWW server on their hands - so why would they want to use another WWW server like Apache? They've already got one!"
Because some of us do not like IIS! My Windows 2000 intranet server runs Xitami exclusively. I have tried IIS and it generated too many errors, plus it bitched about PHP extensions. I have also tried Apache, and was not impressed on the 2000 platform. So Xitami it is! Disclaimer: I am sure that some IIS guru could make PHP work well enough, just as I am sure that Apache can be made to perform wonderfully on a Windows 2000 platform. The thing is, Xitami works great with minimal effort on my part, and I can show the other people in the office how to work with the configuration easily enough.
The reason I do not run Linux + Apache (or Roxen) on this server is because no one else in my shop is comfortable with these technologies. I am working on that though!
Microsoft didn't like this, so they built these features into IE4. In the meantime, Netscape decided they didn't like the project, didn't want to anger MS anymore, or whatever, and gave up their desktop integration project. But the MS project started to compete with it had already gained critical mass, so the Web and Windows became one. (Not really. But that's what they want you to think.)
Just as IE was bought from another company that had been working on a Mosaic-based browser (you can't see any information about where MS got the original project, but IE contains the message that it is based on NCSA Mosiac.) so that MS could stop Netscape from dominating this new market, the desktop integration was originally developed for the same reason.
Personally, I find most of the Web integration features annoying. I hate it when KDE opens an HTML document itself instead of launching something else. (one of the main reasons I don't use KDE). But whether you like or hate it, it is important to remember that MS didn't think this up to force Netscape out of the market, they thought it up to keep up with Netscape. It just went horribly wrong and MS turned it into a strategy.
Anyone else remember the Netscape desktop integration project? I can't recall any details, not even certain about the name.
it's green.
I believe there is a version of IE for HP-UX, at least there was a port of 4.....
------------------------------------------
If God Droppd Acid, Would he see People???
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
sigh.... sad sci-fi spod moment: it ain't *harry*...
And this is where the problems begin. Already due to Netscape's horrible implementation of W3C standards IE is favored by web developers all over (the horrible browser object model doesn't help much). Already some sites are becoming MSIE specific because developers do not want to maintain one site for IE and a less rich site for Netscape. Heck!!! I'm into Open Source and a browser agnostic but yet when the time came for some friends and I to design (coding starts in the fall) a secure messageboard/instant messaging service accesible over the web for use by a local company for our final project we ended up deciding that all the cool stuff would be in the IE version while we'd just make sure that the page displayed with no hijinks for Netscape. This decision is actually better than what most companies are doing or plan to do in the future. This is what scares me and Jim Clark, what happens when users need to use IE to use MS Office, or when developers can only develop for MSIE with Visual Studio? Considering that MSIE is the predominant browser on the platforms on which it exists it doesn't take much imagination to MSFT Applications Company becoming a new kind of cross-platform monopoly. This is why Jim Clark is scared and wants IE to stay with Windows.
Asimov... Whoop! :)
Hardly a valid comparison.
Noone is suggesting that the company be liquidated and the people running it be forbidden from owning businesses for a period of time. (Hey! On second thoughts... ;-)
No, in all seriousness, they've broken the law, they've been caught and the law is being applied. Its pretty much as simple as that at the end of the day. Don't like the law? Lobby your nearest politician. In the meantime out of the way- pass the popcorn, we want to watch the breakup!
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"As I see it AOL is actually a much bigger evil than Microsoft. Somehow don't like the idea of media companies that are not economically independent.
"If you can prove that [innovation was stifled] I will shut up forever."
Unfortunately, this is not a provable statement so I'm not really going to debate it.
This is easily provable. In the findings of fact you see that Microsoft forced Intel to can its media software research lab with a "credible and fairly terrifying threat". He loses, and has to shut up forever (his suggestion).
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Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
It didn't bug me at all that AOHell bought Netscape...I never used it (still don't, not even after switching my desktop to Linux...the only browsers I use are Lynx, KFM, and IE (running under Win98, which runs under VMware)). It bothered me a little when they bought Nullsoft...that was the first company they bought that produced something I actually used. Still, other MP3 players were (and are) available. If they're allowed to buy Time Warner, I'll be pissed. I'd rather not give up Looney Tunes and such, but it'd be needed to stay AOHell-free if the merger goes through. :-| They can have CNN (the Clinton News Network) for all I care, but leave Bugs alone!
_/_
/ v \
(IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
\_^_/
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
You know, you have a point. I mean, programs which just display files are basically not that important. Things like MS-Word, Excel, Emacs, Acrobat, Quicktime, are essentially of no consequence. ;-)
;-)
Seriously, browsers are becoming the defacto interface to just about everything. They are much more than just parsing and displaying HTML, which most Linux browsers do just fine. Browsers are software platforms, hosting scripting languages, multi-media plugins, and Java programs. On top of that they are probably the most commonly used piece of software that speaks a network protocl, so they also dictate a lot of what goes on over networks.
Another way to look at it would be to list all the things one can do with a browser. We're talking banking, shopping, research, communication, tax filing, etc., etc. Just think of how much you can do with an iOpener, which is essentially a "browser terminal".
Browsers are about as small potatoes today as GUI's were in the 90's. That is to say that they aren't everything, they're the only thing.
sigs are a waste of space
Don't you mean Hari Seldon (c.11988G.E. - 12069G.E.[3 F.E.]) ??? And on a related note, I wonder if R.Daneel Olivaw runs Linux? I mean, would Windows handle a 20,000 year uptime?
There are 10 kinds of people; those who know ternary, those who don't, and those now hunting for a dictionary.
The reason I personally hated the old (united) Microsoft is its dominance of the desktop OS market with a crappy OS (95/98), and that it used this power to leverage its applications into the market... Now that each company has to compete, if they're to survive they have to write better software than their competitors... If this means they write a Linux version of Office or Outlook, I say go for it.. If the software is competitive and featureful (I LOVE Outlook), I'm all about it.. Don't go hating Microsoft just because they're Microsoft.
IE is in fact not integrated. If you've ever checked your registry, then you'll know that there are file associations in the ROOT area, that is where the asscociation of the kernel api's look for program execution. It is infact, possible to make ANY program open when you click on the 'My Computer' Icon... IE is embeded as a object, and assigned a class to the folder type. IE can be removed, it just will take knowledge of what to remove. I have infact done this to a 98 machine, but its really useless thing to do, because you end up with the look of win95, and a lot of lost time... Netscape, IMHO, does not even match IE. Lots of people complain about how bad IE is, well, I have Windows 95/98/2k and CE, I have rarly any problems, and I run everything from DEV tools to Games. I can't believe that everyone on the planet has this much trouble running a os. If you don't know how to run your os, you will probably crash/break it in some way, how long did it take you people to learn how to use linux? If you started on linux and tried to use windows, you would probably crash it just as much as people with less knowledge do. There is probably alot more that I could say, but your getting my drift, everything has a upside and a downside. You are given the choice to view whatever side you want.
which one of those companies would make games? the hardware company? (XBox?) or apps or what?
fantastic.
The last 3 books out of the five were the best
books I'd ever read. Still are. Better than
sliced ham, slashdot, and cowboyneal!
Funny, I never read the first or second. I didn't
really understand everything that was happening
until book 4. The ending to 5 was frigin wonderful.
digitalunity - taking offtopic-ness to new heights
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
In its zeal to tear apart the Windows OS, the government has managed to miss almost all of the monopolistic "ties" that give MS its power.
Separating Office from Windows is good, and it's probably the most important pair. But all of the various clients and servers are still in the same company (rather than leaving the servers with the OS,) which allows MS to push incompatible protocols; Java and Visual Studio are still together, leaving no incentive to keep Visual J++ standard; I'm sure there are other examples. It's only the poor OS division which is left without much monopolistic leverage.
IE is actually a tricky case, because MS has two potential angles on it: It can tie it to IIS, or it can tie it to content on MSNBC or MSN. I suppose separating IE from both IIS and "MS content" would work, but any way you do it, one company is going to end up with an odd combination of properties.
(And no, splitting MS into more companies is not the solution. The government can't just go messing around with the economy at will... They have an obligation to do only what is absolutely necessary to "fix" the problem. I'm not even convinced that splitting MS at all is appropriate, let alone splitting it more than two ways. Anyway, if the government did split MS three ways, we already know that they'd leave IE and content in the same company, which doesn't accomplish anything.)
MSK
Hrrrm, I wonder if IIS wouldn't still be in there though. I notice you don't say anything about IE either.
Oh, sorry, that should have read "Task Scheduler".
As for legacy, you are wrong.. legacy is a relative term, and you can definitely consider the drive lettering convention legacy.
I say this because they're getting rid of it at the low level, and only exists to the user.
The sad thing is that even if that were to happen, Microsoft's Internet division would support the OS division with all its might.. and vice versa..
So at best, IE won't be forced upon Windows users(I do not believe it is now, actually), it'll simply be heavily suggested.
My impressions is, that this whole deal with splitting up Microsoft, is going to makke microsoft better and stronger in the long run.
Today, their API is a horrible mess of inconcistent calls to inconsistent subsystems, where someone with real knowledge about what's happening in the deeper layers of the OS might have a chance of actually implementing something usable. But for the rest of us, it's black magic.
If Microsoft is forced to open up for more of their specs, eventually forced (my market) to implement and design a usable API, that will not only benefit the 2. Microsoft (the applications department) but also the rest of us.
My guess is, that in two years from now, Microsoft will either have an API that is sufficently similar to POSIX, or they will be in the same position on the desktop as Netware find themselve on the server market today.
Ok, Microsoft API designers (and their managers) aren't the smartes people on earth, obviously (to anyone who've looked at Win32 at least). But they may not be _that_ stupid after all. Win2K has mountponts, maybe the next Win3K5 (or whatever) will have a select() call that works on pipes (generally), sockets, and file descriptors. Maybe they will have a CreateProcess() call that takes less than 10 arguments, it could even be a fork(). Maybe, just maybe, they will learn.
If this happens, we could have a WindowsXXXX platform which would actually be of real use to people who need more than one computer in a network. This could position Windows among the other '70s technology platforms that are in use today, *BSD, Linux, etc. This would be a giant breakthrough for the platform from the '80s that chose to never learn from history otherwise.
Cheers, to whatever the future brings. I personally doubt we'll see the boneheads suddenly starting to learn, but then again, you never know.
Yes, I know this whole mess is flamebait, but sometimes you just get fed up...
Come on - I don't have to install HotJava with Solaris, I don't have to install Netscape with RedHat, etc. etc. etc. As an OEM shipping Linux, I can modify the desktop any way it suits me, (including stripping out a browser and adding my own) whereas
WITH MS, I DON'T HAVE A CHOICE, I HAVE TO INSTALL IE.
If you don't see what MS did as illegal product tying, as opposed to product promotion, then you either A) Work for MS and agree with the practice, or B) Haven't been fighting with MS products for the past 4 years, reading the paper, or BOOTING YOUR PC.
OK, I'm finished now.
Cyano
Don't like my sig? I don't either.
Two things here
I fail to see how breaking IE out of Windows is going to help consumers. Consumers are going to have to pay MORE for new computers since the OEMs are going to have to license whatever browser they opt to include with the Operating System. Do not kid yourself, if IE was broken out of the OS, companies such as Netscape will get back on the 50$/license bandwagon.
The second issue is this: Why do I keep seeing comments such as "Does this mean Microsoft will write Office 2000 for Linux?". No! There is no money to be made there. Even with the SMALL userbase linux has, the majority of that is the Server marketplace. Do you have any idea how servers are used? They sit idle, no user at the console... Serving. That's what they are intended to do. Linux is *NOT* a desktop operating system (It could be, yes, but it isnt presently). If there was ANY os Microsoft Applications would be ported to, it would be MacOS . They have already ported IE and office to this platform. Aside from MacOS, the *nix variants that would get applications would be the likes of Solaris, HP-UX, etc. Not Linux. Why not? The cost of technical support would outweigh any profit gained. Linux is a changing entity, its too chaotic to be a viable platform for application development.
The nature of public companies is that they have a duty to maximize shareholder value. If the board violates this, they are held liable, even to the point of jail time.
With MS as 1 company, the sort of cross-subsidy reasoning that lead to such otherwise incomprehensible decisions as spending gobs of money to make IE and then give it away for free made a certain sense for the interests of the shareholders. But to take actions that hurt your shareholders (no office ports) in order to benefit somebody else's shareholders (MS Windows Corp) is a breach of the board's responsibilities and somebody is going to jail for that conspiracy to defraud the stockholders.
In other words modern US capitalism is going to force the ports because the alternative is personally horrific for the board of MS Apps.
DB
Netscape had an effective monopoly over the browser market by virtue of being the dominant browser before IE. Netscape attempted to leverage this monopoly to render the desktop irrelevant by encouraging developers to write against its APIs, bundling mail software, news readers, etc. as part of the browser.
Now they don't like it if the Applications company might do the same. They didn't think a browser belonged as part of the OS (as long as it was a Microsoft OS - all other OS'es should ship browsers with the OS and that's a Good Thing[tm])
This case begins to sound more and more like a baby getting beaten at a game he was playing and wanting mommy to go beat up the big bad people who defeated him.
Mmmm.. Donuts
ACK!
That is a _really_ scary thought. Just think about it for a sec.. if micro$oft (someone should trademark that before microsoft does ) made IIS serve pages, say, 10% (or whatever was deemed to be un-noticeable to the people buying IIS - who probably use microsoft clients anyway) faster to its own clients then to its competitors.. I mean, sure most (60%) of sites use apache, but there is still a scarily high amount of sites using IIS..
Yet another reason we need lots of little microsoft companies.. it wouldn't be the first time - MaBell had 7 (I think its 7) babies :)
SSL Certificate
From his point of view, microsoft has granted him a monopoly on big browsers on the other OSes.. all that could change in a hurry should microsoft2 (any guesses on how the naming scheme will work?) decide to port IE.. they will no longer have any vested interest in keeping all the stuff on whinedoze..
<RANT>Perhaps this belongs more in the original microsoft split post, but has it occured to anyone other then me that microsoft's latest monopoly trick is with their windows media player? They have been doing a lot of development on it lately, and pushing it a lot too.. if media is only available for windows.. if documents are only available for windows (ha! we beat them there.. mm, staroffice, mm, catdoc, mm, etc.) if development tools a 9 year old can use (yes, I used vis basic when I was 9... I suppose it taught me part of why their software is so unreliable), the list goes on with yet another, less observed method that they try for a monopoly..</RANT>
SSL Certificate
I think that is a bit oversimplified. If what you say is true, how come all the Linux browsers right now suck compared to IE?
I'm not trolling, I'm serious. You might recall an article on here a few months back that pointed out that one of the biggest problems we have with Linux is web browsing; It's something that everyone does, but our OS doesn't do it half as well as the oppositions OS. If it's so simple, then whats the holdup on Mozilla? If it's so simply, why are we loosing so horribly?
I am a Network Administrator for an ISP. I have delt with customers quite a bit, and I can't count the number of times I have asked a customer what their OS was, and got the response "Internet Explorer" or "Netscape".
You might want to quantify the browser as just a tool like 'troff', and to you (and allot of us I'm sure) it might be, but that doesn't make it true to everyone.
Besides, I don't think the DOJ has been focusing on the browser at the expense of everything else, I just think they are being thorough, and who would argue with that?
Sigs are awesome huh?
Well of course he didn't say anything about IE, as it wasn't in the discussion! Web servers and browsers are rather different things. After all, your instructions didn't mention getting rid of Netscape or the builtin KDE browser (called khtml? not sure).
And if you remove IIS, it is gone. It does not stay around. It is not integrated with the OS any more than Apache is.
I'd hate to see Apache on NT (yeah I knows its there)...still working out some of the probs I have with Perl / IIS. I'm not slamming Apache as I use it almost exclusively for one of my side businesses, but were all geeks there and it makes sense. Use the best tool for the job, and don't try to shoehorn software where it doesn't fit: Microsoft already does enough of that for us...
clif
Microsoft was only able to bully others once they gained a monopoly.
That's not correct. Microsoft was in the bullying business long before it had a monopoly. Perhaps you don't remember how Seattle Computer was legally forced to give up their licence to sell MS Dos? There are countless examples of such behaviour. Heck, there's even a story that Bill Gates forced Paul Allen to give up part of his originally-equal share in Microsoft.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
We all know that sometimes, a having a Windows OS around comes in handy, even if just for testing cross-platform stuff. And so I've considered installing NT4, or more recently, Win2k on a box. But then I see the price tag... Win2k is ~$250 for a single license. You can get OEM versions CHEEP for $150 without docs, sometimes. But I'm sorry, I'm not going to pay that much. Not when you look at what you get. After all,
And so even though it'd be nice to play around with Win2k, I just can't justify paying that obscene amount of money. If IT managers would stop looking at Windows as "just what people are supposed to do" and see it as a competitor in the whole server OS market... oh, if only...
I'm just stunned that in this day and age NT is still being installed on servers. But our IT departments are being run by clueless Redmond drones that think being able to run NT means you're proficient with computers. Sad, sad, sad.
I was complaining about the cost of NT to my dad recently. Most of his computer experience comes from working in an office for the past fifteen years. He says, "Sure, it costs $250, but when you look at what you get for the money..." And I cut him off and started explaining what you don't get for the money, and how UNIX solutions give you better performance, reliability, stability, et cetera, and provide low TCO and high ROI. (And MCSEs demand the same salaries as trained Unix admins, so staffing for MS really isn't cheaper.) He had never heard of Solaris, and I received a blank stare for most of the conversation. (Don't worry, I'm used to it.) Wow, what a sad state the IT world is in, eh? When NT is thought to be state-of-the-art?
Never underestimate the power of a smart businessman. Windows has perservered and thrived despite being technically inferior to UNIX and harder to use than MacOS, two systems that are mature and talk to each other just fine, all because Gates and his staff are brilliant (if not ethical) business people. We should be thankful that they didn't set their sights on doing something really bad.
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I like to watch.
too bad i don't have moderator access because i really laughed my ass off on this one!
--
J Perry Fecteau, 5-time Mr. Internet
Ejercisio Perfecto: from Geek to GOD in WEEKS!
--
And Justice for None
This may be an unpopular opinion here on Slashdot, but if you consider Microsoft's target audience, integrating I.E. into Windows was actually quite a smart thing to do (yes, I know they did it for the wrong reasons, i.e. to stamp out Netscape, but still...).
Most people use their home pc's (MS's main target) to type letters, play games and surf the web. So it's kind of convenient if your gaming interface, wordprocessor and webbrowser all work together in your OS. It saves you from having to figure out a different user interface (Netscape 6/Mozilla/Whatever), which, for most users, is a Good Thing. In fact, they should have integrated MS-Works/Office into Windows as well (well, they have, try installing Office 2000 and see how many of your original system DLL's are replaced) but I suppose they figured out they could make more money by selling it separately. As it turns out, though, for most home pc's this doesn't make much of a difference, since your average Compaq/Dell/Gateway pc comes with Windows and MS-Works pre-installed, so as far as your mom is concerned it is integrated with the OS.
Microsoft is actually moving towards creating a well rounded, userfriendly (compared to Linux or Mac-aka-the-root-of-all-evil) IA-OS. Everything you need is there, all they need to do is to come up with a kind of thin-client system (X-box plus?) to stuff it on and they'll make millions in the market of "we hate computers but we kind of like all that tasty porn on the internet" people. At least, if it weren't Microsoft they would...BSOD's are not acceptable to grandma.
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
some sort of good reasons IE should be allowed to be part of windows:
1. it's pretty successfully integrated as the windows GUI already.
2. there's no good reason to forbid an OS from having a browser. every major OS at least ships with one nowadays.
3. i actually like the fact that my browser loads in ~ 2 seconds.
4. defining an OS is not a power i'd like to see the government have (i'm pretty serious about this one)
some sort of good reasons to divest the two:
1. it would force windows API to be more friendly to the competition.
2. it would weaken the OS company's market power. (this was the jist of aardvark's argument)
3. nobody likes microsoft.
and, finally, one really lousy reason to keep IE with windows:
1. netscape dosen't want competition on other OS'es. screw netscape. antitrust laws are not there to protect netscape, and the DOJ would never consider the argument that mr. Clark would like to make.
cheers,
sh_mmer
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
AOL/Time-Warner/CNN/Netscape
For example, I watched broadcast TV news in Harare, Zimbabwe, a few weeks ago as CNN told me and other Africans a story about an IE security hole. CNN then recommended downloading Netscape to avoid said holes. CNN didn't mention that CNN is now part of the same conglomerate as Netscape, nor did it mention that Netscape's browsers have had their fair share of really nasty security holes. People around the world are even less aware of the corporate conflicts of interest of CNN than are folks in the US -- but they certainly know Bill Gates is The Great Satan of computing thanks to CNN's globally broadcast coverage of The Microsoft Anti-trust Trial.
Reading the state-run newspaper in Harare had put me in a frame of mind where I found this behavior by CNN to be so transparent as to be down-right comical. However, I understand not everyone shares my ancient history of interest in mass media's influence on culture and are therefore not quite as jaded about conflicts of interest in media as I might be. Among those people are a few who will perceive what has happened during the last couple of years of new/old media mergers and decide that Bill Gates might not be The Great Satan after all. That means a number of quite perceptive individuals may decide Bill Gates is The Not-So-Great Satan and that working with him is The Lesser of Evils. Furthermore, it could be very good business right. The Not-So-Great Satan is being forced to pay attention to exceptionally perceptive technologists for the first time in a long time. The Not-So-Great Satan might really get off on the idea of showing AOL/Time-Warner/CNN/Netscape a thing or two in the area of innovation. Finally, The Not-So-Great Satan has boatloads of capital sitting around.
What will The Not-So-Great Satan end up doing with those exceptionally perceptive mercenaries?
Seastead this.
IMHO, that would be a really dumb idea. Lots of
companies make both hardware and software.
But, if they actually did that, Microsoft(ware)
would make the games and such. MShardware would
be the licenser and patent holder for the XBox.
They would also be the one rolling in dough($).
digitalunity
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Does this now mean that we'll be seeing Office and IE for Linux???
The problem with browsers is that it's easy to do the simple stuff fast, HTML, simple CSS, all that stuff, but then it gets more complicated real quick, JavaScript, complex CSS, Java, ...
Even Opera still has lots of JavaScript problems (hell, even IE has lots of JavaScript problems, regarding that Netscape designed the language and IE fucked it up).
Netscape doesn't follow the ECMAScript standard (it's not Javascript that you have to be compliant with any more - it's ECMAScript). Netscape also has a buggy DOM model (LAYERs... jesus). IE and OPERA at least support both of those correctly.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
They should both have it.
Think about it... Two monopolisticly-oriented companies fighting over 'standards' for the same components, when they are not allowed have any kind of joint venture with each other.
What they do would HAVE to be at least open spec, if not open source... wouldn't anything else be considered a 'joint veture'?
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
With troff, you can just type "rm troff" and it's gone. You can't remove IE (not easily - you can remove parts of it, including iexplore.exe, but parts of it will always remain on the system). But the main point was that MS wouldn't even let OEM's put Netscape on their computers, they had to use Internet Explorer. This is clearly anticompetitive.
Never the case actually. The issue was that Compaq wanted to remove Internet Explorer and replace it with Netscape. NOT ship them both. This was what Microsoft griped at - they could ship both happily, one icon above the other on the desktop. But they weren't allowed to remove IE from the desktop or from the system.
Which as far as I'm concerned, is perfectly valid. It's their OS after all. And that move can't be seen as anticompetitive can it?
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Which is more threatening? A web browser which can leverage extra features of the operating system, or a web browser that can leverage extra features of applications?
What on earth would a "Microsoft enhanced" web browser do that it doesn't already do now? All the networking stuff is open enough, because it's basically a hacked up version of Unix networking. If the browser draws a little faster because it calls __chunder32_WinBlitBrowserCrap(), well, it doesn't really make that much of a difference to the end-user.
On the other hand, if it's tightly integrated with Office, Excel, and all the other business applications, that's just another huge nail in Netscape's coffin, because it's the "gotta have" application for all the Office Lusers.
no matter how you look at it msie and it's integration into windows is clearly a threat to netscape. however, it clearly poses more of a threat if it is not distributed with out windows. i guess the true question here is, why can't mircosoft simply put out a good clean tested browser.
Jim Clark couldn't beat Microsoft legitimately, by producing a superior browser, so instead he chose to resort to whining and leveraging the government. Well, he's succeeded. What else do you want Jim?
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JavaScript tutorials scripts
May be off-topic but if timothy is referring
to the guy from Asimov's Foundation series, then
it should be Hari Seldon, not Harry.
Y.
Just think: PNG has been out for 5 years, but is still not widely adopted. Why? Because the programs that most people use to display files, don't display it.
IE displays PNG.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
I am truly shocked that people are giving this whole Microsoft breakup as much thought as they are! The best hope for the DoJ is to fast track it to the Supreme Court to get the appeals out of the way, and then, maybe, we could see some action. Not too surprisingly, it will not make it that far. With an election just around the corner, the powers very well might shift and this whole Microsoft thing will dwindle down to a fine and time served. Bah, brain power better spent else where...
To those who say it is just a browser. Come on. When was the last time you used Microsoft Money, or Frontpage, or even the Microsoft Windows Help. All fine examples of integrated IE (well, except for Frontpage, but it comes as a default). When the OS's help system is based on their browser, yes, you have one integrated product!
As for Jimmy boy giving his own two cents about the matter, come on. Just as the states have something to gain from their suit against the big MS, Clark as well. The prizes, in this case, are money and a little press time, respectively. Please, Mr. Clark, sir, find a better outlet for your talents then on some subject that was DOA the moment the verdict was handed down.
Meanwhile, you have the politcal machine finally shaking the ranks at Microsoft. If one was to look back at the political contributions performed by Microsoft compared to the last year, I think many would be shocked. I firmly believe that if those contributions would have started earlier, this whole mess wouldn't be as far as it is. On the same vein, you have one William H. Clinton staying with one Steve Jobs once in California. Interesting....
Bryan R.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
The browser determines the content that is used on the net. It the browser supports PNG then webpage designers will start using PNG. When you start talking about video and third party plugins thats a different story. If MSFT has a monopoly in browser share and their browser only supports MSFT media player (whatever their video is called) natively, then they will slowly erase Real, Quicktime and any other competitors from the market. Same goes for anything currently supported by plugins that they can build into the browser. Lets have the user software separated from the platform (OS + browser) as much as possible to support competition and user choice.
no sig.
The browser as a salable product is dead. It is a marketing tool now.
In psychohistory spelling is important as well as the fact that others are concerned about it.
sed 's/commun/terror/g' mccarthy > bush; sed 's/terror/saddam/g' bush > bush_wacked
I have to agree here. A browser should be an integral part of an OS in this day and age
It wasn't microsoft bundling there browser with there OS that made it illigal per-say, it was the fact that they bar'd there OEM's from distibuting NS in addition/place of IE that made it an illigal product tie.
As long as the OEM's have the right to distribute netscape or some other compeating browser on the system too (and make said browser the default if they so choose, right down to removing all IE icons from the desktop, start menu, etc.) I can't say that I have a problem with IE staying in windows. Integration of networking services with the OS is a good thing, just look at the level of integration between networking services and the OS in linux and/or other UNIX work-a-likes for an example or the integrated browser in KDE for that matter. Its just the fact that the choice *must* be there.
I don't think asking them to remove the browser from the OS is a good thing. But I do think slapping them them upside the head when they try to force its use is.
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"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
-John Gilmore
I might be exaggerating a little bit, since HTML has gotten a lot more complex. But look at the KDE browser. That's come a lot further a lot faster than the Mozilla project.
I think what happened was that between Microsoft and Netscape, who both gave them away for free, no one really had a good incentive to write another one. Of course, Opera tried to fill that gap as well.
In the recent past I think everyone waited to see if the Mozilla project was going to bear some good fruit. Fortunately, the KDE guys had enough sense not to wait. :)
Frankly, I'm tempted to say that Mozilla's biggest problem is the connection to Netscape, and anything connected to Netscape has to suck. :)
But I think we shouldn't use Mozilla's so-far failure as evidence that a good browser cannot be written (and before you Mozilla guys start flaming me, this is not to say that Mozilla can't become better in the future). Yes, a browser is more complex than many programs, but certainly less complex than a LOT of programs such as KDE, Gnome, the Linux kernel, GIMP, etc.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Netscape's Response : We'll join forces with Sun and AOL and Time-Warner to form our own monopoly. (And yes, Time-Warner/AOL have dicked with consumers and muscled competitors too, such as shutting off ABC channels...)
Netscape Says: We want IE integrated out of Windows!
Netscape's Response : Hmmm... everyone knows IE is better than Netscape, who would use Netscape on Linux when they could use IE? OK, IE in Windows!
This reminds me of that Simpsons Halloween special, where the two aliens - Kudoz and Kang - take the form of Dole and Clinton vying for election in November.
Kang (disguised as Dole and in an very monotone voice): Abortions for all.
Crowds boo...
Kang: All right then, abortions for none.
Crowds boo...
Kang: Hmmm... very well, abortions for some, miniature American flags for the rest.
Crowd cheers...
What fucking hypocrits, it's the classic example of the pot calling the kettle black.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
I think that a major reason that he would want to see IE permenantly attached to windows is because IE5 on the mac kicks a lot of ass. If IE is attached to the OS portion of the company, then they will most likely stop developing for the mac, which leaves the platform entirely open to netscape, until mozilla shapes up to be a full-fledged consumer browser.
Where are my GPFs? I WANT MY GPFS!!
BSOD's are not acceptable to grandma.
On the contrary, if there's anyone in the world who will uncomplainingly put up with the kind of, um, stuff (meekly phrased for the new family-friendly /.) to which Win9x is heir, it's Grandma. They sure won't tolerate it at the office where they use NT instead. Not only will she put up with mystery crashes and no-warning lockups but best of all she still believes that Bill Gates is a "genius" who wrote all this stuff himself, and she even thinks the crashes are her fault. That's what she tells me when she brings me her hosed PC, anyway.
Say, just noticed that I'm guessing wildly there. I sort of assume, without any statistics or anything like that, that businesses in general prefer NT over Win9x , mainly because my office does. Is that true, or do companies as well as private individuals who don't know better use Win9x? Anybody got figures for corporate purchases of OSes or anything like that?
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
The only downside is that leaving MSIE in Windows will make it a lot harder for Mozilla to establish a strong base on the Windows platform. Not impossible, but a lot harder. I'd rather be faced with that problem, though, than have to deal with tying between web/media content and MSIE-as-media-player. For the same reason, Microsoft's media players should be left with the OS, not the apps/web company.
It's the best of two bad situations. Actually, I agree with those who think that the best solution would be to liquidate Microsoft and throw Bill Gates in the slammer, but that's just wishful thinking - it isn't going to happen, at least, not unless Bill is dumb enough to keep flouting the law, even after this rather clear demonstration of why you shouldn't. (starting to drift offtopic here, but oh well.) Actually, I think that's how it will finally play out. Remember all the speeding tickets, and he never learned, did he? Just counted on his rich lawyer dad to fix it all up and keep him on the road. I guess it's probably going to happen that way again, except on a much bigger scale, and he's utimately going to wind up doing time, just like Michael Milken did. It's strange what greed and ego can do to a man.
Clark's advice has little chance of making it into policy, however, even if senators like what they hear. The appeals court that will look at the landmark Microsoft breakup proposal largely will be charged with deciding whether the original ruling was legally correct, rather than changing individual details of the remedy.
IANAL, but that's not a correct interpretation. The details of the split, what goes where, aren't specified at all in the final judgement and in fact are to be proposed by Microsoft. Naturally, the DoJ will make it clear to Microsoft what it wants where.
Rob, there is a new bug in slash that prevents offline composing. If you d/c while on the composing page then when you reconnect you can preview, but trying to post results in: Invalid form key! This is seriously annoying.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Jim Clark is a moron. Netscape is a failure.
If you leave IE with WindowsSoft you have the same monopoly that caused the breakup in the first place. Pathetic. Seems like Netscape doesn't want IE moving to Linux.
i have misplaced my signature.
They ARE available ... They way it integrates with the OS is by relacig the standard shell, so the fact that other shells are around for Windows means you just have to write a shell of your own as well as a browser. So does this mean that IE for Linux would include its own window manager ... ?
suddenly, Real, Quicktime etc. can get a foot in the door.
Are you suggesting that Real doesn't have their foot in the door? Last time I checked, it was a very popular piece of software, spying features or no.
Karma: Dyn-o-mite!(mostly affected by Jimmy Walker reading your comments)
Have you tried Opera for Linux? Find out more at http://www.opera.com/linux/index.html
hehe, good post :)
Cybie! aka Ralph Bonnell
Only for Solaris Sparc. MS has no problem supporting IE on hardware that Windows does not run on.
If it stays with the OS, they'll be forced to document the interfaces to it, so a user could replace IE with Netscape if they wanted to. That'll never happen if it's in the Apps division.
Hmmm... I'm afraid that doesn't make any sense. They would be forced to document the interfaces to it alright, but not necessarily from it to the OS (since it would be part of the OS). Netscape would need to leverage the latter, not the former. So they would still be out in the cold.
"Hey... don't be mean." --Buckaroo Banzai
Gee thanks for informing our lowly slashdotters about the INTERNET Is IE W3E standards compliant? NO ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, is mozilla YES!!!
Does Java, DHTML or XML currently work perfectly in Mozilla or are there sites being written specifically targetted at Mozilla's advanced features.? My point was that several slashdotters due to the fact that they use Netscape or Mozilla are missing out on sites that are beginning to offer more and more advanced functionality. The applications being ported at the company's I worked for are an example. Frankly I don't know about here and now but as at 1 month ago Mozilla couldn't handle ECMAscript so simple things like retrieving MP3s from my online locker at Xdrive here impossible. So if you are using Mozilla or Netscape (especially on *nix which I do) a lot of the power of 4th generation browsers and HTML 4.0 is lost on you, thus you'll think that all a browser does is display static HTML pages like the post I responded to does instead of realizing that they do so much more.
Now that I have thought about it, once Mozilla is complete it will be adopted as the browser of choice by AOL. This will instantly make it a contender in the browser wars. After all, if companies are ready to create AOL specific websites and get in on the AOL keyword system, why shouldn't they start coding aimed at Mozilla once AOL adopts it. Maybe Jim Clark has nothing to worry about, of course now we have we'll have a browser controlled by a company that has a monopoly on content and user software for half the Net users in America and another owned by a company that will be trying to create such a monopoly. This will be interesting...
I hate to break it to you but there is a Solaris version of IE already and it has been around for a few years. I also I think think theres a port to a another unix (HP-UX) but I'm not sure.
perhaps this is not yet an estabished market, but in time, the time
it takes to go thru appeals, it will become more certain which direction
this new market is going.
The internet appliance market uses smaller, modular and stable(r) OSs. such as QNX.
If this new market takes off the consumer and many small business desktop system
market will be replaced with such internet appliances.
In this event MS could present a bad arguement in appeal, so to lose, both the case
and the responsibility to continue and support the bloated OS that many use.
By passing it off to a company that cannot survive in the new market, MS effectively
disconnects themselves from this boat anchor bloat.
And for the unhappy users (a not so small number) of the bloat, MS can even pass off
the blame to blaming those who opposed them, including the DOJ.
On the other hand, should the internet appliance market not do so well, leaving a need
to still support desktops, then in light of the integration everyone else will be
doing with OSs and internet connectivity, MS will have a good arguement to present in appeal.
argueing double standards being imposed by the DOJ.
What's this got to do with the topic here? Keeping IE with the OS side greatly reduces this
choice MS must know exist in the legal process, for them.
And as a little note: MS knows there are those who do not like them and that this dislike
is not short term. Should the Internet appliance market take off and MS loses appeal, MS opposers
might be hapy until MS says to them, you cannot double jebordy me, you got what you wanted.
And this as the remaining part of MS still practices anti-trust (such practice is not something
defined in paper but of human actions).
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
Just because CNet uses sensationalised titles for their stories, it doesn't mean we have to follow them. I hate the feeling when I read a title and think "wow thats interesting" and when I read the body I think "bah what a waste of time"
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I don't want Office for Linux. I can deal with Office for Windows with files saved in. Leave it to other people to write the demanglers.
Of course, this is such a good idea, it'll never happen.
I think the difference you are missing here is that Apache and whichever linux distro you are talking about, or Netscape and whichever UNIX, are NOT OWNED BY THE SAME COMPANY. Red Hat includes Apache with their product because it's a fine program that is well known and has a lot of demand from the users. Red Hat doesn't have anything to gain by bundling the software besides the advertising of saying "Includes Apache web server for easy set up blah blah blah." Likewise, Apache has nothing to gain except having their server get used more. Seeing as how Apache is not a for-profit company, this gains the developers nothing except an ego boost, and more end users to report bugs. Microsoft, on the other hand, has MUCH more to gain from bundling. By including the two pieces of software both developed in-house, they can push their own server down people's throats. In the process, they can push down proprietay, non-standards-compliant add-ons. Microsoft includes IIS because it belongs to them. Debian includes Apache because they think it's good stuff.
Seeing as how it's approaching Summer time (here in PA), I will use an anology relative to myself. When I was sold my jet ski, they suggested I used Brand X of engine oil. Not surprisingly, Brand X is a subsidiary of the jet ski manufacturer. Now, if the dealer had suggested Brand Y, which has no affiliation with JetSkiCo, the dealer would merely be adding an extra bit of service by helping the customer choose a good oil, instead of pushing his own interests. Sure, the dealer still benefits (wow guys, if you're gonna buy a jet ski, get it from Bob... he's a really great guy, even suggested a higher performance oil for me that let me squeeze out a few more MPH), but he benefits by HELPING out the customer, not by looking out for his OWN interests.
Tell a man that there are 400 Billion stars and he'll believe you
I'm not saying that you're a crappy web designer, but 99% of the "Netscape non-compliance" complaints I get come from crappy web designers that love IE because they couldn't write valid HTML to save their worthless lives.
This will come off as flamebait, but I'm tired of crappy web designers complaining about Netscape. You love IE because it will display crap HTML that Netscape doesn't. With Netscape, you are almost forced to write legal, standards compliant HTML. I am extremely anal about this, and I never publish a page that doesn't conform and validate perfectly with whichever language I am trying to write in. (I'm the 1% of 1%.) At the moment, it's XHTML1.0. And you know what? If you write legal HTML, (which will validate on the w3c site), Netscape works fine! And most of the time, so does IE! Never design for IE. Design for Netscape. If it works in Netscape, not only are you at least hinting at legal code, but it almost always looks fine in IE. Are you using an IDE? Drop it. Learn the code. (My God, have you seen the crap that most of those things put out? It's amazingly ineffient.) If you can't put up with it, change careers. Go try an easier medium. Try print media. You can use stuff like Photoshop and be far away from all that scary HTML stuff!
I am absolutely amazed at the horribly broken code that IE will render. This is not a benfit. All it does is encourage even crappier HTML writers to stay in this field. The same way the Microsoft has lowered the bar (dropped it to the ground, actually) for computer "proficiency" with its OS, it is degrading the overall quality of the web's code by supporting, if not encouraging, sloppy work.
HTML was designed for something completely different than what it's used for. Old-school, anal retentive web content providers such as I have managed to find a happy medium between the wonder of information theory that the WWW used to be, and the shiny PDF-wannabe shite we see now. (V. Bush would laugh, and then cry.)
Does Netscape have some proprietary tags? Yes. But you don't have to use them. Just write standards compliant HTML, and you'll be fine. Don't use anything not in the standard. You can make beautiful pages, using HTML and CSS, with added JavaScript, that look great AND are legal! Take the time to learn what you're doing. Mozilla's standard compliance won't mean a fucking thing if HTML writers continue designing for IE.
One more complaint about this new breed of web designers: HTML isn't programming. It's a markup language. You aren't a programmer. You're, at best, a graphic designer out of his element. Get over yourselves!
I apologise to any web designers who know what they're doing. You know you are. No, not you!
Yeah, yeah, -1 Flamebait. FOAD.
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I like to watch.
I don't think he means "it wouldn't be such a big deal to have the OS linked with the browser," I think he means that it wouldn't be so bad to bundle the product with the operating system. Having two products sold together and inextricably bound are two entirely different things.
I've always thought that was the stupidest thing for the justice department to focus on. Of course a browser should be included in an operating system, just like Linux, Be, the Mac, and just about every Unix nowadays does. It's just a utility like 'troff'. Take a file and format it.
The problem is that this isn't an accurate analogy. Sure, a web browser included with the operating system is a good thing, a web browser integrated into the operating system is a bad thing. You wouldn't want troff to be in the linux kernel would you? No. Why have IE in the Windows one?
The problem is MS provides no way to uninstall IE from Windows. They did this deliberately to undermine and destroy Netscape. The issue isn't that they included IE on the Windows install disc, or that they installed it by default. The issue is they "integrated" it with the OS, don't allow the user to uninstall it, and did it with the SOLE purpose of using their monopoly power in the OS market to gain share in the browser market.
That, my friend, is why the DOJ concentrated on IE.
-- iCEBaLM
http://www.w3c.org
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
So... the only browser competetion right now is the lame-duck, Aol-toy Netscape, which has been falling behind for sometime now on innovation, and Opera, which still has a long way to go in offering what IE does in the way of functionality. With such little competetion at present, IE can be released with multiple security holes and active x bugs galore and still walk off with the market. Do you remember anything about the IFRAME/scripting problem that allowed people to forge urls under IE, or the active x properties that can be used to reformat your hard drive? They may just be "customized relocation" and "disk optomizer" features to some, but to others they're the very reason to cling to what is left of Netscape and what is beginning to be for Opera. Spending an hour of my time unchecking all sorts of scripting options in every new version of IE is not how I like to spend my day.
A little bit after I posted that, I closed IE and an error box popped up saying IE had performed an illegal operation and all that jazz... hah. Mebbe I was wrong ;)
-- Dr. Eldarion --
More importantly, part of the browser's significance is the way it has to work in tandem with the server side code. If everyone stuck to published standards (yeah right), this wouldn't be an issue. But as it is, with browsers being deliberately & accidentally incompatible in important ways, the people working on the server end of thigns cannot ignore what is out there on the client end. If 80% or whatever of the market is using IE, and IE wants your html to look a certain way, then that's the way you're going to design your pages. If IE goes a step further and says it can only recognize pages delivered from IIS and nothing from, say, Apache, then servers will have to start configuring their software to keep the clients happy. One thing can lead to another and we find ourselves in a situation where a company has leveraged its position in one market in order to take over things in another one.
That is exactly the sort of behavior that this trial was all about, and if allowed to go unchecked it's the sort of behavior that will have a very nasty effect on things in the future. It is important, if you look at how everything fits together here.
I for one still think they got off easy -- if it had been up to me, I'd just say to shut the bastards down, none of this lameass breakup nonsense. American law gives corporations the status of "artificial persons", with all the protections afforded to real people. Horseshit! Corporations, if left unchecked, are much *more* powerful & protected than real people, and we don't need braindead laws like this to make things easier for them. If I had my way, we'd make examples out of a few corporations to show them that the people are still in charge in a democracy like this. Start with Phillip Morris & Microsoft, find out where their corporate charter is held, and sign a petition to have it revoked. Hey presto and with a stroke of a pen they cease to exist. There is legal precedent for this, though not within the last 100 years. I'd like to see it happen again, and I think this trial would have been a perfect test case.
But then, maybe my bias against the sleazy bastards is a bit obvious here, and I doubt I would have been given the cae even if I were a judge. Oh well, I can dream, can't I? :)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
IE should be its own company then maybe we would see a decent browser come out of this and also create more competition and development in the browser market.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
- As it has been stated before, Microsoft isn't really been defanged. It's just been broken up into two hopefully competing smaller monopolies. They missed several major areas of monopolistic potential, including server-client stuff, and quite a number of protocols.
- Nobody besides Slashdot nerds/geeks really expected Microsoft to be broken up from the beginning. I mean, Slashdot didn't even expect Microsoft to be broken up, for the most part during the earlier bits of the trial.
- Microsoft needs to be broken up in such a way that it defangs it completely, and still as tribute to the geek/nerd community.
- 1024 is a power of two, four, and 32. In computers, 1024Xbytes = Ybytes, where X is kilo and Y is mega, or X is mega and Y is giga, etc.
- Therefore, the perfect choice is the number 1024.
Obviously, 1024 is the answer. But to completely defang Microsoft, you must shoot off anything that moves. Obviously, since Microsoft is so inately evil and incapable of anything honest or good, anything they do will be of the intent to subvert the government. Therefore, a commitee will be set up by the DOJ. It will be responsible for using thermal scanners to detect physical movement within a mini-Microsoft, and immediately raid the area and set the offender up as their own independant mini-Microsoft, unable to communicate with the others under threat of death by DOJ investigation (or incendiardy devices). Obviously, this is the only way to protect the consumers from going out to the store and buying a Microsoft product, since they cannot be trusted with the decision between Macintosh, Unix and Windows.No apology necessary. I knew immediately what he was talking about however, and appreciated the tip of the hat to the Foundation Trilogy (+). Mind blowing stuff that I've been meaning to read again for 25 years. What a mind that guy had. Curious George
***General Consultant to the Human Race*** My opinions are free. You get what you pay for.
It's not that we don't want them to be able to leverage their products against each other.. ie:
IIS & IE, or other properietary things they want to come up with.. it's that we don't want them to be able to stranglehold the entire industry in doing so.
Whether IE stays with the OS or Apps company, I couldn't care less... my main concern is that windows splits from apps. Period. Windows should be an OS. It can provide all kinds of functions, including those for web browsing.. as long as they are published openly.
I mean.. look at DOS.. it used to be that if you bought an OS, and wanted to develop for it.. you could get *ALL* the information you needed to write software for it.. that's what made the OS powerful.
Where can I buy that watch?
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If Microsoft is the solution, I want my problems back
Hmmmm. Very "Insightful" and rather "Interesting". Given that SlashDot does not allow moderators to reveal their true identities, and the fact that your algorithm mimics reality as faithfully as it does, I find myself wondering if /. moderators are not, in fact, scripts. I would guess that the "moderators" include more random() calls so as not to be so obvious. Also, I suspect that moderation is multithreaded. That way you can be a "Troll" the first time the page is viewed, "Insightful" the next, "Funny" the next, "Over-rated" the next, and "Off-topic" the next...
;-)
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P.S. I'll refrain from making any comments about pouring Beowulf clusters of grits down Natalie's HotPants... (I'll be moderated down for this...)
w3m is far better then lynx, in every way i know of, w3m beats it in the dust.
i guess that's what you get for running beta software, but based on that i'm never touching windoze ME again (go linux!) :)
I think the real reason that he wants Internet Explorer to be stuck with the operating system group is so Microsoft can't continue to develop IE for other platforms (like Macintosh, HP-UX, Solaris, Windows 3.1, etc). The OS division would have to concentrate on IE in Windows ME / 2000 and the other platforms would have to be ignored--putting Netscape/AOL back into the browser war for the other 10% of the OSes market.
There's no Solaris version of IE. There's Solaris program that looks like IE from the first glance, but is totally unusable. Which is no wonder - to make it usable, they'd have to port all their COM infra-structure, and I doubt they did.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
Absolutely...it was hilarious. The only thing I would suggest is that he use a little more ALL CAPS for effect.
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>> Actually, Netscape webservers are used because they are very good.
From my experience with them, they are very far from being good. They lose to Apache on every usability aspect (exept for not having to use command line, which is bad excuse for me - I know my tools and I do not require MS-Office paperclip to write three letters in sequence). Maybe they are a bit faster (which I doubt, but just maybe - I didn't test it) but I'd better buy more memory than crawl through Netspace user-misinterface and numerous bugs.
>> They continue to win awards.
Oh yeah. There are so many awards everyone gets some. If it runs, it can get award.
>> First of all IE won't be ported to Linux anytime soon.
yeah, that's sad. For me, that is - for Netscape it's very good, I'm still forced to use their crap.
>> this poses absolutely no threat to Netscape, as they are part of AOL,
That was a smart move, they are immortal now. But being immortal is not the same as being alive on scenes - most probably they'll just be some part of AOL, sucking money from unlucky clients locked in with their "solutions". That's a usual revenue model for many other companies - lure client in, then suck money from them for decades, basically doing nothing just releasing "upgrades" and sometimes fixing bugs.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
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I like to watch.
I do have to take issue with this, though:
I'm also tired of those that diss Dell, Gateway, Compaq, and others for [up until recently] only selling Windows PCs. Is Microsoft behind this? They have a minor role. More important is the demand of the comsumers. Windows has no competitors there. Why?
Windows has no competitors there because of the anti-competitive licensing contracts which kept any other OS out of the market. OS/2 was a viable consumer operating system. Did it have rough edges? Yes, but so does Windows. OS/2, had it gotten access to the preload market would have been a serious competitor to Windows. But it could not reach that market, because of the restrictions placed on OEMs by Microsoft.
--
BS Alert! -- "My Computer" and "Network Neighborhood" are completely artifacts of explorer.exe. If litestep displays My Computer, it's actually running Explorer (and IE) underneath.
Litestep doesn't display the "My Computer", "Network Neighborhood" or "Recycle Bin" icons on the desktop, nor the taskbar. But you can still "get there from here".
-- iCEBaLM
Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
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I like to watch.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
My bad, misclick modded this down :( So moderate this up!
Sure, a web browser included with the operating system is a good thing, a web browser integrated into the operating system is a bad thing. You wouldn't want troff to be in the linux kernel would you? No. Why have IE in the Windows one?
Well, that's not quite accurate. The browser is not integrated into the kernel, it's integrated into the shell. Just like how KDE has a browser integrated into their shell, accessible through the file explorer.
I will grant you that it was stupid of Microsoft to claim that IE couldn't be removed from the operating system. That just confused the issue. The fact is that IE is an object that can be embedded in a lot of different applications. For example, Quicken uses the IE object to connect to various resources on the Quicken site.
And frankly, this is the way it should be! This is where the power of an object-oriented operating system comes from... being able to use reusable components such as a browser.
Now, one could argue that the browser object should have clearly defined protocols so that it can be replaced if the user wanted to. And those protocols may be documents, I don't even know.
But Microsoft did have the right idea, technically speaking. However, you can definitely argue that a lot of their other practices we're anticompetitive, I will admit.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
It'll only get worse:
In the next version, the button is going to say "My Shopping!"
The hope would be that, as a non-monopoly, it wouldn't be worth their while making buggy "integrated" software because nobody would use it.
OTOH I'm not quite convinced that the software world works like that. Quite likely, in a market in which Microsoft was not a monopoly, you'd end up with hundreds of mini-monopolies in different areas, e.g. Real Player, Netscape, Office, etc.. So maybe it would be a problem.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Hey, there is IE for Solaris. They don't exactly have to get it right on the first try. This is still an M$ derivative company we're talking about. Because they were split of doesn't mean they'll suddenly be producing quality software.
They'll get a Linux version of IE out the door as fast as possible, and fix it later. The Linux community has been rooting for projects like WINE for a while. Trust the Software company to use any available means to get the obligatory 'Linux' press releases.
-- "Is this death or is this Ohio?"
the crux of the case was that MSHAFT bound IE to the OS to screw netscape.
anyone familiar with the issues knows a browser is really just an app.
but maybe the judge doesn't want to get in a situation forcing MSHAFT to split out the browser? he's already asking for a lot with the conduct remedies and split, maybe tossing a breakout of the browser would put the case over the top in the appeals court.
the one remedy that would really help wasn't even on the list! smear bill gate's balls with alpo and lower him into a pen filled with starving pit bulls.
then maybe he would know how ibm, novell, netscape, borland, stac et. al. and all the people who had tough times because of bill gate's illegal behaviors feel.
bastard is totally untrustworthy and disrespectful of the court. try breaking the law and going to court, and then lie to the judge. watch what happens to you...it won't be pleasant.
i'm still suprised there hasen't been any shareholder lawsuits against gates for gross mismanagement...any other large corporation would have ousted him by now.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Well, as most companies would have it, they'll probably (eventually) release a Mac version, just to keep people happy.
IE for the Mac already exists, and in fact, is the MOST standards compliant Web Browser on the market today (better than Oprah, IE Win, Mozilla, etc)
Office for the Mac exists as well. In fact, if you had been following other discussions here on
-CZ
We don't need 1024 of them. Only 640. After all, 640 is enough for anybody; no one will ever need more than that.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Do you even know who Jim Clark is? He's put so much jizz into the computer industry since 1980 it isn't even funny. His companies have really kicked ass in their prime but after he left and their management fell to other less competant people they floundered. He makes a good point in saying that IE currently is part of the desktop of Windows and trying to change that is stupid. Why should Microsoft be forced to use a competing product in their product? Should I bitch about KDE because it treats all files as MIME types like IE does? Yeah I didn't think so.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I don't care because I personally don't like Netscape. Up until Version 4 of Netscape and IE came out, it was superior. In version 4 it became a toss-up, and with version 5 of each browser, IE is now the clear leader.
Is Jim Clark CRAZY? I don't get it. First he wants it out of the OS and then he wants it back with the OS ... NO NO NO, Jim. With the OS is a bad thing(TM). You were right the first time.
... but obviously, that isn't going to happen. Clearly, having the IE division in the apps split is wiser from a competitive standpoint. At least other browsers will be able to compete.
If IE is put in the same house as Windows, you'll see bits of IE code all over the OS like it is now. This is clearly NOT competitive business practices - the whole point of the trial, incidentally.
I believe that Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson was right on the money when he wanted the company split into three parts
Does anyone else not think that maybe when IE isn't actually part of the MS OSes it may LOSE its position as best browser in the land?? I know sysadmins who would use Netscape in a heartbeat if it wasn't such a memory hog - and NS6 is looking VERY nice indeed.
Don't count your chickens just yet Jim. You should remember where you came from. Trust Netscape to steal the market share back when the dust settles.
----- rL
IMHO Jim Clark is wrong. More on that in a second.
Maybe, just maybe the point of the MS break-up decision is that operating systems should go back to being operating systems and applications back to being applications.
In other words the OS should be nothing more than a layer of software that talks to the hardware, either directly or by managing drivers and then provides an API to developers for accessing that hardware.
That's all an OS needs to do.
This will reduce the operating system to a commodity. Sold not to consumers, but to OEMs for bundling with their hardware.
This is what the vast majority of users want since they don't know what an operating system is, but they do want their computers to boot.
Operating systems will still be a lucrative business (although admittedly not as lucrative as today), because many devices are paperweights without one.
Application vendors can then go back to doing what they do which is making applications, by writing to the various API's provided by various OS's.
To me that is the point of the court decision and it seems right.
As for what Jim Clark proposes, as well as flying in the face of the above, it simply won't work.
The new MS apps company would just expand Word into a full fledged web browser and nothing has been accomplished. After all what is he saying, that application companies can't write browsers?
Also it has yet to be proven that a web browser will subsume all the functions of an OS. Different people are pushing this type of model, with things like ASP, but it has yet to be proven. Almost any application can add a billion features and claim that is the new "Universal Client". Generally what it will actually be is bloated, "Universal Garbage".
"Hey... don't be mean." --Buckaroo Banzai
I think I figured it out, but it took a minute. Hari Seldon was the guy in Foundation. Don't think I've ever heard it out loud, which in my case means "Harry" and "Hari" are worlds apart, but I guess not everyone's brain works the same way. Spelling flame? Nah, just posted in case anyone else has a poor mapping of written to spoken words.
Hmm ...
Hasn't anybody thought of the notion of Microsoft OS division coming out with Winux or Lindows? They still can embrace, extend, and screw-over just like before, but now they will do it as two companies! Then all they have to do is make their distro really crappy, hard to use, and unstable. Then they will say, "See, here is your Microsoft Linux and note how it performs next to WinME! Now you know how very bad this Linux thing is and why you should stick with Our products.."
It will happen.
This'd yank it away from some Mac users- which would not be very popular.
If customers had to BUY a copy of IE (regardless of platform) well, that makes it easier for other browsers (like Netscape) to compete.
Competition exists to keep ANYBODY from becoming complacent. Given some of the stuff we've been seeing from Netscape nowadays (NS 6+ comes to mind) I think they could use some challenges.
Just because IE can be a pain in the butt to use doesn't mean it needs to be duct-taped to the Windoze OS.
When M$ first embarked on an effort to kill off Netscape, this marked a threat against all other desktoppable OSes (Dec Unix, SGI Irix, Solaris, Slolaris, AIX and even Linux and *BSD) since, if Netscape died off, it'd sound a death-knell for Unix systems.
I did not like that they wanted to cut out the "convenience" of OS choice...
-soup (GNUrd, Speaker to Machines) "Laugh at yourself- Why should everyone else have all the fun?" -Romanchek's 6th Ru
I seem to remember a thread a number of months ago that mentioned that Microsoft was hiring linux knowledgeable people. I think it was during the Microsoft vs. Linux benchmark test. This was probably in anticipation of the possible break up. You can probably expect that they are already working on some of this software. And for those of you who are always criticizing IE, have you ever used Netscape or Mozilla for more than ten minutes in Linux and not had it crashed? Every browser I have used in linux sucks A$$ and I would welcome another better attempt by the crew in Redmond.
Random Task
"I can hoist a Jack. I can lay a track. I can pick and shovel too. I'll do anything you hire me to." - John Cash "Legen
Ah yes, I'm so delighted that the government, a body that masterfully delivers our mail to the wrong address at ever increasing prices, is now placing it's surgeon-like hands into my industry. :) /misc/folder. But on Red Hat, you don't use that file. Linux supports you graphics card, but only Mandrake 663.3 has the right driver. If you have Corel, you won't have much luck. But Corel's based off of Debian, but the same software and desktop isn't bundled, so don't bother typing in that command.... </i>
</i>
<BR>
Snail mail is delivered more reliably than e-mail.
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<I>Where does IIS go? Where does IE go? Where does Bob go? </i>
<BR><BR>
RTFD (read the fucking decision)
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<i> In the mean time, for god's sake, please take the web browser out of the hands of a software monopoly like Microsoft and put it in the hands of a media monopoly like AOL!! </i>
<BR><BR>
AOL is not a monopoly - and they (Netscape) will still have to compete with IE. No one likes AOL, but there's plenty of room for both browsers in the market. The reason M$ is being broken up is because it didn't let the market decide.
<BR><BR>
<i>Jim Clark is a real good guy. We should all love him. He bowed to AOL like the French to Hitler. Real dedication. </i>
<BR><BR>
That was an un-called-for attack. What would you have done, let your company go down in flames? Let your employees stock options, which they <a href =http://www.jwz.org>worked their asses of for</a> become no more than worthless pieces of toilet paper? If AOL had wanted them, it would have taken them over whether they liked it or not - by going peacefully, Netscape did the right thing.
<BR><BR>
<i>
We've been operating under the assumption that we know better than the consumer. IE is on the desktop, so people will use IE. They are incapable of typing in www.netscape.com because they are drooling animals. </i>
<BR><BR>
Maybe people are too lazy. Maybe they don't know what to do - Would you know enough about cars to buck a muffler monopoly? Even if your muffler were inferior? (maybe you are a car buff and would - I wouldn't).
<BR><BR>
<I> On AOL, try changing email clients. Or web clients. Or FTP. Or anything. </i>
<BR><BR>
If people are smart enough to type in www.netscape.com from MSIE, they're smart enough to type in www.microsoft.com from NS.
<BR><BR>
<I>This anti-trust trial is irrelevant. IBM was evil. It fell. MS was evil. It is falling. </i>
<BR><BR>
Yeah, it's falling - with the government's help.
<i>AOL is today's evil. And it's a far more formidable enemy. For millions, they control Internet access. For virtually everybody, they control content and information. </i>
<BR><BR>
Content is easy to find - there's plenty of it that isn't controlled by T/W. AOL isn't a monopoly. M$ is. To say that "AOL controls internet access" is a joke - switching ISPs is about as easy as switching browsers.
<BR><BR>
<i> Nobody here wants the government getting involved in the Internet. Yet everybody wants the government involved in the software industry. (That makes sense. Since obviously the Internet doesn't use software.) </i>
<BR><BR>
If you can't tell the difference between a browser and a web site, that's your problem. What we want is what we think is right. I'm not going to speak for anyone else, but I think that the anti-trust laws are good and were well applied here, and that the First Ammendment is good and was well applied in the CDA case. So, yeah, there is a difference.
<BR><BR>
<i> Everybody here rants how Linux is going to kick Windows' ass. Linux rules!! Yeah! Yet you have to enlist the government to slay Windows because Linux can't do it. </i>
<BR><BR>
Linux was not involved in this. Most Free Software hackers agree that Linux (in general) is more difficult to use for a normal user for desktop tasks (e.g. word processing). This was a case about desktop OSs. If this case were happening 5 years from now, yeah, Linux would be involved - but it's not. No one claims Linux is perfect or complete - that's why Alan Cox still has a job
<BR><BR>
<I>
OPEN SOURCE! OPEN SOURCE! I won't run Windows because it's not open source! But let me haul ass to CompUSA to buy my closed-source copy of Diablo II and WordPerfect 2000. </i>
<BR><BR>
Some Slashdotters care about Free Software enough not to use proprietary software at all. Those people aren't buying Diablo. Some only care about Open Source software, and will use whatever works - they're buying Diablo. I don't see what your point is - did you really thing you could have a million people agree on everything?
<BR><BR>
<I> There's no fragmentation in the Linux world!! Nooo!!! But don't run that program, because it requires Xfree 32.2353, but it only comes standard with Red Hat 8.3. But if you have SuSE 5.2389 running the 2.44 kernel you need to download the 9.87 xstuff. Well, don't worry, because once you have everything, you need to copy it into folder/misc, unless you run Debian, where you put it in
<BR><BR>
If you're going to make this claim, try to use real examples. I haven't had this sort of problem. Then again, I know what I'm doing. If you don't like the lack of standards, get involved with the LSB project.
<BR><BR>
<i>Hey assholes, how about fixing the damn bug that crashes Netscape every ten minutes? </i>
<BR><BR>
1. Why should we - because you want us to? <BR>
2. We can't. Netscape is not Free Software. <BR>
3. We're working on it. The fix is called Mozilla. <BR>
<BR>
<i>And why the fuck do you want Linux on a toaster anyway? </i>
<BR><BR>
For the same reason people climb Everest. Because it's there. (Or, because it's fun - y'know, fun, that thing people do for entertainment).
<BR><BR>
<i>BUSINESS IS EVIL, eh Katz? I bet you sure jumped at the chance to get some of that hot VA Linux IPO. </i>
<BR><BR>
Katz didn't write this article. Also, Katz doesn't say that business is evil. You're thinking of Marx. Katz says they corporatism is evil.
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And now that I'm done responding to that pile of crap, I'll say this: <STRONG>DO YOUR FUCKING RESEARCH.</STRONG>
<BR><BR>
-Dave Turner.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
What are all of these MSOffice features the browser could leverage? None of those formats can get any less open (in contrast to the corruption of HTML). Plugins already exist for viewing documents. The only one I could imagine is remotely editing documents from within the browser, but if everyone had the ability to do that then fewer MSOffice liscenses would be sold.
I honestly want to know what you have in mind.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Not forced at all... my most recent Win98 Install (on a box which has played well before, but I swapped drives):
IE won't work... well, that's not quite fair. If I double click the 'e'... nothing... click on the 'e' next to the start button (before I delete that whole stupid thing)... nothing.
Open the 'My Computer' version of IE... works local or for windows shares. Type in a URL - Boom! gone. Right click on the 'e', choose open (instead of the default action). Opens to msn.com page. Whoo-hoo! But any change of URL (link, bookmark, or URL) blows up - gone...
Windows Update: Asks me how I want to connect (Internet Setup Wizard in a browser window?! It never did that before) (oh, yeah - the machine has been running networked for several days - everything else network-wise functions). Click on "I've already set it up, you moron!" - it blows up.
Ok, so I can't update IE or d/l Netscape (ok, I could use ftp, but I'm trying to be Joe Windows Luser for the example), since I can't surf, and I can't use windows update to try to fix any other files... (and now they aren't giving people CDs of windows to reinstall?!).
<Ctrl><Ctrl> 'B' <Enter> (KVM switch flips me to the Linux box - Netscape runs fine on there. So does Lynx. So does kfm (and soon, Konqueror)...
IE doesn't even open, so it can't be forced. If anything, it forced me further into Linux + Netscrape 8^)
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
The entire point of the releasing of APIs would be your ability to choose what you want, not what realplayer, or netscape, or microsoft, wants.
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
Ah-ha! And there's the rub.
/me puts on his "intellectual purity" hat.
I hate to say it, but over the last few months, I've been forced to use M$ more and more, and... I almost like it.
WAIT! DON'T FLAME ME YET!
I use linux as my main server and workstation platform wherever I can, but the software and www developers that I work with for some reason prefer M$ (don't ask me why). But, as long as I have to use it, I'm glad that it's not MORE offensive-- granted there are a lot of bass-ackwards things about Windose, but nothing's perfect. And I can think of a whole lot worse things to be *forced* to use (Solaris springs immediately to mind). If I have to use M$, it had better be REALLY friggin' mindless. And it is.
That's the advantage I see to Windows, which is pointed out quite well by the above poster-- there *is* a Windows mindset, and it's "I don't care about technical elegance, freedom or any of those other features. I just want to do my fscking job and go home to watch The Real World." And Windose is remarkably good at placating the masses.
Okay, now you can flame me.
-- You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I feel a great disturbance in the Force. Microsoft has been behaving themselves for the last couple of years. That time is over. They will again reveal their true nature, but this time there's nothing to stop them. The DOJ can't do anything, because they've just completed a case, and although Microsoft lost, nothing in the Final Judgement will prevent them from being completely evil (I've been studying it since Wednesday afternoon).
On the bright side, there is some competition: Mozilla, StarOffice, and Apple's Cocoa (if they ever get around to releasing Win32 and Linux versions).
One other thing: the X-Box will also be owned by Microsoft-apps, and the stripped-down version of Win2k that it uses will be licensed from Windows, Inc. The OS will of course be available to other OEMs for the same price, but it will be completely useless to anyone else, because Microsoft-apps will still completely control all the rest of the software (and hardware). Licensing a stripped-down version of Win2k so you can make a game console that competes with the X-Box but isn't compatible with the X-Box would be really stupid. Linux would make a better platform anyway.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
By posting in this discussion, you've removed your moderation already. Asking someone else to correct it further is redundant.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Quote: Findings of Law
Recognizing that pre-installation by OEMs and bundling with the proprietary software of IAPs led more directly and efficiently to browser usage than any other practices in the industry, Microsoft devoted major efforts to usurping those two channels. Id. 143.
155-74. Second, Microsoft imposed stringent limits on the freedom of OEMs to reconfigure or modify Windows 95 and Windows 98 in ways that might enable OEMs to generate usage for Navigator in spite of the contractual and technological devices that Microsoft had employed to bind Internet Explorer to Windows. Id. 202-29. Finally, Microsoft used incentives and threats to induce especially important OEMs to design their distributional, promotional and technical efforts to favor Internet Explorer to the exclusion of Navigator. Id. 230-38.
Looks like preditory behavior to me. Apperently does to the Judge as well
--
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
-John Gilmore
As someone else pointed out, IE5 does display PNG. Of course, there are still a lot of (yuck) Netscape browsers out there that still don't.
But, that's not the only reason it's not widely adopted. The reason is that PNGs are not a complete replacement for GIFs because they lack animation. Granted, they have alpha transparency which is mighty cool, but generally you need a really good reasons to get people to switch technologies and PNG is not enough. [and very, very few people care about the patent issue or even know what it is]
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I understand the rest but that comment about Linux on the digital watches and toasters was uncalled for and really hurt my feelings.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
[H]aving IE be the system makes things easier for both Microsoft and end users by providing updates to Windows through a nice web interface that previously in the past was decryptive on which components to install.
But whenever I've used it, IE has consistently crashed or grossly misbehaved -- my favorite was the "if you hit the delete key while typing in a field, IE will bump you back to the previous page" bug. Any benefit that may have been theoretically possible has been lost in the sea of sewage that is the implementation. I say: good riddens.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I believe, internet browser is sort of "commodity software" right now. I use Win2000 and Linux/KDE both at work and to conduct personal bussineses and I keep finding handy HTML browser built-in my desktop environment something essential.
By the way, in my opinion it is one of essential flaws of DOJ argumentation - MS didn't harm consumers by bundling their browser with the system. They surely harmed Netscape (which was not without faul of its own), but at the same time they put HTML browser where it belongs.
The bottom of this post is that it might prove irrelevant, who gets the browser. There is no browser market anymore. People want it with the system and consider it as something as necessary as file browser. If the "OS company" does not get the browser, they would have to come out with one - because their customers expect it.
Consequently, the "application company" will have no reason to maintain product not needed by their customers - and therefore not bringing any direct or indirect revenue.
So - they will ditch it.
- M -
I would like to die like my grandfather did - sleeping. And not screaming in terror, like his passengers.
I think it's nonsence. i think IE should be a part of applications group. Purely because other companies are in the same position. They can also deliver a web browser for windows. So the customer can choose what kind of browser they want to use. By the way if you continue this thought than wyou would also say. Outlokk cant live without IE so add it to. Than outlook is a part of office so add office to. Than we are back at square one. It think with a split-up microsoft life would be much easier. Than we probably will have office on Linux. And probanly outlook too. Not that i'm happy with outlook but that is what we have to use at work. :-(
everyone keeps talking about how we should split ms into more then 2 companies but they never mention the hardware aspect always talk about windows(os), office, ie, msn, interdev, but noone talks about the hardware department is it just me or doesnt microsoft make hardware like my intellimouse explorer.
I used to think i was indecisive but now im really not sure?
Think about... how do 95% of the population access the internet, via some sort of browser or another. If you can somehow get your fingers into this market you wield an insane amount of power. With your browser you can control which protocols and standards are brought into play or what will go mainstream or not. Don't underestimate the power of the browser. It is the portal to the internet and will continue to play a significant role for years to come.
All you have to do is look at the history of the browser to realize it is one of those things that is here to stay. If you compare today's browsers with browser's from 5 years ago not much has changed, just a little functionality. Therefore we can pretty much assume that the basic function of a browser will not change in the future and will remain a key player in the internet world.
My suggestion is to split Microsoft into further pieces and essentially make IE its own company. With this, the browser technology would begin to leapfrog again like it did when Netscape was on the cutting edge with its Navigator. Either way whoever owns the dominant browser will continue to have power to influence the standards and programs that make the internet work.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Secondly, isn't it interesting now that we hear someone from Netscape saying "competition is bad"? Is Netscape so weak and behind the curve that they fear healthy competition in areas where they are the de facto monopoly (like Linux)? I think the answer is clearly yes. Hmmm, I for one am reminded of the pot and the kettle.
It is *very* nice to see a reference to a non-internetted educational source on this site every once in a while :)
Thank you!
If I'm ordering anything through the Netscape shop! icon, it's a vomit bag.
Which is too bad. I thought Netscape was fine up until about 4.2. Then it turned into hideous bloatware, it was as if Netscape got into a war with Microsoft to see who could add more completely useless non-standard "features" and create the most bloated crap.
And frankly, 4.7 up are just hideous, the most fucking ugly software I've ever seen. The buttons look like shit, the browser looks like shit, it takes forever to boot and is then sluggish as hell. There's no real competition. IE 5.01 is just the better browser. Netscape 4.73 blows dead goats, or rather it WOULD blow dead goats if it didn't crash in the middle of trying to blow dead goats.
Perhaps this is because of OS integration, but perhaps it's just because the latest Netscape browser is just bad, and horribly, evilly wrong in so many ways, from its appearance to its performance, that it can't be said not to suck with a straight face. It is the "Battlefield: Earth" of web browsers.
If it stays with the OS, they'll be forced to document the interfaces to it, so a user could replace IE with Netscape if they wanted to. That'll never happen if it's in the Apps division.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Microsoft 1 or 2 (WinCo and AppCo) isn't going to be any different from Microsoft today.
What makes you think that the new company is going to start porting Office to Linux? Windows is still a big market and as long as the windows market stays big there is no reason to split resources in porting to new platforms.
If I was running the new app company I would continue to concentrate on Windows because that is where my bread and butter comes from. It is very unrealistic to believe that the "world is going to be a much better place" with the Microsoft split.
Just a pipe dream.
Personally, I'd hope that AOL isn't allowed to merge with Time/Warner. It would be too big to be healthy and we'd very likely have to waste time breaking them up later.
As for Apple, when it violates antitrust laws, sure. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I'm not sure. While the DOJ has to show that MS abused it's monopoly position and violated antitrust law, the remedy does not AFAIK have to remain specific to the violation the DOJ found, it just has to prevent violations in general. IANAL, but that's my impression.
Anyone know more about this?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Actually, so long as IIS is separated from NT, we're probably safe. Right now, IIS is `free' (i.e. bundled) with NT. This means any company with NT servers automatically has an NT+IIS WWW server on their hands - so why would they want to use another WWW server like Apache? They've already got one!
If NT cannot come with IIS, however, it's a different kettle of fish: the company will have all those NT servers, but without a WWW server. They look around, and see two options: IIS and Apache. One has three times the market share, and a much better reputation, and it comes with source so you can modify it if you need. The other has been out there for years, but hasn't made much progress in terms of market share; the standards compliance is a bit iffy, and it dies you down to one OS. Oh, and there's no source code: you have problems, you're SOL.
*Splat*. IIS loses. Microsoft Apps are stuck having to comply with open standards, on a level playing field. No hidden APIs to help them, no bundling to push IE out there to all the Windows users - suddenly, Real, Quicktime etc. can get a foot in the door.
Meanwhile, MS OS (M SOS?) decides they do want to bundle a browser, video player etc., but they aren't allowed to get it from MS Apps. Where do they go? Well, Netscape have a nice new browser which should be perfect... :-)
Actualy...no...they don't. To quote the findings of law:
Microsoft has presented no evidence that the contractual (or the technological) restrictions it placed on OEMs' ability to alter Windows derive from any of the enumerated rights explicitly granted to a copyright holder under the Copyright Act. Instead, Microsoft argues that the restrictions "simply restate" an expansive right to preserve the "integrity"of its copyrighted software against any "distortion," "truncation," or "alteration," a right nowhere mentioned among the Copyright Act's list of exclusive rights, 17 U.S.C. 106, thus raising some doubt as to its existence. See Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 155 (1973) (not all uses of a work are within copyright holder's control; rights limited to specifically granted "exclusive rights"); cf. 17 U.S.C. 501(a) (infringement means violating specifically enumerated rights). 2
Please read the relivent case law before going off on a tangent. Then continue reading along this thread for another quote from the Findings of law that specificly states that MS threatend OEM's to stop bundling Netscape
--
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
-John Gilmore
Tried to email a thoughtful response, but it got returned undeliverable.
They haven't had a chance to mesh IE completely with Office yet. If they succeed there, they will pretty much destroy the browser market. (it has already been plenty damaged, mind you.)
If it stays with the OS, it can't really get any worse than it is already.
BTW, the character's name was 'Hari' Seldon. Fortunately, however, I don't think spelling counts in psychohistory. *grin*
Yes, but if the governemnt suddenly came along and decided to start regulating every aspect of the jet ski manufacturer's business (for whatever reason), it would be entirely improper for the makers of Brand Y oil to be allowed to exert any influence over any restrictions that may be imposed on the sale of Brand X oil.
That's my point here - Jim Clark of Brand Y is rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of being able to pull enough strings to prevent Brand X from ever being sold in a free and fair (and therefore, if the product is truly better than his own, more competitive) way.
I'd much rather have each of these companies competing against each other on a relatively level palying field - the break-up of Microsoft will restore a lot of balance to what was until now an unreasonably bumpy pitch, that's why it's so disturbing to see Clark running, in a mummys-boy stylee to the Government asking for them to intervene on his behalf.
http://www.klub.org/
"no matter how you look at it msie and it's integration into windows is clearly a threat to netscape. however, it clearly poses more of a threat if it is not distributed with out windows. i guess the true question here is, why can't mircosoft simply put out a good clean tested browser."
.doc file backward incompatibility. There are acceptable converters for OFF97 for anything less than a book or complex cross-app projects (and in my experience, Off97 is little better than OFF95 for writing books) Unfortunately, Office file formats are not covered by the DOJ decree. One can only hope that this is among the information shared between MS-OS and MS-AP. MS-OS would then have the right to release them -- and might, to encourage new Windows apps [See my most optimistic projection on why MS-OS and MS-AP may be at each pther's throats early on]
I like NetscapeCo and I'm fairly irritated by MS, but I can't give Jim Clark this point. MS-IE is an app, not an OS or even a NOS (Network Operating System) as Clark implies when he says "The browser is to Internet services what the operating system is to (PC) applications."
That's not to say that there aren't risks from MSIE in MS-AP, but that those actual risks have no place in the DOJ action. The DOJ was concerned with unfair business practice, not competition by the MSIE software itself. Specifically, the OS integration you mention applies mostly to Windows OSs (which have enough problems as it is)
I'm more worried about "Embrace and extend", which will not end with the divestitute. It's difficult to fight any predominant software (and of course, Netscape itself was guilty of E+E in the days when it was the predominant browser), but MS has a history of bad security choices. Users want features and convenience; they usually pay lip service to security. We'd be foolish to pretend that most Linux installations are as tight as they should be -- and even OpenBSD installs often have unnecessary holes poked in them for convenience (even though OpenBSD users are more concerned with security from Day One)
MS script/macro/integration breaches threaten user data -- and data compromise alone is more dangerous than machine compromise ('theft of PU cycles and resources') alone
MA-AP may have a tough time giving up these poor practices, since it's staffed by the same people as before. The default settings on MSIE are heavily weighed to the Application's convenience, rather than user security. When I last saw MSIE-5, even their "high security" setting was more permissive than I considered acceptable for 'Normal' security
I've long fought the installion of any version of Office beyond Office 95. (I suppose this has cost MS a lot of business, but I've never had a single complaint from a user about lost capability - only about MS's deliberate
Alas, we'll never see Off95 for Linux (BSD, BeOS, etc.) Ideally, I'd hope MS-AP might see the market advantage in creating a safe OFF2003 by going back to the feature set of OFF95 and reviewing the revision tree since. Certainly the feature set of their previous major cross-platform port (Mac) always lagged behind the current version of the Win version. We could be uncharitable and assume this was a effort to hinder the Mac, but perhaps it also contained a realistic assessment of the time-to-market for porting a full "bells and whistles" version vs. a substantial workable subset.
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
But look at the KDE browser. That's come a lot further a lot faster than the Mozilla project.
That statement really bothers me, because while the KDE browser is just that, a web browser, you have to understand that Mozilla is as much as application framework as it is a web browser. The ability to parse HTML is just one part of what the Mozilla project is all about.
Did you know that every part of Mozilla's UI and dialogs are written in an XML doc type called XUL? By doing this, the Netscape guys no longer have to deal with half a dozen UI toolkits for each platform. As you can imagine, this is no small task.
Konqueror has come along faster, but there are different design goals: Browser vs. complex cross platform app framework (wrapped around a browser).
--
"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))"
They'll just require it to be bundled with Office, and everything else Microsoft makes. What percentage of PCs have no Microsoft software on them whatsoever? That percentage won't have IE installed.
I don't mind them bundling IE with any middleware (as it was called in the desicion).. I have tons of cds from books and what not with IE on it... thats fine... The problem is with the OS and Microsoft forcing the computer makers to install IE by default and nothing else.... Hell most computer makers will be glad to pre-install IE.... just don't force them to...
Last time I checked, IE can't do any of the PNG transparency features, whether normal "GIF"-style or PNG's cool multi-level transparency. Therefore, it doesn't really display PNG. (i.e., an ASCII editor can read a .doc file, but not correctly.) Netscape does the same thing.
Unless you've got Quicktime installed (which steals the MIME type and then proceeds to incorrectly display transparent PNGs), IE 5 does indeed display PNGs correctly - with full transparency and gamma correction.
Therefore, IE 5 does really display PNG. IE 4 may be a different matter.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
But of course, most of you are just using...
/*
* Droid Moderation script
*
* Yeah, yeah, it's ugly, but I cannot find how to do this correctly
* and this seems to work.
*
* NOTE! This script may moderate DOWN posts which in fact may be
* very funny AND on topic.
*/
{
if (message.contains("Beowulf cluster")
|| message.contains("hot grits")
|| message.contains("Natalie Portman"))
message.moderate_down(random()&1 ? TROLL : OFFTOPIC);
else if (message.contains("I'll be moderated down for this"))
message.moderate_up(random()&1 ? INSIGHTFUL : INTERESTING);
}
Not to sound ignorant or anything, but wasn't this whole trial about M$ illegally bundling their browser? I mean, yes, some other things were brought out (thank goodness), but it all started and centered around that, right?
JoeLinux
If you buy a car does Ford tell you you can't modify it! No of course they don't. It doesn't belong to MS. You telling me Compaq has no right to change or modify the software on their machines?
If you buy a car, it's the same as you buying a machine from Compaq - which you can't change or modify without losing the right to tech support.
When Compaq buys Windows from MS, it's the same as a dealership buying a car from Ford. Ford has a certain set of rules which decide what is present in any given car - and which determine what the dealership can or can't do to that car and still keep the warranty (or even sell the car at all).
This is in part to keep their costs down, but also because they advertize their cars as having a certain set of functionality, which they support (with aftermarket parts, maintenance manuals, etc). The dealerships don't get much leeway at all.
Same thing applies to Microsoft - they advertize a certain set of functionality which people expect to be in Windows when they buy a Compaq machine running Windows. So Compaq can always add stuff, but they can't remove anything.
Seems fine to me. But as an addendum; how about I released a Linux distribution where I thought that well, the Linux kernel was a bit crap at something*... so I swap it out with a kernel I wrote myself. Can I still sell that as Linux? Probably not. So why should Microsoft be treated any differently?
Simon
*not that I'm saying it is crap at anything; this is hypothetical.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
He just might be right. However, the problem with this is that it seems to take some of the wind out of the sails of the Justice Department. They went to all kinds of trouble to show how IE was inextricably linked to the OS, and then made the case that this was damaging to industry. Now we have someone important saying, "it wouldn't be such a big deal to have the OS linked with the browser..."
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
i think you're missing the point. he's saying that Internet Explorer is becoming the new windows and as such, giving it to the applications division is tantamount to giving them windows and they'll be able to do it all over again
stay frosty and alert
Hehe... notepad.exe yepp. I have a friend that can't run notepad or winhelp because his 128 MB RAM machine with Win98 claims no memory left. Right after the first boot, right after install. That's certainly the user "not knowing his way around the OS". I'll have to agree with you that there are countless proof for this.
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
The only cause why Netscape is alive yet is that Microsoft totally ignores UNIX platforms. That's why broken-beyond-all-repair Netscape browser is still holding monopoly on UNIX desktop - there's no other choice. That's why Netscape webservers are used - because they are "commercial" and Apache is not. Netscape is itself a clear example what happens when you have monopoly rotting for years with no competition in sight.
So no wonder Netscape is scared - the day when there will be IE for Linux (given that it would have same qualities as Windows IE) would be the day I wipe Netscape from my machines totally. I'm sick of this sub-quality product where bugs are not fixed for years and no features added, just silly "shopping" and AOL buttons. And given that IE as a browser is much more open and scriptable than Netscape (who is evil here?), I can see the winner.
I seriaously doubt there will be Unix browser from Microsoft, but if there will be - this would be the end for Netscape browser era, and Netscape did its best for it.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
I'm working on it.
Yes, I also think that Elian should stay with his father.
Oh well. It will be years before we find out if Microsoft really will be broken up. All of this speculation will do nothing but put the already suffering tech-stocks in even more of a tizzy.
Who thinks that any Microsoft spinoff has a chance of practicing any shady business activities after all of this? The DoJ doesn't assume that after action is taken, everything is peachy. You still have the same people running the companies. They'll have their eye on Microsoft for at least another decade.
I'm part of a tiny group with these intersecting characteristics: Unix fanatic, doesn't like Microsoft products, but doesn't think they should be broken up. I think they should be punished for using their monopoly status to bully others, but I don't think their monopoly status should be taken from them forcefully. I don't think that large US corporations should have the worry of getting so large that the government breaks them up. You gain a monopoly through hard work. Microsoft was only able to bully others once they gained a monopoly. Before then, they didn't have the clout to do be a bully. Afterwards, they used their status to make sure they stayed where they were. I think that they should be punished (fines/business restrictions/et cetera) and watched very carefully. I also think that afterwards, there should be a giant wave of civil suits with generous punitive damages claimed.
I don't think the OS should be seperated from the apps. Microsoft has valid points. The integration of the two has helped them to really improve how things work. You know why IIS runs fast as hell? Because the engineers had the OS source and could make whatever optimizations you want. When you write software for one OS, which you have complete knowledge of, and will only be executing on one arcitecture, a lot of problems Magically disappear. Why should we begrudge them for doing this?
I'm also tired of those that diss Dell, Gateway, Compaq, and others for [up until recently] only selling Windows PCs. Is Microsoft behind this? They have a minor role. More important is the demand of the comsumers. Windows has no competitors there. Why? The only other company that produces a viable newbie OS is Apple, and they are intent on keeping the OS with the hardware. What other OS could compete, even if Microsoft weren't a dinosaur?
Microsoft could have had competitors in this market. Sun, HP, or (snicker) SGI could have sold stripped-down versions of their respective OSes (SunOS, HP-UX, and IRIX) with CDE as a GUI and done quite well. (CDE, for you Linuxers, is the Motif-friendly windowing system that has been common on commercial Unix and DEC systems for years.) All of these companies are large enough to provide appropriate driver support. Or imagine if Sun, HP, and SGI could have allied themselves to create a UNIX-based consumer-level OS. They'd have excellent driver support for networking, printing, and graphics, and enough market share to get whatever else they needed. Plus, if implemented correctly (i.e. not stripped down too much), the power and stability of UNIX.
CDE does have the ability to be a consumer GUI! How many of you knew that Sun boxen are used internally by Sun as PCs? Yep, a friend of mine who did Sun marketing reminded me of this. He, being a marketer, was not very techinical. (A sweeping yet sadly true statement.) I say, "What did you think of the Solaris GUI? Easy to use?" He says, "No problem." To elaborate on his cluelessness, he didn't know it was CDE in combination with dtwm**. That the user didn't even know what it was called, and yet was able to use it as a desktop OS for four years, with no UNIX training, proves that the Windows-esque isolation of the user from the CLUE can be done in UNIX. But it never caught on in the "real world", and couldn't have, because up until last year commercial level UNIX was very expensive, and didn't run on x86 hardware. But this is the subject of another rant.
That's another thing: architecture. You complain that Compaq won't sell you a PC with Linux. I'll complain, why can't I get a PC with a RISC chip?*** ;-)
Ah well, I'm just daydreaming and babbling again. And I could do this for hours, ranting about why I love UNIX, and how I don't think NT is a bad product, but should be marketed as a desktop OS, and blah blah blah, mouth running like I'm Signal 11. Wow, this Microsoft stuff will do that to you. We'll be seeing books and movies and studies and After-School Specials ("Don't let your kids become Microsoft Programmers!") and Made-For-TV Movies ("Bill Gates, Give Me Back my Baby!") for twenty years afterwards.
Reminds me: did anyone watch that cable movie (on TNT?) that was about the lives of Jobs and Gates? I heard about that, but not being much of a TV viewer, I never watched it. Is it available on video? It sounded vaguely interesting.
** Since SunOS 5.7, that is. OW is still in option, but honestly, why? CDE is beautiful for the power-user as well as the newbie. If you want a cleaner desktop, use AfterStep. OW offers ZERO benefits, other than being preinstalled. :-)
*** The closest you'll get is a Sun Ultra 5, which will cost you about US$3200, including 17" monitor. The box has an UltraSPARC IIi, and is pretty cool considering how much you'd have to pay to get a similar system from HP or SGI. The cheapest HP workstations will include full SCSI and a bunch of other stuff I honestly don't need, and start around $7k. Note that while HP now sells Linux workstations, they're x86. Sort of a waste.
---------///----------
--
I like to watch.
Well, that's not quite accurate. The browser is not integrated into the kernel, it's integrated into the shell. Just like how KDE has a browser integrated into their shell, accessible through the file explorer.
No, that's not accurate. IE is "integrated" into the Windows OS, if you replace explorer.exe (the default windows shell) with something like litestep, you'll see that IE is still used for the general display of "My Computer", the Control Panel, all "File Windows" when you double click a drive from "My Computer", etc. It's still there.
But Microsoft did have the right idea, technically speaking. However, you can definitely argue that a lot of their other practices we're anticompetitive, I will admit.
No, they didn't. They put IE too low level, if IE crashed, so did the OS. IE is always wasting RAM and CPU time when you're in Windows, etc.
-- iCEBaLM
This is one of the best reasons of all to be glad that mozilla/netscape6 is under a decent open source license. Even if AOL forces into the all-in-one "E-Solution" we're all dreading, we'll always be able to take the source and maintain a real and effective web browsing solution.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
heh thanks for the vote of confidence. i thought i was ranting a little too much, maybe i'll not hold back next time :)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
1. Software (Netscape, ICQ, Nullsoft)
2. Internet & Media (TimeWarner Cable, AOL ISP, etc.)
Or Apple:
1. OSes
2. Hardware development (Firewire, PowerPC, etc.)
3. Hardware maker (mice, motherboards, etc.)
4. OEM (Computer assembly)
5. Development tools (whatever ungodly creations Apple has in this arena)
6. Applications (Quicktime, etc.)
7. ISP (oh wait, that completely failed a long time ago, never mind)
Look at the iMac adds, Apple is marketing iMacs as "cars" for the internet, meaning you plug them in, connect to the internet, and launch a browser. Browsers act as a medium for other applications, I don't mean as in Java but the whole web itself.
Consider this quote from Open Sources.
Joshua Yambert
--------------
("kitten vs. puppy vs. baby vs. new video card") a simple summary of my life.
Microsoft should be broken into 3.1415926535897932384626433832795... pieces.
So that everyone can get a piece of the PI.
Thank-you.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Does anyone bother to look at the software installed on their unix computer anymore? With all the fucking griping about Mozilla and netscape/unix it's starting to get old.
***MANUAL FOR UNIX WEB-BROWSING***
Go to terminal. Type in 'lynx'. WOW.
Go to terminal. Install 'links'. ULTRA-WOW!
Go to terminal. Install 'w3m'. WOW!
Go to application-launcher. Type in 'netscape'. WOW!
Go to application-launcher. Type in 'kfm --window'. EXTREME WOW.
Go to terminal. Download and unpack appropriate Mozilla build. Type 'mozilla'. WOW.
Go to terminal. Locate a java browser, or Amaya, or Opera beta, or any of TWENTY UMPTEEN other projects. Install. WOW.
***POINTS***
Web browsing options for unix are plentiful for those who take ten seconds of effort to slap them on the machine, even if nothing is as exceptional as Internet Explorer.
'kfm' is the most brutally underrated quick/fast/dirty web browser ever created. Everyone has KDE, hence kfm, on their linux/bsd desktops, yet hardly anyone fucking realizes what it can do.
'links' is the most brutally underexposed text browser ever. Lynx is a fucking dump next to it. And yes, it does color and frames and tables and layout and that shit. Press 'Esc' to turn on color.
The GTKHTML and Konqueror projects are fucking wonderful.
DontBlow.com is an absolute good.
Please go to mozilla.org and download the latest milestone, or even a nightly build, and just run it please. ...
It's better than IE, that's a guarantee I'll give you.
The problem with browsers is that it's easy to do the simple stuff fast, HTML, simple CSS, all that stuff, but then it gets more complicated real quick, JavaScript, complex CSS, Java,
Even Opera still has lots of JavaScript problems (hell, even IE has lots of JavaScript problems, regarding that Netscape designed the language and IE fucked it up).
So you can write a browser that renders slashdot correctly pretty quick (it uses almost no javascript or complex css as far as I know), but after that it gets irky. Trying to render the more difficult pages out there can become hell. And then yo start to bolt on fix after fix after fix, which is what happened to Netscape and IE, so your browser grows and grows and after a couple of years you end up with this 50 meg megabeast.
So you have two roads, either you stop at a certain point, and keep it simple (like most browsers, and believe me there are a lot of browsers out there), or you design everything up-front which makes it very complex from the start, and is the reason why Mozilla took so long before you saw anything usefull. They built the framework first, the executing code later, which proved to be the right choice, since I'm sure Mozilla will whoop IE's sorry ass on release, which will not take long now.
Contrary to all the whiner's beliefs Mozilla is NOT delayed. There are two Mozilla projects, the first one originally intended to build upon NS4, and failed miserably because the NS4 source was crap, and the second (current) one started from scratch, which is why it took so long. In fact, it didn't take long, they did in so short a time what took every other company out there years, and years.
And as for Konqueror, if they get it all implemented CORRECTLY (which is not as simple as it sounds) quicker than the Mozilla group did it, then it's hats off to them. But there is just so much you need to watch out for, and as I said, there is a difference between your page fully rendering, and your page fully rendering correctly. Right now, only Mozilla can come close to fully rendering it correctly.
it's the protocol.
-pyrrho
I really don't think it matters if IE goes with one company or the other... As long as MS does not require it be bundled with any license for Windows... That was the main problem to begin with...
Therefore if you wanted, you could have Netscape/Opera etc etc as the integrated browser of choice. That I would think would do wonders for promoting competion and fostering innovation.
I saw a Charlie Rose (yes I watch PBS regularly!)
where he had the DOJ, MS lawyer, and some
colmnists the other day.
Seems like the DOJ is almost counting on the
browser being powerful in the way that
is mentioned in the article. I think the DOJ
wants those two MS companies to be at each
other's throats.
What about letting the software company keep
IE, but Windows company gets IIS? That way
they can't leverage IIS and IE together?
I don't like the idea of IE+Windows together
for the short term though.
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
You're kidding right?
It would be very difficult for Internet Explorer Inc. to explain to
its stock holders why they have no revenue. But of course, you
understood that they give it away for free.
No honestly, I have nothing else to say... GenChalupa is my hero.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu
[o]_O
Each company should have a separately traded stock, separate boards of directors and management and be located in separate physical facilities.
In the case of such Intellectual Property that is related to the Internet browser, the license shall not grant the Operating Systems Business any right to develop, license, or distribute modified or derivative versions of the Internet browser.
As I read it, Windows Inc. is not allowed to develop a browser based on IE code (or patents, if any) but they would not be prevented from writing a new browser from scratch or incorporating browser functionality into Windows.
I have a feeling that, even after a break-up, the Microsoft-which-isn't-Windows company will have a Windows bias for a while, just like many, many companies.
/.'er, but honestly, I don't see Microsoft going out of business anytime soon.
Well, as most companies would have it, they'll probably (eventually) release a Mac version, just to keep people happy.
Internet Explorer really doesn't feel like it could be quickly ported to other operating systems though, so I doubt a linux version will be appearing anytime soon.
The interesting thing that will happen is, when not being forced to choose between Netscape and IE, we can find out what the public will prefer when on their own. I get as frusterated with microsoft products as the next
We have ourselves a case of "may the best man win".
when the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. they might as well be dead.
But it Does belong no M$. All you get is the license to use their software. (See the copyrant srticle for more on this subject./P
-- John Linford
Only time I ever wrote a page that I had to change was when IE wouldnt accept a background element in a TR, which made me have to rewrite the page and double its size. That sucked. All the people out there can sing halleluiah about IE's great scripting (security holes) and speed (integration, memory loss) and what not, but I want a secure browser that displays HTML the way it's supposed to be displayed.
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
Who cares? :-)
Seriously - I think KDE compiles under Solaris. (I'm not certain though).
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
I've always wondered about this part in the about box of Internet Explorer 5:
Unix version contains software licensed from Mainsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1998-1999 Mainsoft
Could someone explain this?
I must just point out that comparing Mozilla with konqueror is quite unfair if you know what is going on underneath the different beasts.
AFAIK konqueror/khtml(?) is not aimed at being cross-platform(XPFE), it does not contain a whole new cross-platform widget set(XUL/XBL), or a cross-platform component architechture(XPCOM).
I would say that Mozilla is more complex than GIMP at least, since platform portability induces a lot of complexity.
Taking that in consideration, and reminding oneself that the Mozilla team lost a year in trying to make something of the old mozilla code, I'd say it progresses quite nicely.
Considering most consumers mostly use a browser and its plugins its has the utmost importance especially considering its the only way most people experience the Internet.
Maybe no one will be able to write another browser if MS's embrace, extend, and extinguish strategy keeps working for HTML.
As for being 'stupid' to focus on, if you bothered to watch the case you'd see that MS's muscling of the OEM's to keep from offering Netscape is part of the reason why they are an abusive monopoly.
that's why this line is in the about box :)
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Ah yes, I'm so delighted that the government, a body that masterfully delivers our mail to the wrong address at ever increasing prices, is now placing it's surgeon-like hands into my industry.
/. mainstream and moderate it down to 0 as Overrated or Flamebait. But a posting of "Linus kicks Bills sorry ass yadda yadda yadda" gets a 5, for being Informative.
/folder/misc, unless you run Debian, where you put it in /misc/folder. But on Red Hat, you don't use that file. Linux supports you graphics card, but only Mandrake 663.3 has the right driver. If you have Corel, you won't have much luck. But Corel's based off of Debian, but the same software and desktop isn't bundled, so don't bother typing in that command....
Where does IIS go? Where does IE go? Where does Bob go?
Don't worry, I'm sure the government will figure out something.
In the mean time, for god's sake, please take the web browser out of the hands of a software monopoly like Microsoft and put it in the hands of a media monopoly like AOL!!
Jim Clark is a real good guy. We should all love him. He bowed to AOL like the French to Hitler. Real dedication.
We've been operating under the assumption that we know better than the consumer. IE is on the desktop, so people will use IE. They are incapable of typing in www.netscape.com because they are drooling animals.
At least it's an option.
On AOL, try changing email clients. Or web clients. Or FTP. Or anything.
This anti-trust trial is irrelevant. IBM was evil. It fell. MS was evil. It is falling. AOL is today's evil. And it's a far more formidable enemy. For millions, they control Internet access. For virtually everybody, they control content and information.
Sheesh. I guess I've rattled enough feathers. Everyone go back to reading your code for errors and complaining about MS.
Ah, hell, I give up. Reason has no place here. Fuck Microsoft. Fuck AOL. Fuck VA Linux Systems. Fuck Slashdot. Fuck Taco and Hemos and that rat bastard Roblimo. While I'm sinking further into moderation hell...
Nobody here wants the government getting involved in the Internet. Yet everybody wants the government involved in the software industry. (That makes sense. Since obviously the Internet doesn't use software.)
Everybody here rants how Linux is going to kick Windows' ass. Linux rules!! Yeah! Yet you have to enlist the government to slay Windows because Linux can't do it.
Everybody here values this forum's free speech, yet you take any well reasoned and factual comment which disagrees with
Open source ethic will make Linux easy to use. Just like EMACS!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!
Fuck moderation points, I'm just getting warmed up!
OPEN SOURCE! OPEN SOURCE! I won't run Windows because it's not open source! But let me haul ass to CompUSA to buy my closed-source copy of Diablo II and WordPerfect 2000.
There's no fragmentation in the Linux world!! Nooo!!! But don't run that program, because it requires Xfree 32.2353, but it only comes standard with Red Hat 8.3. But if you have SuSE 5.2389 running the 2.44 kernel you need to download the 9.87 xstuff. Well, don't worry, because once you have everything, you need to copy it into
Who else can I piss off? A big FUCK YOU goes out to all of you penguin fuckers who cum when you see Linux ported to fucking digital watches. Hey assholes, how about fixing the damn bug that crashes Netscape every ten minutes? And why the fuck do you want Linux on a toaster anyway?
BUSINESS IS EVIL, eh Katz? I bet you sure jumped at the chance to get some of that hot VA Linux IPO.
That's enough. I'm going to save ammo for the sequel.
Fuck all of you, and goodnight.
Ok, first, porting all of this software would mean undoing all of the damage that M$ has already done. They will have to make it so that their programs can work nicely with other programs in order to do this. Second, they will only port their programs if they don't still view windows as the dominant OS, or at least try to keep it that why, they may very well do this. In 10 years, they can reunite. IF they were working under the table, and they have been so far, they could plan on reuniting from day one. Third, porting their applications means complying with the real industry standards, not the fake ones that they make up to stay in power. This means that they have to make programs that actually work. It also means that their programs will compete on their quality (though at least for a while, the name will keep them going). Supposing that my software is competing with theirs on the basis of its quality. Supposing that they are actually writing good software. Supposing that they aren't just wedging me out with monopolistic practices... Then I really don't care if they are the #1 by market share. As long as they actually deserve it, I'm fine with that. So, if IE gets ported to 10000000 different platforms, and actually becomes a good piece of software, then I really don't give a rats ass if it's the #1 browser, just as long as it deserves to be that way. I still use netscape & mozilla, and I'll probably keep it that way no matter how many platforms M$ ports their, software to.
Eh...
I think you're refering to 'Hari' Seldon, the main character of Issac Asimov's Foundation Series.
Good reference though.
Congratulations, you've joined the ranks of people who are so obsessed with going against the social grain that you are just as conformist as the people you criticise.
/. mainstream and moderate it down to 0 as Overrated or Flamebait. But a posting of "Linus kicks Bills sorry ass yadda yadda yadda" gets a 5, for being Informative.
Nobody here wants the government getting involved in the Internet. Yet everybody wants the government involved in the software industry. (That makes sense. Since obviously the Internet doesn't use software.)
I think a better way to put it is that no one wants a big, powerful entity to control the internet OR software. If it's the government, then I oppose the government. If it's Microsoft and the government can help, than I would side with the lesser of two evils.
Everybody here values this forum's free speech, yet you take any well reasoned and factual comment which disagrees with
You know, it's become fashionable to claim this, as if people who do are more enlightened than the rest of us. But frankly I can't see examples of it. Dissenting opinions are moderated up ALL THE TIME, and thoughtless Linux advocacy is almost always modded down. I challenge you to cite some specific wrongly moderated messages if you're going to get on your high horse and claim that we're all guilty of tunnel vision.
Fuck moderation points, I'm just getting warmed up!
I love this reverse psychology game, where you try and make the moderators believe that if they don't mod you up that they're bigoted or something.
OPEN SOURCE! OPEN SOURCE! I won't run Windows because it's not open source! But let me haul ass to CompUSA to buy my closed-source copy of Diablo II and WordPerfect 2000.
Few people claim that there's no place for commercial, closed-source software. It's just preferable when there's an open-source alternative.
There's no fragmentation in the Linux world!! Nooo!!! But don't run that program, because it requires Xfree 32.2353, but it only comes standard with Red Hat 8.3. [....]
Show me who claims Linux is perfect. I'll show you who doesn't get taken seriously.
But in the meantime, I sit here on my debian box and apt-get almost ANY open source software package and watch it download and install all deps and everything. Show me an equivalent in the windows world.
Hey assholes, how about fixing the damn bug that crashes Netscape every ten minutes?
That's not realy possible. Because Netscape isn't open source. Oh, the irony...
Who else can I piss off? A big FUCK YOU goes out to all of you penguin fuckers who cum when you see Linux ported to fucking digital watches.
I think you're missing the point. When you get together with your buddies and write an full operating system complete with thousands of software packages, which only by virtue of its merit (there sure as hell isn't any marketing) manages to rival the market share and mind share that Linux has, then you can sit around and criticize the open source community. But until then, you're full of hot air. A rebel without a cause, I think they say...
It blows my mind that people care about a stupid browser. A browser is just not the most complex piece of software on the planet. Bottom line, it just displays files!
Good god, it's as if no one else will ever be able to write a browser if Microsoft is allowed to keep theirs.
I've always thought that was the stupidest thing for the justice department to focus on. Of course a browser should be included in an operating system, just like Linux, Be, the Mac, and just about every Unix nowadays does. It's just a utility like 'troff'. Take a file and format it.
There are lots of reasons to criticize Microsoft, but the browser obsession is the least of them.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
If there is one thing I have learned in 17 years in the US Army is this: Be afraid of what you ask for, you just might get it. Everyone was sceaming for a breakup of M$ when they truthfully was hoping for was a break down of M$. Well thier wishes have been answered if goes as planned, M$ will be broken into separate entities. Live and learn... You got your cake... now eat it :P~
As a web designer, I have become increasingly discontent with both Netscape and Internet Explorer, to the point that I wish Microsoft and Netscape (Now A0L) would just jump in bed together and settle on some standards. The ease of use and flexible coding IE provides is far overshadowed by the endless security risks its new features present. And Netscape, while I am usually able to except the sluggish rendering and refusal to obey css or proprietary IE scripting it shells out, especially horrified me in it's newest version, which, aside from forcing instant messanger on me, prominantly displays a "shop!" button on the main menu bar. If I'm ordering anything through the Netscape shop! icon, it's a vomit bag. So I and probably reems of other designers out there have nothing else to do but wait for IE to either take over the world, or for Netscape to be allowed through AOL to become the sturdy browser it once was, instead of just another vehicle for Instant Messanger and their annoying online commerce crap. Did I mention I don't like A0L?
What the government has failed to see when this whole ordeal began is that IE was embedded into Windows and eventually became Windows. So what, you might as? Here's partially why...
We all know writing HTML code is far easier than programming some pretty intense gui's. By making IE into Windows, a developer can easily create a shell extension without having to do a lot (if any) programming. Also, by tying IE into the system, the Internet and the desktop become one. Yes, anyone can still use Netscape as their default browser (I sure as hell do when I'm using Windows), but having IE be the system makes things easier for both Microsoft and end users by providing updates to Windows through a nice web interface that previously in the past was decryptive on which components to install. Now, a since engine built on IE tells you what you need (even though you still have the option of downloading it).
As much as I like Linux and the fact that Mozilla (Netsacpe 6) will be cross platform and introduce the same embeddable technology IE did years ago for programmers, IE does leverage a lot of easy interfaces for developers. It sure has helped me when creating shell extensions for the company I work in.
So, IE would definitely be better suited for the Windows group of the (new) Microsoft company.
In Windows2000, Explorer has image previewing software built in. What if MS adds an HTML preview? That's not allowed? What about a PDF preview? What's the difference between a web browser and a file system shell anyway? It's just layers of data.
I'm weary of all this talk about things being "good for consumers". I like the fact that my shell has built in ties to HTML. I like that I can have a weather widget on my desktop. I like that I can call up a web page from Explorer if I'm feeling lazy.
Punish Microsoft if you will, limit their behavior, but I don't want the DOJ telling me what my software vendors can and can't package for me. That sits wrong with me. Are they going to order Adobe to pull ImageReady out of Photoshop 5.5 if Macromedia Fireworks bombs? Is that illegal tying?
-Erik
In the last line, timothy asked, "Where's Harry Seldon when you need him?"
It was actually Hari Seldon who was the man to invent "psychohistory", a scientific means of predicting the future actions of large groups and broad social forces, in Isaac Asimov's Foundation sci-fi series.
I apologize for the off-topicality; just making a tiny correction.
--Sam L-L