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Proposed Legal Test For Combining Programs
MrKhuel writes: "Professor Lee Hollaar of the University of Utah School of Computing has filed a neutral friend of the court brief, which has been posted with other electronically submitted documents in the Microsoft anti-trust appeal, discussing problems with some arguments for combining programs and how to test for the legality of program combination in anti-trust cases." Beyond the Microsoft case, this has some interesting applications.
Actually that's from the python documentation, here is the link
Trust the source!
"[A]ggressive pricing, higher output, improved product quality, energetic market penetration, successful research and development, cost-reducing innovations, and the like are welcomed by the Sherman Act. They are therefore not to be considered 'exclusionary' for 2 purposes even though they tend to exclude rivals and may even create a monopoly." -- Phillip E. Areeda et al., Antitrust Law
"Even an act of pure malice by one business competitor against another does not state a claim under the federal antitrust laws." -- Spectrum Sports, Inc. v. McQuillan
"Product superiority and the ensuing market position, flowing from a company's research, talents, commercial efforts, and financial commitments, do not convert the successful enterprise into an illegal monopolist under the Sherman Act." Intergraph vs. Intel
And with regard to the examples you cite, the file format for Word at least has stayed the same since Word 97, when it switched to HTML (the next version of Office will use the same format). And the DR-DOS "error message" to which you refer was in a beta version of the software and was later removed.
This is irrelevant since Judge Jackson's preliminary injunction was unanimously overturned by the appeals court. You have yet to explain the consumer benefit of removing web browsing functionality from Windows.
Sorry, it was a knee-jerk reaction. Still bugs me, though.
MSK
I agree. But our web browser would have nothing at all to do with my comment about software distribution in the Windows world. The software installation application that enables more modular software distribution need not even be written by Micro(Richman)soft; none of the major installers used today are.
.ZIP file support in Windows ME seems a little odd to me... Unlike the installer situation, this pretty much puts WinZip out of business. But at least Windows is catching up to Linux feature-wise... *grin*
Actually, With Win2K/WinME Microsoft has introduced a centralized "installer" service, using a special package format (MSI) which does library and version tracking, etc etc. You can download the service for Win98 as well..
You'll note that ActiveState uses MSI exclusively for distributing Windows stuff.
It actually makes a lot of sense... Rather than have InstallShield, Wise, and half a dozen other installer services tracking which DLLs are/aren't being used, and clobbering each other (say, InstallShield deleting foo.dll because IS thought it wasn't being used, but a Wise-installed app was using it...) a central manager for this stuff makes sense.
And actually, this doesn't have to put Wise/InstallShield/etc out of business -- it just means they have to make MSI-compatible installer-generators...
Now, the decision to include
-JF
MrJoy.com -- Because coding is FUN!
PC Magazine awarded Internet Explorer 4.0 its Editor's Choice award, stating that "Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 surpasses Netscape Communicator in functionality and ease of use." In January 1998, PC Magazine followed up this review by stating: "The browser that provides the best Web experience today and promises the best for tomorrow is Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0."
PC Computing gave Internet Explorer its highest rating of five stars: "What we found was a browser that's easily a cut above the competition." The review continued: "IE4 is filled with usability improvements that make it far and away the most accessible and productive browser we've ever used." And it concluded: "All in all, IE 4 is a compelling upgrade to Windows 95 and NT 4.0."
PC Computing also recently awarded Internet Explorer 4.0 its 1998 MVP award in the Web browsing category, calling it the "best browser you can't buy" and noting that it is "also our usability champion, making fast, easy work of Web navigation." Awarding Internet Explorer 4.0 its award for overall Software Product of the Year for the period May 1997 through April of 1998, Windows Magazine stated: "Of the thousands of software products introduced, upgraded or enhanced in the past year, none stands out as profoundly as Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0." The review also noted: Despite the swirl of controversy, Internet Explorer 4.0 also represents a successful integration of the Windows Desktop with local networks and the Web. Should you choose to use the new "Active Desktop," the common interface has the familiar accoutrements of a browser with an enhanced taskbar that makes navigation easier than ever, and offers the convenience of opening a Web page directly on the Desktop.
PC World recommended Internet Explorer 4.0, stating that "[i]t's the better suite for two reasons: Its True Web Integration gives the Windows 95 desktop a welcome face-lift, and its Outlook Express e-mail program is far superior to Communicator's Messenger."
Mobile Computing & Communications added to the praise: "Still, when faced with a choice between IE 4 and Communicator, we must admit that we didn't have to think for very long: Communicator just doesn't have the polish, the ease of use nor the flexibility of Microsoft's Web suite."
InfoWorld commented: "[W]hen it comes to speed, ease of use, and downright fun, Explorer takes top honors." The review also noted: "Say what they will about Microsoft's marketing, but even the Justice Department can't alter the fact that the company's Internet Explorer 4.01 is the smoothest Web cruiser available now."
TechWeb added: "Although these are both great products that easily surpass their ancestors, Internet Explorer does nearly everything at least a little bit better."
HomePC gave its Editors' Choice award to Internet Explorer 4.0: "Sorry, Netscape. The latest version of Microsoft's Browser boasts some spiffy enhancements -- such as the Search Bar and Outlook Express e-mail program--that make the Web friendlier than ever."
ZDNet also chose Internet Explorer 4.0 as the clear winner over Netscape Navigator: "If you're a Windows user, you can't beat IE 4.0's HTML-based integration with the Windows desktop. It has a welcome variety of install options, a versatile email client, CDF push technology, strong Dynamic HTML support and a clear migration path that supports open standards."
The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg stated: "Microsoft's new Internet Explorer browser and its companion Outlook Express mail package are decisively superior to the latest version of Netscape's Navigator browser and Messenger e-mail software." He summed up his extremely favorable review with the following comment: "I heartily recommend Internet Explorer 4.0 and Outlook Express. They are among the best programs Microsoft has ever published."
The Houston Chronicle declared Internet Explorer the clear winner: "Simply put, Microsoft has kicked Netscape's butt. Internet Explorer 4.0 is a better browser than Navigator. On top of that, it's free."
The Boston Globe joined in the plaudits: "[I]f you're addicted to the best of the best, clear some space on your hard drive and load up IE4. For now, it's untouchable." The review continued: "Netscape still has a strong business in Internet server software. But with the release of IE4, Netscape's position in the browser wars resembles the Confederate army after Gettysburg. From here on, it's just a matter of time."
Kim Komando of The Los Angeles Times concluded: "I know I'm going to get flamed by e-mails and accused of working for Microsoft when I say this, but I do like Internet Explorer better."
And Fortune magazine stated: "The browser is fast, efficient, and so chock full of improvements that it beats Navigator hands down."
The M$ problem exists ONLY on the x86 platform. Buy something else.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
No-one's suggesting that MS has to fill in forms to issue products, but that the base Windows product is made available after it meets standards.
Linux runs a stable base and development code with their even and odd kernel releases. Features of the odd kernel are integrated into the even kernel only on some sort of committee say so. [This is what inspired the solution, if you must know] The main difference here is that we're dealing with a company with a past history of disrupting the market.
The thing does not even ban MS from improving the kernel or any other feature. But this improvement is to be made as an add-on, just as they have in the past, and they have to make the system without the addon available. What it does prevent is MS fostering IE onto everyone as a requirement to have the OS. I mean, MS has the installation down to two clicks, if they are to be believed.
The idea that some feature of the driver might be made available to all operating systems is inspired by Microsoft's microdriver model.
The idea of a bios-level install is inspired by products like OS/2's Boot Manager, Compaq's and IBM disk based BIOS utilities, partition magic and others. The idea is that one could use a generic install for OS systems, and then have the OS compile its own drivers from the stored microdrivers. The thing can be run out of its own partition, like boot manager and Compaq's bios utility are.
There is nothing in the `BIOS level' system install and maintanence that prevents an OS from having a different file system, loading additional drivers, including those on demand or whatever. All that is required is basic installation and a reasonable support for the principle features of the computer.
The idea of being able to roll back the system is to prevent some sort of `not available' noise. I mean, you can have Windows and a number of service packs on the same cdrom, and the installation could pick files from the base product or the base product and service packs, based on selecting a different install file.
The idea of retrofitting older OS installs into the picture is to help undo the damage done by MS anti-competitive actions, much as AT&T had to undo their wall-plugs.
Maybe some of the presentation was a little too extreme for some to follow, but the heart was there. :)
When you come to grips with the concept that the home grown data and programs are more valuable to the users than the manufactured software, then you will come to understand why retro support is so essential. We had some weird GWBASIC program running right up to 1999, because the data it processed was more valuable than replacing it with something easier to program.
The sort of solution protects Microsoft's IP rights and their right to innovate, etc, but it also protects the consumer from these very things. We don't stop MS from making Outlook, but we prevent them from forcing it onto everyone as a condition of Windows.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
Yeah, for a class at school, I made a shell for IE, looked pretty damn cool, I got a B... :) It's actually quite easy to write a browser using the IE dlls, I used to use my custom browser all the time, before I got Opera, and I still you my little tiny custom browser on occasion, for nostalgia..... hehehehe....
Shit adds up at the bottom...
The Linux kernel is the heart of the system, but you can't run on the kernel alone. There is a subset of software which is considered required for a Linux system to work correctly, and which could therefore be considered part of the operating system.
/sbin/init with my own application, I can run a "Linux OS" without bash or X or vi or any of the utilities that come with a typical Linux distribution.
Linux is becoming widely used as an OS in embedded applications. If I replace
I'm not experienced enough with Linux to be able to say specifically which pieces of software are necessary, and how much software is included depends on the definition of "work." Does "work" mean "a user can log in and manipulate files"? If so, that means everything up to, and including, a shell and a text editor. If you simply define "work" as "can boot, but errors are acceptable" then the subset becomes a great deal smaller.
"Work" neans that the device loads the OS and provides the functions that the system integrator designed into it. A dedicated purpose, Linux-based device may have little of the functionality that you associate with a typical distribution. It may be a point of sale terminal which communicates with local devices (a barcode scanner, a receipt printer, a credit card reader, a cash drawer) and servers (a price database and modem pool for credit card approval) without a shell, keyboard or mouse.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Although written to help clarify issues in the Microsoft antitrust case, if the ideas in this brief are used to adjudicate these procedings, they will have broader ramifications.
To overstate the obvious, code sharing and product tying are widespread phenomenon. Read this brief again, and substitute "Linux Distribution" for "Windows". Hopefully there are people out there with more insight than me, but there are things about this brief that make me uncomfortable.
How do you define "combination"? Is linking against a static library a "combination"? A shared library? Is an amalgamation of programs bundled into a distribution a combination?
Is the integration of products in RH7.0 "different" and "better" than what a consumer would get if they combined those component on their own? Why is it o.k. for an OEM to integrate products, but not o.k. for the producer of those products to do so?
I'm not saying there aren't good answers to these questions. I just don't see them articulated in this brief.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Just to amend my previous response, OEMs *were* able to preinstall Netscapae Navigator on their machines, and lots did including Gateway 2000, IBM, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Sony, Packard Bell/NEC, Acer and Hewlett Packard. Each preinstalled Netscape's web browsing software on certain of their machines and include an icon for that software on the Windows desktop.
Did anyone else look at some of the other amicus curae briefs?
Theres this one by the "Center for Moral Defense of Capitalism" And this one by "The Association for Objective Law".
Ironically, these two entities were supposed to file a combined brief, but they couldn't agree on what it should say, so they filed briefs even though the court denied their motion to do so. It looks like TAFOL's brief will be considered as it's within the length limit, but
the CMDC has until today to file one about half as long as the one they've alread submitted.
With friends like these, MS dosn't need enemies.
There's mor interesting stuff. The parties have until Jan 5 to decide who will be seated at the table. It looks like the Clinton Administration will be determining who argues this appeal and not he Bush Administration.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Well, before Microsoft included a TCP/IP stack with Windows there was a thriving market for third party implimentations. Most of which were faster than Microsoft's. You choose. Do you want all from one or best of breed? Sorry, you can't choose. The third party market died when MS included the stack. That's the problem the brief is trying to address.
While I agree with most of the reasoning in the brief, I don't agree that there is no good definition of an operating system. Pretty clearly the copy/past functions are part of the shell, not the OS. FTP and Telnet are utilities, not part of the OS.
> What exactly would the U.S. do if gates decided
> to use the majority vote of his and his buddies
> and move the headquarters of M$ overseas?
Are you kidding? If a foreign company had tried to do what Microsoft has done to its US competitors, the US government would been all over them for dumping, restraint of trade, unfair competition, etc etc. MS products would certainly have been slapped with massive punitive tariffs, and the host country would have been put under huge diplomatic pressure and probably dragged into the WTO. Not to mention all the rhetoric you'd be hearing about the threat to US nationalism, how other countries don't respect free trade, the need to recapture technology leadership, etc.
It happens all the time in other industries --- lamb, steel, sugar --- even when the foreign companies are honestly outperforming their US counterparts. A company as dirty as Microsoft would trigger a firestorm.
Not so fast. :-) The conclusion that integrating the browser into the OS forecloses on the market has been debunked. It's easy to forget that IE 1.0 was included with Windows 95 and had an icon on the desktop and that year Netscape's web browsing revenues *increased*. It wasn't until IE was better than Netscape that its market share began eroding. Most of IE's market share is based on its use in AOL's client; AOL has stated its intention to switch to Netscape, so we may see a reversal of fortunes in the new year.
Microsoft considered having Windows test for the presence of MS-DOS, because Windows 3.1 had only been tested with MS-DOS. The notion was that Microsoft could warn consumers that they were using an untested configuration and that Microsoft could not guarantee the proper functioning of their machine. To preserve the option of including such a message in the final product, Microsoft included in the third beta release of Windows 3.1 certain code that looked for MS-DOS. If MS-DOS was not found, that code displayed a benign message asking beta users to call Microsoft support personnel. The goal of the message to beta testers was to determine whether the code that tested for the presence of MS-DOS was working properly. Importantly, Caldera fails to mention that the message to beta testers did not mention DR DOS or DRI by name or suggest that the reason why the message was being displayed had anything to do with the beta tester's operating system. In fact, the message provided beta testers with no indication of what was causing the message to appear. Caldera also fails to mention that no such message was ever displayed in any commercial release of Windows.
Non-Fatal error detected: error #2726
Please contact Windows 3.1 beta support
Press ENTER to exit or C to continue
Hey, are you going to press C or Enter every time you start Windows?
(b) You would never guess that this is the offending message when you look into the win.com with a hex viewer. It's nestled after the MSDPMI message (which you can get, if you run win.com from a dos session started in winstart.bat.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
WARNING: This Microsoft product has been tested and certified
for use only with the MS-DOS and PC-DOS operating systems.
Your use of this product with another operating system may
void valuable warranty protection provided by Microsoft on
this product.
Pressing the offered Help button yields:
The Microsoft Programmer's WorkBench (PWB) has found that the
operating system is not MS-DOS or PC-DOS; that is, it was not
originated by Microsoft. If PWB is run on an operating system that
is not an exact duplicate of a Microsoft-originated operating
system, the product may not perform as intended.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
Microsoft has touted IE as a component for other developers to use, which means that the IE user interface, Explorer, and every other application which uses the IE component is accessing the API. As a result, Microsoft implicitly admits that IE is a component, and thus replaceable, and thus their claims that it is a true integration are simply wrong.
You're just arguing over microsoft's interpretation of the word integration. Microsoft has publicly said that all software components (especially microsoft ones) are made up of smaller components. Windows could work perfectly well without TCP/IP, a GUI, etc. But it wouldn't be as useful. Integration doesn't mean that it won't work without it. You can say that car seats are integrated into (or an integral part of) cars for example.
IE wasn't built into Windows until Windows95 OSR2. Windows95 OSR2 was never sold to the public, but only installed on OEM systems.
So I think your conclusion that Netscape's web browsing revenues increased that year is based on false grounds - because many customers did not have access yet to a Windows version which should make them uninterested in another web browser and the rest of the web browser competition merely by it already including a web browser already.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
You're just arguing over microsoft's interpretation of the word integration.
Yes I am, which is one of the major issues in this lawsuit. What does it mean to integrate components? Microsoft supporters seem to feel integration takes place once a component starts using another component. DOJ supporters feel that integration only takes place when the two components become largely inseparable.
To put it another way, Microsoft seems to be saying that integration is a one-way street. Even if a particular component can be used by any number of third-party applications, once that component is used by a "core" part of the operating system, that part is integrated. Keeping with the car analogy, it's like saying that once the battery is used by the car stereo, the battery and stereo are integrated components. To remove IE means removing the parts of Windows that use IE, much like removing the car stereo would mean removing the battery as well.
DOJ supporters believe that it is a two-way street. Integration means that two components depend on each other for the correct functioning, and that neither can exist alone. In this view, while IE the application may not work properly without IE the component, IE the component can - and does - exist separately from IE the application, much like a car stereo may not work correctly without a battery, but the battery can work and function properly without being connected to a car stereo. If
Furthermore, the two components must actually be used by each other. It might be possible to build a car stereo into a car battery, but if the car stereo doesn't use the battery, I wouldn't call the two components integrated. Similarly, putting the IE component code into the code for DirectX, the GDI, or the TCP/IP subsystem does not make the code "integrated" unless the DirectX, GDI, or TCP/IP code actually utilizes the functionality that the IE code provides.
Microsoft has publicly said that all software components (especially microsoft ones) are made up of smaller components.
And when they said that, they were correct. However, the same could be said for literally anything. My Lego X-Wing fighter at home is also made up of smaller components; does that mean that the Lego bricks are integrated? My computer is made up of a video card, processor, memory, monitor, keyboard, mouse - does that mean all of those components are integrated with each other? (If so, how do you explain the ability to upgrade components without replacing the entire system?)
Windows could work perfectly well without TCP/IP, a GUI, etc. But it wouldn't be as useful. Integration doesn't mean that it won't work without it.
Ah, but now you're playing the shell game by moving the shell with the pea under it. Now, instead of defining integration technologically, we're defining it by its utility.
Integration by utility, in the view of the author of the PDF, can only be justified by offering concrete, clear examples of what is specifically more useful for the two specific programs combined. Many of the advantages that Microsoft offered as rationale for the integration - a single installer, a single point of support, a single source of documentation - are not necessarily exclusive to the IE/Windows combination, nor are they necessarily exclusive to "integrated" components. Two standalone components can be installed with one installer, have one combined source of documentation, and a single point of support. Another useful result of the combination is not having to download the browser - but that too is disingenuous, as that is not really a result of the combination of IE and Windows as it is simply the ability to put the component DLLs on the CD at press time. The benefits - the enhanced utility - for the specific combination of the two must go above and beyond what would be provided if the two components were supplied separately, and at the same revision level (it's easy to say that the "integrated" Windows 98 offers improved functionality over the non-integrated Windows 95 - but how much of that improved functionality/utility is provided simply by the enhancements made in Windows 98?)
So now you have to offer me a list of the benefits of an "integrated" IE and Windows versus a non-integrated IE and Windows, at the same revision level for both programs, minus the subset of benefits that are common to any combined set of programs shipped from the same source.
That is small indeed, my friend, and not a single one immediately springs to mind.
--
They are right it won't work.
You can say it is an internet browser with an OS attached to it.
Microsoft does not understand the concept of maintaining clean interfaces.
This is the reason why their code is bloating all the time.
This is the reason why the OS is dependant on the browser which is dependant on COM which is dependant on the OS which is dependant on the office suite etc....
They are making the most basic mistakes in building software.
They will surely fail and are making room for competition by their own incompetence.
Open Source will prevail.
He who experiments learns much but reboots/reinstalls often.
I'm not so sure about this point. Suppose Micro$oft was selling Windoze 2010 for $1000, and they sell Outlook Express for $1000 as well. If I understand the argument correctly, it would be OK for them to combine them into a single package as long as they went on selling the two seperately.
So what do they do? They bolt the two together, call the package Windoze 2010 Professional, and sell it for $1000. Or hey, maybe they're feeling deperate to dominate the mailer market and they sell the combined version for less than either of the components! Either way, no one will buy the components seperately anymore.
It seems that making this exception in the consideration of software combinations creates a big, fat loophole.
But for the most part, it's one of the most lucid documents in the whole case that I've read...
-Alec
hey! and aussies too!
How we know is more important than what we know.
The truth is that when a certian share of the market is had, then some sort of regulation should kick in. The situation in changing the Windows UI should be no different to changing the position of controls on a motor car.
I suggest that Windows be frozen at certian levels, and upgraded by add-on patches. Periodically, these patches will be examined by some external committee, and those deemed essential will be made into a standard patch, to be distributed with all copies of Windows.
Users would then be able to apply the OS or the OS with the standard patch level. The level of patching will be such that any of the last x versions, or the last x years, might be restored from a given copy. That is, if I buy Win2002, I should be able to roll out the standard Win95, Win98, WinME, &c.
New features would be distributed under separate cover. These will be greatly restricted, because they may only be added under the result of an external committee.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
Apparently a number of them caused uproar in the court room.
Yes, they apparently did. But you said that he had been "saying stuff that only 15 minutes before had been determined to be false" and that he "openly lied" and called for a perjury charge.
That's a little different than "they caused uproar".
"...if all applications use the same built-in serializer for a certain fileformat, changes to that format would only require a single componentupdate to the operating system."
But then we have incompatible formats still running around. If someone sends you format v2.348 rev 281 and you have v3.123 rev 51 you might not be able to open up the older version. Then if there must be one file format thing that handles everything, it'll be HUGE! That's just to much system related software to me.
"Ofcourse, using a standard DLL in Windows to perform certain tasks doesn't require it to be part of the Operating System, but in what other way can you be certain that all your potential customers have it installed?"
Put it into the distro of the software. Simple as that.
indeed I did and if I recall correctly this is what caused the uproar. I honestly dont think people were upset because Bill is an ugly bastard. If I find the article (wired has removed all their early trial articles for some reason) I'll post that link too.
How we know is more important than what we know.
As I understand it, and please correct me if I am mistaken, in Linux only the Kernel is considered the OS, and everything else is software.
What if I'm installing IE in Korea on a 14.4 connection? Also, companies are under no obligation to help their competitors. Like if you and I were in business together, let's call it RichmanSoft, and we were building a browser, our goal might be something like "let's give consumers a great browsing experience" not "let's architect this so it's as convenient as possible for our competitors."
Another example is on page 22, where the author writes that increasing the maintainability of applications written for Windows because a lot of functionality used by them is already built in the OS has no direct benefit to consumers. Again I disagree: for instance, if all applications use the same built-in serializer for a certain fileformat, changes to that format would only require a single componentupdate to the operating system. This means the consumer won't have to update all the applications seperately - not to even mention all the possible bugs that could result from the various implementations.
As you point out yourself, "standard" DLLs pretty much destroy this point of your argument. For instance, lots of programs share the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime libraries on my computer. If Microsoft discovered a catastrophic bug in msvcrt40.dll or mfc40.dll or any other DLL, I would only have to replace one file. Have you ever installed a program and seen an alert that asks you to confirm the replacement of a DLL with a more recent version?
Ofcourse, using a standard DLL in Windows to perform certain tasks doesn't require it to be part of the Operating System, but in what other way can you be certain that all your potential customers have it installed?
Ah, now this point provides ripe fodder for a rant. The quick answer is, they don't know if their customers have it installed. So they bundle all necessary DLLs with their installer. This is a pretty fucked up part of the Windows software distribution world, that people are constantly and unknowingly downloading msvcrt DLLs and other DLLs that they already have on their computers.
If I'm installing Enlightenment on my Linux box, I need imlib (amongst other things). How do the Enlightenment folks know that I have the proper version of imlib on my computer? They don't. They don't care. Having imlib is a precondition to being able to run Enlightenment, and the onus is on me to install it. In fact, if you go to Rpmfind.net, you'll find that pretty much every RPM they have requires that you have some other stuff installed.
Does it suck that I have to install these libraries and ancillary programs? Is it inconvenient? No. The reason is that there are nice graphical applications that install my Linux software for me (some better than others), and they can automatically check dependencies for me and download and install the required shared libraries. Even in the absence of such a handy application, I'm a big boy and can cope with following links to download required libraries if I don't already have them.
Now, many Windows users aren't big boys. I remember downloading a few programs over the years from sites that offered different versions of their installer depending on which libraries you already had installed. I liked this a lot, but many Windows users wouldn't know what the hell they were talking about. I'm sure most people could learn to download libraries on their own if they had to (although these libraries would probably get left behind when they uninstalled), but they shouldn't have to. There should be a nice installer mechanism that downloads, installs, and keeps track of all required libraries for you. If Microsoft wanted to bundle a useful program with their operating systems that scored mad points in the battle of modularity and code reuse, this strikes me as a nicer choice than foisting IE on people.
It would be nice if the system were such that if a company decided that Mozilla's HTML rendering engine was superior to Microsoft's and chose to use it in their product, they could do so without having to worry too much about the bloat it would introduce in their installer download.
Thanks for the great ideas, Commissar Larry. Explain to me again how crippling regulation benefits *consumers*? Obviously it benefits AOL, Oracle, Sun and the rest of the Silicon 7 that lobbied for this sham case, but what about your grandma? She wanted Windows improved *yesterday*, not after the next committee meeting.
I have had an experience I believe falss into this area. I have recently gotten a cable modem because there is no DSL in my area. Time Warner makes me buy cable TV as well in order to have the cable modem. I have DSS and did not want the cable television programming, since it boosts the total cost to about $90 per month. The woman at Time Warner that I spoke to said the cable modem won't work without the TV programming, but I know that is not true. Also, the guy that installed it brought the data in on one cable and the TV programming in on a separate cable to keep down the noise on the line.
âoeIn theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not." â Albert Einstein
Second, the market for a compatible DOS was effectively eliminated when Windows finally picked up steam, not when Microsoft started including DOS in the same cardboard box as Windows 95. I'm sure MS would have preferred to simply retire DOS completely and make Windows 95 a free-standing OS, but couldn't do so because it would have orphaned all those old DOS apps (not to mention the fact that Windows still relied (relies?) on much of the basic services of DOS - but that's another story). So it put DOS in semi-retirement by hiding it behind the Windows shell.
Uh, dude? Windows *required* DOS. How does "Windows picking up steam" eliminate the market for a product it requires? Windows 95 also *requires* DOS, as does 98 and ME. All these are is DOS in the same box as Windows. DOS won't be in retirement (semi- or otherwise) until they finally retire that entire OS series in favor of an NT based kernel. However, prior to 95, that DOS did not have to be MS-DOS. Windows 3.x could run just as easily on DR-DOS as it could on MS-DOS. So yes, it was 95's inclusion in the box that destroyed the market for a compatible DOS.
I also find it laughable to hear so many people bitching about Microsoft bundling non-operating system programs with Windows when most Linux distributions come with every piece of Linux freeware under the sun "bundled" on the same CD and nobody complains about that or whines that it's "unfair" to Microsoft.
*sigh* Bundled != integrated. I have a CHOICE to not install the 10,000 different programs that come on the disk. No matter what I do, when I install Windows 98, ME, 2000, etc, I get Exploder on my system. Furthermore, the distros bundle competing software. They don't pick your newsreader, your email client, etc. for you. Most importantly, no Linux distro has a monopoly, either of PC OS market or even the Linux distro market.
1) Microsoft owns Windows and IE and ought to be able to combine them if it damn well wants to regardless of technical or any other kind of benefits
Unless harm can be demonstrated to others as a result. Property rights aren't absolute, even if corporations should have any rights.
Neither OEMs, nor consumers, or anybody else is forced by law to use Windows or any other Microsoft product
Nope. They're forced by market pressure created by MS's unethical and illegal actions. What you rabid libertarian types always seem to forget is that others besides the government can wield force, and there's more types of force than law or physical threats.
If anybody offered consumers a viable replacement for Windows most will tell Microsoft to go screw themselves. PC history over the last 20 years is littered with examples of operating systems and applications that were either worse than Microsoft's offerings (Lotus SmartSuite), were pathetically marketed (OS/2) or were ignored by the rest of the industry (BeOS). (emphasis mine)
So... Why exactly is it that BeOS was ignored by the rest of the industry? Isn't it simply because MS has the monopoly power to preven/make it not worthwhile to look at other OS's? Isn't BeOS a perfect example of the fact that your claim is, in fact, completely untrue?
Oh, and OS/2's failure had *plenty* to do with MS's monopoly power, not just IBM's pathetic marketing. (exclusive licensing agreements, making changes to Windows to prevent OS/2 from working properly with it, FUD, fear on the part of the trade rags...)
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
> This is a bit of a reversed way of thinking to
> me, because you can't seriously expect
> Microsoft to think about what is fair, honest
> and chivalrous to their competitors every step
> along the way of developing their system.
Well every time you act you have to check if you don't break a law. Tough, but true.
If you have a (LEGAL!) monopoly, the law puts an extra burden on you: Don't abuse your (LEGAL!) monopoly to destroy competition. What's wrong with that?
As soon as you loose your monopoly, you have less obligations again. Sounds excellent to me.
> That's simply not true - as we all know HTML
> is actually a standard for marking up stuff
> like that, and Microsoft uses it to publish
> their help online aswell as in the Windows
> helpsystem.
Oh yeah, like the Windows help system is HTML based. Please show me one HTML validator or one other browser than IE, that can handle this stuff. It may be called HTML but it does not have much in common with the stuff you find in the internet.
Moritz
Microsoft added HTML display functionality to the Windows API so any third-party application could use it.
Not really. What Microsoft did was simply to add an extra few DLLs onto each Windows CD and then write their applications to take advantage of the capabilities of the DLLs.
Quicken (for example) doesn't want to say "this only works if you've installed IE as your choice of browsers", they want Quicken to run on Windows as it comes out of the box.
So? I seem to recall numerous products - including Microsoft's own products - that checked to see if you had a specific version of IE and upgraded you to that version if you didn't, in order to run/use a particular program (the one that immediately springs to mind is Visual Studio).
This doesn't prove that Windows and IE are integrated, only that there are benefits from having certain components (in this case, the HTML rendering DLLs) with the operating system.
If this is your particular definition of rendering, then it becomes trivial for anybody with a CD burner to integrate components with Microsoft Windows. Copy a Windows 98SE CD to your hard disk, add a Netscape install directory, and reburn. Voila! Netscape has, more or less, just been integrated with Windows 98.
Taking IE out of Windows would break this functionality.
Yes, it would. But that doesn't necessarily mean the two are integrated, any more than my car and my tires are integrated. If I take the tires off my car, my car doesn't move - therefore my car and tires are integrated components?
The flaw in your argument is that you are confusing dependency with integration. Simply because a component relies on another component does not make the two components integrated. It simply establishes a dependency. My car depends on tires, and won't work without them, but clearly my tires and car are not integrated (or you'd have to scrap your car the first time you had a flat tire). Similarly, Windows depends on IE and may not work without it, but that doesn't mean Windows and IE are integrated.
What Windows requires is a component that offers a specific interface, just like my car requires the standard tire interface for a tire. Any HTML renderer or tire, respectively, will work as long as it conforms to the API in use (which may or may not be the same as the published API). That no other HTML renderer has been written that conforms to the API IE uses in no way mitigates the fact that Windows is dependent on, but not integrated with, IE.
Microsoft was correct with this claim. I'm surprised by the number of Slashdot readers that don't seem to comprehend this.
Microsoft was wrong with this claim. I'm rather surprised at the number of Slashdot readers who can't seem to comprehend the distinction between dependency and integration.
--
I fully realize that the non-NT line of Windows runs on top of (and therefore requires) DOS. My point was that DOS as a separate product ceased to have any sale value because people didn't want to use a command-line character based interface on their PC - they wanted to use Windows. From the prospective of most users (and Microsoft), there simply wasn't any reason to continue to sell DOS and Windows as separate products. For the die-hard command-line junkies, well they could have continued to buy DR DOS.
I also realize that "bundled" and "integrated" aren't the same thing. But this leads to some interesting questions... what if Microsoft had bundled IE on the Windows CD but not required that it be installed? Would this still be happening? Of course it would, and not just because most OEMs would have installed it on the pre-installs of Windows anyway. The anti-trust case would still be happening because the discussion of whether or not IE can be uninstalled or is really "integrated" has just been a sideshow - the root of this whole thing (at least in the court) has always been that once Microsoft dropped IE in people's laps they wouldn't/didn't go to the extra effort of acquiring Netscape's browser.
You say that Microsoft should be able to combine it's products "Unless harm can be demonstrated to others as a result". Well, I suppose if the combination of Windows and IE somehow caused cancer you'd have a point. But if you're talking about the "harm" that was done to Netscape... my heart bleeds. Is Apple "harming" Logitec by providing a mouse as standard equipment on Macs?
What you rabid libertarian types always seem to forget is that others besides the government can wield force, and there's more types of force than law or physical threats
The law can't be avoided. Microsoft can be. Someone physically threatening you isn't a mutually agreed-upon situation. OEMs that entering into stupid and foolish contractual agreements with Microsoft have nobody to blame but themselves. They were so fixated on lowering their costs to compete with each other that they signed their lives away to DOS/Windows. They could have (and should have) done their own unbundling of Microsoft's operating systems and their own hardware. List the hardware price without M$ and the additional charge of the OS. Then people would know just how much Microsoft was costing them and could choose whether or not they wanted it. They should have told Microsoft "we don't care how much of a discount you're offering us on your stuff, we aren't going to sign anything that says we have to pay you even for systems we ship without your software". They did themselves and their customers a great disservice.
So... Why exactly is it that BeOS was ignored by the rest of the industry? Isn't it simply because MS has the monopoly power to preven/make it not worthwhile to look at other OS's? Isn't BeOS a perfect example of the fact that your claim is, in fact, completely untrue?
It's an cart-and-horse problem that favors Microsoft, no doubt about it. People won't use an OS that doesn't have gobs of software available, software vendors won't write for an OS that doesn't have gobs of users. OEMs won't pre-install their boxes with an OS that doesn't have gobs of users and software. This can be overcome, but it takes OEMs, software vendors, and users who are willing to start with a small base and grow it over time. Which is just what the Linux community is doing. BTW, BeOS is a fine operating system. I encourage everyone to check it out. It's painfully easy to install BeOS right along side of Windows. Be is even giving the thing away for free.
Microsoft's market position can be overcome. But it will take people standing up and saying "I want more viable choices" and the industry giving them those choices. It doesn't matter how many pieces Microsoft is broken up into, or how its software is bundled/integrated/combined, if PC users don't break out of their self-imposed Microsoft cage, it ain't gonna happen. I sincerely hope it does. I'd love to see Microsoft scrambling to offer Office for Linux and Office for Be. I'd love to see IIS supporting non-Microsoft directories for authentication. I'd love to see Gateway and Dell give me the choice of three or four operating systems for each box in their catalog. But we don't need bad law to do it.
These objections were written before he filed his brief. They were based on Mr. Hollaar's request to file a brief.
The point is, why should I, if I want to use Opera, need to have the 111mb (or whatever the latest number is) of Internet Explorer on my HD. IMO, remove the entire thing, leaving the html dll to view the help files, and free up enough space so that I can install a couple of games (or whatever.)
Your point seems to be, everyone always has more HD space than they need so it doesn't matter what gets installed and forgotten. In my experience, I want the HD space I've purchased (at a premium cost for a laptop) to be used for stuff I want/need.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
You're free to, and so are OEMs. As I mentioned many OEMs took advantage of their right to preinstall additional browsing software on their computers -- in fact, Sony preinstalled *four* different browsers. And those weren't "my criteria", they were quotes from journalists charged with identifying the best product. Also, the fact that you were able to install a new browser highlights the absurdity of the govt.'s argument that MS somehow foreclosed on Netscape's distribution by including browser functionality -- IE actually improves their distribution because every Windows user can open up IE and download a new browser.
I'm sorry, that's simply not the case. Check out Brad Chase's direct testimony, specifically paragraph 136. OSR2 contained IE 2.0.
Take your argument and apply it to the GUI in Windows 95. You could say "Damn it, the GUI in Windows 95 takes up too much hard disk space, I just wanted DOS. Let me uninstall the GUI Microsoft!" Well you could say that; and if you were really upset you could go buy an old DOS somewhere. But that's no basis for a legal argument. The GUI is part of the product that you bought. If you are upset with the size of the product you're using, you're free to use another one.
Just to make sure I understand your argument: Do you believe that Windows 95 was lawful with regard to its combination of a GUI and DOS? Also what were the chief benefits of Windows 95 and were they 'tautological' under Hollaar's analysis?
Actually, Microsoft specifically explained that code was duplicated in function by IE (such as the help engine and graphics engines) was replaced by the merged IE code and why just taking the code out without replacing it with the old code wouldn't work but the judge was set on proving that there really were two of everything so that he could prove bundling (showing an amazing lack of neutrality) and he wouldn't believe Microsoft. When it really didn't work. He just assumed that it was a trick instead of his asking for something totally stupid.
Once again, Microsoft doesn't get it.
i took a bitchslapping for natalie portman!!
i took a bitchslapping for natalie portman!!
Yes, during the trial I really wished there was someone with half a brain in that court room. When the judge essentially said "take IE out of Windows until we determine if it is legal" and Microsoft's response was "If we do that Windows wont work!" the obvious and most sane response would have been "Well Windows 95 works just fine without have IE built in, you didn't have it before, why do you need it now?" but the judge couldn't say that because he isn't a computer programmer. Microsoft openly lied to this court on numerous occasions but no-one gets held in comtempt, no-one gets hit with perjury charges.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This is imperative to the future of both the electronic economy, and business practices. With MS mixing this and that, it's hard to draw any definitive line between segments, delineating separate programs that are bundled in as opposed to integral components (or ones that would be worthless separately). Consider it a modern definition of an OS as well. Would we really want to separate the network functions from the basic OS these days? Should copy/paste functions be considered integral? How about Internet apps, or connectivity programs, calculators and simple text editors? Where is the line drawn? This type of effort will also halp Linux/NonMS OSes in the long run anyway because it will help put everyone on a level playing field, as far as what type of product exactly it is that's being offered.
--
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
OK, a couple more questions: Do you believe the inclusion of the Windows Explorer (the file system browsing tool) in Windows 95 was unlawful? Note that a number of third parties were selling similar tools previously.
Also, with regard to your car analogy, is it unlawful for a car dealer to force you to buy tires with the car even though they're not integrated products by your reasoning?
Finally, would you consider your heart (the muscle) to be integrated with your circulatory system, considering that it can be swapped out for a similar component supplied by a third party?
To sum it up: According to the author, Microsoft should prove that (for instance) combining IE and Windows has a real benefit to consumers that can not be achieved in another way. Since bundling IE and Windows has a bad effect on the possibility for competitors to market their products, this effectively destroys their market and the innovations they could bring to it.
This is a bit of a reversed way of thinking to me, because you can't seriously expect Microsoft to think about what is fair, honest and chivalrous to their competitors every step along the way of developing their system. For instance, on page 20 the author writes that marking up the helpfiles of Windows in HTML is basically a way of forcing the browser and HTML-parsing functionality into the Operating System without a legitimate reason. That's simply not true - as we all know HTML is actually a standard for marking up stuff like that, and Microsoft uses it to publish their help online aswell as in the Windows helpsystem.
Another example is on page 22, where the author writes that increasing the maintainability of applications written for Windows because a lot of functionality used by them is already built in the OS has no direct benefit to consumers. Again I disagree: for instance, if all applications use the same built-in serializer for a certain fileformat, changes to that format would only require a single componentupdate to the operating system. This means the consumer won't have to update all the applications seperately - not to even mention all the possible bugs that could result from the various implementations. Ofcourse, using a standard DLL in Windows to perform certain tasks doesn't require it to be part of the Operating System, but in what other way can you be certain that all your potential customers have it installed?
WRONG! I went to the U of Utah, and knew of nobody who was working at Novell while studying there (well, one, but he soon quit) nor who got a job there after graduating. Novell has been shrinking for years, and we never even considered it. Besides, it would be completely unfamiliar, since the U of U has (to my knowledge) no Novell networking anywhere, but has tons of SGI's, HP's, Sun's, Apple's, IBM RS-6000's, PC's (Windoze, typically), all linked using a mostly Unix backbone. Check your facts.
I guess when you have seven wives, you really need a multiuser OS.
Okay, that's cheap...anyone who can come up with a lime jello joke should get modded up though.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Wait just a sec here...
you can't seriously expect Microsoft to think about what is fair, honest and chivalrous to their competitors
I beg to differ. This anti-trust case has been about precisely that! Microsoft has always run their business with the specific intent of destroying their competitors. Look at their constant incompatible Word upgrades, the way they reported fake errors for DR-DOS, and on and on. I will admit the author is proposing the opposite action from what Microsoft has done historically, but the observations which cause those actions have always been there.
Whether or not the anti-trust case is useful / needed / evil is a different matter altogether.
--
Infuriate left and right
Market competition is in general a good thing.
But I think you need to draw a distinction between:
-Hurting a competitor through better/cheaper products
-Hurting a competitor through market power
A little knowledge of economics would be enough to tell you why there is a difference. Suffice it to say, in the first case you're providing a benefit by offering a better deal to consumers and signalling to less efficient competitors that their resources would be best employed elsewhere in the economy.
In the second case, your market power may actually be driving out more efficient competitors, you are building barriers to entry and extracting monopoly rents that may be fine for your shareholders in the short term but are pretty bad news for consumers/the economy as a whole.
My personal take is that antitrust law should never concern itself with the former, but should be reasonably vigilant in the latter case of competitor harm. The success of capitalism is based on competitive markets, not anti-competitive ones.
I haven't done the maths, so any other economists out there should correct me if I'm wrong. But here's the grossly simplified bit of economic theory that I hope can demonstrate this:
Assume:
Two markets (OS and APP)
Company X has a monoply in OS, but competes with many competitors in APP
The OS product is a necessity for all APPs
Now if X combines OS and APP but leaves the individual OS and APP products on the market, it can't get away with charging more that the price of OS plus the competitive price of APP.
However, if X removes the original (non-combined) OS product, it can now charge the monopoly price of OS+APP. Customers will have to buy this, because they can't do anything without OS. All the competitors in APP will be unable to sell at positive price, so will be forced out of the market.
In the repeated case, X will enter new markets, bringing more and more functionality to OS and wiping out competition in each field. You will see the price of OS rising relative to what it would have been without any additions. Net result is that X builds a monopoly in *every* related market by tying *without* any intrinsic advantage (innovation, lower cost) in any of them.
Anyone spot a similarity with the Microsoft case?
Note that all of this doesn't work unless X has monopoly power in the OS market. Without that power, either competitors or consumers can create an alternative (OS+APP) that will prevent monopolisation.
Now for my reccomendation....
If company X wants to combine two products and posesses monopoly power in at least one of them, it may be forced to produce either of the separate products at a discount equal to the economic cost of the non-included product. This should be done on the request of any competitor. Furthermore, it must take all reasonable steps to ensure that competitors have a legal and technological opportunity to create a rival combined product using company X's monopoly product as one component.
This sounds fair to me.... it would remove most of the economic objections to market monopolisation. Sophisticated customers/OEMs would continue to be able to buy and combine products themselves. Less sophisticated customers could gain the convenience of a combined install, but retain choice over competing products. Competitors would be fairly rewarded for the value of the components they had created - if they had a truly better APP, they would be able to market their combination for a higher price than the (OS+APP) combination of company X.
I guess my conclusion is that to retain competition in highy interlinked product markets such as software, it may be optimal to enforce componentisation of products with standard interfaces and then create a separate market in the bundling and distriubution of these core components. This could be done either by the component makers themselves or independant distro companies, but the key point is the *right* to use someone else's components at a fair price in your product. This allows small, specialised companies to compete. It also forces big companies to play fair and adhere to standards.
My prediction is that economic problems such as these will become an increasingly big deal. How we choose to solve them will be an important factor in the levvel of economic development we are able to attain in the 21st century.
Third, Mr. Hollaar has apparently forgotten that he became acquainted with the source code of Microsoft's operating systems in the Caldera and Bristol cases pursuant to protective orders that strictly prohibit him from using that knowledge for any purpose other than preparing his testimony in those cases.
I read the entire PDF file, and frankly I can't see one instance where Mr. Hollaar has used his knowledge of the source code to support any of his arguments. In fact, it seems the only place he mentions source code - beyond the time when he admits that he has seen it - is when he is advocating reviewing the source code to see whether it was simply mixed with some other code to enforce a product combination at compile time.
--
This brief demonstrates some of the worst flaws in the so-called "anti-trust" laws and this entire stupid case.
First, it completely dismisses any "tautological benefits" of combining two existing programs, when those "tautological benefits" are in fact the only benefits most consumers are ever likely to notice or care about. End users don't know and don't give a damn about the technical inner workings of their operating system, shared libraries, and applications. Yet these benefits are the first to be tossed out of consideration.
The brief says:
and I don't know whether to laugh or cry. If we aren't judging whether or not it benefits the users, what the HELL are we doing? Judging if it provides some obscure technical improvement that won't be noticed by 99% of the users?Second, the market for a compatible DOS was effectively eliminated when Windows finally picked up steam, not when Microsoft started including DOS in the same cardboard box as Windows 95. I'm sure MS would have preferred to simply retire DOS completely and make Windows 95 a free-standing OS, but couldn't do so because it would have orphaned all those old DOS apps (not to mention the fact that Windows still relied (relies?) on much of the basic services of DOS - but that's another story). So it put DOS in semi-retirement by hiding it behind the Windows shell. In fact, one could argue that by effectively abandoning the DOS-without-Windows market, Microsoft handed that market to DR DOS on a silver platter. But there were precious few customers for that market anymore. People wanted a GUI operating system, not a new version of DOS.
The discussion of the Melissa virus is another red herring. The fact that Outlook has dim-witted security has nothing to do with the legality of a vendor combining two products into a single offering. Eudora, Notes, or any other application that offers email services could just as easily blindly execute any script or binary sent to it. The fact that they don't only proves the people who wrote those applications were more security-minded than Microsoft's crew. Besides, if the combining a program into the Windows OS made the OS weaker that would actually be a benefit to Microsoft's competitors! Linux vendors around the world should be encouraging Microsoft to start adding as many buggy, insecure programs to Windows as possible. And this whole discussion ignores the fact that Microsoft does include Outlook Express with Windows now, and if you got your PC with Windows pre-installed you also got Outlook Express pre-installed. But as Hollarr himself demonstrates, you can still use other email clients and not expose yourself to the security risks of Outlook. This would be true whether you have Outlook installed or not.
I also find it laughable to hear so many people bitching about Microsoft bundling non-operating system programs with Windows when most Linux distributions come with every piece of Linux freeware under the sun "bundled" on the same CD and nobody complains about that or whines that it's "unfair" to Microsoft.
This brief, and most discussion of the case completely ignores the facts that 1) Microsoft owns Windows and IE and ought to be able to combine them if it damn well wants to regardless of technical or any other kind of benefits 2) Neither OEMs, nor consumers, or anybody else is forced by law to use Windows or any other Microsoft product and 3) If anybody offered consumers a viable replacement for Windows most will tell Microsoft to go screw themselves. PC history over the last 20 years is littered with examples of operating systems and applications that were either worse than Microsoft's offerings (Lotus SmartSuite), were pathetically marketed (OS/2) or were ignored by the rest of the industry (BeOS). Microsoft has practically won by default.
I also find it ridiculous that the "problem" seems to be that Microsoft previously offered Windows and IE as separate products, and now only offers them as a single product. Does that mean that if Microsoft had never released IE as a separate product but simply kept it under wraps and then included it in the next version of Windows none of this would be happening?
My uncle Freddie invented the Ice cube tray, and he did not patent it. He also died over the holidays.
He invented the tray when he was 17, and it got him his job at Frigidaire.
Just thought you'd like to know.
Hammy
www.freakingeeks.com
Microsoft releases Win2k in February, and retires their certification for NT4 in December of the same year. Do we hear a cry of NT is dead? Not even a whimper, even though people are paying $8000 per time for MS certification.
Do tell me, how because I suggest some ideas that are already in place, that I am working for the enemy and therefore working for Oracle or Netscape? Do you *seriously* believe that people are incapable of making their own mind up? Applying the same logic to yourself, I could assume that you're a microserf.
If there is no threatening market, MS is quite happy to releace little addin patch kits (eg video for windows, multimedia extentions, Win32), and even charge for them (look at any Plus! and the next version of Windows).
Let there be some sort of competition, and we see some new version of Windows wheeled out, with the patch bound so hard that you can't remove it. We see Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with networking bound in. Even though a Windows 3.11 exists without the networking added in, this was so hard to find. The VSHARE.386 is a virtual driver that replaces SHARE.EXE, at first works only under WfW, but the latest version works under plain Win 3.10 from 1992. SHARE and VSHARE is not a network-only function. And then look at the netscape/IE show.
Do tell me, what benefit is to customers if networking and browsing is forced on them on every machine they use? Especially if the purpose is to kill off choice [Netware/MS/none] or [IE/Netware/Opera/none].
When DOS 4.0 came out, this did not kill off dos 3. DOS 4 had so many bugs in it that people kept using and selling DOS 3.3x. So don't tell me that the new versions are always better than the old!
The current system is not working, I put forward a new version, designed to kill off one form of mingling: rush versions of windows like WfW 3.11 and Win98, and to kill off the `Everyone must use the new version' thing.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
Aren't you forgetting something?
The US government uses mainly M$ software.
Punitive tariffs? Okay, M$ stops delivery to the US for three months...
Can you imagine what prices win2k would fetch in shops if there was no ample supply?
Corporations depending on software patches and upgrades would torch Congress and shred the President.
I mean, most people don't have a clue just about how much power M$ wields, and that they have been rather tame. say NIXes are tanks, the M$ packages are nuclear powered mobile battle stations.
Of course it's futile, cause M$ wouldn't do anything like this, but the thought is still intriguing. Let's face it, Gates could just say, f*ck you all, pull the plug and wind up M$.
He'd still be the richest person alive and the world-economy would collapse overnight...
"For example, in the Caldera case Microsoft claimed that one of the benefits of combining improved versions of Windows and DOS was the pretty cloud pattern that is displayed when Windows 95 is starting."
Hey, if you type a command at the dos prompt, where does your hand end up? On the enter key.
What key do you press to clear an info box? an enter key.
What happens if you press the enter key here: Windows aborts.
Is this the `harmless message that was spoken about. - No
I rest my case.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
In Unix, a shared object (.so) file contains code to be used by the program, and also the names of functions and data that it expects to find in the program. When the file is joined to the program, all references to those functions and data in the file's code are changed to point to the actual locations in the program where the functions and data are placed in memory. This is basically a link operation.
In Windows, a dynamic-link library (.dll) file has no dangling references. Instead, an access to functions or data goes through a lookup table. So the DLL code does not have to be fixed up at runtime to refer to the program's memory; instead, the code already uses the DLL's lookup table, and the lookup table is modified at runtime to point to the functions and data.
In Unix, there is only one type of library file (.a) which contains code from several object files (.o). During the link step to create a .so, the linker may find that it doesn't know where an identifier is defined. The linker will look for it in the object files in the libraries;
if it finds it, it will include all the code from that object file.
In Windows, there are two types of library, a static library and an import library (both called .lib). A static library is like a Unix .a
file; it contains code to be included as necessary. An import library is basically used only to reassure the linker that a certain identifier
is legal, and will be present in the program when the .dll is loaded. So the linker uses the information from the import library to build
the lookup table for using identifiers that aren't included in the .dll. When an application or a .dll is linked, an import library may be
generated, which will need to be used for all future .dll's that depend on the symbols in the application or .dll.
Suppose you're building two dynamic-load modules, B and C, which should share another block of code A. In Unix, you would *not* pass A.a to the linker for B.so and C.so; that would cause it to be included twice, so that B and C would each have their own copy. In Windows, building A.dll will also build A.lib. You *do* pass A.lib to the linker for B and C. A.lib does not contain code; it just contains information which will be used at runtime to access A's code.
In Windows, using an import library is sort of like using "import spam"; it gives you access to spam's names, but does not create a separate copy. In Unix, linking with a library is more like "from spam import *"; it does create a separate copy.
Trust the source!
OK - so Microsoft can include Word with the next version of Windows since a word processor "of some sort, has been included with Windows since it was originally released"? Word and Windows are plainly not integrated, but that apparently contributes to the lawfulness under your reasoning.
Can I use Navigator inside Explorer to view the contents of a file folder? Can I use Navigator to peruse my Windows help files?
Presumably, Netscape could have created a 'clone' set of DLLs to replace the ones that Windows relies upon, in much the same way Digital Research created an MS-DOS clone. However, Netscape chose to pursue a cross-platform "strategy" rather than integrating with a particular OS. Also, the combination would not have been tested by the original manufacturer of Windows, Microsoft, so it could lead to unpredictable results. For instance, Windows interface elements rely in dynamic HTML, which Netscape chose not to support. Such is the life of a clone.
Given that IE is essentially a COM component...I see no technical reason why replacing the IE component with another rendering component which supports the same interface should fail - unless IE and Windows are artifically tied together.
You could make this argument about any platform piece that's implemented as a component. Also, what is your definition of 'IE'? The MSHTML component? In actuality, "Internet Explorer" is the name for a number of platform pieces of Windows, including shdocvw.dll, mshtml.dll, urlmon.dll, wininet.dll, shlwapi.dll, and comctl32.dll. Note that Netscape actually chose to rely on some of the API's provided by Internet Explorer.
I agree. You can replace human hearts. However, replacing a human heart is not a trivial operation.
Replacing/removing the integrated Internet APIs in Windows is not trivial. After weeks, all the DOJ's Dr. Felten was able to show was that skilled programmers with access to the Windows 98 source code can hide some of the original functionality of the operating system from customers. And still it caused problems.
Vis-a-vis integration, there is something to be said for the objective difficulty in removing it (again, let me stress objective).
Exactly. Dr. Felten spent a lot of time and was not able to accomplish full removal. Johns Hopkins would have an easier time removing your heart.
How can Windows and IE be integrated if Windows doesn't even necessarily require IE?
It would require something that functions *exactly like* IE in the same way your circulatory system requires something that functions *exactly like* your heart.
I mean, speaking hypothetically, what do you do to compete with a company that has a complete, or near, monopoly on essential software and is willing to use the strength of that monopoly to dominate other areas where it is not so strong?
I don't accept your monopoly assumption with regard to Windows, but speaking hypothetically, you improve your product and then distribute those improvements broadly, which is very easy today given the ubiquity of the web. Consumers are not as stupid as you think. Look at Quicken's dominance over MS Money and AOL's dominance over MSN. Internet Explorer began to overtake Navigator only when it was better than Navigator as shown by independent reviews. Even today, most of IE's share comes from AOL, which has said publicly it intends to switch to Netscape.
Tell me, did you similarly object when Apple released Cyberdog 1.0 in May 1996: "Internet access has been dominated by the application browser," said Larry Tesler, vice president of Internet Platforms, Apple Computer, Inc. "What Cyberdog offers is a new level of integration by putting Internet access directly into the MacOS and Mac applications." Or how about when IBM touted its WebExplorer browser as a "built-in" feature of OS/2 on its product box? Or when Sun integrated its HotJava web-browser with Solaris 2.6? Or BeOS's Native Internet Services?
Integrating internet support into windows was not only beneficial to consumers -- it was *obvious*.
Mr. Hollaar--who has made something of a career of testifying against Microsoft--claims to have "unique insight" (Hollaar Mot. at 2) into the design of Microsoft's operating systems by virtue of having examined their source code. First, the record is not open to supplementation with Mr. Hollaar's personal views about the design of Windows 95 and Windows 98. Second, Mr. Hollaar's claimed insight is not unique because Edward Felten, one of appellees' three technical experts, studied the source code for Windows 98 and testified at trial based on the results of that study. One of Microsoft's witnesses, Dr. James Allchin, also testified about Windows 95 and 98 based on his knowledge of their source code. Third, Mr. Hollaar has apparently forgotten that he became acquainted with the source code of Microsoft's operating systems in the Caldera and Bristol cases pursuant to protective orders that strictly prohibit him from using that knowledge for any purpose other than preparing his testimony in those cases. The source code for Microsoft's operating systems is extremely valuable intellectual property, and Mr. Hollaar's willingness to breach obligations imposed on him by other federal courts to preserve its confidentiality should not be countenanced.
It seems to be the same old story all over again:
Frinds of the court are either on M$ payroll or they are violently opposed to M$, with the third party being maybe turned on by the legal challenges and law interpretations.
So far I can't recall any Friend's Briefs that are not biased one way or the other [or offtopic in case of the legal beagles].
While the lengthy brief certainly digs deeper into technologies involved, it does so mainly to support a claim and to proof the Friend's point.
How on earth is a non-tech-saavy judge supposed to reach 'neutral' conclusion and pass judgement?
Given the way the whole case was built, any decission is likely to be unfair to the majority as it is likely to be some sort of compromise that nobody will be happy with.
So, what should be on trial is the legal system, prior to trialling M$. Either the judge would need to pass a CS exam, obtain an MBA and phd in Law - without being in touch with any living being or reading any newspapers or opinions while 'studying' the case, or the outcome is unfair, if not unlawfull.
Why do you think Juries are kept away from the public and newspapers during a trial?
Now the court faces popular opinion, contradicting Friends filings and not a single expert brief that has been written without the writer favouring one opinion or the other.
I think that the powers-to-be certainly know all that. If that is the case, then the question arises if this whole think is just a feel-good showpiece. Something to confirm to the stupid masses that the system is fair and equitable and that nobody is above the law.
In fact, when it comes to the crunch, M$ has to be conviceted of 'something' in order to please the dozing public - as has already happened in the original case.
Has anyone ever thought about what would happen if M$ really played hard-ball in this? What exactly would the U.S. do if gates decided to use the majority vote of his and his buddies and move the headquarters of M$ overseas? Think about the job losses and worse the loss in tax revenue and the impact on supporting industries.
Legally, if M$ moved the main development center to another country and Redmond would officially only do component and module work, then M$ would be save for now and the future.
Worse yet, M$ could actually go to the extent of quite literally buying a country or two.
Heck, they could challenge whatever decission or restrictions courts might impose on the platform of the WTO and the United Nations.
Sure M$ would get plenty bad press and calls to boycott their products. But when it comes to the crunch, the vast majority of office bees prefers to use something they already know [win/office].
Political correctness only goes so far...
Because consumers are what matter here. Not competitors. And playing nice isn't what capitalism is about -- it's about improving your products and then marketing + distributing those improvements broadly, often to the detriment of your competitors.
os2fan is an end user who wants choice, and is not a ceo of any company. Since choice means supporting the underdog, this is what is done. os2fan sees MS killing off choice, and therefore MS must be attacked. Since we do it for different reasons, and are different people, os2fan != "Larry Ellison".
Product development is slow because MS sales are no longer competitive-driven. The whole calculator thing went on during a time when MS was free to act, and despite all of these versions, and the problem being in the press, it was when WSJ made it news that MS was shamed into fixing it. [While you're at it, try NYC in Wingdings font: that's keep a lot of Jews happy!]
Some things should be slowed anyway. Many companies rely on software to do their business, and changing versions is not good for these customers. You read of ancient database formats, why? Because if the format is not kept, the product does not sell. Why? because the old one will do the job.
The committee does not need to be some sort of bureaucrat or competetors. The point is that the product needs to be reviewed before release.
The way it could work is that MS could release on a beta program, the updated version of the existing database, and, as separate addins, each of the proposed added new features. People could then make submissions to (some point) which would then be heard for each separate addition. Since MS is the guilty party, it pays the costs of the exercise.
ironically, Netscape? Are you a microserf? No, I am against monopolies, not against MS. Although I think their software is tenpence in the dinar, that does not affect my views on their right to market. I still think that Netscape was better than IE at any point in the market until MS cut off Netscape's air supply.
Microsoft's superior product Yeah Right. I haven't seen one that isn't better than 10d in the shilling. Word 2 and Excel 4 were so far behind Lotus 123 for DOS, and marginally up there with Multimate 4. The main reason that nearly any MS product is superior is because they gave them away like candy to OEMs. They still do.
The proposal is not because MS is a monopoly, but because they abused that monopoly. They committed a crime, and so they should be regulated at their expense. I mean, you can't send Windows to jail?
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
MS-Word's format is so easily corruptable that it shocking. And Word 97 can't read it. It is changing because it's been decoded by 3rd party people.
You can get the same sorts of message from MS PWB under Windows NTDOS.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.