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Second Thoughts: Microsoft on Trial
Microsoft's gargantuan and controversial presence triggered a techno-social revolution over the last decade. Microsoft's dominance -- and as some describe it, predation -- helped shape the computer revolution and the new economy. It was also instrumental in spawning Open Source, Free Software and the related individualistic, decentralized media that may well have saved the Net from the corporatized fate of much of the rest of the non-virtual information culture.
One of the problems is that our media has become a mob, lurching one way, then the other.
Perspective and clarity is hard to come by.
For more than a decade, the popular press uncritically accepted just about every single thing Bill Gates and his company said or did. Big media were instrumental in uncritically promoting products like Windows 98 and in establishing the notion of Microsoftian omnipotence. Gates couldn't have done it without them. They slobbered over his bland pronouncements, his shamelessly excessive mansion, his inane books, and his company's workable but decidedly uninspired and proprietary software.
Now, by and large, they've turned, and just as uncritically accepted the notion that Microsoft is an illegal and predatory monopoly and that the company needs to be broken up. Gates' astonishing arrogance -- lying to a federal judge comes to mind -- is much to blame for this change. But monomania isn't a crime.
Some articulate federal appeals court judges -- the case is before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia -- appear to be challenging the finding in the Microsoft trial, although they've yet to make their ultimate findings. And they and others are raising some troubling questions about the conduct of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who has himself told interviewers he knows little about the issues involved and believes there are good grounds to appeal his ruling. (The transcripts are available from the Federal Document Clearing House, a private subscription service that is not online, and from various online news sites. They make compelling reading).
I was always uneasy about Jackson's ruling and posture. To me, Microsoft's crimes were arrogance, mediocrity and greed, the hallmarks of our corporatized culture -- none of them, alas, illegal in our business world. Much as people fault the quality of Microsoft's software and decry its practices, the truth is that tens of millions of people have used their products successfully to access the Net and the Web and run their PCs. And the idea that a Microsoft break-up would enhance competitiveness and creativity have always seemed dubious, even menacing. The Net has been so creative and explosive in part because the government didn't know enough about it to mess it up. That's a dangerous precedent to change.
I'd rather see MS challenged creatively in the marketplace, or by the generous spirit of movements like Open Source, than by a bunch of admittedly clueless federal bureaucrats, or an erratic judge. It seems clear that no one in the federal government from Congress to the regulatory agencies to the White House -- is in a strong position to oversee or regulate the Net or the increasingly disparate tech nation.
The appeal raises a host of complex issues, many of which fly well over my head. But the heart of the government action against Microsoft is clear enough: the U.S. accused the company of paying ISP's and OEM's (original equipment manufacturers) hundreds of millions of dollars to shut down Netscape's distribution channels. It also accused Microsoft of illegally tying its browser to Windows; of predatory pricing, and of exclusive dealing. But several questions about the government's case seem legitimate, even troubling, and it seems both fair and appropriate to launch an open discussion about them, to see whether they have any merit -- or not.
First:
Antitrust law says that for a company to behave illegally, it must establish a monopoly (not in itself illegal), engage in anti-competitive practices, and perhaps most importantly, harm consumers. Were consumers demonstrably harmed by Microsoft? If so, how?
Did government antitrust prosecutors actually prove that Microsoft prevented Netscape, or any other rival, from bringing new products to the marketplace?
According to unchallenged testimony in federal court this week, Netscape distributed 160 million copies of Navigator in l998 alone. At the time, according to the appeals court testimony, there were approximately 100 million Net users, which means every one could have acquired Netscape's product if they wanted to. Is it true that these users were not free to choose Netscape?
In ruling against Microsoft, Judge Jackson defined the "relevant market" that Microsoft controlled as operating systems and replacements to operating systems. He then found that Microsoft's admittedly aggressive tactics harmed Navigator. But Microsoft's lawyers have repeatedly argued -- correctly -- that Navigator isn't an operating system, and that Netscape had neither interest in nor means to supplant Windows. Was Judge Jackson wrong when he concluded that there was a direct link between Microsoft's bullying tactics and direct harm to consumers in the "relevant market?"
Judge Jackson also found that Microsoft had violated Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by tying IE to Windows. Appeals Court Justice Stephen Williams sharply challenged that view in court this week. Whatever Microsoft's conduct was, he argued, "it's not tying." Several other justices said they were sympathetic to Microsoft's argument that it integrated IE with Windows because there was little or no real market for computers without browsers. Isn't that so? In this time period, as the Web was exploding, why wasn't Microsoft justified in integrating Windows with its much-hyped OS? Wouldn't doing otherwise prove corporate suicide? Was Microsoft really supposed to sit back and allow competitors to dominate this critical market, surely threatening Windows in the process?
The Justice Department has been struggling in the appeals testimony to respond to arguments that computer operating systems by their very nature might have to be standardized, and that as a result a monopoly was inevitable. If Microsoft didn't create one, its lawyers claimed, somebody else would have and at least some of those potential "other" monopolies had a vested interested in seeing a divided and weakened Microsoft.
Plenty of questions remain about Microsoft and its practices. Did the company ruthlessly, or illegally, discourage competition? Did Microsoft make it too difficult or in some cases, impossible, for consumers to remove IE from their desktops? Did Microsoft unfairly -- or, more to the point, illegally --wipe out or damage potential competitors? But there are civil, criminal and other remedies for this behavior, if it occurred, short of chopping up the company.
The truth is, there is a fine but important legal line between ruthlessness, avarice and illegality. There are also profound implications for the tech world if Microsoft does, in fact, break apart, especially if it happens for the wrong reasons.
Now there is also the question of judicial bias. Some legal ethicists -- including nearly all of the appeals judges -- have sharply criticized Judge Jackson, whose dislike for Gates sometimes appeared personal -- in one interview, Jackson linked Microsoft to drug gangs -- and who made critical comments about Microsoft and its founder to reporters while the appeal process is still underway. The appeals judges are so upset with Jackson that they are reported to be considering sending the case back to a different judge. Jackson's behavior is considered grossly unprofessional, especially in the federal judiciary. Something seems off about this judge. The final decision in the Microsoft case will shape software and new economy laws for decades -- the ruling ought to be credible and beyond doubt.
Another problem is the selective nature of the Justice Department's prosecution of Microsoft, which suggests the government is regulating predatory corporations when it certainly is not. In the Corporate Republic, the land of AOL/Time-Warner and the Disney Corp., is Microsoft really that unusual, or even particularly predatory?
Are other giant theme park operators really free to create new versions of Disney World, whose synergistic marketing "tie-ins" would seem to a non-tech layperson to dwarf the alleged linkage between IE and Windows? Can new information content and delivery providers possibly compete with the monster that is AOL/Time-Warner, a truly awful merger with dreadful implications for privacy, free speech and competitiveness; a link-up that the very same Justice Department only recently approved with hardly a blink? This is a company crying out for a break-up from the day it merged.
Microsoft appeals trial transcripts are available on almost all major news sites -- USA Today, CNN.com, the Washington Post and the New York Times. People can reach their own conclusions about the testimony, and the appeal court's questioning of lawyers for both sides. It's implicit that your comments are always welcome on this site, but your thoughts about these questions would be particularly welcome.
>I do not run Microsoft products. I pay less for
>hardware and software, my computer runs faster,
>and crashes less. That, too, would seem like
>demonstrable harm by Microsoft. When I point out
>Linux to users of Windows they do not argue the
>qualities of the software with me. Know what
>they say? "I have to run Office2000 because >everyone else does." That, again, is a sign of >the monopoly that MS has.
Just for the sake of playing devil's advocate and pedantry, if you don't run MS products how do you know your computer crashes less often? The best case you may make is that the system crashes less often than similar MS-based systems, but they are not YOUR system, they will not be identical, the load will probably not be the same and they would not necessarily be running the type of applications that you would run.
I have used both Linux and Windoze and found that I get often get applications crashing as often in one as in the other. If I truly wanted a completely stable system I would go to a vendor who not only wrote the OS, but also produced the hardware. Unfortunately I can't get the applications I need to use on these platforms. This is not because Office etc. are better than competing products (although I think that they have a fair claim to it) but because I need file compatibility with the maximum number of people, thus I need MS apps.
Look, he said "Microsoft is a monopoly, and probably illegal." There's two seperate facts there:
1) Microsoft is a monopoly
2) Microsoft is probably illegal
I bet the poster was fully aware that being a monopoly is not illegal. However, being an illegal monopoly is, and that's his point.
Reading comprehension, people...what grade do they teach that in, again?
Real Player is next(tm).
Look at XP, it seems like the whole point of windows XP is to integrate another MS technology (this time Windows Media Player) to squeeze out MORE competition this time.
...but perjury is.
AOL owns NS, but they don't use NS as their browser... they use IE! Why? Because they get paid to continue killing off competitive browsers. Read the 'findings of fact', some of which may be judical bias, sure, but when MS says 'yes, we paid people to install this, yes it cost us xxx, yes, we paid for ISPs...' it really can't be affected by bias.
Also note that it's important to compare to the atmosphere of 1995 - not the atmosphere of 2001. In 1995 browsers were toys for technophiles, and even IT staff had trouble finding a _point_ to the the web beyond the fact that the chat room was now world wide. This was before every company under the sun had an informative web page, and before you could reliably expect to be able to determine just what jumpers you needed to set on that hard drive from information on the web. It's pretty clear that MS didn't need to integrate a browser with the OS... they didn't manage that with NT until what, server 2000?
"But after a careful reading through the transcripts of the Microsoft anti-trust appeal now underway, I'm having some second thoughts"
:)
;)
And, also, which seems to be forgotten at times - Bill Gates has actually programmed quite a few number of lines. Had he not been more interested in running his business he might have ended up as some kind of uebergeek.
Or?
is like saying Hitler is responsible for peace
Oh, wait! Everyone stop!
According to USENET posting rules, this /. story is officially closed.
1st Law Of Networking: Loose ends are bad, termination is good.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
You do understand they can't actually "trace you from there [Microsoft]" - a MAC address is only usable as a means to contact a machine if you are on the same physical network, i.e. no layer 3 switches or routers in between?
Now if they have your IP address, that's more worth worrying about. ('doze box on static IP, anyone?)
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Too bad Judge Jackson decided not to take the time to hammer that one home. I had rather hoped to see Bill get smacked over that one.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
It's funny that Microsoft "dumped" IE onto the market, when Netsacpe was doing the same thing with Navigator (free for non-commercial use.)
Well, Netscape had no leverage by which they could force you to install their product. Microsoft did - you install Windows (as of Win95 OSR2.1 or so), IE comes along with it - even if you don't want it, you have to have it. "But why?", you ask. "Because we say so - don't ask stupid questions."
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Although some of us had allready guessed his true nature.
"I don't think the US is about to get hurt as badly as Japan was, but this information ought to be pointed out to all the people who think stocks always go up."
Agreed on both points. However, I think the real pain will come when all those people realise the latter and suddenly stop investing... a complete loss of confidence. Then it won't matter how good things are, there will be viscious downward circle - price drops due to lower investment, followed by lower investment due to devaluation of assets. When ordinary people in their millions feel like they've lost money, that's when things start getting bad. Isn't this a similar situation to that leading up to the 1930's depression? What with mass mega-mergers, over-inflated assets, exuberant over-confidence in the market, etc? Personally I don't think that it will be that bad...
"Indeed, the collapse of NASDAQ coincides almost exactly with Jackson's ruling (more precisely, with the growing sentiment up to the ruling that Microsoft and the government would not be able to settle). Almost everybody predicted that the economy and market would collapse if the ruling was against Microsoft. And it did. "
Co-incidental. The bubble had to burst at some point. The Economist was predicting a bust and recession 2 years ago. (it might not have been so bad if it happened then). Perhaps the deflation of MSFT stock was the straw that broke the camels back, but it was going to happen anyway. Asset inflation has been ridiculous and something had to give. The US is in the same position as Japan five years ago... (they had property inflation rather than asset).
FYI, AmiPro still exists under the name Lotus WordPro, as a part of SmartSuite.
I used GeoWorks on my XT back in 1989. It also had a WYSIWYG word processor, usable for day-to-day purposes, and pushed better print quality out of my 9-pin matrix printer than I ever thought possible (although printing in that quality was unbearably slow).
From what I heard, MS lawyers we trying to re-argue whether or not they did wrong. For example, the lawyer said that they didn't hurt Netscape's distribution channels because Navigator could be downloaded from anywhere in the world. HA! MS knows very well that if it comes pre-installed users won't switch. Unfortunately, the judges weren't sharp enough to catch this.
As I understand it, the findings of fact are very hard to overturn. I'd like to think that the appeals judges would do the traditional thing and accept the judgement of the lower judge on the findings of fact, but it seems by their posture that they may not. Sigh...- --------------
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you're comparing computers to cars and home appliances? last time i checked there was a big market for used cars, and getting good usage out of a car that is > 5 years old was far from unheard of. From a status symbol point of view, people are "encouraged" to upgrade to the newest model, but there is really no need to from a usability standpoint. As far as home appliances go, most refrigerators last near 30 years without a whole lot of service, while washers and dryers last at least 15. And breaking up GM? Last time I checked GM didn't have 98% of the automobile market cornered. Your analogy is poor at best.
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we stand in life at midnight, we are always on the threshold of a new dawn.
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
This sig intentionally left blank.
Acutally MS has been quite moderate in its actions until now. They included IE into Win, but didnt stop you from using Win95a or Linux instead. They include new methods of propertyprotection, but they havent been able to force 100% of all users to use it.
But this was yesterday and today. Tomorrow a united MS will use its central position to enforce Windows-Only-Standards.
Media-Support will migrate to Evil-ASF (yo wanna movie? yo wanne Windows!), Online-Payment will be only possible by MS-Solutions (And if the big banks dont follow, MS will walk alone and will succed), even most PDAs, Mobilephones and Homenetworking will suffer terribly from a future Microsoft.
You want to pay online today?
You must use and pay Microsoft.
You want to watch a movie over UMTS?
You must use and pay Microsoft. And you are not allowd to share or save the movie.
Actually the future-weapon of MS will be patents and intelectual property. They will force everyone out of their targetmarkets and noone will be be able to "compete" as noone has "licences" and MS will not give anything away at all.
Greedy MS-Future...
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
Then check this old article on Wired, titled: Sun Sues Microsoft, Alleges Java Pact Breach http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,7499,00. html
A quote:
"Ross points to Microsoft's lack of support for the Java Archive file as perhaps the most significant omission".
And there were modifications to the standard
Java APIs at least originally. Maybe MS fixed
them later, I don't know, but I had stopped
caring by then. This was discussed at
www.javalobby.org some time ago.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
Actually Microsoft also added keywords and changed some APIs. And also left out functionality like RMI and some other and support for JAR files.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
I think one of the problems with the two markets is because of what the trial is about: Microsoft used its "platform" monopoly to gain a monopoly on the "browser" market. So, mentioning two markets makes sense.
Also, I'm confused as to who is Microsoft's consumers. Didn't we learn during the Microsoft Refund Day that computer users weren't Microsoft's consumers? That's because most computer users got their copy of Windows from purchasing their computer. So, computer users are the consumers of the computer manufacturers. It's the computer manufacturers who are Microsoft's consumers. And it is the computer manufacturers who stated that they've been harmed from Microsoft's actions.
The argument that because the trial did not demonstrate harm to the consumers and therefore the conclusion must somehow be wrong is in error.
/after/ the trial was underway; I assert Microsoft could not misbehave against them only because fear kept them in line.
The trial did not show harm to the consumers because the trial was never about the harm to the consumers. Antitrust trials are instead about harm to competitors - in this case, pretty much the entire software industry. Re-read IBM's testimony in their dispute with Microsoft over OS/2 shipping on their own systems, or Microsoft's defense that they did not interfere with Netscape's deployment channels because they did not crash Netscape.com.
The consumer's harm is more indirect. We are denied the use of the great software that might have existed.
The fact is, Microsoft's defense at the trial was laughably inadequate on almost every single point of the trial. They were caugh doctoring evidence on a number of occasions (the faked videos, the "look, you can't install IE on this laptop with that guys program" Samsung affair, and the Emails about them repeating studies until they got the numbers they wanted because "this is for the trial").
I fear this recent "Oh, poor Microsoft" sediment stems from lack of memory instead of any real injustice. The recent uprising of the competition (Real and Linux for instance) happened only
I mean, this is a Corporate Republic. Why is MS to be broken up, but not Disney, AOL Time Warner, or Chrysler-Daimler? Why not GE, who owns so much radio and broadcast media and discourages free speechand competition?
Why not the Hollywood studios, literal enemies of creativity and diverse expression.
Were it up to me, I'd break all of them up and create a business environment in which smaller entities can really compete? But under existing laws, MS seems benign..the prosectution is so selective..
jonkatz@slashdot.org
If you're right about Netscape, though, then the Judge's order definitely makes no sense. As to anticompetiveness, there's no question that Microsoft is anticompetitive, I don't think, at least in my mind. That isn't the issue though.
Is their behavior illegal under the Sherman antitrust act, and should the company be broken up?
Antitrust laws don't breakup companies who are anticompetivie..that's for civil and other legal responses. Antitrust laws breaks up companies when they create monopolies and consumers are harmed..by your argument, consumers weren't harmed.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
I guess I had some of the same worries. But if you read the transcripts, the appeals judges are saying the MS ruling has no basis in fact..that the findings of facts of Judge Jackson aren't supported by fact. I'm interested in your idea that ideology is the problem here, though. I have the sense that the U.S. government has no idea what they're doing.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Neat post..but here's a question I really can't figure out the answer to..Why was MS the only choice for so many people? Was it solely because of their predatory behavior? Or did they see a commercial market and aggressively exploit it..The appeals judges say this is very murky to them..I'd be very interesting to hear from the perspective of tech people involved...So would others reading this.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
The very same principle applies to cars, appliances -- it's the cornerstone of American capitalism -- make products that become obsolete and need to be service, dominate markets. The question isnt whether MS sucks, but whether IE deprived consumers of more expedient and cheaply priced choices..You don't really answer that, and the appeals judges say theycan't find any evidence for it..Your argument that MS makes obsolete goods is true of GM, butnobody is moving to break them up.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
A key issue in the trial..it also pops up in the two books out about MS, one from John Heilemann and the other from Ken Auletta. To what extent was the government lured into this action byh MS competitors or wannabe competitors? I think this poster obviously has a particular perspective, but if you read through the appeals evidence, thereis in fact, no one single shred of evidence that MS harmed consumers in the context of IE, Netscape, etc..the basis for the trial. Doesn't mean they didn't, but where's the data?
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Why not just split each division of Microsoft it about 4 or 6 roughly equal chunks (Nanosoft I to Nanosoft V?), give them all euqal rights to the existing Microsoft codebase (each gets Word, Each gets Windows, etc), with a mandatory fine of 1/3 of each company's assets if there was any evidence of collusion between them after six months?
...or Spectre Sport...?
Then they can hone their anti-competitive skills on one another. Spectator sport!
The big problem would be dividing Bill up without killing him. But Bill vs Steve would be hilarious...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
John Katz wrote (in a unusually unpretentious sentence):
> Were consumers demonstrably harmed by Microsoft?
Absolutely. Market contenders live in fear of opening themselves to a position where they can be stepped on by Microsoft exercising its leverage. For the last decade we have been consistently denied liquidity.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Attempting to break up Microsoft only because of what it did with IE is analogous to impeaching Bill Clinton because of his purgery in the Lewinsky affair, but not pursuing more gravely serious matters such as "Chinagate". (And I don't mean this as a troll. My point is that Microsoft has gotten away with much more than what government lawyers have chosen to prosecute about.)
"I have to run Office2000 because everyone else does." That, again, is a sign of the monopoly that MS has.
*Having* a monopoly isn't, in and of itself, illegal, is it? If I produce a superior product - the superiority of Office is debatable, but for the purposes of this post I'll assume it is better than the competition - why should I be punished for it? Slam MS for predatory postures - but don't slam them because people use their products under the notion that they're better. (Personally, I have two machines sitting beside my desk - this one, running Windows and Office 2000 which I use for web browsing and officework, and another running linux, which I use for the network-related tasks my job involves.)
Add on to that many people think their product is the most bloated, slow, and kludgy word processor on earth and you have even more reason to be angry.
;) For myself, I believe all applications suck; some suck less than others, for various reasons. I use Word because it'll read most any file format going; the fact it does lots of nifty things is icing on the cake. As a Windows-based word processor, it's hard to beat. As a text editor, well... yeah. I stick with notepad, or better yet, joe. ;)
;)
Sounds like you and Robert Sawyer would get along well.
Many believe Microsoft to be engaged in similar practices.
Isn't that what the whole court case is about?
People have every right to be angry if they feel that MS products are kludgy, etcetc. However, that doesn't mean MS is wrong and should be punished. The problems with Windows et al are due more, IMO, to trying to support legacy code than to deliberate attempts to harm the consumers, using their (MS's) place in the market.
The other thing Katz brought up is the government has to prove that MS prevented Netscape from bringing things to market - personally, I don't believe they did.
Of *course* Microsoft is doing everything they can to solidify their position in the marketplace. Isn't that what capitalism is about? I could go on, but it would be somewhat offtopic and I'm at work anyway.
"...although they have a monopoly, that has come through selling good software at low prices and therefore high volume."
This is very misleading, at best.
Microsoft's monopoly was not built independently `from the ground up'.
Microsoft's monopoly came from IBM.
It wasn't that Microsoft was able to sell its product to consumers, but that IBM was able to sell its product to them, with Microsoft's product bundled.
Do you remember the fable of the dosfish?
-rozzin.
Yep. And Microsoft support is incompetent at administering our NT web servers too. In fact, it is impossible to be competent administering NT web servers.
It sure seems easier to be a competent Sun administrator. None of the troubleshooting why services suddenly stop responding.
bp
OS/2 1.x EE is equivalent to W2K + BackOffice 2K (The EE is Extended to included databases, lans services, etc).
yes but it was sitting around on it's ass for 35 years. The opensource movement with linux and others is a very new thing that has only been successful because of other interest in computers. Almost everyone I know was using windows computers before they were using a linux box. There are exceptions to this.
There is no such thing as an unbiased judge.
Actually, I'd go even farther and say there's no such thing as an unbiased person... judge or no judge. Unless you somehow know absolutely nothing about any issue even remotely related to a trial, you're going to have some kind of bias (then of course it's not a true jury of your peers.. but that's another issue).
I think all that's needed is someone who can put their bias aside, and view the information with regard to the law itself... and leave the bias outside the courtroom.
I served on a jury last year for a gang-related murder trial, and none of us on the panel had any problems judging the facts as to how they related to the law. I think that's what matters. Can Jackson ignore any personal bias he has? If so, then there should be no problem having him revisit the case. If not, then he should be recused.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
Amen to every word, GMH.
"MS should receive exactly the same amount of mercy they would show to anyone else." -- Brilliant!
Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.
Ed
Take for example Netcarta Webmapper(tm) for Unix(tm). This is a product which used to be available for Solaris and several other Unices, which made Solaris a better WWW maintenance platform.
Microsoft bought Netcarta, and now, new releases of Webmapper (now part of Back Office) are no longer avalailble Unix, and no longer have a remote web interface to launch searches (you have to be on the console of the Windows box).
While they still "support" (emphasis on the quotes) Webmapper on Unix, this support consisits of telling you that your bugs are fixed in the new release, which by the way is only avalailable for Microsoft platforms.
So who has been harmed here?
- people who bought Webmapper for Unix
- Unix vendors(who have one less application available for their OS.)
Now it would be different if this were an isolated instance, but Microsoft eats up software companies who sell software that runs on competitors' operating systems, and turns off real support (by which I mean continued new releases) for those other operating systems. (see over here for lots more examples.)So they are actively removing application choices and upgrade support for users of other operating systems, and that harms those users and those operating systems vendors.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Know that the marketers use the word good, not Best, and that is in the marketers opion. Most of the marketers I've met think that MS products are "good" and even "inovative". When I tell then that they are usually the worst in quality and mostly copy cast products they look at me odd. The I start relaying the history of such thing....
Note I said the worst, I'm not actually saying that MS products are bad in the grad scheme of things. Though some acutally are.
Grey (Chris Lusena)
Of course, it helps that your typical *nix user can actually see the .pl extension. Windows, in its infinite wisdom, defaults to hiding filename extensions from the user, so as not to confuse them. Thus 'AnnaKornikova.jpg.vbs' appears as 'AnnaKornikova.jpg', but still launches the Visual Basic interpreter when you launch it. Thanks, guys, that really made things easy!
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
This is all well and good as a philosophical stance, but in real life your freedom is reduced to "Do what Microsoft tells you, or go out of business". A strange sort of freedom, if you ask me.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I felt similar. What's worse: it now occasionally happens that I'm on autopilot and hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to log in on a Non-NT server which of course promptly reboots if I didn't yet fix its keymap to prevent this... AAAARGH.
I had a bitch of a time installing OSes just yesterday. I somehow managed to fuck up my slackware installation when I tried to upgrade X to 4.0.2. I tried debian, and it yelled at me. I then tried slackware again, and lilo messed up. So I tried the new redhat beta. It crashed even before brining up fdisk on install. I got so fed up I installed FreeBSD, and all was well
But how many home users are going to know enough to setup an NT/W2K box? About as many as will be able to setup a Linux/*BSD box.
Point given. BTW, I like your sig.
Kinda....
In the 1980s Unix had exactly the same problem. A defect allowed a worm to spred.
The problem was fixed soon after (not years later).
Forgive the first attack... You have to find out some way and an infection is probably the most likely first alert you are going to get.
However Microsoft has never removed the "feature" or modifyed it so it won't run code.
The damage itself is obveously not Microsofts fault. The fact that it continues to this day is.
My own "proof" is more simplistic...
If you want to be a commertal success you MUST write a Windows version of your software... You can ignore anyone else....
I'm aware some people have purpousfully misread my Sig and said "You cann't ignore AMD" or "VA Linux and RedHat ignore Microsoft"....
You can ignore AMD... in fact you should... AMD chips run Intel code just fine there is no reason to even acnoladge the Athon or Duron exists when writing code.
VA Linux is a hardware company and they sell Windows... failing both the "Software company" and "ignoring Windows" part....
As for RedHat "And survive" was also a provision... RedHat hardly qualifys as "surviving" at least not as a software company... They may survive but only after transforming into a service company of some sort.
I don't actually exist.
>Exactly. The key difference is that your typical *nix user isn't naive enough to try AnnaKournikova.jpg.pl when they see it. It's like saying that the Toyota Camry is the car most frequently stolen in the US based on raw numbers. Of course it is. Camry is the best selling car in the US.
An intresting side note is the last time I saw the stats on the most frerquently stolen car it wasn't the best selling car. It just had bad locks.
I don't actually exist.
"You want Windows, don't ship Netscape."
When everybody wanted Netscape and it was better than IE. That's abuse of monopoly to harm consumers and counter the will of the market. What the hell else do we need to hang'em?
I agree with people's wariness of government control, but turning around and saying that MS did not do anything illegal in order to get out of that is wrong!
KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
not if you used an Isp's installation disk. In win 3.1 days I used three different ISP at various times (4 if you count prodigy, which I started using because it came iwth my 286 ps/1)
Sprynet, PipelineUSA, a local isp called Sufnet --they all had installers that would configure trumpet for you, and the browsers (Mosaic mostly) would activate the trumpet winsock dialer automatically. I didn't really notice a difference when I got win 95, except that the dialog boxes looked different.
(DSL and a routered box and dialing up is a thing of the past, but....)
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
Now for your other arguments:
No one has been harmed by MS. Sure, you may be gaffed for a few bucks if you buy a brand name machine with Windows on it. But you can buy a machine that comes with Linux. But if you buy it from a major player, you'll pay even more for the installation. No one's going to sell a machine without an operating system not because MS forces them to, but because 1) consumers want one and 2)the machine is unsupportable otherwise.
These are tired arguments that aren't valid. If you want to support Linux, great, glad to have you on board. But support Linux, and don't fall into the trap of bashing MS. Support linux because you believe in the advantages of Open Source, support Linux because it smells pretty, but don't support it because it's not MS. Sorry, that's not it's best feature. I use Linux because I love it. I love bash, apache, perl, ssh, gimp, XFree and php. I love the feel of linux, I love the way I've customized my box.
But, I don't hate MS. They make good products for the masses. They've helped get PC's into most american homes. This is a good thing.
Finally, without MS, Linux wouldn't be much more than a project some Finnish kid worked on in the 90's. Without a standard, how can you have an alternative?
but as well as we have CLUELESS bureaucrats deciding on the breakup of MS, we could have the same clueless people making free software illegal because it's unamerican or something. We need to fight again this kind of control..not only again MS.
Hugo
Well, actually, IBM was prevented from selling OS/2 by M$ when M$ said you can only get a reasonable price for W95 if IBM would drop OS/2.
/w a government there is a 50% chance of them doing something in the consumer's interest. M$'s record is about 0%. (excluding XML! : )
Monopoly maintenance is worse than temporary government interfearance. At least
-B
In regards to the relative ease of installation of Linux vs. Win2k or whatever....I'm not going to get into a discussion of which is easier. For me it's Linux, for others it's Windows, but that's beside the point. The point I was making is that *both* are probably beyond the expertise of the average home computer user.
The "too little, too late" comment is not like saying that Linux is just for hackers. In fact it has nothing to do with Linux. I was expressing the opinion that the newfound stability of Windows (presuming it really exists - I wouldn't know) is too late. The typical home user is already conditioned to frequent meltdowns and regards this situation as an acceptable and normal aspect of computing. They don't realise that there is something better in the form of BeOS, Linux, Win2k, etc.
Having said all that, though, I agree that Linux is not ready for primetime. I'm not sure it ever will be, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing, either.
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
Thanks....:)
It was first said by John Hrarstar, I think, and I had to paraphrase a little to make it fit into the siglimit imposed by slashcode.
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
Sure was. You know how much it cost? Hint: the number has lots of zeroes after it.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
OK. I'll let corporations run amok through the economy if they give up their incorporation and government-granted monopolies (that's patents and copyrights).
If they want laissez-faire, they'll get laissez-faire, but they don't get to cherry-pick the government interventions that help their bottom lines.
(yeah, right...like they'll ever do what I think is right regardless...)
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Microsoft didn't cause any bodily harm, didn't cause me financial harm, didn't cause me headaches. Hell i have more problems with installing linux kernels, filesystems trying to hack things up to work the way i want then i do making windows work the way i want.
Being big isn't a monopoly. The cable and phone companies cause more harm then Microsoft!
Did you forget that? I pay 70 bucks a month for digital cable, i paid 120.00 for my copy of win2k. I pay 840.00 bucks a year for tv, and only 120.00 bucks everyone 2-3 years to upgrade my os.
Tell me again what is monopolistic? Is it that i can't chooose another cable company? Is it that the phone companies are so big i can't choose my own local provider? Or is it that my PC came with something that YOU CAN REMOVE that you feel its monopolistic? I can't go switching my cable company, i can't go running my own telephone equipment.
You guys make me sick. If windows is "still" crashing your PC daily then quit overclocking your PC and get some real hardware.
Nobody has ever effectively explained to my why Microsoft's bundling of IE is any different than their bundling of NotePad.
[The post earlier about default home pages seems to have more to do with it than the bundling of a product, IMHO].
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
... I guess ... I don't know that I agree, though.
Go back in time (a mere decade, decade and a half). Basically, to do anything in your OS, you need some way to edit text files. With MS-Dos, you got EDIT. With Win 3.1, you got notepad. Could they have given you nothing but EDLN and gotten away with it? Yes. But what user wants to edit their config.sys using edln!? So MS provides a viable editor for their users.
Now, were there people developing editors before EDIT and NotePad were given away for free? Surely. But after this, it was certainly not viable to try and sell straight editors any more, except for very specialized tasks.
Now, fast forward. All help files are HTML. Internet access is the standard, not the exception. To have a modern OS, you need a web browser. Were other people making browsers? Sure, but they wanted to (gasp) charge you for them. So Microsoft gives me one for free, that I can replace with a purchased one if I want. Just like the text editors back in the late 80s.
All of a sudden, there's no business in web browsers anymore. Just like there's no business in text editors any more. I don't see how the two are fundamentally different. I don't see backup vendors crying foul over MS bundling a backup program with their OS. I don't see file system visualization people crying foul over MS bundling a graphical file explorer. It's accepted that these are necessary things for a modern OS, and if you try to stay in the business of selling something that used to be optional and is now fundamental, you're going to lose money.
I'm not trying to be a pain, I'm just looking for something that can answer this question that's been nagging me for years now.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
> One of the problems is that our media has become
> a mob, lurching one way, then the other.
You would know, Jon.
> But monomania isn't a crime.
Lucky for you.
Twoflower
--
Twoflower
if one burns enough companies/people over a period of time eventually it will catch up with them.
Corps remember the time that "MS stole their idea", governments remember the time that their server got hacked, joe desktop user remembers the time that he lost a 30+ page doc to a BSOD, airports remember the day their public flight schedule screens displayed a very blue message...etc...
The list is long...but my point is these experiences are not forgotten. Most users are attached to the MS UI and trapped into using their office software...this will change...we have only just begun!
Why not just have some other key combination be trapped by the OS?
The problem was that C-A-D was already firmly entrenched in people's minds as the "reboot the machine" sequence. If they were able to do it for one combination, why not come up with some completely new combination to do this?
-Sean
Yeah, that's right.
Or so Windows 2000 tells me when I click on
help on the login box.
Or maybe they just made it up.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
I mean, RPM's (from what I've seen, I could be wrong) don't even add things to a menu/program manger or associate documents with programs -
Windows has had that since Windows 3.0.
You should check out debian. It has been
adding programs to me window manager menus
for years now. Associate documents with
programs? Why should a process automatically
do that anyway?
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
There is no such thing as an unbiased judge. Just ask anyone who has had to take a case to the supreme court. You can fairly accurately predict how a judge will rule based on his biases in various areas, especially when there is a moral
:)
element involved in the ruling.
Hmmmm, who was that judge who ruled against 2600?
I bet he was totally unbiased too
I hate it when people call users stupid when they don't or can't install Windows or Linux. Users just don't *want* to do those things. Users want to *use* the computer, not pull it apart and put it together again. Most computer users have a job to do with the computer, and every minute spent trying to figure out how to do something is a minute lost. Microsoft went a long way to simplifying tasks on the computer. Now they made lots of mistakes along the way (the paper clip comes to mind), but that doesn't make end users lazy or stupid.
:)
Would you want "upgrade" your car? How many computer geeks get their oil changed at Jiffy Lube? More than you'll ever know. It's not that they can't or don't know how to change the oil, it's just that they don't *want* to do it. Same thing with Windows users.
You'll notice that most of the work under Linux right now has to do with "spiffying up" the user interface, and making installation of Linux/apps easier. I love it. I hate having to edit a config file to get an application to run the way I want it to. I'll never get my dad using Linux until it is easier to user.
The real beauty of Linux comes from the fact that Linux rarely crashes, so I get fewer tech support calls from relatives. Right now most of my questions are hardware related (hey, how do I hook up this printer/set up a DSL modem/get the mouse wheel working/whatever). That's true under Windows, too. But under Windows there is a pretty good chance that the guy at Best Buy knows the answer. Under Linux you have to check the web. Odds are the guy down the street doesn't use Linux. Yet
Opinions change daily as new information arrives. Stay tuned.
Personally, I'm for draggin this out, as long and as loud and as publicly as possible.
It seems almost obvious that if not ruled by one company, the proprietary softare market can be ruled by no more than a few comapnies. I mean, if a smaller company decides to make, for example, a closed source office suite, it will have an impossible time fighting Microsoft's market dominance. So through a natural process: the market hardly admits new players, companies quite often merge, and a few companies are left as a result. In the free software world these rules don't apply. Infact, as far as the market is concerned it exacly the opposite is true. Free software naturaly puts companies and users on a balance: companies can never control the software. This is why I love my computer, filled with free software, mmm...
Recently Microsoft has been claiming that the Judge was biased during the trial, because afterwards he said a few choice words about the company.
As someone pointed out, even afterwards he's not supposed to comment on the case as long as it is in appeals, but the fact of the matter was he made those comments before his trial was over.
Here's a snippet from this article over at news.com:
The judges were especially concerned that Jackson made statements during the trial but asked reporters not to print the quotes until after the case's conclusion.
"His embargo makes his comments worse," Randolf said. If the comments were released during trial, "he would have been off this case in a minute."
I could debate the real benefits of a computer in every home - even the basic truth of it, many of my neighbours get on without one - but anywho, I remember using M$ BASIC on a Pet in, what, 1977, '78? Didn't it take rather a looong time, in the digital world, for this crop you allege M$ to have sowed (sown?), to grow? I think you confused correlation with causation here, as another pointed out... how did you look at all the bazillion computer companies that have come and gone since M$ was founded and decided it deserves all the credit? Does IBM get none for making the PC? Does... whoever it was... get none for backengineering the BIOS and making competitive PC clones? Does Altair - the computer for which M$ first produced, IIRC (where's my Hackers?) - get none for seeding a p.c. market in the first place?
Or are you just another johnny-cum-lately M$ worshipper?
I read the FoF, cover to cover, within days of Jackson releasing it (even converting it to TeX and making nice, compact, permanent copies for myself and a few friends... I was learning TeX at the time, it was good exercise :). I remember being impressed that some dingbat Reagan appointee was not just competent but apparently conversant with the situation. For someone whom Katz claims now himself claims not to have understood the issues, I thought he understood them very well...
I prefer to think Jackson's just being decently modest in such claims.
Thank you! I said this months ago, when ILOVEYOU came out. Under M$ the net has become an organic entity with little biodiversity and essentially no immune system... dare I carry it on to analogues about promiscuity and Sexually Transmitted Diseases?
I compared it to the Irish Potato Famine... a single pest obliterated one entity on which an entire population relied. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that lives can be threatened by the combination of domination and insecurity in M$. I just hope enough critical systems aren't M$ that the food, the fuel, and the medicine will keep moving even if the M$ technology gets wiped. Ever wonder about how many trucking companies would be reduced to chaos without Winduhs?
this doesn't really count as harm for anti-trust purposes, making bad decisions in software design isn't against the law
For some kinds of systems, it ought to be... I mean, when a sign error in a radiotherapy machine nearly cooks someone to death, there should be restitution of some kind from the people who handled the software. Of course UCITA outlaws such laws, so whaddyagonnado.
'nuff blither out of me :)
...
Arrrgh! and they wonder why our kids can't speak properly any more >:(
Oh lord... is it too much to expect "the media" to learn that "media" is a fscking plural, along with agenda, bacteria, and data? I try to not gratuitously bash JK, but if he's so damn smart he'd know how to conjugate.
It's perfectly clear that JonKatz didn't read the finding of facts of Judge Jackson even if he says otherwise. For every question JonKats asks the answer is in the FoF.
I can't believe his article was accepted in Slashdot! He made me jump out of my seat.
Also, the statement that Netscape had no chance of becoming a platform is dead wrong, and Microsoft knows it. It can be explained in four characters...".net". .net means your web browser is now a platform. How many of you really believe Microsoft's .net products will work just as well on third party browsers as on Windows/IE?
Did you listen to the appeals or read any of the associated documents?
Two things made netscape not a platform. One, the ceo said on the record that they had no intention of making a platform. Second, they never made the browser as a embeddable component nor a library for other applications to use.
What I've never understood about the M$ trial is this: with all of the falsifying of evidence and outright lying done by Microsoft, why didn't Jackson slap them with a Contempt of Court? Isn't that a crime in and of itself? Isn't it legal to apply contempt in cases like this?
Here Here!!!
/. reader but does anybody besides me think that the software equivalent of the FDA might be necessary?
It baffles me when people accept buggy, hard-to-use software as a fact of life. When I think about damage to consumers though, I think about lost productivity. (Most people think of companies when they think of productivity but consumers often lose productivity when software crashes too.) Are there any consumers besides me out there that remember using Apple IIs? They didn't crash and their software didn't crash. Hell, even 'ol MS DOS and Volkswriter never crashed. So at what point did buggy crash-prone software become acceptable? My LCII running System 7 never once crashed on me (and that could run MS Word 5.1a which was a great program and was really all the word processor most people would ever need). But Mac OS 9 crashes (Mac OS X PB does not) and Windows 98SE crashes so I put Windows 2000 on my PC. It still crahes (it needs more RAM, I only have 128MB). On top of that, there are still all the security problems that the previous poster talked about. Can anyone name another industry where people just consider it a fact of life when the product needs to be turned off and then turned back on so it can be used again? If MS guilty of any one crime (and they're not the only ones guilty of this), it's that they've taught people to tolerate and even accept or defend a poorly made product. I hate government involvement as much as the next
--- Don't ever trust a woman until she's dead- B.B. King
okay, I made a bad analogy. my thinking was that the government would certify software that would be sold in this country and was of acceptable quality. it would exist just so that we have some kind of body that can set the standard for appropriate quality. This, imho, would benefit everybody since proprietary software is almost certainly not going away and we may as well learn to deal with it. This isn't to say Free software is perfect (there is some good code and some bad code) but a lot of proprietary software is out of control.
--- Don't ever trust a woman until she's dead- B.B. King
The rules change when you have a monopoly, as MS has with operating systems. IBM couldn't blow off W95 because to do so would have meant the death of their PC business. They wanted to also offer their own OS, but were prevented from doing so by the abuse of a monopoly by MS.
I think the big question, that Jon nosed around with that nobody has commented on, is quite simply what is a 'Bad Monopoly'? I've tried to articulate it several times in this reply and the best I can do is a company in a leadership position that stifles competition.
This is not a very crisp definition and one that would have to be interpreted by company officials, judges, justice departments, etc. Despite this, I have to point out that there are a lot of companies that would be in violation of this definition.
I shudder at the amount of power Michael Eisner's Disney has in the media and over our everyday lives. The same goes for AOL/Time-Warner, Boeing, Intel and Walmart. None of these companies are innovative and yet they hold commanding positions in their markets and do everything they can to maintain the status quo. These positions seem to be based on forceful management, vast sums of money, political saavy and public inertia.
I really feel that if Microsoft is guilty of anything, it is the stupidity and arrogance of Gates et al resulting in the refusal to give lawmakers the lip service that would have let them walk out of the court with a slapped wrist.
This isn't "right", but explain to me why it is okay for another Washington based company that produced over 70% of all the airliners in the United States to buy up its closest competitor to increase its volume to essentially 100% by burying many of the company's products.
In this (Boeing) case, apparently it is the continuation of a 'Good Monopoly' for it to buy McDonnell-Douglas and to shut down all but one of MD's airliner assembly lines.
So what is a 'Bad Monopoly' and why is Microsoft guilty of being one?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
>How did MS become a monopoly? Because their >product was designed for anyone (including the >millions of morons, or those less computer->literate) to learn quickly and easily.
I would argue that it is not easy-to-use. The only reason that it is perceived to be easy-to-use is that everyone uses it and has become accustomed to the way it works. I remember quite clearly many who had no idea how to use windows when it first came out and users learned of it's existence (version 3.0 to version 3.1).
You will never "find" time for anything. You must "make" it.
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
And as far as having a 'grudge gainst Katz and/or Microsoft', no, I do not. I do, however, despise all that MS stands for - exploitation, corruption, stepping on the little guy, and various other abuses of power. I also happen to think they have made and do make some of the worst software immaginable, and then have the nerve to call it new and revolutionary when it's simple grand theft. Their exhorbinant costs only add to that. I, as well as many many many other people (probably including yourself, no?), have lost important - sensitive or personal - data due to shoddy software by MS. I'm entitled to have a grudge in this situation, I believe. It's appropriate.
As far as Katz is concerned, I have no grudge. I simply think the man's a sensationalist here for the money. He's done nothing since his arrival but confirm the consensus slashdot mentality.
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
<I>But Microsoft's lawyers have repeatedly argued -- correctly -- that Navigator isn't an operating system, and that Netscape had neither interest in nor means to supplant Windows. </I>
--snip--
<I>Was Microsoft really supposed to sit back and allow competitors to dominate this critical market, surely threatening Windows in the process?</I>
This seems to be a common argument, and one that makes little sense. If Netscape isn't a replacement for Windows, why would Windows be threatened by not including a browser?
Microsoft did need to have a browser of their own to compete with netscape. This was a fair competition AS A SEPERATE PRODUCT. Giving it away for free or less than the cost to produce it is dumping (an illegal trade act). Bundling it with a monopoly product is tying, either of these were non-competitive and inappropriate.
You don't always have to prove what MS did was harmful to consumers, especially in the act of dumping (Of course, most of the time companies get away with dumping, study the history of Japenese TV sales in the US for more info).
Katz had some good things to say, but could have used a little more research.
The whold antitrust business started in the late 1900's, with the likes of Standard Oil. When things really got bad for the Rockefellers was when it was revealed that the Standard Oil agreements with the railroads for kickbacks meant that Standard Oil got paid for every barrel of oil that thier competetors tried to ship. there were also secret agreements that guarenteed that competitors products were delivered more slowly, and were regularly reported to be 'inferior'.
Now jump forward to today. Is Microsoft a monopoly in the same sense as Standard Oil or Carnagie Steel were in the 1890's? I think that the answer would have to be 'YES'. That means that this one company controls over 90% of the market for it's product group. These groups would be 1. Operating Systems for desktop computers. also, 2. Office Productivity Software.
I believe that in both catagories Microsoft is dominant (More than 80% market share, possibly more than 90%.)
The next question should be 'Are they using their market dominance to stifle competition, or to harm or force potential harm on the public'. That is the question at the heart of the matter.
To find out if the answer to the second question is yes or no, try a little experiment.
Go to a standard computer outlet and try to buy a computer with an alternate operating system (I am partial to Debian). Then, try to find out if there are legal agreements for 'kickbacks' so that even if I try to buy a computer without a microsoft operating system, I pay for it anyway. Again, the answer is 'yes'. Here is where Microsoft is harming the public. That is cause enough to justify breaking up the company.
Did Microsoft engage in anticompetetive paractices in an effort to destroy Netscape? Yes, in the origional trial, there were many references to that as thier goal. Did they violate the law in thier efforts? Again, Yes.
The 'right' to operate a corporation is granted only as a means to a public good. It can be abused, and if it is, then the public, in the preson of the Government can revoke that. It is not one of the inalienable rights.
Because the Government can do so, does not mean that they should. As an example, I know of no one whose phone bills went down when ATT was broken up. We literally leave it up to the disgression of the judge to determine what is in the public good. In this case, Judge Jackson was severe, because this case was brought in violation of a consent decree where he was the judge for a previous antitrust case.
With all that, I do not believe that the proposed remedy is the best solution. It creates two large monopolies where there was one large monopoly before, still leaving the public at the mercy of a dominant organization with a history of abuse. Perhaps someone out there has an idea for a solution that would work, without destroying the properties that make many people like the company. The best remedy I have seen, is Richard Stallmans solutions from over a year ago.
So now Mr. Katz is a legal analyst specializing in monopoly and anti-trust law? I have my own doubts about the judgement and remedy, but I have no doubt that MS broke the law.
Drawing a parallel with AOL/Time is very disingenuous, but I think you know that. Illegality is defined by behavior. If (some would say when) AOL starts using their clout the way MS has, to dominate the market, then and only then is it breaking the law.
Monopolies are not illegal. Abusing the power of a monopoly is. You seem to miss that point.
I remember netscape 1.1n, and I hated it, used it only when required. I remember 2.0 was worse.
So were you running IE back then? Or was it Konqueror perhaps?
Ñ'
Good morning Mr. Katz, Have you missed the entire proceedings? This article states the problem very clearly: they used their OS monopoly to create a new browser monopoly. If they'd had to compete fairly things might be different now and perhaps Netscape wouldn't be as bad as it currently is. Who can really judge what effect Microsoft's bundling of browser with OS had on the competing brower? No one really. But it's very hard not to believe that Netscape wouldn't have developed a better browser if they were not battling a monopoly. And in losing an improved Netscape browser everyone loses. Many people just aren't paying enough attention to know what they've lost or how they've been harmed.
Yeah, a computer is luxury like a car in the US is a luxury. You may be able to ride a bike to get where you need to go, but you'd be an IDIOT to do so.
Even the Jiffy Lube down the block uses computers. It's no longer a luxury, it's a requirement to compete.
You example is incorrect. How about
1) Rolls owns 90% of the market in gas production
2) You must use specially formulated Rolls Royce Gas to run your car. It's not very good, but the gas stations are forbidden to sell any other type of gas by RR.
Later,
ErikZ
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Didn't the TRS-80 use an OS made by MS?
I know the Tandy Color Computer did. Heck, on the Color Computer III, if you hit the right key combo, you'd get a picture of the MS team.
Later,
ErikZ
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
From that statement, I get the mental picture of a MS consumer. He looks like Bill the Cat.
Later,
ErikZ
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
"They can still use his gas. RedHat will sell it to them, or they can get it at their local book store, or they can mail-order it from CheapBytes for $2 for a lifetime supply. "
Can you try sticking to the analogy? Who buys gas at a bookstore?
Now, if you have a BETTER analogy, by all means, trot it out. But my monopoly/car/gas example is far better than your car company/car/engine analogy.
BTW, I just called my local car dealer and asked him if I could buy a car without an engine. First he said "What kind of car are you interested in?" Then he said "Yeah, if you're willing to pay for it, we'll sell you a car without an engine."
Later,
ErikZ
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Your analogy is wrong because Microsoft doesn't sell computers. Just the "Engine"
To fix your seriously flawed analogy, and yet use the same terms, you would have to use an "Engine production company" that started out making engines.
Then modified the specs.
Then started tossing in free radios, that only work with the power supply the engine puts out.
Which they make up for because they have a monopoly on engine market (90%), and if you even THINK about talking to another producer of engines, they'll cut you off. And no one will buy cars from you because it's very difficult to find anyone who knows anything about working on those niche engines.
You would have to make this world a place where people can swap out engines as easily as they do OS's.
Later,
ErikZ
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Well gee, imagine that. Your company is being held hostage to MS due to this practice and you're not going to go run to the papers with the fact?
b ra ry/weekly/aa060700a.htm
You're correct, evidence of MS's wrongdooing isn't laying around to the point where some geek on the internet can find it. There are limits to the net.
You might want to look here though
http://www.windows.about.com/compute/windows/li
I suppose the "Any computer maker is free to change the Windows boot-up sequence, the arrangement of icons on the desktop, and replace Internet Explorer or other "middleware" without fear of retaliation from Microsoft." is completely without merit, and Judge Jackson just tossed it in there for the hell of it.
Those zany judges!
Later,
ErikZ
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
You don't use LT's gas. He open sourced a good formula for gas. Those people who wish to build the mini gas proccessing plant in their back yard can use this formula and get superior quality gas and miliage.
However, 90% of the people don't want to, or can't build their own plant.
Later,
ErikZ
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I think that the quality in W2K is also due to Linux. Look at all of the MS products where there is competition: Exchange and SQL. MS saw that there were many other options for thier customers in these markets (Novell, Oracle, MySQL etc) and knew that they had to make these products right. In the OS world (until recently) they were the only *percieved* game in town so could pretty much do what they wanted.
I have always felt that when MS decides it wants to get into a certain market, they first quickly release something that usually sucks to get their name out. v2 is usually about on par with the competition and by v3 and beyond they begin winning the race. There are many examples of this. How many people here remember when Word and Excell were jokes and if you wanted to get something done, you used Word Perfect and Quattro Pro (or 123).
Remember it, write it down, take a picture, I dont give a fsck!
In the wake of the infamous Allchin comments, this is a chilling idea.
----
"Here to discuss how the AOL merger will affect consumers is the CEO of AOL."
grep -ri 'should work'
You can also see this effect not just in what they don't improve, but what they remove from the operating system. Some things I know of: Windows 98, fax modem driver was removed; Windows ME, backup software removed, and apparently some networking functionality is removed--a friend told me ME cannot do peer to peer networking ala 95/98.
Who's to say MS isn't a bit of both?
The Federal Goverment is becoming less of a power than the corporations.
It's not just comercial entities that are harmed. How much research and development is taking place outside M$ in operating systems?
I want to be alone with the sandwich
The pro-MS troops hailing Katz' conclusions seem very adept at the art of "moderation" as well. God Bless Free Competition.
Welcome to the new Slashdot Reality, where Newspeak is alive and well and resistance *is* futile. MS has no monopoly and the public has all the choice they deserve. There is no MS-tax as long as PC components exist separately. Netscape choke their own air supply because their future owner AOL/Time-Warner are an evil monopoly that must be terminated. MS is an admirably tough Great American Enterprise that must be allowed to continue foiling evil plots e.g. by Torvalds and his gang of brainwashed communist provocateurs to destroy World Freedom aka U.S. Capitalism. Judges must never create opinions, let alone voice them, but simply pass American-style verdicts in the name of Consumer Benefit. The biblical Bush is indeed burning here and now... scorching away un-Americanisms.
Please mod this post down to -1 troll to give it a decent burial.
--
A. Bullard
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Err... I would say that the exact opposite is true. What about ARPANet, NCSA Mosaic and CERN?
And that makes their vote more important than yours or mine? Yes, that is a correct assertion; however the spirit of the Constitution comes up, which our Supreme court Justices are supposed to protect. That's why I'm not sure if I like Justice Antonin Scalia (check out this this little gem which I found at poliglut.com to see more. To quote: "My Constitution is a very flexible document,' he told an audience Friday night at a conference on James Madison at Princeton University. `You want a right to abortion? Pass a law. That's flexibility.`"
He makes it sound easy that you and I (as citizens) are able to have laws passed at the drop of a hat. Not Joe Average Citizen. But your favorite megacorp can buy a new law (ahem, Disney, ahem RIAA/MPAA, ahem Citigroup *can you say Banking Reform Act of 1999?*). Thats bullshit. When the Constitution was written, remember that the men who wrote it became outlaws of the British, they wrote it to protect all (American) people. Supposedly, the Constitution serves us all, rich and poor, black and white, young and old, ALL alike. Anyways, thats my 0.02. -Bob
You Shouldn't have to make a choice between those two extremes. The purpose of our government is to do as we (voters) ask. That's the point of self-government. The only way megacorp's are allowed to flourish is when someone in our government gets kickbacks to look the other way. There's no way that Megacorp or Ultra-rich are the norm (*th e majority*) in our country. It's time for Americans to wake up and hold their congress members (and others) responsible for allowing our American democracy* to erode. -Bob *see websters dict. for the correct defn.
I have to applaud your open-mindedness after years of Microsoft bashing...I heartily agree, since a lot of what you say in this essay is what I say in chapter 13 of my book. - adam
The last time I had to reboot our NT4-Server was when I switched to Print-Server to not send the "Print Completed"-Messages anymore and this required to reboot the machine to take effect... now that's an explaination why some people translate MS to Micky-Mause Software... and I think this is a insult to Micky-Mause :)
A large part of the issue here (outside of the /. crowd) is the perception that "The can be only one" operating system. I know plenty of (non-technical people) who have invested LARGE amounts of money taking classes on how to use M$-Office to improve their job standing. These people are TERRIFIED of software that they don't know how to use -- and when you're an office manager, you don't care about choice of software, you don't care about software beyond the fact that you only know how to use one package; fortunately for you, its the package that *everyone* uses. If you are one of these people, the M$ Monopoly is a GOOD thing (for you), especially in the short run. This probably also applies if you're an Appeals Court Judge... chances are they don't go home and hack the kernel til bedtime ;-) This is the problem, no matter how predatory M$ may have been, is, or will be, it's an advantage to almost everyone who isn't us. Fighting the monopoly in court isn't the answer; cracking M$ in half will only give us two predatory monopolies, where we used to have one. And no amount of ANYTHING is going to convince my office manager that she shouldn't use Outlook -- All she knows is that she knows how to use Outlook, and she doesn't know how to use anything else. The ONLY way to crack the Monopoly is to crack this PERCEPTION
-- Rich
Free your mind and your Ass will follow -- George Clinton
I would think that two megacorporations would grow to take its place. They will probably be called micros~1 and micros~2.
I know I'm usually out of it, but, did I miss something?
... the same argument is used for LINUX a product obviously being dumped to reduce or eliminate the Windows core market.
Throw into that the backers are major application suppliers... which have a vested interest in seeing MS fail... and that they are colluding to provide a no cost product to attract the business away from their biggest competitor and you have a potentially ugly scene for LINUX in the future.
If you can show that a single company is funding the development of linux in order to leverage an existing monopoly, i say let that company be sued as a trust.
p.s. linux isn't a product.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
In the Appeals Court, Microsoft attorneys are honey-tongued and very kind to the judges. In the District Court, they offended the judge, lied, and used every legal obstacle to extend the trial. Microsoft's strategy is to get the district court to issue an unreasonable ruling, and then get the appeals court to overturn it. (And, perhaps, for an unprecendented second time assign the case to another judge!) Let's hope they don't succeed. Nobody should be able to overturn a case by managing to make the trial judge loose his temper!
You are mistaken. Harm to consumers does not need to be proven. It is assumed if a monopoly engages in anti-competitive practices.
Therefore, if Microsoft is a monopoly and if they used their monopoly to prevent competition, then that is all the court needs to prove.
-- Will program for bandwidth
But to say "oog, I reboot windows every day" or "oog, blue screen!!!!" just shows ignorance and the inability to think objectively for yourself.
Ok, I'm offended here by your decreeing that those that say MS products crash are ignorant of the options.. You obviously miss several important limitations of Windows.. First off, unless something radically changed in 2k, MS recommends rebooting after performing almost any serious install. Why? Because of the bloated centralized resource management. This is as opposed to the BSD style of start/stop RC scripts. (Yes you can start and stop services in NT, but I've definately required a reboot on numerous types of changes). Especially if any service goes south.
Next even NT is highly volitale. Least we forget the blue-screen-of-death?? My favorite is when this happened at Bill Gates' presentation.
Hey, I've had my win98 box at work up for weeks at a time, but I only use it to read mail and browse slashdot. But when I had NT4 going, I'd regularly corrupt the system while doing some heafy development.. My Linux box, on the other hand was last shut down a couple months ago when I upgraded the MP3 drive on it. I regularly have hundreds of apps running in all my virtual screens.
One of the biggest reasons to bash MS is that part of it's fundamental principles is quantity over quality. Bloat-ware has inherent problems; no matter how good a release is, the next feature-patch is capable of breaking 50% of everything because of shared bloat-ware libraries. Compare this to the UNIX mentality where processes are discrete, independant, and those libraries that _are_ shared have very well defined time-proven APIs, and can have open-source for the benifit of code-review. Though UNIX isn't a true micro-kernel, you don't depend on the OS to accomplish every menial task (such as window management).
Granted there are greater push for bloat-wear, such as Gnome, but thats only part of a pluggable option to the user-space (as might be a bloated flash extension to Netscape).
MS can only maintain it's status as a cash cow by bloating their software, thereby justifying increased cost to the already 9x% market share. Therefore, they have reached critical mass to be doomed as a corporate deamon. There is nothing they can do to recover from this.
-Michael
-Michael
So just because Microsoft was unethical, the Judge can be unethical? Judges are supposded to try to maintain at least the appearance of impartiality throughout the case including appeals. By making the statements he has thrown the Statements of Fact into question, leading to the possibility the Court of Appeals will remand the case to a lower court for a FULL retrial, not just a new verdict. The Judge also said the Appeals court was wrong in an earlier case. Generally, lower court judges base their opinions not only on the facts of the case but prior rulings, especially rulings by a higher court. Without a change in the facts of the case, for a lower court judge to overturn a higher court decision is probably unheard of. And when I read the statements of fact, I got the impression he was disrespectful of the higher court. That is not a recipe for having a decision upheld.
While this is true it doesn't mean that M$ is responsible - in fact I think you're confusing cause and effect - M$ simply ssupplanted the previous reigning monopoly (at time that the govt had THEM in court trying to break them up). And it wasn't because their software was cheaper - it was because the advent of the microprocessor suddenly brought the cost of a low end system from seomewhere in the tens of thousands of dollars (think PDP11) to something in the hundreds of dollars - there were other more sophisticated OSs around at the time - M$ didn't even write the original DOS.
M$ owes it's existance to the technical changes that made cheap hardware available to all of us, not the other way around
and the only organisation big enough to take on an abusive monopoly is a government.
So, pray tell, which organization is there to take on an abusive government?
Talk about your monopolies...
--
Ok, so modern software is too bloated to run on an old machine. That's life. How is it Microsoft's fault that Quicken 2000 or TurboTax 2001 won't run on thier P100 with 16 megs of ram and Windows 95? Of course Microsoft's newest products are going to be targeted at the newest HARDWARE and their newest operating system. It's called innovation. I can't really run KDE or Gnome on my 486/66 linux file server. Damn these open source product for innovating! I am hurt finanacially becuase I can no longer run new software on the computer I found in a garbage can at the side of the road!
"You can say what you want, but I believe that this improvement in quality is caused by the DOJ hearings, at least in part. With the world spotlighting their practices and software quality, MS simply has to put its best foot forward. "
i think the improvement in ms' server oses is due to competition from *nix. of course you wouldn't be able to buy computers with an os installed without the doj investigation. so i guess linux et all are a cause of windows 2000 being better.
the problem is ms can prevent oems from selling a computer with anything other than ms products installed on it. this would suck.
sure they can.
"if you put software a on your computers and sell them, we won't sell you any more licenses."
Doing this would create an enormous market (the Government buys a bunch of software) for open formats, which would hit Microsoft right in its upgrade-treadmill solar plexus.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Then how does the Worms demo trap it? (It traps C-M-Del so that you have to view the advertising at the end.)
I'm not sure about NT4, but the demo doesn't work under Win2K. Ctl+Alt+Del may very well have been trappable in Win9X if you messed with the interrupts.
There have been a lot of messages on DirectXDev (the DirectX developers mailing list) about ways to get around the limitation. Basically the answer has been - "Don't. You can't. It is there for a reason"
"...if UID0 is logged in, it reboots..."
/etc/inittab, you can set it to do whatever you want. And it does not matter whether root is logged in or not.
in linux you can set it in
erik
...all excited, don't know why...
He's not talking about IE integration into Windows. He's talking about install programs forcing you to install IE3 long before that.
Geez, please read the posts you're responding to.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Mostly what I noticed is that all the lawyers sounded stupid. They were so busy trying to dodge questions that they failed to argue thier case.
</i><br><br>I totally agree. But I think the judges were stupider. I kept thinking to myself. These judges don't udnerstand software at all. They just don't get it. In many cases their ignorance was exacerbated by their arrogance. Sighs again...
<br><br>
Maybe we should push for legislation to set up a "technology court" and a "technology court of appeals" for such cases. These judges sure seemed out of it.
In ways you can't measure. People accept that a computer will crash once a day, that you have to pay $100 for an OS, that you can't get any other OS from OEM (when MS was requiring fees for all computers, even without Windows), that you have to exchange documents in a format that can only be read by one product, that you can't do certain things with other OS (such as using an Exchange server), that standards have to be bent to accomodate Windows users, etc...
"in one interview, Jackson linked Microsoft to drug gangs "
Be careful there Katz, there's a huge distinction between LINKING Microsoft to drug gangs and COMPARING then to a drug gang.
chris
I would agree largely with the previous posters comments from my experience, but when you talk Enterprise sizes 100000 users (or even 2000+!) I'd tend to agree with you.
I server a large number of small to medium networks (1000 users), all running NT for server, and the one's I set up *mostly* run fine. I admit some of the heavier loaded ones have been know to develop problems (and need a reboot), BUT I'll say the biggest cause I have found is in the setup! I see this especially in the smaller clients, they hire some "expert" to set it all up, then after a few months of weekly reboots they give them the flick and find someone else!
Unfortunatly for me due to that factor, the majority of my clients I didnt setup! The number of idiots who think Backoffice server means, yeah we can have *everything* on one server, no probs, or since the setup is easy "how could *we* cause the problems?", its scary. But ignorance always is..
But I dont want to defend M$ one bit, the number of god-damn-annoying stupid problems that DO come up with so much of their software is why I hate them. But on the other hand, I'm paid well and my job's easy. Leaving me time to 'toy' with my internal network, toys, etc. (slashdot, openbsd, beos, etc etc etc)
> From what I've heard, MSIE on Macintosh is the
> most standard-compliant browser out there, which
> is not easy to do. It looks like Microsoft is
> innovative, that deep pockets can make valuable
> software.
Do you want another example? Microsoft Outlook Express is one of the best email applications for the Macintosh. And the latest versions of Office for the Mac have been some of the best. But the thing that all of these have in common are they were developed after the DOJ started looking into Microsoft's monopolist behaviors.
The point is, if the DOJ hadn't begun investigating Microsoft, these products never would have seen the light of day. I remember Word 6 for the Mac, and you can't imagine how terrible it was. It was buggy, bloated, and incredibly slow. Microsoft actually crippled the product to the point that if you ran Word 6 for the Mac and then ran Word 6 for Windows on the same Mac with a Windows-emulator (like Soft Windows or Virtual PC), it was faster in the emulator. The other MS apps were no better for the Mac during the time. Consider that Gates threatened to kill Office for the Mac if Apple didn't bundle IE with the new Macs.
I can see it now. The day MS prevails in court, expect to see a gloating press release about it. At the bottom, in small letters, they'll mention that they're dropping Mac versions of Explorer, Outlook Express, Office, and everything else for the Mac because of a "poor sales." If you think the annual fee for Windows was innovative, you'll probably love what comes after that.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Mostly true, but in Micro$oft's case they owe
allegiance to their stockholders, which is why it
is "imperative to acquire/accrete more
capital and expand its markets"
I very well may be making an ass out of myself but I could not read more than two paragraphs into this crap.
... Free Software ... decentralized media". Free Software was around before Microsoft was ever dominant and Zines have been around since the turn of the 20th century.
"Microsoft's dominance" was NOT "instrumental in spawning
Just the way it is written is sickening. I think Slashdot may have a new Drama Queen.
Government of course
-----
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
I think he would be allowed to be "postjudiced" rather than prejudiced.
Let's get this straight, MS has overstepped the bounds of fair business practice time and time again. I won't bother to bring up examples -- there's one for every day of the week on Slashdot.
Government interference in a laissez faire economy is needed to break monopolistic behaviour.
-- I'm embarassed to look like Hemos.
While I agree with most points in your post, I'm always amazed how quickly people give Microsoft credits for being innovative.
My opinion: They don't innovate. Go ahead, call me a fool. But read this first: Their market dominance gives them an incredible advantage. They can get into *every* game a little bit late and still win it.
They were late to the internet, and yet the could use their desktop OS monoply to overcome this easily. They 'integrated' IE (very much inspired by the Navigator) into the OS, you might call that 'innovation', a word that has been over-used in many ways lately.
Next example, media players: Once again, Microsoft was late to this. Is it really such a great achievement to study your prospective competitor's product (RealPlayer), come up with something better (note: I don't think this is true innovation) and to push it into the market, once again through desktop OS dominance? Also consider Microsoft's incredible amount of money they can spend for such projects.
There are other examples in the past and if Microsoft is allowed with such practices in the future we will see many more to come... until Microsoft is forced to really start innovating because nobody else dares to do so.
I think there is a definite misconception about "good" and "usable." One of the reasons Apple became a big company was that it had great interfaces and introduced the mouse. Granted, they swiped GUI from Xerox (OK Xerox gave it away), but THAT changed computing. They made a usable OS. Microsoft leveraged a relationship with Apple and one-uped them. They weasled through a legal loophole then. I have used virtually every platform going and windows is NOT evil. Bill Gates might be the devil incarnate, or just an aggressive savvy business man. It doesn't matter because he lost more money this year in the stock market than I am every going to make!
I don't know whether MS should get broken up or not, but I think that they are guilty of just about everything Jackson said has ruled on.
Also, it seems that according to Microsoft, anybody that is not pro-Microsoft is Bias. Remember Lessig?
>Were consumers demonstrably harmed by Microsoft?
In Judge Jackson's "findings of fact" (which is not being contested by Microsoft), "API exposure" was discussed as a method to stop competition. Microsoft's tactic is to create OS hooks for it's applications that other applications can't use. For example: when IE could display a web page as the Windows background, that was not an exposed API; when VC instantiated a virtual machine for debugging, that was not an exposed API (that put the most popular C compiler at the time, Borland, out of business).
Not allowing competitors the same access to the OS kills the competition, hurts the consumer.
MS, through very coercive means (see the "findings of fact" concerning IBM, when they wanted to bundle Lotus with their OEM machines, as well as wanted to dual-boot W95 and OS/2 on their OEM machines) makes sure that only Microsoft apps come bundled with OEM machines. If folks don't want Lotus on their machine, they won't buy from IBM.
But, Microsoft assures customers don't even have the option.
Many say that giving IE away for free only helped the consumer. Between it being free and bundled, Netscape didn't have a chance. They immediately had to switch to a free model and get acquired.
Many past anti-trust cases concerned the monopolist "dumping" product at a loss in order to stop the competition. This is no different.
Dumping product to stop competition is not good for consumers in the long run.
In the appeal, Microsoft brought up the point that every other monopoly had been attained through acqusition. The judges thought this to be very interesting and hounded the DOJ attorney about this.
Anti-trust cases don't require the monopoly be made via acqusition.
In the Microsoft case, it's just too easy to put competitors out of business by unfair practices.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
Energy prices went up at the same time. It makes more sense that energy starvation leads to recession (than a monopoly being busted up causes a recession).
One year later, two oil men are in charge of the government...
Now there's a conspiracy!
If Jackson's ruling caused the collapse, then the supreme courts ruling to allow the appeals instead of the "fast track" should have brought the economy back: without the "fast track", everybody agrees the case will be in court for another 10 years -- plenty of time for Microsoft to reposition.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
>...Navigator isn't an operating system
A browser becomes a platform via java and net based applications, like hotmail and anywareoffice.
Jackson's point was that Microsoft was killing Netscape to assure that Netscape wouldn't become a platform.
Now that IE controls the market, Microsoft will allow it to become a platform.
The DOJ attorney fought this point very poorly.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
>1. Before MS came along, computers were unaffordable. Now we all reap the benefits of a computer in every home.
...if you ask me if I want my secretary on the current state of the art Linux
This was not due to Microsoft, rather, Compaq and others reverse engineered the IBM bios.
With Open Hardware, anybody could build a motherboard or adapter card and the prices plummeted. Intel's processor and Microsoft's OS were the only portions of the IBM PC that couldn't be reverse engineered (note that AMD, et. al., pays license fees for it's Intel clones, and Wine is always one MS patch away from improper emulation).
>2. MS have consistently brought down prices -
After they destroy the competition, the prices go back up. The whole Office package used to sell (not upgrade) for $99. It's tripled in price. Their C compilers were under $100 until they crushed Borland.
Monopoly "Dumping" is illegal. It only benefits consumers for the short term. You're very short sighted on this issue.
>3.
It wouldn't be difficult if an OEM bundled Linux with the hardware, as is done with Windows. Furthermore, if they supported the distribution too (which they can do with Linux, and not with Windows), then they could provide a single point of contact for support: just like Sun, Apple, and IBM do on closed hardware platforms.
>4. Microsoft have benefitted the US economy. It really has. Compared with the UK, for instance, the strength of the US IT industry is vast - and much of this strength is due to Microsoft.
Think how much better the economy would have been if Microsoft didn't use it's monopoly powers to kill competition (see my other posts).
>5. Nearly all opposition to MS comes from jealous competitors.
The proof must come from competitors that tried but were crushed by unfair monopolistic practices... there are a lot more waiting in the wings.
>they can offer ISP provision, because they don't need highly paid admins. This is great news for the economy and great news for them.
These small businesses waste so much time because of the problems with Microsoft products and do-it-yourself service. The estimates of the cost of this are mind boggling. I often see presidents of small companies working out the software problems... spending weeks at a time overcoming Microsoft generated problems. Microsoft even admits that "Service is the future of software".
6. The fact is, as I have stated, there is a lot of jealousy and resentment out there - whereas the truth is that Microsoft produce damn fine software,
Yes we resent the fact that we must fix Windows for Bill -- he makes the money, we waste our time. It's not damn fine software until you can look at the source to see what it (or you) are doing wrong.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
As I understand this as a computer user. I am free to decide on my own which browser I use. If Windows comes with IE great, but if Netscape was a better browser I would then either buy it or download it and install it. No matter how much of a Monopoly MS is they still can not make the end user use IE, especially if there is a better browser out there. As I see lazy people will keep IE and if Netscape was smart instead of whining about it all they could have just made there browser better, or at least make it better than IE. Which at the time Netscape was better in my opinion, I used it and I am picky. Now the tables have turned, instead of making a better browser Netscape just went downhill, at least in my opinion. Also Netscape is ussually the default browser in Linux. So does that mean when Linux has more market share they will be a monopoly? Well I know it won't because Linux Distro's are not just one company. Also I always thought that to be a monopoly, you had to be hurting consumers. Who was the consumer group that complained? In what I saw they always mentioned Netscape and other companies were the complaintants, where were the consumers? It is just a bunch of whining companies, because they could not compete!!! Jamie
Jamison Marsala -- Systems Engineer -- MCSE Windows 2000 -- WPMT Fox 43 -- A Tribune Broadcasting Station -- jmarsala@tr
It was also instrumental in spawning Open Source
That's like saying Nazi Germany spawned Israel.
judge jackson made comments to the press, bfd! listen up, he doesn't want to face these lying fuckers yet again, can't you get that?
how dare you dredge up jackson's own concerns about the application of anti-trust law in this matter as your own. how dare you offer his humility at the enormous challenge of summarizing the relevant technical and business facts as a weakness.
do us a favor katz. if you are going to argue the case, show the fucking findings of fact to be baseless. THAT'S THE BIG JOB. not copping out like the appellate court will do... oh what is the precedent, there is none, punt.
this is hack journalism at it's worst. got a question for you, the omission of a conflict of interest, that was intentional, right?
The Microsoft DOJ trial is a waste of our taxpayer money. You know that Microsoft will win the appeal, and even get another trial maybe. The Microsoft employees and attorneys bungled the case so bad that they could almost delcare a "mis-trial".
Splitting up Microsoft won't work. What you need to do is get a Microsoft 32 bit Windows compatable OS into the Competitors of MS and have them compete with Microsoft. Force Microsoft to fully document the Windows API calls, or open source an older version of Windows 95/98/ME and let Microsoft keep Windows 2000/XP closed. Then let AOL, Gateway, Compaq, IBM, Intel, and others roll their own Windows 9X clone.
The problem is that they charge $100 per MHz per processor. I think the licensing system is fine, but at those rates, a dual processor 600 MHz machine will cost you $120k. That's an obscene price.
If consumers don't know that something better is out there, then that's going to be the fault of the consumer regardless of what product we're talking about, whether it's an OS, a car, or a mousetrap. That's where marketing comes in and that's where MSFT has the undeniable advantage. Consumers are stupid ... but you knew that. :)
Wait, so you're saying all those companies are worth it? That PE ratios of greater than 300 were valid? Cisco was worth hundreds of billions of dollars? What about eBay, Amazon.com, Priceline, eToys, Pets.com, and dozens of other ones? The list goes on and on ... MSFT had nothing to do with the bullshit business plans they created.
I do have to disagree with your claim about too little too late. That's like saying that Linux is an OS just for Dew-drinking hackers. For years, it's been hyped, but it's still not ready for primetime.
i don't think so. It was around since the late 60s!
The user can chose what file format to store the file as, it's simple, you just pull down the little arrow in the save dialog and choose a different format. Microsoft isn't forcing everyone to use the format, it jsut happens to be the default format.= \=\=\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\
Isn't this the same thing that you are accusing microsoft of? Ohh yeah, I didn't get one dialog box asking me if I wanted any of this changed for me. and all I really wanted to do was sign up for DSL service.\ =\=\=\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=
I'm still not 100% convinced the "OSless" box is such a fantastic idea in general but I definately could be convinced of the possibilities on set top boxes, etc. After all I suppose that is the general idea of WebTV et al.
As for Microsoft porting Office to Java, etc., one only as to look so far to see why they didn't do that: .NET. Someone above pointed out that in typical Microsoft fashion, they moved swiftly to destroy the Netscape/Java threat, waited a few years and are now trying to accomplish the very thing they destroyed...under a Microsoft banner. All too typical of course. I wonder if anyone at the DOJ was paying attention to that?
And as for Mac IE, I think the PC version is better myself. I used to be indifferent but as a web developer in the last two weeks I've run into a number of monumentally poor rendering/javascript problems (like the fact that the JS Image object will report a width & height of 1 before it's properly loaded when in fact it should stay at zero until it's fully in memory - Grrr!) that make little or no sense. Of course, I don't use Mac IE beyond testing, so if there are other differneces that make it better it's because the Mac IE project and the Windows IE project are almost completely independent (from what I've been told). The two teams basically meet every so often to discuss what common features they should have and then they implement them independently. Which is why Mac IE sucks horribly on some things but whips PC IE on others.
Wood Shavings!
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
I will not rest easy until OEMs can ship PCs without an OS. Currently, you are not able to buy a desktop that lacks an OS because the OEMs are told by MS "You will lose your good pricing if you do that." My company doesn't have the guts to tell MS to stick it. It seems other vendors (Dell, Gateway, etc) are in similar situations. What gives MS the right to tell a vendor what they can and can't ship?? Until the gov't makes this practice illegal, we will all be paying the Microsoft tax, even if you buy a PC with Linux preinstalled.
--------
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
Stupid enter button...
What I meant to ask before I had a moron moment was this: What do you do and how did you get the right to work in the UK? Did you marry a citizen?
As an aspiring expatriate hoping to relocate to the UK, the complexity of getting the right to work there and of getting a job there leave me wondering how anyone has managed to do it at all.
TIA
phatlip
Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.
This subject depends on how you define "harm". Is it truly harm if the "harmee" doesn't know it? I mean, MS has for years sold a sub-par OS (shipped when known to be buggy, constant crashing, an inflated price, etc.) to consumers who gobbled it up because it was pretty and they really didn't know of anything else (MS is a great marketing company, but a bad Tech company). Over time these consumers just became accustom to MS flaws and so began to ignore them even though they were staring them right in the face in the form of blue screens, etc.
Meanwhile MS grew fat and lazy and really failed in the innovation Bill has tried so hard to claim. Looking at the difference between Win95 and Win2K I wonder what the hell Microsoft has done over the past five years. Yes, there are new "features" and software, but it isn't all that much and we all know some of it was probably just bought anyway. Where is there any real innovation? MS is a company that grew stagnant in the realm of innovation due to the lack of competition. This, I'm afraid to say, is harmful to the comsumer, but guess what? The "normal" consumer doesn't realize it.
One last case in point, what about the DR-DOS incident? Internal MS docs state that a study of the OS showed it to be superior to their own DOS. Their reaction? Make MS Windows incompatible with it. MS had a great product in Windows (for that time anyway) and would it have worked just as well if comsumers ran it in DR-DOS, but heck no. MS makes sure you buy their OS and in the process squash a technologically superior product (could this be called "anti-innovation"?).
There is a theme growing here. Comsumers being harmed, but they don't realize it. So I'll ask you, is it chargable in a court of law that a company can have harmed consumers even if they didn't kniw it?
To say that crashing machines and daily reboots are such a horrible problem, caused by Microsoft, is just a plain lie - or maybe you just haven't used anything Microsoft has made in the past couple of years. Maybe you should try so that you know what you're talking about.
While I agree that Win2K and NTWS are significantly more acceptable products, they are relatively recent additions to Microsoft's lineup. Also, until very recently, Microsoft did not promote NT/Win2K as an office desktop environment. Now that they are promoting Win2K on the desktop, how are they doing it? By using their own shoddy OS sitting at a BSOD.
I personally believe that the current Microsoft advertising campaign takes unmitigated gall. Why didn't they tell me five years ago that Win95 was a pile of crap instead of waiting until they had something that behaved reasonably to sell? They could have saved me and millions of others lots of grief and lost productivity.
Stand Fast,
Stand Fast,
tjg.
Here is the best defense of Microsoft I've read so far. This article makes several excellent points about the moral flaws of antitrust law and the weak arguments against MS's business practices. Have a look and tell me what you think.
If Microsoft were so concerned with the quality of user experience and not cracking Netscape open why doesn't Windows come bundled with a usable FTP client? Why is FTP in explorer so decidedly second rate? Why isn't MSN messenger bundled with Windows? Oops, maybe I shouldn't have said that. Why is there still no decent shell under Windows?
To me the answer seems to be that the main objective for Microsoft is maintaining a monopoly by excluding competition and not by improving user satisfaction with its products. Bundling any of these features would have done nothing for this objective.
I'm sure it's not what is legally defined in the law but antitrust laws are here to ensure that a company's first objective is to seek dominance through user satisfaction.
Microsoft hasn't had that objective in years.
Antitrust law says that for a company to behave illegally, it must establish a monopoly (not in itself illegal), engage in anti-competitive practices, and perhaps most importantly, harm consumers. Were consumers demonstrably harmed by Microsoft? If so, how?
Consumers are harmed by being forced to use software that does not allow them to achieve their full level of productivity. At work I have to use Win2k, VC6, and Office2k. Win2k must be rebooted at least three times a week to keep it from grinding to a halt because it can't seem to free up memory properly. VC6 crashes at least twice a week for no apparant reason and is often not repeatable. I don't even want to get started on Office2k, but it is some of the most unusable software in my opinion. But I have no choice, since Microsoft _is_ a monopoly I am forced to use their software if I expect other developers to be able to read my documentation and if I want to read their documentation in the format that it was intended. This is harmful to consumers by not giving them the freedom to choose their software and by Microsoft not providing open formats and not supporting a wide variety of third party formats (Lotus and Wordperfect are supported, but that's the only non-ms formats that I can see). This kind of leads me into my next argument:
Did government antitrust prosecutors actually prove that Microsoft prevented Netscape, or any other rival, from bringing new products to the marketplace?
This isn't really a matter of Microsoft preventing Netscape to bring other products to market, but the fact is that the majority of Joe Average Users will just use whatever comes with their system and not bother (or not know how) to go out and get anything else. I'll bet 90% of the Windows users use notepad or wordpad to edit simple text documents, why don't they go out and get Vim or Emacs or any of hundreds of different text editors which have many more features that notepad or wordpad? Because they're already on the system when they install it. Most people if they already have a web browser on their system are not going to rush out and start browsing the web for another browser if they already have one on their system. And when Microsoft has an OS with the huge market share that it does and then starts including an web browser with it in the web-enabled world we have today, that browser will become one of the most widely used browers just because it's already there. With Win3.1 the browser was not included, the users had the choice of which web browser to get and had to make a concious decision 'okay, i'm going to use netscape' or 'i think i'll use explorer', but after the web browser came with the operating system, Microsoft had chosen for them, and why bother going out and getting another one? Technically the users were free to choose Netscape but of them would not simply because they already had one on their system and saw no reason to get another one. Unless of course they were loyal Netscape users already and wanted to support their favorite browser, but this was not the case in the majority of people.
Did Microsoft make it too difficult or in some cases, impossible, for consumers to remove IE from their desktops?
Since most people will only look to their Add/Remove programs list to see if something can be removed and in most cases IE doesn't show up in the Windows Programs list, then I would say yes they made it too difficult for consumers to remove IE from their desktops. Of course, some of the more advanced users could find a document online that described how it could be manually removed by copying over files, etc, but since this information was not easy to come by for the average user I would say they made it too difficult, but not impossible to remove IE from their system.
In this time period, as the Web was exploding, why wasn't Microsoft justified in integrating Windows with its much-hyped OS? Wouldn't doing otherwise prove corporate suicide? Was Microsoft really supposed to sit back and allow competitors to dominate this critical market, surely threatening Windows in the process?
Microsoft was _not_ justified in integrating IE into Windows. It should be just a program like Solitare or Hyperteminal that can be removed at will. Microsoft could have also included other browers (like Netscape) and put both icons on the desktop and allowed the user to choose which one they will use. This might sound silly, but really, what does Microsoft really have to lose? My linux installation came with three different browers (lynx, netscape, and konquerer) and I have the freedom to choose which one I will use. Including another brower would not have been corperate suicide, not including one may have been, but it did not need to be integrated.
Microsoft engages in other forms of anti-competitive behavior in other areas. One that I noticed is it's Hotmail service. Hotmail does not allow me to forward incoming mail to another address or even allow me to check it with a pop3 client. However, it will allow me to check _other_ pop3 mail from Hotmail. Basically once I get mail into Hotmail, I _must_ use the Hotmail webpage to get it. Contrast this with the yahoo service, I can setup my yahoo account to forward mail to other accounts and just give people my yahoo address and it will go whereever I happen to want it. I can also check my yahoo mail from a pop3 client. Yahoo gives me the freedom to do everything with my mail that I want to, but Hotmail forces me to use their system. This is just one example of the anti-competitive nature of Microsoft.
But I believe my rant is done for now, thank you for listening.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Let's not forget that MS spent untold $$$$$$ paying developers to write IE browser code only to _give_the_product_away_ SIMPLY TO DRIVE NETSCAPE UNDER. There was no way Netscape could compete when MS was the only company getting revenue from an OS at the same time. Monopoly power in one arena was used to crush any and all competition in a new one.
That written, most of the blame lies with consumers who bitch but don't care enough to act or learn.
--
-- Without the right to carry and use self-defence tools, we effectively have no right to life.
At most, this is would be a good measure if and when the OS itself has a fair security model.
And we are not even talking about the DirectX api calls and such that may be used to spoof a login.
Secondly, before you believe the rhetoric from either side involved in the courtroom statements, you should pick up the book, Pride Before The Fall . It is an exhaustive accounting of the entire process that lead up to the decision by Judge Jackson written by someone that had reasonably unfetteref access to everyone involved including Gates and Balmer.
If so, what are they?
I don't only ask to be antagonistic (although I am a little tired of the "ooh - a JonKatz article, let's insult it" attitude), but because if you could be a little more specific about what it is you disagree with in his article, I might learn something - not being an expert on the subject myself.
Salocin.com
Bullshit. No other word for it.
You receive a perl script on your linux box that says, "save me and execute me", and the code is "rm -rf /". You're screwed - it wont even ask you "are you sure" - unless, of course, you're not the administrator on your machine.
Now you may say that's exactly the point - you're the Administrator on your windows machine, but not on a Linux machine. Bullshit again - people choose be to Administrator on a windows machine, the difference between the two is that the average Linux user is much more computer savvy than a Windows user.
Can you imagine a complete IT newbie who needs a spreadsheet program, a wordprocessor and a web browser running an internet-connected Linux machine? It would be hopelessly insecure, you can't just plug in Linux and expect it to work securely. There's nothing out there that provides the same ease of rollout and level of support as Windows. I hate the damn thing because I *like* X-Windows, but there's nothing I can do about it because there's nothing in the open source domain or anywhere else that is as plug-and-play friendly as a Windows computer.
Incompatible file formats between its own products year after year. I love it when Office97 tells me "Oh, not everyone has Office97, you should save in Office95 format.
That's because they develop the functionality of their software all the time - a few years ago you didn't really have programmable spreadsheets, but now a spreadsheet can be underpinned with an entire programming language - this means that that program has to be saved alongside the spreadsheet - new standard required.
Machines that you expect to have to reboot every day.
Actually, most Windows distributions are quite stable provided you run them quite raw - it's when you start adding lots of software on them that they start getting a little wonky. I haven't had a crash since I was ungraded to windows 2000 myself, although not being the administrator on my own machine is a bit of a bummer, but that's what our company has had to do to prevent idiots running viruses with administrator priviledges - this is because not every intelligent person happens to be aware of how viruses spread and what a vbs file is when it comes running down the pipeline alongside a dozen data files from colleagues.
Salocin.com
Just another example of JonKatz's commie-leftest slant.
Kent
I was always uneasy about Jackson's ruling and posture. To me, Microsoft's crimes were arrogance, mediocrity and greed, the hallmarks of our corporatized culture -- none of them, alas, illegal in our business world. Outlaw mediocrity? Jon, turn yourself in!
Read real information like this
This information is from a university expert and trial witness.
It would improve your perspective.
Johan.
They put traps on the Windows to crash the Netscape browser, don they?
If so they didn't need to bother, netscape crashes more than any production grade app I have ever know on Linux.
On windows it's just slow and insecure.
DILBERT: But what about my poem?
I can't recall the number of times I've had to manually re-install fucked up ISP installations on various friends' Windows 9x boxes. Now I realise that this is not the fault of the operating system, but it has taught me that the manual installation is absolutely not one bit easier on windows than it is in linux. In fact if you run linuxconf (which is on most "users" machines) it is almost exactly identical.
I speak as an MS user of 8 years and a linux user of only 1.5, so MS has the OS with which I am more familiar.
DILBERT: But what about my poem?
Sounds like maybe he ran out of GDI resources.
The warm early afternoon sun beats down on the dirt track, as skinny grayhounds (slashdot posters) wait behind electronic doors. The crowd (lurkers) speaks causally in a medium hush, hungry for a good race.
THEN IT STARTS! A shot goes off and the false plastic rabbit (Jon Katz) flies out of his box, blasting his way along the track of pro-microsoft flame-baitdom.
AND THEY'RE OFF! The gates spring open, and the slashdot posters dig in their feet, throwing dirt behind them, chasing after the elusive flaming rabbit. They snarl, their legs churn in programmed response to the decoy.
The crowd roars as the rabbit rounds the final bend and slips back into his hole, safe until the next race.
The dogs cross the finish line in a flash, trot back to their owners domain (work) and resume their normal, meaningless lives.
And the owners of the track (slashdot, any newspaper with an editorial page) pocket the days keep: attendance fees (page views) from the spectators come to watch the spectacle, and don't even give the bunny a carrot. He's not real anyhow.
-Erik
They understood the way that IE was implemented and how that differed from netscape. They knew what the govt lawyers were saying when they discussed the team of Sun and Netscape. They knew how java worked and the point of java. The also seemed to understand the economics of the situation pretty darn well.
I am not saying you are thinking this, but you can't say someone is stupid just because they don't say what you want to hear.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Mostly what I noticed is that all the lawyers sounded stupid. They were so busy trying to dodge questions that they failed to argue thier case.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
As I understand it, the word format is open and distributed. The problem with it being that its just a list of serialized COM objects and noone has all the pieces to display them properly. That is the price we pay for being able to show pictures and spreadsheets and movies in our word documents.
If people want to write a text document then save it as RichText which is widely supported. Or even better save it as html or straight text or something that is even more widely supported. Don't get upset that your document only opens in word when you were silly enough to write it in word and save it in word format.
On a different note, the office phenomena shows the main benefit of ubiquitous software and software monopolies. We may pay more and we may get less inovation but we can open our documents the same way on every computer we come to.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
This post is a question related to Microsoft's OEM agreements; the ones which force me to buy an M$ license each time I purchase hardware:
I'm a software developer so I roll machines over every 2-3 years. In addition to the forced purchases of OS licenses each time I upgrade I am also an MSDN subscriber {which includes licenses for all OSs and Office}. At this point I currently have at least 5 licenses for DOS, 5 licenses for Windows 95/98, 5 licenses for Office, 5 licenses for NT 4.0, and 1 license for 2000.
Does anybody think that people like me have a legitimate gripe? It seems to me that a case could easily be made that Microsoft's OEM agreements have caused me great harm - yes? How best can I proceed?
--RichardHi all. This is a long post but I promise it's on topic...
I was a Sociology major and yes I did read my C. Wright Mills. Coming directly out of Mills, and Weber, and others is my own exciting breakthrough in Sociology:
Fraud Theory: This theory postulates that all governments everywhere are gargantuous mega-frauds designed to suck up to wealthy individuals and big corporations. Governments do this work at the expense of the bottom 98% of the population {also known as "those pathetic lilliputian losers that were too stupid to be born wealthy"}. This condition of existence has been a historical reality since the one and only real revolution occurred more than 10,000 years ago: the revolution in which the top 2% climbed up on the back of religion and stole a critical mass of power. One of the cornerstone principles of Fraud Theory is that when it comes to doing the right thing vs. maintaining the eternal present {defined as the top 2% owning everything and the bottom 98% locked in eternal debt peonage slavery to the top} the system will almost always swing in favor of the top 2%. On planet earth there is a mutant extended case of fraud theory: the case of The United States government having the additional task of sucking up to Israel.
Fraud theory in action:
Using fraud theory I easily won a $1 bet that O.J. Simpson would not be found guilty. Why? Because the Simpson affair had come shortly on the heals of the Rodney King affair. If O.J. Simpson had actually been found guilty there would have been rioting in every city in the nation. Nationwide rioting is a threat to the eternal present; therefore it was a logical impossibility that O.J. could ever have been found guilty. --> If you think this is a stretch please recall the following: the one lone white juror was thrown out because a note was found under her seat. To this day she insists that she was not passing notes and that she had nothing to do with the note. As we all no she was replaced by a latino male and together with the 11 other idiots on the jury they went on to make history...
A more recent example of fraud theory is the pardoning of Mark Rich. Here we see a fine example of the mutant extended case in action. In this example a criminal business man stole more than $400 million in unpaid taxes. Using thinly guised laundering techniques approximately $100 million was donated to various Israeli based charities and an additional $4-$5 million was donated to various Democratic party concerns. In exchange for these donations Bill Clinton's Israeli handlers directed him to pardon Mr. Rich. The net result was that the American people were ripped off for $400 million, Israel got a free $100 million, and the biggest tax cheat in U.S. history got off scott free with a net profit of approximately $205 million. See also The Crazy Eddie Anti-Pattern below.
How does fraud theory apply to the Microsoft case? Bill Gates has spoken: "...this whole Anti-Trust thing will blow over..." I didn't know how he was going to do it until recently but ever since the day he said that I've known that Microsoft would be pardoned. Well now we know: seeing that he was being battered in the first trial Mr. Gates thoughtfully pre-bribed all of the appeals court judges. There can be no other reasonable explanation for the appeals court's one sided behavior. In fact it would be a good idea if we stopped complaining about the injustice and just started looking for the money trail now. Microsoft will be pardoned.
--Richard
P.S. Here are some free bonus mutant extended case examples:
1) The Crazy Eddie Anti-Pattern: It is a strange, but none the less true, fact that the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Israel. This condition has resulted in a clear anti-pattern of corrupt behavior: 1) U.S. businessman evades paying taxes. 2) U.S. businessman gets caught. 3) U.S. businessman donates money to Israeli charities, flees to Israel, and renounces U.S. citizenship. 4) Israeli government accepts donated money and fleeing criminal. 5) U.S. government protests but does not allow the action to upset good relations between the two mega-fraudal governments. 6) American people get screwed. There are literally dozens of examples of this Anti-Pattern but it is named in honor of the most famous of the fleeing criminals: the founder of the Crazy Eddies electronics store chain. It is often rumored that Leona Hemlsley was engaging in this anti-pattern but somehow her paperwork got lost and so it was decided to have a show trial in the U.S. followed by --> her servants performing the required community service.
2) Peace for $$: The most recent peace accords between the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership offer yet another example of the mutant extended case in action. Though this was not widely reported on television the most recent peace accord included an additional clause granting Israel $15 billion in military aid over the next five years as part of the deal {I stumbled across this factoid while surfing the text of the budget of the United States}. Net result: 1) The Israelis got a free military upgrade and a peace deal, 2) The Palestinians got a stay of execution, 3) The American people got raped.
3) The High Technology Transfer Broker: It is a well known fact {and is fully documented in the online text of the laws of the United States} that Israel has special access to U.S. civil and military high technology. As multiple recent sales from Israel to China demonstrate, there is a full blown trade cycle in which: 1) The American people get taxed to develop a new technology. 2) The hot technology is given to Israel as part of one or more military/civilian agreements. 3) Israel sells this technology to China or Iran {etc.} at a profit. 4) The American people get taxed to develop the inevitable replacement technology.
I've read a lot of questionable posts on Slashdot, and perhaps the anti-Microsoft propaganda is indeed part of it, as it sometimes reached beyond rational levels. It doesn't mean it wasn't justified, however ; Microsoft are indeed a gang of crooks and anyone claiming the opposite is ignorant, naive, or has been paid or blackmailed. >>Plenty of questions remain about Microsoft and its practices. All the following such-questions had already been answered countless times since the last decade : >>Did the company ruthlessly, or illegally, discourage competition? Of course they did. In fact, they did as soon as they artificially promoted Word by countering Wordperfect 5.0 with deloyal uses (in fact, they hired people to pretend being dissatisfied users of Wordperfect on BBS). They repeated the same thing over and over again, such as for Access vs Paradox, Quicken vs Money (they failed that time), and so on. Besides, it has long been proved that already Windows 3.1 intentionally prevented Paradox from running right (or sometimes even from running at all) ; and everyone that attempted to download Netscape with IE knows that *curiously*, most of the times it hangs straight on accessing the download section. These are only the two most well known examples of Windows deliberately sabotaging competitors' products, and I could name others, namely Linux itself (Windows sabotages ext2 partitions on the same drive as the FAT32 boot partition since Win95b). And what to think of clauses of employment contracts forbidding ex-employees to work for competitors for a period of several years ? They already several times applied those clauses by threatening companies hiring those employees, since everyone working in the computer science area IS a Microsoft competitor. >>Did Microsoft make it too difficult or in some cases, impossible, for consumers to remove IE from their desktops? Is that supposed to be a serious question or what ? Since Win98 it is almost impossible to remove it, except by applying an underground patch one now finds only on warez sites. They've gone even farther ; since Win98b you MUST register to MSN in order to be able to launch the browser for the first time (think of a deloyal attitude, you can't come up with anything more obvious), and this even I hadn't been able to hack a way around. >>Did Microsoft unfairly -- or, more to the point, illegally --wipe out or damage potential competitors? Need I say more ? Linux itself is concerned by this issue ; just think of Microsoft buying Corel parts just long enough for the latter to sell its Linux OS branch (think of a coincidence). Now let's face it : how can Slashdot authorize such disinformation to be posted ? My opinion of Slashdot, by reading this, has dropped approximately to the level of AOL. Anyone following the case knows about the practices of Microsoft, and anyone even attempting to deny them ought to come with serious arguments ; otherwise he's either an incompetent or a crook himself working for them. Alright, I disapprove juge Jackson's attitude, yet to be honest I don't care as long as he allows to get rid of them.
There's no way that Megacorp or Ultra-rich are the norm (*the majority*) in our country.
They hold the majority of the dollars, the capital.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
-It will not allow you to trap Ctrl+Alt+Del
Then how does the Worms demo trap it? (It traps C-M-Del so that you have to view the advertising at the end.)
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm not sure that breaking up Microsoft will do anything but the following: Shareholders effectivly get a 2-for-1 stock split. Microsoft I and Microsoft II (still) dominate their respective "1/2" of the the market. Within two years the two stocks are worth far more than the one would have been. Other than Bill and the other richys getting richer, what do YOU think it'll do?
I lost months from my life waiting computers to reboot and re-installing Microsoft software. They killed me with months earlier.
And so they did to hundreds of milion of people. Probably if you add the lifetime wasted by their products to their users you end up with Microsoft being worse than Hitler and even Stalin.
Actually, you can use Spy++ (a MS C++ utility that comes for free) to do a system-wide message hook to observe the password as it is typed. Simply throw it into the RunOnce registry.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
In 2001, there is none; nearly every PC bought new is connected to the internet at some point. But at the time at when these events occured, say 1995-1996, using the internet was not necessary a primary use of a home PC, and thus, the browser could have been unnecessary for many people. And *this* is the timeframe in which this trial is about, not what happened since that point.
All MS needs to say is that it saw a trend and a new market emerging. MS can just say "We were looking ahead. We saw the internet's increasing popularity on the horizon and prepared for it." You can't really punish a company for being ahead of its time, can you?
Where are the flying pigs?
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Obviously, I'm not PHYSICALLY harmed by an operating system (with the possible exception of STRESS).
;-) - just an unfamiliar computer on a desk and a user who wants to check their email/news/sports results. Web requests have doubled each day of the conference as word gets around - 12000+ hits yesterday (and at least one person checking out
Slashdot!) Reading the feedback forms after the conference should be interesting.
After having to deal with a Win2000 laptop yesterday at work, I now have a bruise on my forehead - that seems like physical harm to me. (Okay, so maybe it was self-inflicted harm, but isn't that the definition of a Windows installation?)
(Probably off-topic:) I've liberated three of the laptops (IBM Thinkpad T21), although probably only temporarily, by installing RedHat 7.0. Apart from some minor annoyances to get the video and network going (oddball chipsets), and two lockups (one probable APM suspend recovery failure, and one that may have been a user turning the machine off without shutting down after Netscape froze), the laptops have been working flawlessly. They're acting as Internet terminals for a conference at work, doubly as free software/KDE/GNOME "show ponies". I'm taking a deliberately hands-off approach: no announcement, no salespitch other than a "check out the free software!" instruction page next to each machine, no techie standing by to give the machines the kiss-of-life when they fall over (though I monitor them remotely just in case
Get your facts straight before you post. Apple did not steal anything from Xerox, they PAID for the rights to use it.
Are other giant theme park operators really free to create new versions of Disney World, whose synergistic marketing "tie-ins" would seem to a non-tech layperson to dwarf the alleged linkage between IE and Windows?
.. may not be a good idea to go there. ;-) Disney is not easy to wake up, but when they wake up, they do make MS look pretty tame by comparison. Draco dormiens non titillandum ..
Um
73 de N5VB (ex-KD5BIV) AR SK
Jon Katz FINALLY posted a story without the -extra-hyphens-in-the-dept-name-! Now if we can just get him to drop the pseudo-subliminal "(Read more)" at the end of the story description, I might be able to resist the urge to slit my wrists the next time he posts!
Is there anybody left who still believes that the US Judiciary is unbiased? Honestly, the question we need to evaluate is whether they are fair and reasonable. Regrettably, with issues such as DeCSS, the Judiciary seems to weigh in more and more often with the side with the most money. And, unfortunately, since the Supremes aren't answerable to anybody and can't be impeached, we don't have any real way of limiting outrageous judicial conduct.
"Bite me, it's fun!" - Crowe T. Robot
People seem to forget that being a monopoly is not illegal. At all. Regardless, Microsoft was shown to be a monopoly, and that does not seem to be being called into question. What is illegal is using that power of monopoly in areas where your monopoly does not exist. That is why forcing people to use your browser, attacking Netscape, by using your power as an operating system monopoly is wrong. Which is why the arguments that Microsoft's ``relevant market'' is operating systems only serve to strengthen the government's case.
Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
I think I may be able to assist you on a grammatic level: if you are willing to speak of "design" in regards society, and of "level playing fields" as a social value and a proper object of government, then you are (or may be) a civil libertarian, but definitely not a Libertarian -which is another phylum entirely. I can tell you know that there's a difference - be careful about throwing the L word around though.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
And they got one. And they lost. What's your damage?
Any judge is going to be "biased" against Microsoft when they walk into court and lie, fabricate evidence and flip the judge off, and laugh at the laws of this country.
MS had every chance to make a competent, earnest defense of their actions in District Court instead they acted like gangsters and told the judge to fuck himself through their refusal to answer questions about their own correspondence and policies.
If this group of "legitimate businessmen" were famous Hispanics or blacks accused of trafficking dope instead of Microsoft, most of you shitheads who support without question would be screaming for the judge to throw them under a bus for their insolence in court.
This country is going to hell and will reach a point of explosion - if support for this criminal organization truly reaches all the way to Federal Appeals Courts and the Supreme Court.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
And I'd add: many of these 'practices' are not even possible, unless they company attempting them is a powerful monopoly - no one else has the leverage to try.
And not all monopolies are powerful. Using marketshare as a metric, Netscape was as close to a "monopoly" in webbrowsers as you could be, one might say, having well over 75% of the market at one time; but could they keep ISPs from distributing IE ? No, they couldn't. I don't know they even tried to - what would be the source of their coercive power? better deals on Netscape server? They simply had not enough "horizontality" or "verticality" to their monopoly product lineup to abuse their status as the market leader. Anyway, if you're arguing sense to JonKatz or any MS apologist you may as well argue with a wall. In the face of shelfulls of evidence that this company Microsoft exerts and abuses monopoly power over a very wide and broadening range of business, not just software, this guy is getting hung up on whether the Judge conceived a dislike for people who strutted into his courtroom and persistently denied the wrongdoing manifest in their own words before, during, and after their illegal acts - and brought in fabricated evidence not once but twice.
What kind of pussyfaced shitbird motherfucker would do that? One that is a soulless shameless Microshill apologist - for sure, but that's not Katz. OTOH, Maybe one that is trolling for controversy to justify his lame-assed non-existence as a non-celebrated author. Hmmm, now we maybe getting warm...
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
Mod this up - greater insight has never been seen on SLashdot, and in so few words.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
Which only demonstrates your incompetence at administering your NT web servers.
Next question?
tj
A 50-year-old dial up customer shouldn't use Windows, either. Really, give them an iMac. Whatever else you can say about it, at least it's easy (easier then Windows, even) and it's not Microsoft.
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Not a typewriter
Except that the appalete court is now saying the findings of fact are not based in fact (as noted in the article above). I don't beleive they are allowed to totally throw them out, though. IANAL, as allways.
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Not a typewriter
No, mearly gaining a monopoly if it's gained because you truly have a better product is not illegal. This is how 90% of all web traffic runs over Cisco routers, but the DOJ isn't banging down Cisco's doors.
Now, assuming, as you do, that Office is truely the "best product" (which is debateable, but I'll follow your guide and say it is for the moment), whats wrong with it? Well, lots of people didn't like it when nVidia strong armed reviewers, even though nVidia's product's superiority is much less questionable then Office 2000 (nVidia later apologized).
We could go on in a debate of GeForce 2 vs. Radeon vs. VooDoo [3-5], but for my purpases, it's good enough that no one is really saying that the GeForce 2 is a horrible product (overpriced, maybe); the debate is really over what is "best". A lot of people, including myself, love their products. Yet, those same people (myself included) still flamed nVidia for those practices.
Many believe Microsoft to be engaged in similar practices. Even if they were "the best", as we are assuming for this discussion, it is still fair to flame them for these practices. Add on to that many people think their product is the most bloated, slow, and kludgy word processor on earth and you have even more reason to be angry.
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Not a typewriter
If click-and-drool was the reason for going to Windows, then they went the wrong way. They should be in Mac OS, which (ignoring its other deficencies) has a much better GUI then any MS product does.
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Not a typewriter
innovations in telephony would have continued if AT&T was not split...
Certianly there would be, but would those innovations have gotten to the consumer? Certianly there are lots of innovations in OS desgin today, but are those innovations getting to the consumer? It's all for naught if it doesn't get to the consumer.
As for "browser as a platform", a platform basicly means "a bunch of APIs used to write useful programs". A browser is a platform because it can execute code (be it a Java applet, JavaScript, a markup language, and so on) using an API. Java is also a platform because it provides a basic API that will work on top of any other platform. You still need an underlieing OS to use both a browser or Java, but you are not (in a perfect world) tied to a specific underlieing OS to run those programs.
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Not a typewriter
Oh, for crying out loud!
The ruling came in, but it does nothing to break MS up (it only says they should be broken up at a future date, but will be held off until it's appealed). It is not broken up now, nor was it then. How can it have any effect on the NASDAQ? Well, the overly paranoid people running Wall Street might think that an ineffective ruling will have an effect, they bail out of MS and other tech stocks, and things go bust.
Now what other causes for a crashing stock market could there be? Hmmm, lots of .coms, running on venture capital, with bad buissness plans and lots of high-priced tech workers. VC runs out, the artificial inflation of the economy due to .coms runs dry, things go back to normal. How does MS and the ruling enter this?
Oh, and Greenspan is actualy a lot smarter then most people realize. He and his cronies know quite well that huge growth usualy comes just before a huge downturn. So, they take steps to slow down things in a huge growth (by increasing interest rates), and then lowering intrest rates when things start to go down. It is better this way, as it means better succsess in the long term.
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Not a typewriter
While my short-sighted, revenge-seeking side wants MS to be broken into tiny little peices, my more rational side says that a break up is not the best option. If Micros~1 gets the OS side, then Micros~1 will have a monopoly instead of the full Microsoft. They will also be using the same lame code base, non-Free Software, poor programing practices, and will still need to be rebooted at least once a day. Just because the full Microsoft company is not doing it doesn't really make it better.
I do believe, though, that there is a better plan here. Force them to fully document the Windows API (and also other basic APIs, like DirectX). Forcing them to put the Windows code under something like the GPL or BSD would be better, but not required for this plan to work.
You know those microserfs who say "It's not Windows falut! It's third-party programs!"? Well, if thats true, then Microsoft should work twards helping third-party programs work better, since that would make the whole OS look better. Certainly, providing a better documented API set would work twards that goal. So, the DOJ can put it to Microsoft as a win for Microsoft.
In reality, this is the tool we use to dig Microsoft's grave. With a better documented API, WINE can do a much better job of replicating that API on unix systems. Samba can do a better job of replicating the Windows SMB protocol (its done such a great job even without it; think how good it will be with it).
Don't break them apart; just force them to do something thats "in their best intrests" *g*.
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Not a typewriter
The question is HOW M$ made it so that the products will only work with their operating system. The answer is of course by using pressure tactics back in the day when there was a question of what OS people could use.
It's just like Ma Bell before the breakup. Yah, you COULD have used cans and a string, but, well, come on, be serius! Heh.
Microsoft allows SOMETHING to get done. Using slaves to build the pyramids also got things done, it sure as hell doesn't make it right. Microsoft heavily DELAYS product development for the sake of their own $$$. They milk there product lines by purposly putting flaws in them so that you have to "upgrade" to a newer, some what more stable version.
Imagine if car companies did the same.
Oh yah, your gas tank has a 1/5 chance of spontaniously combusting at any given point, but for a MERE $300 we will reduce that to a 1/6 chance! Hey, good deal right?
Of course, after the "upgrade" your car's tires would start randomly falling off and you would have to pay ANOTHER $300 to get that fixed.
If you havn't realized it yet, that is ILLEGIAL. PURPOSELY JURRYRIGGING A PRODUCT SO THAT IS DOES NOT WORK and then CHARGING USERS for the fix is illegal. Buying out the competition so that there are no working products is also illegial. A monopoly is not illegal if you got there because you are the best, it is illegal if you got there by using bullying to claw your way to the top and by selling defective products and then forcing users into your upgrade path.
Unlike almost any other industry, in computers once a company or corporation is stuck down one platform path, it is emmensly hard to switch over to another one. Microsoft knew this and knew that it only had to make one fradulent sale, the first one, in order to then stay on top. Once you make a company invest in, say, your database system, and then if you force then to buy extra software at on an annual basis in order to connect their existing database to whatever other infostructure they may have, and then you make it so that your interface software cannot do all the things that they could do with their old database system (but you say on the front of the package that it CAN do all of those things) and then you hint on to them that they *COULD* get all of the features by moving the remainder of their infostructure to your product line. . . .
And then when THAT product doesn't work either, well, the company has by this time invested millions of dollers in your POS system, and in the mean time you have bought up all of the competitors so that there ARE no other solutions to go with. All of a sudden, people everywhere are stuck with a system that:
They bought under misconceptions (yah I know, ignorance isn't an excuse, but lying your ass off is still a sin.)
They DO NOT want to keep (or have been exposed to so much of your propagana that they want to keep it, but don't know exactly why)
Doesn't do all the stuff that their 10+yr old system could do!
Hmm, boy, if that isn't TECHNICALY illegal, it sure is hell is moraly corrupt and sinful. More so then EVEN what corporate america normaly tolerates!
(imagin if your ZipLock bags caused all the food in them to spoil FASTER, shit, I bet you would be pissed then!)
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Oh yah, like I have a choice when I am:
In a work enviroment where Windows is the standard and has to be used
I need to use windows only applications (last time I checked, Adobe Photoshop is NOT a Linux app and Photoshop *IS* worth it's price, it rocks and is defintly the best image program out there for post-proccessing.)
I need to do 3D development (Rhino3d is a MS plateform only program, and it also totaly rocks and is worth an easy 10x the price that it costs.)
You see, when you have a monopoly, you can MAKE other people use your crappy products. The programs that I use most often are not aviable under any of the *nix's and a few outdated games (or crappy NEW games) are hardly going to change that situation any.
Analogy time: If a person buys a car, and the car spontaniously explodes while it is being driven, through no fault of the user, then the car COMPANY is responsable for the problem. Defects in the product are the responsability of the products manufacturer. No matter how much legal wrangling M$ does to get out of it, the fact is that they are the ones who released a crappy product to the public and used pressure tactics to make sure that programs are only released for their plateform. (actualy, they don't have to do that any more, it used to be that they needed to force people to contrain development M$ plateforms only, but now since they have such a large market share, people develope for them just because.)
Oh yah, and don't forget, if I want to use say,
My new scanner, Video Card, Sound Card, Fast Ass Hard Drive, Digital Camera, etc, I am pretty much fucked if it comes to Linux. Most Linux people admit that they are a step behind the latest trends and that products are NOT likely to work within the first few months of there release upon Linux.
The BSD's create a stable and great OS, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to try to use any sort of new "state of the art" consumer hardware with them.
In the end, I have to use Windoze (not by choice mind you!) because if I don't, I will not be able to actualy get done any of the things that I need to get done!
Of course, if windows WORKED better, then I could get done what I need to get done, a hell of alot faster!
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Hell, losing a week's worth of work is defintly something that I would classify as "harm". (corrupt files anyone?) How about spending eons upon eons (well, mabye not quite that long, but it sure as hell feels like it!) trying to get some shitty ass product to work? Hell, I remember Windows 95 OSR1, that damn piece of fucked up shit crashed EVERY 10 MINUTES ON THE CLOCK. I literaly timed it, EVERY TEN MINUTES it would crash, boom. Now then, you try doing research on a machine like that!!! It is NOT easy, and it is also quite harmfull once one consideres the stress levels involved (not to mention the varius bruises one gets from beating the shit out of the computer case.) Productivity drops because their POS oS refuses to work. Hey folks, lets see how many programs we can randomly delete today! Yippy! Oh yah, and how about holding back hardware development?? Shit folks, if it wasn't for MS holding onto old archaic standards in the name of Backwards compatibility (it really is quite amazing, the latest incarnations of windoze have that nice 16bit core they are running on for "backwards compatibility" but they are defintly NOT backwards compatible with most of my older 16bit applications!) then the personal computer would truly be a architercual masterpiece of computer engineering! Shit, can't they just bite the friggin bullet and move over to 32bit already? Honestly, M$ is big enough that they could have EASILY forced Intel (and that in itself would have been quite an amazing feat that all of the Hardware DuDeS would have applauded M$ for) to ditch the crappy ass top-covering of the x86 and just use what is now called the x86 archetecture like it SHOULD be used. Oh yah, and lets not forget general bit rot. For how long have developers been stuck accessing NON-WORKING libaries? Shit folks, you'd figure that after all these years they could finaly get Kernal32 to work! Oh well, at least I don't see quite so many errors from Kernal16! And how about network security, eh? With the numorius holes in their consumer products (legendary in fact!) people defintly HAVE BEEN HURT by shity ass network settings. And let us not forget M$'s consumer TCP/IP implementation! Crap, that thing is _HORRIBLE_. Even if it hasn't harmed me directly, I still consider even the mere EXISTENCE of such a shitty piece of networking code to be a repugnet event!
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For your argument "All day, on the subway, at lunch, in meetings, you can hear people commiserating over their latest crash or virus. But they never blame Microsoft. They never say "I'm not going to use MS products." Why? Because they don't even know that other options exist, for the most part. Why? Because MS is a monopoly. " You're dead wrong. They don't know other options exist because they are lazy. They could use other options if they wished but they won't take the time to look for them. If Microsoft is a monopoly, (and I think they are), it is because the lazy, stupid public have allowed it to be that way. It is a lot of work to use something besides a MS product to get your work done. Let's say I have to produce a document that will be emailed to my customers. I can either produce that doc in Word or StarOffice in Word format. Otherwise my customers won't be able to read it. I've been doing gateways and firewalls out of old '486's and Pentiums for 5 years now. I could do that with windows 98, but I've chosen Linux. It's cheaper and really a little less work to do it that way. Learning Linux was a lot of work for me. I didn't start my computing career in Unix, I started with DOS. I didn't make the conversion overnight. It took a lot of work and study on my own time, without getting paid, but I did it anyway. I didn't begin to profit from that work for 2 years after I started. Most of the folks that have to use a computer to get their work done, don't want to invest that amount of time just to LEARN something. Microsoft is monopolistic in it's business practices not for the same reasons that Standard Oil was a monopoly, but for the simple reason that most users are fscking lazy.
Actually, nope. Antitrust law does not require demonstration that consumers have been harmed. The longstanding principle in antitrust is that it's extremely difficult and intrusive for a court to determine whether consumers have been hurt. As such, it's the actions to monopolize, conspire, etc. which are illegal, not the harming of consumers through those acions. This goes back to price-fixing agreeements such as US v. Trenton Potteries, where the court said price-fixing agreements are illegal regardless of the prices they fix.
As to other issues, Jackson may have been biased an/or acted improperly, but I've still been impressed by his grasp of the case. Microsoft is trying to protect its OS monopoly by preventing an alternative application platform from "commoditizing" the OS, just as Windows has commoditized the hardware. The fear (reasonable or not) was that people would depend more and more on their browsers, and that a browser could run on any operating system.
This can be hard to see because it doesn't match what antitrust folks normally think about when they think "tying" or "predatory pricing" or any of that. But I think Jackson was right-on.
Yeah. I also heard about this explanation. The reasoning behind that was the so-called 'trusted-path'.
A co-worked explained me half a dozen of times that this trusted-path made windows more secure than unix.
"You see, when you press ctrl-alt-del you have a direct-secure connection, bla, bla, bla"
One day, the beta of DirectDraw arrived. One of the example was a little ball that spinned on a corner of the screen. To stop it, I ctrl-alt-deleted to get the NT3.51 task manager.
The ball continued spinning on the 'trusted' screen... Trusted path my ass...
Cheers,
--fred
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This made my day Bob, thanks.
Cheers,
--fred
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> I had done many prototypes showing how java was 7 - 9% faster on all Windows implementations but due to the restrictions placed on us by Sun we had to use c++
I remember that, Bob. Java was really an option. But what prevented its widespread use at microsoft was probably the fact that it was not invented yet. We used to joke a lot about that ("Java is so slow that it is not even here yet !")
> because of the lack of proper method deconstruction eating up your resources.
I remember that too. We joked about it a lot ("Sorry bill, the dog ated all my resources"). In fact, I don't think I recall anything but jokes of this time. That was the good time.
Cheers,
--fred
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They should have joined in, ported Office to Java, and slimmed windows to be just a Java engine with it's own look and feel. Sun did not help in this respect by holding on to the Java standards. Microsoft would have a reduced market share, but with MSN and hardware etc. as well as Office still a significant one. There would be more competition from Apple, Acorn, Sun, IBM, and many others in diversity of hardware, and more competition in software.
I don't belive these concepts are ridiculous. I believe they were possible. The only thing that makes them look silly is Microsoft's success at FUD.
I do think that open source has benefited indirectly from Microsoft's behavior. I know I wouldn't be as interested in it (coming from and Acorn / RiscOS background) had Microsoft been any good.
The situation is complicated by the fact that Netscape also behaved badly, and predatorially with their browser. The trouble is, they saw Microsoft's reaction coming, and tried their best to prepare for it. They underestimated the near infinite power of that company.
I am worried that if Microsoft comes out of this, they will produce much better software (Windows 2000 is actually quite good - honest!), and rapidly become far too powerful - if they are not stopped now, there is a danger that they will become more powerful than any government, assuming they have not reached that stage already. Ironically, China, with it's pro linux stance, may end up saving the free world. (I think I may have gone a bit past the point here - I'll stop).
One final thing, has anyone seen IE for MAC? Why do you think it so much better than IE for Windows?
Because they don't even know that other options exist, for the most part.
How insanely stupid do you think most people are? I mean, Jesus, I can be a bit arrogant at times, but that just takes the prize.
No one has ever had a gun put to their head and been told to use MS products.
Believe it or not, standardization is a perfectly viable benefit, and by your logic, it could be as easily argued that Linux is doing harm to you by being non-standard.
Would the people benefit if they get split? I think so.
What difference does it make? MS doesn't belong to "the people". MS belongs to the owners of MS, and they can do whatever the hell they want with it.
To use "the good of the people" as a justification to dispose of some people's property... Is essentially to say that the rights of certain individuals can be sacrificed for the rights of certain other individuals.
. Letting the market decide has produced so many monopolies and cartels in the past 150 or so years that there has to be a balance
Actually, if you really examine history, free capitalism has only produced one long-standing monopoly: The DeBiires (Spelling? I really don't recall) diamond monopoly.
There have been harmful monopolies that came and stayed, but a closer examinination will generally show that they were produced by specific government mandate that cut competition - best example is probably mid 19th century railroads who were granted governmet favours.
You want competiton and good products? Allow competition, don't punish the winner.
Force MS to support standard, open, and free file formats and interfaces.
Force. What a wonderful answer. Tell me, if you don't like the way a person dresses, do you threaten to hurt them?
This trial isn't about morals or ethics
The hell its not about morality. Life is the greatest morality play, and the fundamental question of law is a moral question of rights.
Yeah I can do all that on Star office, and it does'nt cost me anything. Is MS to be praised just because thier crap works???? Thats a low point... DUDE YOU'RE AN AWESOME SW COMPANY BECAUSE YOU SHIT WORKS........ DUDE
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
An AC said: There is a big difference between wanting to be number one and wanting to be the only one. One attitude is healthy and normal, the other...
If we were talking about people, I'd agree. However, from a business's point of view, getting rid of the competition isn't the same thing as murdering a person. However, I agree that it's not necessarily a good thing for all who are affected.
Really, this points to what I think is the overall problem, assuming there is one, with a corporate economy: there is a difference between the rights of individuals and the rights of corporations. Somewhere in that differentiation, the corporations no longer have any need for what individuals would consider morals. IE: corporations do not have "unalienable rights" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." However, individuals make up corporations, and they do have those rights. Therefore, the government is limited in what it can do to corporations (and it should be), but there is no moral or legal problem with one corporation taking the life of another.
I'm still figuring out where a better place to draw that line might be. I don't think anyone else has the perfect answer either, judging by the subjectiveness (which I pointed out earlier) of such laws as do exist.
--- but I don't want a "sig".
The debate shouldn't be over Windows or IE. Neither one will last long with out Office. And Office won't last long without it's file formats. Why do people run Windows? 1) It come preinstalled - A lot of vendor now give a choice of OS. 2) New users don't know the difference - This is just marketing. Linux, BSD, Mac could capture the same market. 3) To run Office - They use it at work, at home, and at school. This is the only reason for running Windows that can't currently be answered on another platform. (Beside Mac, but artists don't write j/k ;-)
Why do we run Office, because we need to share information. We send files to friends, co-workers, fellow students, and professors. We need to know that the document will look the same when it gets there. If your running the same version Office everwhere then you know the data will always be the same.
So now we have two answers this problem.
1) Break-up MS forcing them to port Office to every OS out there (or at least the ones with the biggest user base), as well as making easy for other office suite to become popular. But this bring back memories of the late 80s. WordPerfect 5.1 5.2 6.0 6.0 for Windows, Word Star, Ami Pro, Word Pro, Word, Works, and many more the worst part is none imported and exported quite right.
2) Develop a set of cross-platform open file formats for wordprocessors, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. I'm thinking something XML based, get it supported by all the great opensource office apps, mix in a little marketing and show the world there are other alteratives.
Let the office suites fight over easy of use, functionality, and stability. Not file format.
Current attempts at regulating the Internet have proven that the memes we have are flawed in this medium. My first example would be ICANN. Created with great fanfare, and initially headed by one of the Large Brains Of The Internet (and now, an even Larger Brain), today we find that the group is almost universally villified as having no power and no point. This certainly isn't the media's fault, though they may have written about what they had seen from the public at large.
The worst example (or best, depending on your point of view) of an attempt at keeping old-school practices in the new medium is, of course, WIPO. They have what is meant to be a universal arbitration system for the ownership of domain names, and yet this is open to local interpretation; different groups under the same agency acting under the same rules will give differing opinions. Worst of all, if you don't like the outcome of their arbitration, it doesn't matter, because in many jurisdictions (such as the US) they have no enforcement power, so you can go to court instead! Again, they serve no real purpose.
We live in a highly fragmented age. There are many new forces and ways of thinking being created, and yet those which already exist are attempting to stifle them. Add this to the normal bickering that is international politics, and we end up with what is technically termed "a big mess." In many ways, the Internet is before it's time.
Read the 9th Amendment. Just because it isn't in the Constitution doesn't mean it's not a right. And how are other software manufacturers intruding on Microsoft's "property" when they write software for Windows?
If not, then you're no Libertarian, plain and simple. Yes, Microsoft has the right to do what they want with their operating system, but computer manufacturers also have the right to build their computers however they choose, and software makers have the right to make compatible software if they want, and these rights are being usurped or at least restricted by Microsoft. Just ask the Wine group.
Aww, don't pick on the poor little monopoly.
Men believe what they want. - Caesar
obfuscate and obscure, obfuscate and obscure, obfuscate and obscure... you recursive chump.
define "oppressive federal government" and delineate the ways that it oppresses you and others.
its the job of the court to remain unbiased throughout the case. many times, judges and courts have an opinion because of media or popularity of the defendant, which in turn, gives them a predemonished opinion about the case. its not unusual to find satire in case transcripts, and often, they are very amusing to read. however, it is the job of the court to remain unbiased and to remember that the defendant is innocent until proven guilty. Jackson shows lack of professionalism and representation of the people (even though most ppl hate m$).
im reading those transcripts..and you know.. hes right..theyre forcing m$ to do shit, not bc m$ did something illegal.. but bc the government views them as a threat technically.. m$ _hasnt_ done anything wrong.. infact, theyre pretty fucking lucky to control the market..but they definitly dont have a monopoly on it.. with the rebirth of macs.. and the popularity of linux ..they have not taken actions to completly take over the market..there _are_ alternatives..and legally.. thats enough to keep them out of trouble.
.. and ignore our foreign policies.
in a discussion with my friend.. he had brought up the point of m$ practicing in anti-competetive buisness practices, which in his opinion was shady. ethically, thats true. but the government doesnt work off of ethics. his response had been "that defeats the advancements of technology". however, m$ has their own opinion about the advancement of technology.
im not defending m$.. but this brings up good points about the case..yes, im tickled to death that m$ might have to split.... but it also shows me how our government can fade from the law and do what _they_ think is 'right. m$ is complaining that the government is forcing them, one way or another to split up their departments, which is true.. the government is saying "do this or else".and i dont know about you.. but i dont want to rely on the government to do what "they think is right" in war
he should take a class in propaganda.
but really.. we are geeks. we hate anything that sucks, and we hate anything that isnt open source.
microsoft sucks, and its not open source, hence, WE HATE.
yes he has some good points, although, i dont think i would include IE in the list of useful inventions of the century, but hes overstepping the bounds of this topic.
we all know that m$ sucks.. but the point of reading the transcripts was to bring to point the government isnt treating them like they are a highly successful coorporation with too much power.. theyre treating them like microsoft. the government is treating them like we would. as cool as that may sound.. its wrong. thats not the way our government 'should work'.. and if you notice the wonderful satire jackson provides.. its as if the court already made up theyre mind on how the case should go.. and theyre just letting m$ dump money into court fees as a punishment.
now dont get me wrong, i hate m$ like the next geek.. but the way this guy presents his 'argument', you would think m$ is causing world hunger.
first, he agrees how m$ needs to be taked down and taught a lesson (thanks to our courts).. but then he goes on to argue our government sucks.
now being a punk (like many others in our community).. i find some actions of the government distasteful, especially the way the courts are handling the m$ case.
yes, m$ has practiced (repeatedly) unethical business practices, and many will say they are detering the advancement of technology. M$ has done alot for home computing in the past ten years. im not agreeing with theyre methods, but they have put alot of technology into homes that was never before concieved. yes windows sucks, but only because it lacks the control advanced users crave. most home users cant install m$office without help files.. let alone compile a kernel. we as geeks refuse to admit that the general public is ignorant, so we blame it on the products (in my opinion promote it) who help others jump on this technological bandwagon. windows, aol and even napster.. make it almost _too_ easy to run a home computer.
m$ is suffering because they have a product that is easy to use (but also sucks).
m$ is suffering because they are making mad cash from this
m$ is suffering because they thought of it first
Any reasonably intelligent human being has to be a piss poor libertarian, so what's your point?
Anything NOT worth doing is NOT worth doing well...
My other server is running W2K. It's a domain controller, DNS server, SQL server, and IIS server. I hammer on it every day. It's current uptime is about 52 days. So far this semester it's uptime is 99.995% and counting. That's not bad considering it's not on a UPS, and I'm just a lowly undergraduate student without any professional supervision.
I worked for a few months at a company who ran a 98% Windoze web design/development/ecommerce shop. (the other 2% was the lone Mac G3 which was so abused it was unusable) Their site lived on two NT4 boxen: one ran IIS, the other SQL Server.
The IIS box (let's call it Butt-Head) crashed every day. Sometimes it crashed two, even three times a day. There were other reasons why it would go down...run a patch, make a major change which would require a reboot, etc. etc. etc. The SQL Server box, (let's call it Beavis) to its credit, was unflappable. However, it didn't have much to do except look up dynamic info and feed it to Butt-Head.
One day, I had a job interview, and was showing off sites I had worked on. Everything worked. I was ready to show the piece de resistance, the revamped site of this company, with its tight, neat code and sweet page download times, (I did all the HTML work...some pages were used as coded, some were chopped up and included in the .ASP code the company's .ASP/SQL guru wrote) but...
Damn you Butt-Head! The fsckn server was down. Again.
These guys are running a bunch of sites on that crashy server. Including one very intensive ecommerce site. I don't know how many customers they are losing because their webserver is flakier than a Danish Pastry.
I don't know how much W2K improves on NT4's stability, or lack thereof. All I know is that I worked at an ISP who used NT3.51 on a lot of their server boxen and the sysadmin there refused MICROS~1's siren call to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade because he knew that NT4 was a fsckn mess. I suppose when I go through MCSE2000 training I'll find out. But the fact that NT3.51 was solid and NT4 wasn't doesn't hold out much hope.
99.999%? More like 33.333%.
----
http://www.msgeek.org/
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Which in itself is amusing. I love it when people write this.
--
NO TOUCH MONKEY!
An example of how this works is the telephone system. In the early early days you had independent companies with incompatible technologies. It was in the publics interest that one company be given monopoly powers so that a single compatible telephone infrastructure could be built throughout the country. In exchange for that monopoly power, the government required phone service to be made available EVERYWHERE (Ma Bell was not just allowed to "cherry pick", such as providing service only to high population areas). This brought the technology to everyone everywhere. A monopoly that serves the public interests is usually given a certain period of time to reap the benefits of their investment (under regulation).
Eventually it is determined that it would now serve the public's interests to divest the monopoly to provide the benefits that increased competition would bring.
The computer software/OS business developed under our free market system. It never was REGULATED by the government (other than things like making illegal the export of advanced encryption technologies). The problem is that Microsoft has been acting as an unregulated monopoly which seeks to kill innovation that comes from competition. This is NOT in the public's good.
Nobody is saying that Microsoft can't be a big company. What the rules dictate is that Microsoft can't be a big BAD company. . .one that uses it's power and influence in ways that harm the public good. Anyone who has paid any attention (or read the history) KNOWS they have done this.
Judge Jackson's only failing seems to have been his inability to keep a poker face. This was NOT a jury trial. The winner of the trial would be the side who did a better job of convincing the judge. Microsoft blew their credibility early on telling the judge they didn't say things that the prosecution then proved they did say and by saying that it was impossible to do things (like separate IE from Windows) that were easily possible. Judge Jackson was apparently supposed to suppress his reaction to this (which was to determine early on that Microsoft was full of shit.
Now I agree that it may not have been the wisest thing to involve the press in the story while the trial was going on, but I do not see how this proves that the conclusions that he reached from the trial were flawed. It was foolish of him to put the outcome of the trial in jeopardy by providing the basis for the appeal by making any APPEARANCE of bias. But do not confuse bias with judgment. He was required to reach a judgment and that doesn't happen only at the end of the trial. It is a process that takes place as you consider each witness. Is this witness credible? Is the position credible? Once you determine that you are being fed lies by one side and not by the other it must affect how you view their entire case.
I honestly don't know which is worse, one Microsoft or two. But I had the feeling that Microsoft would win on appeal just as soon as Bush was declared the final winner in Florida. The means by which they keep the status quo is the only part of this that remains to be played out.
Curious George
***General Consultant to the Human Race*** My opinions are free. You get what you pay for.
Where has Jon Katz been? Has he decided to read up on the trial today? How else could he be so misinformed?
Anyone who feels that Microsoft is not a monopoly, or that Microsoft is not predatory simply does not know the facts. There is not doubt on this, and the US Federal Court agrees. Reading the appeal transcript by no means qualifies as knowing the facts. This is just sad.
An operating system that doesn't have a web browser built in is not, as Katz implies, a useless operating system. The Macintosh is a good example: people buy it all the time, and the web browser isn't "part" of the OS.
The browser issue is important, but this is only one episode in a string of predatory actions. I've seen a lot of people downplay this because "Netscape sucks." Not only is this narrow minded, but it ignores the facts that once upon a time, everyone used Netscape. The reason they switched to Explorer was because it was bundled with every copy of the OS, and Netscape wanted you to pay money. Why would people pay for something that they already have?
Microsoft hurt Netscape by giving away software with similar functionality for free, bundling the software with their OS, and forcing OEM's to drop Netscape products even though they were the preferred solution at the time. How is that not predatory, Jon? Explain it to me, I want to know what you think.
It looks like Jon Katz is just another one of the masses of people who believes everything he hears because he is incapable of critical thought on his own. Either that, or he is just lazy and didn't do his reasearch.
...you're a pragmatist yet divorced from reality.
I am a former expatriate, but never worried about the ex-patriot deal as I'd already worked that one out long ago. But clearly with different criteria from what you've applied. Now I wish to be expatriated again: there's too much rail kill from the market propaganda train.
PS -- We've booked your room at the Disney Hotel.
You have expressed in words what I've been thinking for so long now. Well done.
Some of my own opinions have already been voiced by others, but I do have a few responses to offer:
At the time, according to the appeals court testimony, there were approximately 100 million Net users, which means every one could have acquired Netscape's product if they wanted to. Is it true that these users were not free to choose Netscape?
Of course not. They were free to choose, just not free to use it. Sure 100 million people might have downloaded NS, but how many were able to run it without crashes once they'd done so? That's not even taking into account the thousands who downloaded the file and then couldn't find it later. You forget how confusing the Internet was to most people at that time. Refusing Netscape the right to negotiate with OEMs to distribute NS pre-installed was, without question, an enormous impediment to their market penetration. Downloads != Installations
In this time period, as the Web was exploding, why wasn't Microsoft justified in integrating Windows with its much-hyped OS? Wouldn't doing otherwise prove corporate suicide? Was Microsoft really supposed to sit back and allow competitors to dominate this critical market, surely threatening Windows in the process?
I assume you meant "integrating IE" and not "integrating Windows". But in any case, of course they weren't supposed to sit back. I have a problem with the whole idea that browser integration with an OS is a bad thing. Where M$ did harm was by preventing NS from integrating their own browser in IE's stead. They did this by hiding their APIs and intentionally introducing incompatibilities over time that caused other apps to crash. WordPerfect and Corel Draw had similar problems during this same time period, I believe. If the end user had really had a choice, they would have been able to uninstall IE with no consequence or difficulty and simply plug in Netscape. I tried this very thing during that time period, and it didn't work.
Did the company ruthlessly, or illegally, discourage competition? Did Microsoft make it too difficult or in some cases, impossible, for consumers to remove IE from their desktops? Did Microsoft unfairly -- or, more to the point, illegally --wipe out or damage potential competitors?
Quite frankly, I can't see how anyone who's followed the case -- or worked in the IT industry within the last 4 years -- could be asking these particular questions with a straight face.
In the Corporate Republic, the land of AOL/Time- Warner and the Disney Corp., is Microsoft really that unusual, or even particularly predatory?
I don't see Disney striking deals intended to shut down Universal Studios or prevent them from distributing new movies. They're even in the same city, which actually encourages a symbiotic relationship. MS and Linux could easily get along this well (if both sides were willing) and enjoy the same benefits.
AOL/Time Warner's size and power is another matter entirely, but I don't know enough about them to comment on it.
The one point that keeps coming up is the Removal of IE from the desktop. The facts on this point are clear if you stay away from Microsoft's spin doctors.
Windows originally came out as v4.xx.xxxx. Obviously it was the next step after Windows v3.x. Soon after the release of the original Windows 95 there was the often mentioned OSR2. Then after that there was the little used, mostly by OEMs, OSR3. For the sake of simplicity these versions were given the names, Win95a, Win95b, and Win95c.
Win95a came with NO BROWSER. It was an OS that had some other programs that came standard but if you wanted to browse the Internet you had to install a browser.
Win95b came with IE v3.0, this was the beginning of the "integration" that is often brought to point.
Win95c was basically Win95b with some more patches and IE was upgraded to v4.0.
Win95a was a viable operating system (if you can call it that) without the instillation of any browser. You could install an office package, games, or whatever you needed on this OS and functioned just fine without a browser.
Could Microsoft have developed IE and shipped it on a separate disk to new users? Sure. Why didn't they? Because that would allow ppl to choose what they wanted on their computer. I dare someone to do a clean install of Win95b and try to get IE off without breaking something. It's possible, but not fun and surely 95% of the users would not even know where to begin. Moreover, during the installation process of all versions of Windows since Win95b, there is no option to not install IE. However if you don't want WordPad you can remove that.
It's clear that Microsoft, while may have not have "harmed" customers, was intent on forcing its way into the browser market. Yet their arguments about IE being a part of Windows is simply a lie. While if this is enough to warrant the breakup of Microsoft, they surely should be penalized for lying under oath.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
hehe.. i didn't know Lotus was still around.. actually, i don't use windows anymore (except to run this crappy IDE at work), and haven't needed an office suite since i got out of college. (in college, i used Applix with redhat 4.0).
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how?
the government could do that, but not microsoft.
wishus
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My first gripe is with the understanding of Microsoft's practices and general makeup by the attorneys and the judges. One point that seemed be taken as fact (though it is false) is that the entirety of Microsoft grew up from a single starting point and that it is not the result of mergers and aquisitions. That's just bullshit! How the heck did they get IE in the first place? They bought the company, which was comprised of Andreesen's teammates that worked on the NCSA browser. Microsoft's defense against breakup is that no company that has not been created through mergers and aquistions has ever been broken up by antitrust laws. Since Microsoft is not such a company, it shouldn't be subjected to such "entested practices." What pissed me off was that the government conceded the point! If they only knew their history, Microsoft could be broken into every component piece that made it what it is today. In the end, the "original" Micrsoft would be left with DOS (maybe not even that since they bought it), QuickBASIC, and Widnows 3.11. NT came from a DEC spinoff, Windows 95 is an OS/Warp debacle, most of the games and productivity software come from someplace else. Microsoft's strategy from the beginning has been to buy a competitor if they can't compete in a specific area.
Secondly, have any of the people involved in the case, especially the judges, ever been made aware of the issue of network effects? The basic idea being that the more people that use the system, the more valuable that system becomes for launching other systems and the higher the barrier for competing systems to enter the market. Is it me or does the 90% OS share and the 90-95% Office productivity share that Microsoft has fit this definition exactly or what? It can leverage either market to extend the other and drive out competition be swaying developers alone. Of course I know why, but why would any developer want to risk putting food on the table by developing for an alternative OS when it is a closer to sure thing to bet on the 90% market share of Brother Bill?
This seems so obvious that for once I want to smack Katz for being WAY off base (I don't normally feel that way). MS pulls a lot of crap that is not even close to nice or fair. Read a couple of books on the topic before you second guess yourself like that again.
My .02
Nice antecdote. Nothing to do with my point, but interesting. The point is that Excel is probably the most expensive spreadsheet on the market right now. If you think otherwise, name three that cost more.
Apple screwed up not licensing their hardware, end of story
Again, irrelivant. I never said that Apple should have won the desktop wars in my post. The only two things I said about Apple was 1. Apple introduced affordable desktop computers tot he world (TRUE), and 2. When Windows 3.1 came out it was vastly inferior, by almost any measure, to the Macintosh OS. (ALSO TRUE)
Errmm Oracle outperforms SQL on Sun Starfires, not what I choose to run as I'm not rich. SQL is nore usable, more stable (its a newer codebase) and hasn't sold its ass to Java
I didn't say running Oracle was cheap. In fact I said people pay more to use it. My point was that if performance is what matters most to you, it is a better choice than SQL. I noticed that you chose to ignore my point that PostgreSQL, which also works great and stacks up to MS-SQL quite well, is completely free and can run on a completely free OS.
The netscape thing is not true, ie1/2 sucked to the max, ie3 rocked and thats when netscape tanked - they failed to innovate, got arrogant, lost a few good engineers...
Sorry, but IE3 also sucked. It was enough better than IE2 that people didn't completely hate it, but coercing OEM's to drop Navigator and bundling IE with Windows is what killed Netscape, not a better browser. Microsoft's own internal documents acknowledged that they could NEVER have beaten Netscape on a level playing field.
Wrong on the engineering side, I've seen presentations by Dave Cutler, Charles Simonyi, Jim Grey, Hal Berenson, Dave Campbell and Goetz Graefe - these guys are comp sci giants
Okay, you saw some some spiffy lectures, I'm very happy for you. I don't know what that has to do with my point, but congratulations.
I'm afraid your post is pretty innacurate and your arrogant crack at the end puts you in the sad bearded & sandled UNIX bigot league.
If you are going to call me innacurate, you should at least point out ONE thing I said that was incorrect. Also, I don't know what you mean by "arrogant crack at the end". Do you mean my signature file? That's always there, and it's only meant to make you chuckle. Sorry if it didn't amuse you. As for the "sad bearded $ sandled UNIX bigot league"... You could not be further from the truth. If the depth of your comments are anything to go by, I probably have more experience with NT servers than you do. I have several different platforms, including a couple versions of Windows, runnung on my systems at home, and use Solaris, Linux, Windows, and even MacOS at work.
I choose Windows for somethings, Solaris for others, and MVS for others - horses for courses.
....and I value my fellow workers
For somebody who claims to be so open minded, you sure launched a tantrum in my direction.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Last night the major Japanese stock index, the Nikkei 225, reached lows it hadn't seen since 1985. The index is now down to less than 1/3 of its all-time high. I don't think the US is about to get hurt as badly as Japan was, but this information ought to be pointed out to all the people who think stocks always go up.
--
Ikaruga scoreboard (supports netranking)
How can you claim they have a monopoly on a web site that is run on PC hardware using a non-Microsoft OS?
Slashdot doesn't actually exist. It is only a hypothetical construct. Proof: It uses a non-Microsoft OS. Microsoft has a monopoly on the OS market. As these two facts contradict, It must not exist.
Microsoft doesn't even compete on most hardware platforms, and only competes effectively on one.
Microsoft competes on Windows3.1, Windows98, WindowsNT, and a number of other platforms. They have a complete monopoly over the entire Windows platform!
If I don't pay for their crap, why do you think you are forced to?
You pay taxes. The taxes go to fund the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice sues Microsoft. Your money is spend because of Microsoft's products.
As for IBM, they always have offered, and continue to offer, their own OS; AIX. It's superior to Windows in many ways. However, most consumers don't want it. This demands better programming and marketting from IBM, not government intervention.
No, you seem to miss an important point: The consumers cannot chose AIX because Microsoft forces them to use Windows. The Department of Justice realizes that if most consumers are using Windows, then clearly Microsoft is forcing competing products ou of the marketplace, because clearly Windows couldn't have been so successful without using some illegal tactic. Thus, Microsoft is acting illegally. Understand?
At the start of this trial I had the hope that it could break the Climate of Fear that MS had created in the software industry.
For example, imagine you had a brand new software product. You release it after spending two or three million on development, then another million on advertising. Your press release describes the new product, and how every user will want it.
The next day MS releases a press release describing the features of the MS version which will be released in the 'near future' - and your product is dead. Patents are no protection, as MS are unbeatable in court - because they have much more money than you to fight.
This trial is a test to see if MS can be beaten in court at all. If the US Government can't beat them nobody can.
At least that was what I believed when the case began. Now I know that they can be beaten, both in terms of software in the market, and at trial. The fear is gone.
Again, another BSOD reference... it gets tiring after a while.
The other way to look at it is that people want to buy the boxes with the software on it and thusly the manufacturers put it there, regardless of contracts. If people don't want something then manufacturers wouldn't put it on the machine as it wouldn't sell.
If you buy a Macintosh you get MacOS. It's not like LinuxPPC comes bundled on the Macs you buy. And there are choices for the PPC platform other than MacOS.
And you can buy a different OS at WalMart and Best Buy. If a consumer doesn't want the OS that came on the machine they have the freedom to get another. I would say could be looked at as a deman issue, not an illegal monopoly issue.
This is considered a +5 Interesting post?
Come on, if anything it should be +5 Funny. Nothing listed above is illegal, and even worse, the person clearly is only using example he/she has read here.
Machines you have to reboot every day? This is getting old - my damned Win2k machines never reboot and I'm writing this post on a machine that has rebooted for months. But of course the author who got a +5 Interesting wouldn't know, because they don't even run MS products.
Nice... that's like having someone who drives a Jeep Wrangler talk about how reliable a Defender 90 is.
What the typical Slashdot FUD believer doesn't ever get it seems, is that just as M$ spreads FUD about Linux, it goes the other way. Many people I know run M$ products without problem, without getting a virus, etc.
The ILOVEYOU virus happened because of flaws and security holes. Is Linux any better? Is Apache any better? It seems so, but only when it happens to a M$ product.
The Slashdot crowd, and this person in particular, also fails to see that a monopoly itself IS NOT ILLEGAL. If people were so unhappy with M$ products all this time they would switch and be running MacOS or BeOS now wouldn't they?
If you don't like closed products don't use them. But it's INSANE to say a whole company should be FORCED to support a controlled standard and not be able to innovate beyond that.
I don't care if this is M$ or not. Maybe IEEE or ACM should make a standard for 3D games and then that way all people who write games will have the nice same engine. And then maybe come up with something that describes how all cars should be the same standard shape so everyone can use the same assembly line.
It's fair right?
Why should only one benefit when everyone deserves a shot?
That's bullcrap - you beat somebody by doing better than they do. Instead of whining, go build a better platform. Linux may be a better server product but it SUCKS for consumers. My Dad wouldn't even be able to load it on his machine, much less use it when it got there.
My problem is that people want to close innovation instead of innovating to beat what they don't like. I think standardizations on OS and apps is the most rediculous thing I have ever heard.
I like diversity - you may not, but you don't have to use diverse products if you don't want. And again, this has nothing to do with M$ - I wouldn't feel good about ANY standard that a company is FORCED to follow for ANY market vertical.
Bad, bad, bad idea.
The *real* reason behind M$ trashing Netscape in the marketplace was Gates' desire to garner *portal* share. Netscape never intended it's browser(s) to be a profitable item, nor did M$. Both Netscape and M$, it seems to me, intended to make their respective profit off of ad impressions and click throughs on their respective portals. (Of course, each browser defaults their own portal sites unless changed by the user.)
However,M$ knew that by keeping Netscape off the desktop in preloaded systems, many of the "new to computer" Lemmings who buy preconfigured systems will never change those defaults, and certainly will not attempt to download 20 some odd megs of another browser with their 28.8 (at the time) modems.
If a portal serves up news, stock quotes, sports, entertainment and shopping, does the end user really *have* a desire to move to somewhere else?
Jon Katz makes comparisons to Disney and others. I liken the comparison to buying your first car (a "Disney" car) after just barely knowing how to drive, and this car will take you to work, school, etc. just fine. At the same time it also tells Disney just how you have been using your car each day, and when you finally decide to take a well earned vacation, it'll only provide driving directions to Disney World.
Last, but not least, I certainly cannot blame Judge Jackson for making the comments he did regarding Gates and Co. However, he really shouldn't have made them to the press outside the courtroom, he should have made those comments in court while throwing the book at them for blatant contempt of court. (Falsified videos, Gates' evasive testimony, etc.)
Just my 2 cents.
Doc
That's the basis of monopoly law. When you become an 800 lb gorilla, you are no longer allowed to do some of the stuff that smaller gorillas do. You may reap the monetary benefits that come from your great weight, but you can't beat up smaller gorillas anymore.
___
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
I say NO. Yes Microsoft is a bully, the 800-pounf gorilla, of the Computer Industry, but they just like everyother company need to be so. Seems to be that they have simplely achived the American dream, and are getting punished for it. Have they done anything that anyone else didn't do. Seems to me Solaris has been shipping with Browser for a while too, Netscape infact. KDE, now has the browser built right into the interface in version 2.x, and even 1.x had a very IE like integration with the WEB. I am not a M$ lover by any means(my web company is LINUX based) and I hate the way they do business personally, esspecially the new up coming stuff where it seems one is going to need to be web connected to even use the software since using will mean registering. Just some thoughts.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
The fundamental problem is one of computer science.
Had Computer Science not gotten off course from pure
science then the foundation of software would not be
one where such a thing as the "software crisis" would
have existed for more than a decade.
But because it does, the foundation is unfair and this
results in alot of the problems going on today.
MS, it could have been anyone else (that was a game
player like Bill), simply was there first with the idea
of getting the most software to market (disregarding
quality). Whole also believing the way to get people to
come back is to make them need MS, for upgrades bug fixes,
etc.
Had Computer Science done it job then the difficulty of
making software wouldn't exist. That Software production
can and should have been alot easier where the best
software would come from the best software authors/artist.
It should be enough that most everyone realizes that MS
software isn't of the best in originality and quality,
to see that there is a problem somewhere that prevents
the best. And that somewhere is in how software is produced
in such a way that it is difficult. Sorta like doing math
with roman numerals, where it should be more along the lines
of the decimal system we use today.
Is this possible? Absolutely!!!!!
http://www.mindspring.com/~timrue/KNMVIC.html
Maybe the problem people have here is along the same lines
of how people had problems with accepting the concept of
zero, of nothing actually having value.
T.Rue.
If you want to beat MS, there is a way to do it outside of
the courts, but it means a cange in the way software is done
and it;s pretty much been verified that programmers in general
have resistance to such, just as I'm sure those who dealt with
Roman Numerals did. Outside of those who wanted to move business
forward that is.
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
Where some companies may wish to beat thier competitors, MS devotes the entire resources of the company to utterly destroying theirs. Some companies might want to dominate their chosen market, MS will stop at nothing (even theft of competitors products, in the Stac case) to establish and maintain a total monopoly over theirs.
While we see much of MSs behaviour as unethical and harmful to the tech industry as a whole, as well as lowering the general standard for software and souring the computing expirience for the masses, he is only doing what is taught in bisness school. Just harder and nastier.
I see MS as the enevitable product of our economic system: crush the opposition, establish as many monopolies as possible, exploit them for all they are worth. This could have been any company in any market, if they had someone as simgle-minded as BillG driving them. It is only a matter of time before it happens in other markets, too.
There is a serious bug in free-market capitalism. Enevitably, one company becomes dominant in a given market, and if left unchecked, establishes and exploits a monopoly. By this point, this company has so much economic and political power that it is able to act as it pleases. /. is rife with examples.
Governments have had to bring in anti-monopoly laws to attempt to stop this from happening. This trial is as much about this as about MS.
Not to be melodramatic, but what is on trial here is free-market capitalism itself.
And now for a glibly relevant .sig:
-- And when Justice is gone, there is always... Force. --Laurie Anderson, "Oh Superman"
i'm reading at a threshhold of 5 this time as there are so many responses: some saying that ms is not so shit, others saying that it is. it's not about wether it's shit. it's about if they played fair. remember the masterpiece that was called os/2 ? remember that ms initially wanted to create its OWN internet. that failed so they changed their minds. one that forced pc makers and isps to include ie on thier machines and install packages instead of netscape. that's how netscape fell from "king of the hill" to "what's that 'N' in the corner?" one who's own version of java was intentionally incompatible with that of sun's. we can't have ms as one company as the guys who make the applications have access to the os source code. that is a real advantage to their application developers. their own applications can be much more powerful as a result. also, the cost of development is significantly reduced as they have access to this source code. how can anyone else compete and make a living ? just my 2 cents.
I don't think those examples either didn't harm the users sufficiently enough to warrent a breakup or weren't MS's fault entirely.
The ILOVEYOU virus and it's clones were made possible by Microsoft adding the scripting capabilities of Windows Scripting Host to their OS. This is similar to what many flavors of UNIX have. Unfortunately, because of the sheer number of people that use Windows (and Outlook which was needed to spread the virus), the virus caused more damage than a similar Unix or Linux-based virus would. (This is similar to the opt-stated argument that Windows is more vunerable to viruses because there are more viruses written for it. If you were a virus author and you wanted your virus to have the biggest impact, of course you're going to target the biggest OS!) As a side note, there are tools available that will protect users against these viruses. (Including one I wrote called WatchDog which you can download from http://www.winmag.com/fixes/watchdog/.)
The incompatible file formats were indeed a nuisance, but how will breaking up Microsoft fix that? By making an apps company whose biggest source of revenue is from Office upgrades?
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but my home and office systems are shut down every night, not because I'm afraid they'll crash, but because I want to save some $$$ on my electric bill. I have no desire to leave my home computer on when I'm sleeping at night. Realize that servers are another issue, I'm talking about your average home and business user. Most of the crashes I've come across are due to poorly written apps (*cough**cough*Lotus Notes*cough**cough*) or bad hardware drivers. I can't remember the last time I had a purely Windows-related crash. So we should break up Microsoft because some 3rd party company was lazy in their error trapping?
As for people hating Windows, I know some people do, but not everyone. Certainly not me. So the government should step in and break up a company because some customers don't like the product (yet still insist on using it)? Are you punishing Microsoft for marketing so well that people think that they have to use Windows? Maybe while we're at it, we should require all ads to list some competitors?
I agree that some of Microsoft's practices were questionable, but I don't think the consumer harm warrents a breakup.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Got you beat with my Linux Firewall! [root@lisa logs]# uptime 11:34am up 73 days, 2:22, 5 users, load average: 0.25, 0.25, 0.16 And now the firewall is running an Icecast streaming mpeg server. Lisa, a Linux box running on PowerPC hardware is offering NAT, web server, IMAP and POP mailboxes, Icesast streaming mpeg server.. it does not just sit idle.. right now I am streaming audio out to the net. The box would have a longer uptime, but I rearranged the servers in my basement (move tables and stuff).
Microsoft has it's judgement day comming. 12 years ago I wrote a DLL that allowed you to play sound under windows without hearing a popping noise (windows has terrible interrupt latency,especailly 12 years ago) back in the Old days of the Microsoft online BBS. Well, those royalties I was promised never materialized. So, I didn't think suing would be the answer, I did know that they would eventually get thiers with a buinsess practive like that. So I started writing code for OS/2 Warp and I banged out a few Automated Phone Information systems using the Dialogic board, one for the town I lived in at the time.. Ahh.. So from '88 to '94 I was doing that.. and then I found LINUX in '94.. I installed the Yddrassil release with kernel 0.96. I started coding for it and the world hasn't been the same. I look at Linux as being the David that nails Goliath. No matter if Microsoft wins or looses this case, the days of a dominating software giant are over! I consult for a state agency. Even they are moving to Unix/Linux. granted most of the busy services such as the Registry of Motor Vehicle runs on a Fault Tolerant IBM RS/6000 Black Raven (huge box, SSA drives..) and DEM runs on HP N calass for the Database, L Class for the Oracle App Server, Sun box for the Cirix metaframe server. I am also turning them on to Linux. Linux hopefully will be replacing the NT File/Print servers.. That's all they use NT for. File/Print. Ahh.. now I want to see Firewire RAID arrays that will replace the expensive SSA drive. Linux Firewire SSA... that would rock! Now time to buy 3 drives and a pce firewire board... gotta add this!
Simple then - get a new judge. MS are trying to use this to abandon the entire trial, which will prejudice everyone against them, in the long run.
Jon Erikson, IT guru
when a company forces OEM's to NOT install competing products on machines, that's anti-competitive. most users will use what's already on the machine. why waste time, on a 28.8 connection at the time, downloading 10 mb files to get netscape? how does this harm consumers? by elbowing out the competion (because of monopoly power) innovation is left to only your innovation.
When the government broke up AT&T, they had no intention of creating the Internet. The Internet certainly existed before the breakup, but because of circuit costs, would not have come within a fraction of its success to date. In addition the the Internet's growth, the breakup of AT&T had a direct positive intended effect - dramatically cheaper long distance services.
But the AT&T example isn't the only monopoly example we need to refer to. The other one I like to use is IBM. At the time of the antitrust action against IBM, it had a virtual chokehold on the computer market. Through vertical integration of operating systems, applications and hardware (sound familiar), all of which were closed (not documented for external use) it was very difficult for any other competitor to get traction. One of the things that antitrust actions succeeded in was forcing IBM to document everything, openly (open the Kimono) - something many people have suggested should be required of Microsoft. As a result, true competition spread in the computer industry and shortly thereafter we had the birth of the Personal Computing revolution. In addition, businesses that used mini computers, mainframes, etc., started seeing competition and the prices went down dramatically, and feature/functionality also improved dramatically.
So two examples:
AT&T - one foreseen consequence (Long Distance competition), one unforeseen (dramatic growth of the Internet.
IBM - one foreseen consequence (mini/mainframe competition), one unforeseen (birth of Personal Computing revolution).
Microsoft - one foreseen consequence (competition in Operating Systems and productivity suites)...
Anybody want to guess on the unforeseen consequence?
What I am saying is this - when one company controls the vision and direction of an entire industry, that industry will be stifled. Whole new worlds of possibility will be closed off because it isn't in their best interest or isn't in their vision.
Microsoft always claims that this is about the right to innovate - but again! Most of these innovations are simply the integration of other people's ideas into their corporate platform, and many many many other innovations that might have occurred, never have.
I have a suggestion as to one possibility that might arise out of this breakup. Truly modular applications. Applications/operating systems as a true platform which allow the plugins of any third party technologies. Allowing you to use someone else's spell checker with your Word platform, or someone else's thesaurus, dictionary, etc. As a simple, easy plug-in. Truly easy, drag and drop customizable applications working together through open standards. Want to upgrade your Word platform to handle XML? It's just a component, you don't have to upgrade the whole platform. Want to add CD burning capability to your file manager? It's just a component! Just a thought (I'd love to hear others)...
Perhaps if the honorable justices had an idea of what we're giving up by allowing this monopoly to continue, they'd be more inclined to end it...
Let me get this straigt. You are saying Microsoft should have strongarmed even more and made people make computers to certain standards. Damn, no wonder Microsoft can't win. One minute they are being critized for having questionable practices and then the next being told they should have gone further.
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
I have to admit that, objectively, M$ does seem like they're getting the short-end of the stick. And, yes, if it weren't for their blitzkrieg the Open Source community may not be what it is today. However, let's take a look at the bad-ol-Billy and his software... M$ Office will register the MAC of your NIC when you save a file, thus, if any M$ official (if that's what you want to call them) wants to know where you are and what service you're running they have your MAC and can trace you from there. (Are your security holes plugged?) I for one don't want anyone, especially M$, poking about my system. What ever happened to privacy? How many times have you had to fix your M$ box by re-installing the OS? More than five? More than ten? And what's up with those .dll files that take up five gigs of space to run your 3D card?
If you want to take it to the extreme, M$ and their 'closed source' of the OS and applications are what are giving hackers bad reps. All we nerds want is information. That's why God gave us those little Radio Shack Electronic Kits. (Remember building a radio with the coloured wires?) That's why it's called Information Technology Bill.
-- Ni. --
I see a different progression:
Of course, IANAP (I am not a prophet)
The moderator was right. Funny. Hardly factual in most cases. For example:
Basic everywhere. At time of smalltalk and lisp, they pushed basic. Thanks for that. They ruined my life.
It was a lot easier to get a Basic interpreter into a 4K ROM than a Lisp interpreter or Smalltalk environment. Basic is what people wanted--it was a lot closer to FORTRAN than either of the others.
The paperclip. This harmed millions of users.
Mentioning that paperclip makes you look as stupid as it is. It's just stupid and annoying...not harmful. Everybody knows it's stupid and knows how to turn it off. It would have been forgotten by now except MS bashers like to parade it out just to make themselves look stupid.
And FAT, the Fragmented Allocation Table ? Who should pay for the countless hours morons spend looking DEFRAG.EXE painfully moving blocks around ?
The FAT existed in CP/M, and probably before that. It was very effective and efficient for the diskettes and miniscule hard drives at the time. MS's only fault here is perhaps not providing an alternative in 1987 or so when 40 MB drives started showing FAT's limitations.
And the windows API?
It's hardly the worst. Certainly no worse in general than the glibc API, or the C standard library API for that matter. There are bone-headed design decisions in every one of them.
The process of a judge deciding an issue ideally has the following elements: 1) finding of facts 2) applying relevant law to the facts to produce conclusions of law 3) remedies When you are doing item 1, it is not always clear what item 2 is going to be. The big deal for the judge is figuring out how to frame the issues. And the big deal for the appeals court is deciding if the frame is right. But Jackson gets a lot of slack on his findings of fact at the appeal court. There are a lot of rules on evidence but we can assume Jackson got those right. Otherwise, there is some standard such as reasonably supported by the evidence. Spoiler: lots of nitpicking possible. Given the findings of fact, M$ is dead meat except that Jackson is an asshole, like most judges. An example of this is his response to M$ attempt to finese the order to release a non-IE windows, IMO. In any case, his post-trial remarks provide an excuse for the appeals to remand to a different court and start over again if they have problems with the decision but cannot legally overturn it on other grounds. If they reach this point, it is not motivated by the legal questions per se, but by something else. I think it has likely reached this point and finely parsing the legal issues is pointless as to result.
I wish it was that simple. Error handling is needed. These people dont even know how to put in their username and password, always trying to put caps or their real name. And they wouldn't know the half of running X or how to get into their browser (or know what a browser is). Then setting up mail can be a pain, too. It may sound like a joke, but it happens every day. And by the way, is it a right click or a left click, once or twice? :)
> One company will still own windows
> Then we will still have the problem of one OS ruling the market
If you consider that it is the application that counts to the user, then it will make a difference. The full API must be extensively documentated by MS::OS otherwise MS::APP cannot use it. This means that the calls that MS::APP can make are limited and documented. Thus people like WINE can make the MS::APP run on another OS much more readily. With the same apps available, an admin can provide the same services with another OS. Given that, you would start to see *N[IU]X systems being run out of economy, spite, preference, desire for stability, speed, ease of stopping the user stuffing up the box, whatever other motive you can think of.
Additionally, MS::APP would never have a headstart on development when MS::OS made a change.
But really FIVE parts would be better.
(a) MS::OS - Windows
(b) MS::LANG, - development tools
(c) MS::APPS - Office and it's ilk
(d) MS::INT - Internet Aplications
(e) MS::SER - Portal and mail services.
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
If a judge was shown during a trial evidence of some vile act (paedophilic rape for example) is it unreasonable to develop a "marked" loathing for a guilty defendant?
What is important is no bias before the facts are determined, and the judge starts "reading up" well before the trial and is the presented with further evidence and argument during the trial. Overall, it is not unreasonable for a judge to develop a loathing for something or someone. If that loathing results in injustice in sentencing, well that is why there are appeals courts. That's what is going on right now. Microsoft could have accepted the judges decision without appeal.
From my observation, there has was no unfairness in the findings of fact or the sentence. If fact after having read his findings of fact and the decision, I am inclined to think he has been lenient.
The law is the law unless you can buy a better appeal.
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
Doesn't anyone have a memory? They weren't trying to get rid of the Netscape browser per-se, they wanted to get rid of Netscape's servers. Netscape server ran on a variety of operating systems. They created IE, which I DO believe is a better browser, and added features to it which could only be easily provided by a Microsoft IIS server. ASPs anyone? Everyone who is saying "People had a choice in browsers" are missing the point. Microsoft released IE for free to deny Netscape revenue to continue competing with them in the server market. RL example: If Coke had some money saved up and said "Ok, we're going to start giving away Coke for free until Pepsi goes out of business.", that would be illegal.
Anything for historical purposes should be stored in a neutral standard format (ex. ASCII) ...but perhaps even these types of standards can change.
I don't think you can fairly pin this one on Microsoft.
It's AWT, not AWE. It stands for Abstract Window Toolkit. Second, the AWT doesn't suck, as long as you know what you are doing. I have created some visually beautiful apps, using AWT alone. They also worked great on Linux, Solaris, and MacOS :-P
If you don't believe me, I'll send screenshots!
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. I would also like expand a little on this point and say that this is the best example of how MS "embrace and extend" tactic is anti-competitive. Java developers who use Visual J++ exclusively may not even realize that they've used proprietary extensions. If the functionality contained in an applet is crucial, users of their site cannot access it if they use any browser other than IE. They violated Suns license agreement when they did this, and were punished for it (well OK they settled), so it never became an issue in the anti-trust lawsuit.
This situation really pisses me off because it could well mean the death of Java applets. I've heard all the arguments about how applets suck, but I'd rather see a functional applet on a web page over a useless Flash animation any day.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
Call it strong-arming if you want. I call it taking responsibility for their platform. We could've had plug and play years ago if MS had had the balls to get on the OEMs' case. We're not talking about putting a gun to anyone's head here. A few rules like, `don't make cards that run on a fixed IRQ or DMA channel' or `always fully decode the address lines' would've gone a long way towards making PC hardware a bit more reliable.
Instead, MS were happy to take the money and run; each cheap-ass PC clone ran MS-DOS, so MS were happy as pigs in shite-- even if their customers weren't.
Well, that's another-- perhaps slightly off-topic-- issue; Windows' habit of running fine on one machine and crashing like a motorway pile-up on another, seemingly identical, machine. Perhaps this is a problem that could be added to the list of misfeatures that cause `demonstrable harm' to customers; who can tell how many man-centuries have been wasted trying to debug mysterious hardware conflicts on Windows machines?
Now you could argue that this is the customer's own fault, buying some shadowy no-name PC clone and expecting it to work fine. But occassionally you'll get a batch of PCs from one of the big-name vendors that simply won't work reliably. 'Course, it's usually eventually tracked back to a last-minute substitution of some key component like the video card in an attempt to shave a few cents off the list price, but Microsoft have allowed this to happen. They could've laid down standards on how PC hardware ought to operate. Instead, they've entered into a silent contract to support anything any random soldering-iron-wielding ding-dong chooses to plug into the PC bus. "What's that? You've bought a no-name sound card made by the Dr. Mbogo Multimedia Corporation? It's made from string and old coathangers, you say? Sure, slap it in and our `Add New Hardware' wizard will figure it out!" In your dreams, pal.
They have further exacerbated this deplorable situation in two ways:
They saw sense with NT and came up with hardware compatibility lists, but this is a case of `too little, too late'.
And you know, there are always two sides on the coin. I had HUGE problems with various Linux distros some time ago on my desktop machine at home. It would freeze every once in a while (maybe every 2-3 hours or so) under X, no matter what I tried. I changed hardware, changed my motherboard, CPU, memory.. no change.. Finally I installed Windows 98 on it and I had no problems. Sure, typically it would be the other way around, but if you have had 100 blue screens of death in one day on a Windows box, remember that there are people who have had similar experiences with other OS's. It's nothing Microsoft specific. Indeed. I have a machine here (pent. 133) that has coughed up big hairballs on Caldera, Mandrake, and Corel Linux. Various inconsistencies with network cards and video cards, and IDE CD-Rom drives kept giving me fits. Sometimes there would be a spontaneous reboot, sometimes a botched up video mode; for quite a while, Corel Linux hung on boot when it couldn't figure the CD-Rom out. Win98 ran on it like a charm. 21 days ago, just for fun, I installed Whistler (the future Windows XP) which shouldn't even run on such a puny machine. Instead, it runs great. Not as fast as Linux, but then it has more to do (not to mention that I'm using the ClearType display driver which is just too cool) and it is only Beta 1.
uh...I didn't pay for windows when I bought my pc. ;)
The fact that Microsoft tried to control distribution instead of beat the competition failrly is just downright ethically wrong, but they really didn't do anything illegal.
Microsoft may be on top now, but Linux is growing all the time. IBM is pouring support into Linux and it's eating away at mircrosoft's marketshare. I'm sure it really pisses them off too. (he he) Remember that most families and individuals may have M$ OS's but it's the OEMs that bring in the big bucks. If you look at the situation from a point of view other than an individual consumer, the picture is different. Competition in high-end business solutions and web servers is alive and well. Few companies have the ability or the desire to support the mass of random consumers.
FUNK!
The one thing that everyone here is missing is this:
Like it or not, without MS and all of it's admittedly terrible products, a lot of the people who are here reading and posting (I am among them) would never have gotten here without it. They took a product that was the area of the elite, or geek, and made it a world wide product. Take a look at the sales numbers before and after Windows 95 and you will see what I mean. The record number of computer sales in the past years can only be attributed to the ease of use of the Windows products. I am not saying they are the best, or that I particularly like them, but they have done a lot more good than harm. How many of you out there that are working in the IT industry got your start on a WIN PC? The open source explosion is also a result of the low quality software that MS puts out.
The only problem that I have with Bill Gates is I want some of his money, but he has not seen fit to give me any.
Katz makes these odd pronouncements like "Another problem is the selective nature of the Justice Department's prosecution of Microsoft, which suggests the government is regulating predatory corporations when it certainly is not. In the Corporate Republic, the land of AOL/Time-Warner and the Disney Corp., is Microsoft really that unusual, or even particularly predatory?" What's regulated by antitrust law is the behavior of a company in a monopoly situation, not the behavior of whichever company is currently impinging on someone's idea of political correctness. Disney has a monopoly on what, exactly?
Come on, it's not like we're covering fresh ground here.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Uh, yeah. That explains those lousy Accords and Saturns we're driving around while various Central Ministries of Industry were forcing their subjects to properly appreciate Ladas and Trabants.
Of course, people are generally idiots and need to be told what to do by -- wait, let me guess -- you and your *cough* cyber-vandal cronies.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
But don't you think that computer manufacturers should be free to install Linux instead of Windows without repercussions from Microsoft?
Of course, and for the most part, that's been the case. It's just that Linux didn't have the market clout (ie, users didn't demand it enough) until recently to make that a viable choice (Interesting side-note, Jackson claimed that Linux couldn't be a viable choice to Windows "in the forseeable future", yet OEM's started carrying it less than 6 months later)
Don't you think they should be able to install an alternate web browser if they wish?
Of course, except that OEM's have always been able to install alternate browsers. What they couldn't do was remove IE (thus the argument was that the OEM couldn't replace IE with Netscape, but it could augment IE with Netscape).
Don't you think they should have control over what gets displayed first on their machines?
Well, that's a slippery slope. The OEM's are a licensed distributor of a MS product. The OEM's purchase Windows for the sole purpose of reselling it, and they advertise their products as carrying the official windows product.
Imagine if you made a product, say a car engine. And General Motors bought your engine in order to sell it in their cars, but instead of using your engine as you provide it, they replace it's parts (rings, spark plugs, pistons, gaskets, etc..) with substandard parts that will fail in 2 weeks. Further, suppose they did this while trumpeting the fact that they're using a licensed engine from you. The end user would gain a very poor opinion of your products because GM messed with it before it got to the consumer.
You, as a liscensor have a right to dictate what the licensee can and can't do with your engine, especially when they are using your name to help sell their product.
. Don't you think software makers should have the ability to make compatible software and use the same functions of Windows that Microsoft currently prohibits?
I think you mean use the same functions of Windows that MS uses in their applications. If that's the case, then yes. However, it's not been proven that this is the case (at least recently. There was a lot of hubbub back in the Win 3.1 days about Excel and Word using undocumented API's, however several authors (including Andrew Schulman) delved into the issue showing that the undocumented functions were holdovers from the Windows 2.x days, and that alternate documented functions existed in Windows 3.1 that were equivelant and in some cases even more efficient). Yes, there are lots of undocumented function in Windows, but most of those are for the use of Windows itself, not applications such as Word. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but even the Wine developers haven't published any comprehensive lists of undocumented functions used by Word or Excel or other MS apps (most of the undocumented API's appear to be shell and common control related, with some minimal kernel related stuff.)
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
The only way OS/2 could have "caught up" was if Windows became stagnant and was never improved.
In order for something to copy something else, the something else has to exist first, thus the copy is *ALWAYS* going to have play catch up, unless the original never improves.
When Intel comes out with a new kind of processor (say the PII) it took competition years to catch up. AMD can be said to have actually gotten ahead of Intel recently, But that's only because Intel's product hasn't changed much in many years (except for speed and minor improvements like MMX/SSE)
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But he managed to f** up every OS he ever had installed, including Win95, Win98se and Linux, so maybe it's not Windows' fault ;-)
A Judge is supposed to Judge, not pre-judge.
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
Suddenly you'd see a judge asking them to seperate their paint program from the OS and sell it seperately.
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
As far as I know, you can run Object Desktop as your Window Manager on NT.
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
Now it's all unsettled in courts. How sad.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
In a short answer, yes. Does that mean that they will? I don't think so. Besides, I rather have Linux or FreeBSD or OS X come through town riding on it's mascot one day and back Microsoft into the corner that other operating systems are in right now. I think I would feel much better if the people decided that Microsoft sucks instead of the government
The main motivation for the breakup order was that MSAppCo would suddenly have the incentive to port their apps (read: IE & Office) to Linux and potentially other OSs, giving the vendors of those other OSs the ability to compete with MSWinCo. Currently they can't, because of the "app barrier to entry".
So let's get this straight. Port IE & Office to Linux and it'll suddenly become a viable competitor to Windows, yet MacOS - which already has active IE & Office ports (that are actually often ahead of the Windows versions) - along with 10,000 other commercial apps - is just not viable enough for MS to avoid the monopoly label.
Was Jackson high when he ordered the breakup, or just senile enough to unlearn basic logic?
Of course, this is what MS is going for. They want to be ubiquitous, and its beneficial to the industry that they are. I would rather there be choices for the common consumer, of course, but for now, there really arent.
So? I am aware that Standard Oil was a trust. In barebones, isn't a trust still a company. IANAL, but does it even matter wheather trust is company? It's still a large (monetary) power concentration. (Rockefeller -> Gates)
In the case with Standard Oil, they argued too that Standard Oil had made more good than bad...
AC is AC
Just how much all this is different from the case with Standard Oil? If 86% (or what's the latest firure?) of all computers run Windows and Standard Oil had the same sized market share of oil sales...it looks like the same!
Information is todays oil. What else has changed since 1880?
AC is AC
Lets take a look at what you say "demonstrates harm".
This argument is fundamentally flawed and not even worth a real response.
You do still have the option to save it as an older file format. In fact, there are quite a few choices you can save your file as, some not even Microsoft products like Lotus or Wordperfect.
This is only an opinion with no real evidence you could use to back it up. For every report you provide that says this is true someone else could provide a report that says they have not rebooted in months.
"People *ignore* these things..." People ignore these things because they do not really prove anything besides the fact that you dont like Microsoft.
"it could just be the midgets. You've got to be careful with midgets in Spandex." --Jamie Richardson
IMHO...
That's because Microsoft is no longer involved in technology. They are a stock based company that has to keep their market value up to appease their shareholders. And they have to be quick about it. So instead of taking the time to make a decent product, MS just sends their market droids out to drone on about another of their re-packaged products.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Okay, I've got a 1979 Ford Pinto to sell you. The point is that MS sells dodgy SW for inflated prices.
And that does make me wonder if Win95 was just a move to make sure that no other DOS could compete with MS.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
It's going well in the appeal case...
Breaking up Microsoft would be the worst thing to do. It would mean that you would get two competitive companies rather than a single dinosaur. Leave Microsoft as it is and their application branch is forced by the OS branch to ever more tightly integrate with Windows. Once their OS-monopoly is broken, their application software will die with it. Good riddens.
(And the OS-market will die; free will become less expensive than non-free, even in the eyes of the businessmen.)
Case in point:
IBM is still struggling to cope with 'the breakup that didn't happen'. AT&T spin-offs are thriving.
Agreed. I'm not a big fan of MS, but Win2k is pretty good for a Windows.
(In fact, I'm installing it on my laptop right now...)
Beats the hell out of both 9X and NT.
I'd never put Windoze on a server (That's what OpenBSD is for), but as a workstation OS, it's not half bad.
Doesn't come close to OSX in coolness, but then again, what does?
RG
----
Deepthroat my submarine, swallow my seamen.
You will suffer NTFS 5.0 corruption sooner or later. Make sure you have a backup. You have been warned.
Do you have any links to back that statement up?
I've been using 2k on 3 different machines for about a year now, with no signs of corruption...
RG
----
Deepthroat my submarine, swallow my seamen.
Were because of the modem manufacturing industry trying to cut costs. They do this by putting the compression and such into the drivers in the OS. These modems aren't completely incompatible with other OSes, it's just that most alternatives don't want to support them, or the companies want to protect themselves by not disclosing the code for the drivers.
640k was a PC limitation and DOS was designed around the PC's at the time. Rather than redesigning the whole thing later when they added more memory, it made more sense for them at the time to segment and use TSRs to access the additional memory. I'm not defending MS for the sake of defending MS, I'm just trying to point out that in some of these cases you are barking up the wrong tree.
We may have high capacity hard drives these days, but back then they didn't and they designed the system around what they knew and what they thought reasonable for expansion. Back then they probably would have laughed if you told them we'd have 80gb HDDs.
The expected outcome of the Microsoft breakup is that it will stimulate competition in the OS marketplace. Sadly this will not happen for many years if Microsoft is broken up. Developing an OS to be at the same level of complexity and quality as Windows takes years to do. This is a proposition that next to no company would be willing to undertake. Linux and other open source OS's, are great for people who know how to use them. However, you will never be able to educate the masses on how to use a linux system. Linux will always have it's relatively small group of users and that's it.
Secondly, once a viable alternative is created, it would take years fot it to garner it's share of the marketplace. How could you market your porduct to the majority of computer illiterate people. How could you tell them to switch to your product because it is better? The comptuer industry isn't like other industries (IE Cars) where you can easily market to people like that.
Breaking up Microsoft probably won't stimulate the OS industry at all. We will see Linux grow to a certain extent. And the majority of people will still use Windows or Mac. Sadly nothing will change.
Mmmm... the smell of freshly baked troll....
What gave it away I think was the emphatic 'all' in the sentence "...how java was 7 - 9% faster on all Windows implementations...". Not to mention the vast improbability of that sentence...
Come to think of it, I think perhaps java was a troll too.
(If you're doubtful of bob's trolliness, check his homepage ;) )
a.
Did you read the findings of fact, Jon? Microsoft abused it's monopoly power in the software market to stifle innovation and competition. How on earth could a technically superior product (OS/2) made by an even BIGGER company not have succeeded otherwise (yes, IBM marketing did suck, but Microsoft's OEM deals and strong-arm tactics had a LOT to do with OS/2's downfall as a consumer OS).
Lets say I create a super file manager, that's way better than Windows Explorer. I try to sell it, but no one buys it. Do I deserve to have the government come in and bail me out?
No, of course not. Microsoft would be correct in claiming that the Windows file manager is "an integral part of the operating system" and they have a reason other than anticompetition to include it in the OS.
IE used to be a separately sold product. Nobody believes that it's part of the OS. I went to a MS recruiting event and the MS guy got a giant laugh out of the audience by mocking the claim that IE is part of the OS. They don't even believe it themselves - except under oath in court.
The actual event goes like this: MS sold products at a loss to drive away competition. They just tried to use legal smoke and mirrors to claim it was an integrated part of a product, since tying unrelated products is illegal regarless of whether you're a monopoly.
Best off-topic post yet
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? - Joshua (Wargames)
you're right about holding our elected officials responsible, but most people are too lazy/ignorant to examine the entire platform of their representative. most people vote based on one *hot button* issue, like abortion or gun control. we live in a republic. if you note the etymology of the word democracy, you'll see it's rooted in greek. greek democracy meant election by lot. just a sidenote. the definitions of many political terms have eroded over the years (i learned in college that when a political scientist refers to a *Liberal* he's really talked about a _conservative_.
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. --Ludwig Wittgenstein
A valid point. However, I wasn't trying to make the point that M$ was acting as a monopoly, but that this is what the judge said. I wanted to contrast this with Katz saying it didn't seem to him to be illegalities.
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Private Essayist
blah blah blah blah And I don't like the auto cartel I can build my own car, or buy a bicycle thingy blah blah blah I can live in a shack in the middle of the woods, hunt for my food, grow a garden, blah blah blah About the time I had to give up OS/2 for W95 was about the time that MS had established their monopoly. The funny thing was that Netscape was the reason I went to W95 since it wasn't available on OS/2. If I (and a few million others) had only known. MS has a monopoly on the desktop. They are getting their ass kicked on servers. Just so you libetarians (sic) can label me, I'm in the camp that believes that companies should be required to play nicely, share stuff, and work towards making the world better instead of their stock holders (excessively) richer
Given a choice between have the "judges" throw out the case/judgement (as this court appears very pro business) and having MS tied up in court another 2 years. I'll pick tieing them up. I think a lot of positive has come out of this as MS has been forced to watch themselves (although now that Jr. is in, they're getting bolder again.....) Think how MS came about because IBM had to watch their step.
Get used to it. Software is a big business. If microsoft wasn't around, something else would be which would probably be just as bad.
Frankly, I feel sorry for Bill Gates. He has even less social skills than the usual geek :)
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
No, it isn't entirely the consumers part. Blame IBM first, then people like HP and Compaq. IBM was there when MS needed a platform to exist on. IBM agreed to "license" the operating system. Millions of users/businesses bought there computers with dos and started amassing data on DOS systems then came windows, they upgraded, then came more windows, they upgraded. By the time MS had become huge, too many people had too much valuable data to risk a complete platform change. MS may have a shitload of market force now, but it was given to them by the OEMs not the least of them all --IBM. At least IBM is atoning for some of this with there new open source policies.. -Brent
-b
The REAL issue here was the question of software applications. If IBM goes strictly 100% OS/2, can they build enough momentum in getting others to write software apps to truly compete? Or are they going to be hamstrung because other companies are only writing Windoze apps? This is often cited as a problem with Linux, too, but the vast amount of Open Source software is making a difference.
Or, to take an alternate tack, does IBM set OS/2 up so it can also run Windoze apps? And if they do, what incentive is there for anyone to take the trouble to write native OS/2 apps? IBM tried this, and found themselves between a rock and a hard place - on one side, the reluctance of others to write for OS/2 if it could do Windoze apps, and on the other, Micro$quish deliberately and with malice aforethought changing the specs to break OS/2.
Sure, OS/2 could run a set of Windoze apps, but the next version of Windoze had some new stuff, which Micro$quish strongly encouraged (strong-armed?) other software manufactureres to use, and as soon as they did, those new apps wouldn't run on OS/2. IBM found themselves continually playing catch-up, with no way to ever get ahead. Eventually they decided it was too expensive to try, and (effectively) abandoned OS/2.
I liked OS/2, and the way Micro$quish killed it is one of the reasons that I personally am so anti-M$. What M$ did to OS/2 should have been a strong argument in the anti-trust suit, except it's probably too old by now.
Micro$quish is strongly opposed to personal liberty, they don't want anyone to have the liberty to use anything except Windoze!! I consider myself more or less a Libertarian, but I strongly disagree with the "official" Libertarian posistion cited above - I would gladly see the government crush M$ until their stock was down to TWO CENTS - this is the cost of fighting oppression.
By the way, I don't suppose there's any chance that that earthquake did something good, like totally levelling Redmond???
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
Just image for one second that they would have succeeded. Then most people would now be running a cheap browser with probably Linux below it. So consumers would have hugely benefitted if this plan succeeded.
However, when Netscape lost its marketshare (= its power to set the standard) and Microsoft started to integrate the browser into the operating system they lost the opportunity to accomplish this.
I am the first to admit that it would have been a hard job to do even if Microsoft had not sabotated it. But whether it was doable at all we will never know...
It is amazling that noone has really focussed any attention on the bias of these appeals court judges. They have ruled consistently in favor of MS in so many trials. This is the second time they have chosen to dismiss a lower-court judge who lost his patience with MS' prevarications during a trial. They have chosen to ignore all of MS demostrated lies during the trial, and focus intead on Jackson.
I want these appeals judges investigated. I want their close relatives' financial statements scrutinized for payoffs. There is no doubt in my mind that at least a few of these judges have been suborned. The head judge most certainly is. It was very clear that he had decided to dismiss the case before hearing the first sentence of the arguments. He is a bag of slime who is a disgrace to the office that he occupies.
I hope some enterprising journalists, once they are done with investigating the Clinton payoffs, would spend the same effort on these judges.
Magnus.Windows ME didn't come out until after Microsoft was found guilty!!! These things have changed only because M$ is in a precarious position!!!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
And thats Microsofts fault? No, its the fault of the ignorant consumer.
Hmmm, let see: MS forces computer OEM/Resellers/etc to apply its 'Microsoft tax' to any computer sold, regardless if that computer includes any Microsoft software. Customers, not wanting to pay more when they purchase the system, decide to purchase the system with the MS crap^H^H^H^Hsoftware, and doesn't consider any other possible choices because of its implied higher cost.
And this isn't Microsoft's fault?
AC comments get piped to
So people didn't bother trying to get an 'alternative', or even learn about them, because it cost more since they paid this 'tax' regardless.
This is probably one of the many reasons why 'consumers were ignorant' about the options they had. MS manipulated the market to make their products standard.
My original reply stressed that is is Microsoft's fault that consumers were ignorant about their choices because of MS's actions.
AC comments get piped to
Well, this just show how much little research (none) you AC's do.
AC comments get piped to
It is true that there are other companies who are probably doing more to harm consumers than Microsoft (AOL Time Warner, Disney, etc over here in the UK British Telecom comes to mind). But it does not follow that Microsoft shouldn't be punished-- I think this fits under the categor of the 'fallacy of two wrongs'. A better conclusion would be that penalties should be imposed on other companies as well.
Companies are encouraged by the markets to become big (by the premium which comes along with having a place in the DOW or FTSE 100 or whatever and consequently getting targetted by index tracking funds). My pet opinion is that all companies above a certain capitalisation should be penalised in some way (perhaps with higher taxes or removal of limited liability status); this would encourage large companies to spin-off divisions and I think also lead to greater efficiency.
Yet another indiot who thinks intellectual property should be free for the taking. You think you should have gotten all of microsoft's hard work for free. (Anyway your DOS 7.10 must have been DR-DOS cause MS never sold such a thing. MS DOS 7+ is Windows 95 and never sold as standalone DOS. You probably paid Novell or Caldera for that one.)
If you think people should not be paid for hard work then you should move to China or some other Communistic state.
Apple stole it outright from Xerox. They stole the whole idea of graphical OS from Xerox Parc.
And you have no idea what you are talking about when you discuss a subscripttion service that doesn't exist and has not even been announced!
People should learn to not speak until the have the facts correct. Why do you want to be the source for bad information?
How oppressive does oppressive need to get before we have a tea party? I am ready!
I forgot, slashdot readers don't work. They just take everything that is free (or steal it if it is not nailed down) and cry about everything that they have to pay for.
Don't you mean Stalmanists? I'm here because of free software and what it allows me to do. On another note, someone promised me that if I tried Win 2000 I would never go back to linux. He just didn't get it...
Actually, paint in 2k allows you to save as a bitmap, jpeg, or gif.
However: I thought this was a great piece...it doesn't really even advocate a particular view, it just raises a bunch of interesting questions which I think we all need to consider. This article will probably end up being the ultimate lightning rod for Katz-bashing (given the MS-neutral stance of the content), but I must say it's very refreshing to read some insightful thoughts that go against the grain of much of what the free software intelligentsia (and the majority of Slashdotters) have been saying about this.
We need more diversity of opinion around here, not to mention reasoned opinions based on research into the facts at hand. Heck, I'd rather see one well thought-out question (which is what this piece really is) than read a thousand angry editorials/rants.
ummm.... I'm guessing that microsoft was justified to integrate their OS with their OS...
Lets hope so.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
Incredibly bad management.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
We can get rid of the corporation...
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
And how long did it take for the competition to arise and contest AT&T? It case you haven't brushed up on your history books lately, about 75 years. Why? Because of barrier to market entry. Are we willing to wait another 50 years for the captalist market to get to the point where it can challenge Microsoft?
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
Also, until very recently, Microsoft did not promote NT/Win2K as an office desktop environment.
NT/2k by definition is Microsoft's business operating system line, always has been, and always promoted that way.
Make it a malt liquor. I want to be as clever and handsome as possible.
Though MS didn't write the virus, the existence of the hole combined with the monopoly they have in the OS market are what really caused the problem.
Is this the sole reason? Users who opened the attachment had no responsibility? The virus creator? If you had said BUBBLEBOY, I would have partially agreed with you, as that could be spread simply by viewing the message. But you can blame a program for a well-socially-engineered worm
If somebody wrote a virus for a tiny hole in BeOS would it have affected the world like this one did?In this example BeOS and Microsoft would have equal responsibility to provide reasonable security. Wouldnt it be true that if BeOs was the most used OS in the world, that 'tiny' hole might not be so tiny anymore?
Incompatible file formats between its own products year after year. I love it when Office97 tells me "Oh, not everyone has Office97, you should save in Office95 format."File formats and upgrade incompatibilities are a part of computing life. It is not limited to Windows, anyone who says it is, is full of BS. Can I direct you to the following version problems: RPM, GLIBC, IMLIB, GCC, GTK. And these are pretty core components. After that, having your spreadsheet not open seems pretty minimal.
Machines that you expect to have to reboot every day.Linux is the hands down winner in stability. However 'Every day' is a gross exageration. I've seen W2K servers up months uninterupted.
People hate Windows, we know that...We do? Just a sentance later it is stated:
But they never blame Microsoft. They never say "I'm not going to use MS products." Because they don't even know that other products exist.Marketing is important, Mirosoft does a good job of it. You cant blame them for other companies not doing AS good a job. Can you name another manufacturer of chewing gum besides Wrigley?
Just to qualify this, I am not a 'Microsoft Lover' I use many different soultions from many different companies. If anyone else has a better product, bring it on, let the market decide it's fate. However I don't buy into the "If customers only knew about X" argument. If they were that disgusted they would. And frankly, I just dont see that disgust.
-==Civik==- They have the Internet on computers now!?! -Homer Simpson
Make it a malt liquor. I want to be as clever and handsome as possible.
Sorry, having done both (install Windows and Linux), Windows is a lot easier to install. The (hardware etc.) learning curve for Linux (for those of us who don't put together Frankenboxen in our spare time) is like...[gasp! choke! claw! rope! oxygen! piton!]...Mount Everest compared to the Windows install, which is a little bit like a relaxed stroll through the Canadian Shield.
On the other hand, Linux install screens are generally livelier (if misspelled occasionally), like anybody but me cares.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
The only "alternative" is MacOS, which with version X is moving towards the linux approach (Apple kept only the interface, the kernel is open source) to keep costs down, but once again it's like linux drivers developement: its purpose is to add value to Apple hardware.
Now, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with Microsoft holding a monopoly in OS market, what is wrong is that they use it to gain an unfair advantage in other fields. Undocumented system calls and deliberate incompatibilities (ask the wine people) indicate not that Microsoft has power, but that it's using it to eliminate competitors, for example in the "office suite" field, where anything non-Microsoft runs even worse than the Micrcsoft stuff....
Competition in the software market exists only where interoperability is guaranteed by open, stable and defined-by-public-discussion standards. As soon as a "standard" is closed the way is invariably death (product disappears) or domination (competitors cannot interoperate with market leader and are driven underground). Even wondered why so many "clones" of the same app exist on linux? This is why I think that the only real solution to the "Microsoft problem" is not breaking it up but requiring a disclosure of API and file formats. (BTW the "problem" is not just with Microsoft - Netscape came crying for justice after Microsoft squashed them, but they had tried the very same thing with netscape HTML "extensions").
Call me "communist" if you want, but a law saying that you get copyright protection for your software only if you disclose your file formats to the public would be extremely beneficial to competition. It would also be extremely logical: what goes in those files is MY data and I should be able to recover it no matter what. (This would also fit nicely with a "modification" I'd like to see in the DMCA-like laws, i.e. that you get either technological OR legal protection: if you encrypt everything then you give up the legal protection - if someone cracks it you're fucked. Something of the type "if you kill user's rights you lose your own rights as well").
Ok, now end of dream and back to a world where mail attachments are in Word format because everyone assumes I use word.... :(
What is this with criticising Win98? My laptop runs Win98 and I have had to reboot (with the exception of switching it off to move about) 4 time in the last 8 weeks.
Here's an imaginary scenario:
A "horizontal" virtual platform (or API, call it what you will) that allows common, mainstream productivity software (i.e. email, spreadsheet, etc) to run on any machine [Ok, call it Java, call it whatever, but just imagine such a thing exists and works]. Also imagine that this platform is as ubiquitous as TCP/IP or a similar standard, and is well implemented and easily implementable by anyone.
OS vendors could now compete viciously for "vertical" markets (games, servers, multimedia, programming, what have you) and still support the "horizontal" platform so they do not become marginalized from the mainstream. Application vendors can compete viciously for a piece of either market because the playing field is relatively level.
Under this scenario, consumers would at last have a choice. And not only that, they would be better served by whatever choice they made depending on their needs.
If General Motors had owned all the roads and ensured that only GM cars could run on those roads, would anyone had ever purchased Japanese cars back when GM cars sucked? Would GM cars have ever stopped sucking as a result (or at least sucked less)? It's a pretty loose analogy, but work with me here.
Until consumers can choose an OS independently of the applications "compatible" with that OS, then they do not truly have a choice, and they are definitely harmed by that whether they know it or not. MS has done everything in it's power to ensure the consumer does not have a choice, and it will continue unless they are broken up. The technology exists for a solid, workable virtual platform to be available and to become mainstream, but Microsoft will never let it happen (even though even they might ultimately profit more from such a move in the long run).
I've never seen or used a 1.x linux kernel, and I don't see why anyone else would. It's like comparing Dos 3 to Win2k, you just don't do it.
What incompatibilities by the way? Most people don't run 2 different kernels on the same system at the same time. Need to upgrade from 2.0 or 2.2 to 2.4? Of course you need new modutils and some other packages, but these packages are free, and are incredibly easy to install (rpm,pkgtool,apt).
It sounds like you have either never used Linux or have been bitten hard as a newbie and gave up (this happens to most RedHat users)
Normally I stay out of the anti/pro Microsoft debate, but i'm feeling a bit randy today, so here we go....
/. (okay, enuff with the shameless kiss ass stuff)
After reading Jon Katz's diatribe, I wanted to find him and shake his hand. His above writing was probably the first thought out, non-zealot based discussion piece on Microsoft that I've ever seen on
I am fairly rare in the *nix/geek communities, being a linux user and promoter, but also holding a pro-microsoft view point. Now, before you gather up the villagers, let me explain why.
1) Would it be a better world if all software didn't suck and was perfect and had no bugs? Naturally. However, this just isn't the case. Does Microsoft charge for buggy software? Yes. But so does every linux distribution if/when they ship development or non-perfect opensource software on those cd's people buy.
2) Would it be a better world if all software was open source, so every programmer who had the know how could dip into the source and fix it? Eh..probably so. However, I do not recall any law, nor even any major consensus, that this had to be so. Microsoft was not always a huge mega-global corporation. It was once a startup, with four guys, two products, and a one room office. They took the approach to develop products, or buy and market products, keep the source closed so the product would be only theirs, and keep all the profits for themselves. Greedy?
Perhaps, but considering those profits are shared between all Microsoft employees, as well as anyone who wishes to invest a few dollars in them on the Stock Exchange, I think there is evidence of their generosity as well.
3)I dont think there's even an argument about the whole netscape issue. Microsoft built a better product, and had a platform to launch it from. Saying that they had no right to distributed it or tie it in with windows makes no sense to me. They threw alot of time and money into making a product. They had a marketing platform to use to get the product out there. Problem? That's called capitilism, and its not always nice.
(and yes, the netscape/ie debate could go on as long as the mac/pc debate, but lets not get into that here)
4)People constantly blame Microsoft for people using their software. Huh? Did it come on their new pc? Yes. However, Windows also comes with a program called fdisk. They were more than free to remove that operating system and put on something better. Whats that you say? That the hardware companies were forced to deal with Microsoft? Why is that? Consumer demand. If the majority of pc users were crying out for an *nix variant, then pc's would come standard with it. But they weren't. Notice that after demand got high enough, several manufacturers began offering linux pc's.
Now let me answer a few common points:
5)"The OS doesn't live up to my high standards of coding for this platform/architecture/setup la la la la la"...maybe because windows is not supposed to be the most superior os on the planet (at least, not yet). Microsoft aims at a specific base with its desktop products, and at another specific base with its server products. Do they say they are the best? Naturally. EVERY company in every industry likes to claim "they are #1"or that their product is the best. Its called marketing. Its not illegal, nor really all that unethical. Also, if your ideas are so superior, start a company and write a new os. That's the beauty of the system. Compete, damnit.
6) Bill Gates is decadant with his money. Perfectly his right. He made Microsoft the company it is today. His money is based upon a company he built from the ground up and made a fortune doing that. Its not as if he woke up one day and suddenly had billions (yes,his parents had money. blah blah blah). He worked his ass off for his current status.
Why not enjoy a little bit of his wealth? Sorry, but if someone handed many of you several billion dollars, I dont see you acting ALL that much differently.
7)"Microsofts software has alot of security holes". Yes. They do. Point granted.
8)(this is to that gent who said ms has given us the ILOVEYOU virus) "Microsoft has caused virii/worms/trojans..", riiight...and *nix has never had ANY of these problems.
9) "Microsoft has arrogant Employees". Oh god. They have more employees than certain cities probably have populations. They cannot be responsible for the comments of ALL of them. I mean, i've heard some O.S. people say some pretty f'ing stupid things too. Do i automatically assume the entire community agrees with them? No.
And lastly, my number one example why I support Microsoft:
Recently, my grandmother celebrated her 78th birthday (happy birthday, grams). I built her a computer so she could talk to some friends in the old country (for her age, grams is still pretty sharp and intelligent). Modem, webcam, all the goodies. Put it on her desk, put in a winME cd, filled in the serial number, and clicked next a bunch of times. OS installed. Plugged in the webcam, had her install the drivers, to see if she could. She did. Within two hours she was up and running. Since then, she's installed some other software, and had a blast.
Now, while I reccomend *nix/xwin to all my geek friends, I shudder at the thought of her trying to figure out the complexities of library dependencies, configure scripts, even command line options for rpm or dpkg.
Microsoft and windows has its uses. Nothing should ever be EXACTLY ONE WAY. That is why I support open source...but also why i see the good in microsoft.
They are a corporation, they are ruthless competitors. That I am not arguing. However, there is nothing wrong with that. To say that they dont produce anything useful, and that everything they do automatically is evil and useless, is just plain...well..false.
blah..okay....im on the pillory. Commence with the rotten vegetable tossing.
"Moving through the masses like a fish through water." syrup
Yesterday NPR ran a clip of one of the Judges asking why Jackson chose not to go with the 'separate but equal' split. In this plan MS would be split into 2 or 3 companies which all own ALL of the MS source code. Thus we could have immediate competition in all markets where MS dominates currently. Think Standard Oil breakup (which worked) rather than ATT (under which we still suffer from the Baby Bell monopolies).
I just never 'got it'. Why are an OS monopoly and an Office App monopoly better than the OS/Office App monopoly we have now? I want to choose between Stained Glass Windows(tm), Clean Windows(tm), and of course Broken Windows(tm).
I think you've got a really good point there, a dangerous truth also. I think Microsoft has indeed done a lot for the computer industry, and without their known "arrogant" approach and monopoly tactics, they would have dwindled like many other companies have over time. It's like Kyle said in that Starbucks episode of southpark, we can't hate big co-operations because they were once little businesess, but made a successful product. As much as people would hate to admit this, if Microsoft software was shit, it wouldn't have been anywhere near where it is today. I think we all need to realize that.
-Maverick8080
"Develop like it doesn't hurt, code like there is no tommorow...."
Hmm, good Public Relations, and the ability to lie without blinking.......sounds more like the credentials needed to be a politician more than a software giant ;)
-Maverick8080
"Develop like it doesn't hurt, code like there is no tommorow...."
You want to know how microsoft harmed the public? Hows this:
Imagine that instead of Software, MS made Cars. Now imagine that those cars had as many design flaws, engineering mistakes, shortcomings and crashes as Windows 95 did when it came out.
Now imagine that MS paid the teamsters to to specificly not haul cars from competitor companies, and the only other cars available to you (as an avg driver) were exotic, difficult to drive and hard to find cars.
Suddenly the picture gets a little clearer doesn't it?
RA7
---
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
Bull. If memory serves, IE was integrated with Windows back in 1997. The Internet was definitely not an "essential" part of home computing then like it is today. Tying IE into the OS was a pre-emptive strike against netscape so that they could squash their competitor before they could gain a foothold in a fledgeling market. If that's not predatory monopoly-maintenance, then I don't know what is.
This
This article over at Yahoo reports that Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is being accused of bias against Microsoft. Of course, if this were coming from MS no one would be suprised but it appears that some appeals court judges feel the same way. So a few disparaging remarks can be considered bias but working for the plaintiff is perfectly fine?
Microsoft has a monopoly in the OS market. This does not mean that they have 100% of it, but they do have a sufficient portion of the market that they can control prices without market penalty.
It is quite possible that the DOS GUI was got legitimately.
Inclusion of networking killed off a market for networking protocols into Windows for Workgroups, such as Netware Lite, Baynan Vines and so forth.
The inclusion of DOS killed the market for competitor DOSes: one need think of DR-DOS and its trial to see that this is the case.
Netscape
Browsers were free in the form of Mosaic. But the internet is driven by more than browsers: there are news clients, ftp clients, gophers &c.
Netscape made a browser that could handle gopher, news clients, ftp and so forth, and people were willing to pay $50 for the package, against the free Mosaic. In this way, they captured 80% of the market.
That one can do all these things in Netscape, and that it supported third-party plug-ins, meant that it was a desirable product that people want to use. It lead to the belief that it was a shell for running different applications.
With the advent of Sun's Java language, this meant that one could write a script or binary in Java, and use Netscape's windowing to write applications that run on any OS. This means that if you write an OS that supports Java and Netscape, you can handle all of these applications.
Microsoft's Response
Microsoft at first responded by selling a browser in competition with Netscape. When this failed to capture the market, they tried at first to give it away, and then to combine it with the OS.
Both of these are illegal actions. The price to market does not reveal the true price. If I sell A at $20 and B at $10, and you need A to use B, I could sell A at $30 and give B away. Where you have a monopoly in A, then you can drive out all of the competitors for B, like B1. In this way, you are engaging in predatory pricing of B, funded by a monopoly in A.
In the Razor analogy, I could give A away and sell B at a price that gets the cost of A back quickly, like razors and razor-blades commonly are.
That IE is `free' just means that you are paying for it in Windows, whether or not you want it. But even this did not prevent people installing Netscape. Netscape were forced to drop their prices as well, but not given the space to charge for it elsewhere.
Windows was combined with IE, and a version of Windows without IE (or boot capacity) was offered. But since installing IE over windows replaces pre-existing files, the IE-less Windows 98 is in fact a knowing contempt of court.
Netscape was never a competitor to Windows. But there are elements bundled into windows that were separate products that Netscape compete with.
That there are still people downloading and installing the Windows version of Netscape or Opera, or Win98Lite [which removes browsers], implies that there is a separate market for a browser different to the OS, and people can still tell the difference. The enforced bundle of IE and Windows is therefore a tie. The tie is such that the product is not intended to be removed, even if you bought it. 98Lite is a program that removes IE.
The appeal judges have mistaken the relevant markets, because they see Netscape as a competitor to Windows. In fact, Netscape is a competitor to IE, and MS used a monopoly in one market [Windows] to foster a market in another [browsers, DOS, Peer networking].
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
If MS stole off these people, then these people are entitled to lost earnings threefold.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
I fear most miss the real problem with M$. It's not so much that their software sucks, it's that you could not buy a Personal Computer without paying for their software for many years. And you still can't from most of the big vendors in the USA. A PC is the same price with Red Hat on it or with a host of bundled WinWare. Dell and Compaq have licensing deals that require them to pay M$ for every machine, regardless of wether or not they ship Windoze with it. So people have accepted Windoze as the "standard", why not, DOS was the same, you paid for it wether or not you used it. Again, a contractual obligation of the vendors. That's the crime, no PC should be mandatorily shipped with anything but what the customer has specifically requested. And the customer should only pay for what they've requested, not the M$ tax. That is taxation without representation. Something that wars have been fought over because it's just wrong!
At work here in Washington, D.C. (think-tank), we have a guy who studies the DOJ vs MS case. He gave a really interesting presentation on why this antitrust case is unlike any previous case.
Essentially, the DOJ could not prove that in any one aspect of the case Microsoft behaved like a complete monopoly. Instead, the DOJ set out to prove that microsoft acted as a monopoly does at different points in the process.
The biggest stumbling point is that Microsoft used below-market pricing in an attempt to drive Netscape out of business. However, this attempt was not successful and an economist would argue that making browsers free in fact benefited consumers. If, like standard oil, MS had swept aside Netscape, we would have a traditional monopoly case. But now, as netscape is alive and well in the form of a company larger than MS (AOL-Time Warner), this falls apart.
In all, it seems impossible to decide what should be done with microsoft. Yes, they violated antitrust law, but more importantly, would the breakup of MS stop these violations? Nope. A better solution is needed.
"Chill, Orrin!"---Trent Lott
I understand the code of laws and copnduct, but why do we seem so scared to obviously punish a corporation that lies on the stand and practices anti-competetive behaviors. This is not the NFL, you are not allowed to tackle and spear after the whistle. And by the way... the government is allowed to enforce its economic opinions upon the marketplace... that is what the Sherman Act was designed for OUT OF NECESSITY. Please someone back me up with some math here. C'mon people, you don't make that many billions without getting blood on your hands. I mean, what are the barriers to entry on this BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY? A couple of computers and some smart guys? YES? I'm sure that there were a whole bunch of people thinking, "we can't make our own OS or browser... GOD NO! ITS CODE! WE CAN'T WRITE THAT! I MEAN, WE COULD MAKE BILLIONS WITH ONE OR TWO NEW INNOVATIONS SIMPLY WITH LABOR AND A LITTLE STARTING CAPITAL! QUICK, RUN AWAY!!!" Sorry, I got a little crazy there. Ignore that.
Yes, I think that when you use your status to stifle development and innovation, you should be stopped. But just because you are successful and/or proprietary does not mean you should be shut down.
Unfortunately one of the biggest challenges we have to converting all of our systems to Linux is the lack of uniformity - the very thing that Microsoft has the advantage on. We are afraid to trust our servers, information, and very jobs on software that is constantly split, revised, split again, etc., and that does not offer the type of critical support we need.
Don't get me wrong, I think that the premise behind Linux and open-source is wonderful. I run Linux at home on a box for testing, and even though I have had quite a bit of difficulties, I must say it is starting to grow on me.
So while everyone was jumping the gun at Microsoft, saying how much they suck just because they are big, we were worrying about long-term development. No, NT Servers are not the most stable beasts in the world. In fact, only one of our production servers runs NT, and it isn't even with IIS. But we know that going with a company such as Solaris (which is what we mostly use) and NT will provide us support, functionality, and a consistant theme in their software (even if that theme is that you can't trust a service pack for 2.5 months).
I thank those that are seriously taking a second look at this issue. No, we don't want innovation stifled, nor should bully tactics be used, etc. But don't destroy a major platform just because everyone and their mom (Hi mom) uses it.
Random Musings
found an interesting article on ZDnet regarding Redhat's CEO talking back to M$. here's the link: http://www5.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,268 9856,00.html
some may have seen this before, but if you haven't, it's worth a quick peek.
'where ever you go...there you are' - buckaroo bonzai
I don't think so... A "browserless operating system" is very different from a "browserless computer" or "browserless installation", wouldn't you agree? "Browserless operating system" implies that the browser is not a part of the Operating System. "Browserless computer" implies that there is no browser present on the machine, either as an embedded part of the OS or as a separate app. Would seem to be a fairly straightforward bit of language.
I recall the breakup of AT&T, now we have great competition with worse service and higher prices, thank you government!
Don't forget the awe-inspiring informative wonder -- the Blue Screen of Death. What would we do without them?
At least it is more easy on the eyes than the red one on my old Amiga 500.
Rob
Thank you, I've never heard it put so well. I agree whole-heartedly.
~~~ With respect to the issues raised in this bill, our government would be a lot better in serving its people if it would stop focusing on the drug in anti-drug and instead focus on abuse and ways to help people who abuse drugs to reduce their abuse. And stop putting people in jail. And stop taking away their property and savings. Before 1906, no drug had the status of being illegal in our country. It is less than a 100 years later and it is very clear the so-called War on Drugs (which is really a war against the American people) is a total failure, except for the money and power it gives to corrupt politicians to keep forcing these laws onto the citizens of the United States (and now Columbia) at the cost of our liberty and freedom.
-- I'll cut you up so bad, you'll wish I'd never cut you up so bad!
I can choose not to install Netscape in any distro I know. I can choose not to install KDE also (but I do because I like it). It's not the fact that IE is there, it's the fact that I can't get it out if I'm not going to use it anyway that is annoying. As it's been said (literally) a million times here it's about having the choice.
No, those questions have been settled, legally. The judge found that in fact Microsoft's practices constitute an "obsessive" and "malevolent" use of "monopoly" power.
That a judge could be vocally angry and even judgemental after being treated to the kind of sneering contempt ladled out by a seemingly endless list of Microsoft executives, techies and lawyers has apparently shocked -- shocked! -- a lot of people.
Read the findings. Ask yourself what Microsoft was trying to achieve by treating a Federal judge that way, and whether we're seeing the results of their success. How rude of him, after all. Just think how many rice bowls he might upset. Consider the consequences for me^W^W.
That's what I'm asking, myself.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Finally somebody came with a simple explanation of what all the fuss is about. I hope you guys mod up the previous poster, because his/her explanation is as clear as water: monopolies do dumping, and the IE saga is proof of it!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Anyone that has made benchmarking knows that the only meaningful benchmarking is the one that gives you an idea about how your application or something as similar as posible will perform.
You can tweak the OS, the hardware, etc to increase your benchmark points.
In real life I have still to find somebody with extensive working experience in different platforms that prefers Windows to other OSs (UNIX in general) for heavy, scalable infrastructure tasks.
But that is me, other people will believe benchmarks to their own peril.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Although the Appeals Court looks like it's being paid to let MS off, what MS did is pretty irrelevant.
All the battles that MS are being investigated for are ancient history.
What companies are able to do in the future is surely what this case should be about.
The existing law obviously didn't work. Since the case started, MS have reduced their monopolistic activities by 90%.
The courts should be focussed on making any behaviour which actively prevents competition (tying, changing proprietary standards etc) not just illegal, but easy to prosecute.
I can't help but think that the main reason for all the prejudice against M$ as seen in the posts on this site in particular is that Windows costs money. Add that to the fact that most of the rants against M$ are posted by ados and wannabe ados who have never paid for anything in their lives, you've got a volitile subject to exploit. (enough trolling)... But to be honest with you, I prefer using Debian because of the Open Source Philosophy behind it, and the astonishing efficiency and speed of the Linux OS. I don't wanna pay either, especially for stuff that stuff that shoves organizational propaganda down your trap every time you use it. If Microsoft wanted to show one hundredth of the good will that the Open Source Community has historically shown, he'd come out with a version of the latest Explorer for Linux. The main thing I've got against M$ is the fact that after PAYING for it, you're obliged to digest corporational advertising, and the "built-in" refusal of M$ OS's to recognize almost everything that doesn't come from HQs. That takes a lot of gall: making you pay (which is all right in itself) then forcing you to join the cult just to be able to use the OS for what it should be meant to do while getting out of the way of the will and the preferences of the user. The perfect example of that is all those who are suckered into Hotmail/passport accounts (virtual spam collection software), just to be able to use some already paid for services. This weekend, in all deliberate and well thought fairness to poor little Gatesy, I will push the "take over the whole hard disk" button on my Debian installation program. When I come back, I'll be a little less innocent and well on my way to enjoyment of the greatest intellectual freebee ever created in Tech since the alphabet. Sorry Gates, your stuff works really well, but I'm tired of being a whore to pay for it over and over and over and over again.
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
Yes indeed, I have lost information because of M$ software. When I was doing research, we used BSD because of its simplicity and dependability. BTW, a friend showed me some M$ code, corrected, modified, recorrected, remodified, etc., etc. - the kind that is used in W98 et al. It's like the wall of a shack that's been propped up with whatever scrap was at hand to prevent it from falling..., until there's more scrap than wall. It is akin to buckets and cups scattered around the house to catch the rain leaking in from the roof until you find yourself tripping over stuff on the floor. In fact, this is my last message posted from Win(Me of all things). But before I hit the "take over the hard disk" button (this morning, in fact)in the Debian installation, I must say we disagree on Katz's motives. I believe he is sincere in his approach to the sometimes seemingly unrelated subjects of which he writes. I still believe that he's an excellent essayist. So we disagree on that..., no big thing. We are free to do that as nicely or as nastily as we like. Good day to you Caimlas...
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
I am certain that if you had no particular grudge against Katz and/or Microsoft, and the article was about something else and/or signed Stannus J. Wolfieschlegelsteinnerhausenbergerdorfmann you'd probably see that it was indeed a well written article. In other words, if you had a Hemingway article signed Katz, you's probably bash that too. Maybe Katz should use a nick to be rightfully appreciated. Have you got any ideas? I for one would suggest The aforementionned name..., or possibly "I. God Almighty PhD, Dr. of Chaos & Spontaneous Creativity."
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
You forgot (Write extremely well and don't make any spelling errors.)
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
I suggest that you check your facts before you start spouting off like you did... The majority of the telephony innovations you talk about were not invented by AT&T, nor Bell Labs (I admit, some of them were)... they were invented by Northern Telecom, or Nortel as it is known now... they are licensed to US telcos...
So that point is invalid, because in this case, yes, innovations in telephony would have continued if AT&T was not split...
"Also, the statement that Netscape had no chance of becoming a platform is dead wrong, and Microsoft knows it. It can be explained in four characters...".net". .net means your web browser is now a platform. How many of you really believe Microsoft's .net products will work just as well on third party browsers as on Windows/IE?"
I'm not a hardcore programmer, but how many computers do you know in this world that run only using a browser...??? Not any I'm aware of... it wouldn't be a browser anymore, it would be an "operating system". URG!
In any case, I think we're all missing the point: Is MS a monopoly? Of course, no dispute there... How did it get there? Good marketing? Yes... Muscling out competing products? Duh, that's called capitalism at it's finest. How did MS become a monopoly? Because their product was designed for anyone (including the millions of morons, or those less computer-literate) to learn quickly and easily.
go work in an office where there's a bigger sample base. then you'll see the blue screens, the failed shutdowns, the pissed off users having to power-off due to a frozen machine, the even more pissed-off users being told the NT server has to be rebooted again because there a looping task that the administration isn't "authorised" to cancel, or permissions are becoming bolloxed again.
/dev/null > /dev/brain
In an office of 50, I see daily crashes and blue screens. Now scale that kind of reliability to the rest of the ms user world. Don't forget, office users bang the shite out of their desktops for 8 hours a day. ms os and apps ain't up to the job. and that's a fact of pc life.
cat
MS needs to be broken up. It will benefit everyone. To say they didn't break the law is insane. Do you understand the antitrust laws?
I realize that your post was most likely a troll, but unfortunately I get this nagging feeling that a lot of people here on /. feel the same way, due to the constant hatred that pours out towards "M$" and "tHe bIlLBoRg." So I respond.
I can't believe that you have the nerve to say that MS hasn't done good things during its tenure as the reigning champion of operating systems. For all of its problems, Windows 9x and friends has allowed my 85 year old grandmother to correspond with me via email. She was able to get her computer out of the box and online in less than an hour. How long does it take to recompile a kernel on a 500 Mhz machine?
Furthermore, the fact that you say:
I do not run Microsoft products. I pay less for hardware and software, my computer runs faster, and crashes less. That, too, would seem like demonstrable harm by Microsoft.
That statement is pretty much meaningless. I drive a Ford Escort. It sucks. My boss drives a Lexus. His car 'runs faster' and has better safety equipement, so it 'crashes less.' Does that mean that Ford has done 'demonstrable harm' to Toyota?
As far as your comments about, f'rinstance, the ILOVEYOU virus and its ilk go, it is only logical that MS products would be the prime target for viral attacks. They run the OS on 90 some odd percent of the computers in the world. Do you think that viral programmers would write a virus that would only effect, say, IBM-DOS? No! Because that would be stupid. Very few people run IBM-DOS anymore, and writing a virus for it would be an exercise in futility unless you were doing it as a thought experiment.
That's all I have for now. I haven't even had my coffee yet. I'm sure this is going to get modded down as a flame, but hey: I'm cranky.
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
Jon Katz is indulging is classic troll behaviour here. Now, as we all know, the goal of a troll is to get responses - they are baiting people, hence the name. I have long suspected this to be Katz's motivation. After all, if he was in this for the money, he wouldn't be writing for a "non-profit" organisation like LNUX! But trolling becomes less and less effective as you dangle the same bait again and again.
And, as you'll see if you look at the list of Katz's recent articles, his bait has been getting very worn out indeed. Once guaranteed 300-600 responses per article, his latest efforts have struggled to get beyond the low 100's.
And so, he switches to a new tack!! He says the complete opposite! And in so doing, effectively flames his own previous point of view! He is feeding his own trolls! "On this website, Microsoft-bashing almost approaches a religion" he says? This from the man who would have us believe that Microsoft is already destroyed? "One of the problems is that our media has become a mob, lurching one way, then the other"? He's even talking about himself!
Prediction: this skilful trolling tactic will succeed admirably. Nobody will heed this warning I offer, and this article will garner over 1000 comments.
Slashdot - YHBT. YHL. HAND.
"An ye harm none, do what ye will" - The Wiccan Rede
Nope, that isn't even close to the reason.
MS has gone to *extremely* long lengths to make 9x & NT very much compatible.
But they are very different OS once you go down (below the win32 API, mainly).
For starters, it's 9x that hold all the legacy code that is supposed to make DOS programs work.
The whole *point* of 9x is to move DOS style applications to NT style applications.
I think that MS would've been overjoyed if it could've dumped DOS & 9x all together long ago, it has a far superior product in its hands (NT).
I'm not sure if Linux is suffering from the same problem (having to maitain compatability with legacy code, so you can't solve problems the most efficent way), but I would be surprised if it didn't. (or would, soon)
As I said, 9x was meant to serve one purpose, move people from DOS to NT.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
You have to have privileges access to the computer in order to be able to do this, though.
And if you have that kind of access, you can do just about anything you want, anyway.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Qoute:
The 'control-alt-del' to login. Someone should pay for that.
On the contrary, there is a good reason for ctrl-alt-del. Unlike any other command keystroke and key combination, ctrl-alt-del cannot be caught programmatically. This means that on NT/2000, you cannot invoke a login prompt unless you are at the console or use something equivalent. This means that there cannot be some program placed on the system that will programmatically invoke a login prompt and brute-force attack the administrator's password. It's arguably more secure than linux's passing of runlevel at the lilo prompt (single mode).
End qoute:
IIRC, there are API calls that lets you verify user password, as well as list all users of the computer.
Gimme a second to find them...
I *love* Google!
http://www.vbsquare.com/api/winpass/
Okay, it lets you find only the current user password.
I'm not sure if you can brute force with it (I would have implemented 100ms delay in the API, but I don't know about MS)
I'm not sure it would work with NT.
I just tried the code sample, (XP beta) and it complained about not being able to find WNetVerifyPassword()
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
> I don't know of a single product install under w2k that asks for a reboot
IE (but I can sort of understand that, if not approve), WMP (Why, it's a media player, nothing more), Visual Studio (sometimes not, though), some world atlas (from MS, I think) wouldn't work without rebooting.
All the hotfixes that you can think of.
Why do I have to reboot for a patch in IIS?
Installing 128-bit encryption in Win2K require reboot.
Why do I must reboot when I change swap or registry size?
What about hardware changes? I'm *so* tired from "you've added/removed new hardware, reboot?" messages.
I'm doing a lot of disk swapping, and there is absolutely *no need* to reboot for that. If I answer no, the OS is perfectly capable of handling it. And if I answer no, it does.
As for BSODs, I'd oen with Win2k in nearly a year of using, (IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL), but that was when I was testing new hardware.
I'm currently using Whistler 2296 exclusively, and it's been very stable on me (although I would kill to get rid of the Comments?).
Sorry for the rant, hope you can answer.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Re: Microsoft Ease-of-Use Quality: Only those that are willing to view configuring their computer as an end rather than a means (ie. computer geeks who are inheritly interested in setting these things up) can install/run Linux.
If someone wants to use a PC to word process, or play with images, or whatever, Linux is simply too complex, it has too much of a learning curve. (Imagine your typical mother trying to set up a Linux machine). Recent distributions are getting easier, but they still haven't reached the level Windows 95 had six years ago. I mean, RPM's (from what I've seen, I could be wrong) don't even add things to a menu/program manger or associate documents with programs - Windows has had that since Windows 3.0. So if you want to run a program in Linux, you have to know the command line... and if you want to make it easier to use, you have to go make configuration changes to Gnome/KDE. Mom ain't going to want to figure out how to do that... most people don't even reconfigure their Start Menu from what they're given.
Until the Linux developers really begin to try to think like non-computer people, Linux just isn't going to catch up with the general populace. It's like Linux GUIs... every screenshot on the Gnome or KDE sites has multiple terminal windows. No one except computer geeks would ever want to use a terminal window.
This is also carrying over to servers, btw... Windows 2000 is way easier to use than Linux (case in point: the Management Console). A, well, stupider person could manage a Microsoft network/server than a Linux network/server. Since smarter people are more expensive, Microsoft's track could actually end up looking cheaper.
Linux is certainly better in my areas, but in ease-of-use, Microsoft is way ahead. (Way ahead, from a MS/Linux comparison. The Mac/MS comparison, its arguable... although from what I've seen Mac users tend to think Windows is harder than it is, and I think the Windows UI has been ahead since Windows 95. But that's just personal opinion.)
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
> Associate documents with
;)
> programs? Why should a process automatically
> do that anyway?
Um... that's the type of thinking that will keep Linux from entering the mainstream.
You create something in Word. You double-click on it. You expect it to open in Word. Why should the user have to load Word, go to file..open, and double click on it in there? The computer should know what the document is. The user doesn't want to use the Word process to edit a document, the user wants to edit a document (subtle but important difference).
The end result is what's important, not the tools used. (The computer is just a tool, all the user cares about is writing the letter.)
That's not to say that associating files with program shouldn't be optional during the install, which most installations neglect to ask about, but for your typical user, that's not a problem.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
One company will still own windows
Then we will still have the problem of one OS ruling the market.
I do not hate or bash microsoft, which may or may not make me have a biaist (sp)
__________________
Just a guy with an opinion
It's also notable Microsoft doesn't publish it's Internet Explorer 5.x for x86 Solaris (while you can find it for Sparc Solaris and HP-UX.) While this has been mentioned with the fact that they could port it to Linux using that code base, the fact it isn't being provided for x86 Solaris is a bigger issue with high level programming being identical with Sparc Solaris. I wrote them an email about this, asking if and when it would be available, and they never responded.
What's their excuse? Or, better yet, cut right to their clear motivation and recognize this company for it's most harmful movement of all: Keep control of the x86 market via every possible means.
mwtr / THIS SIG HAS BEEN PRAYED OVER AND MAY BE USED AS A POINT OF CONTACT (ACTS 19:12)
I personally would accept a reversal IF and ONLY IF it is established the MicroSoft's custpmers are the End User, not the OEMs. This revives the Class Action Lawsuits M$ has ducked thereby avoiding reponsibility for their shoddy products and price gouging.
Tomorrow is Open.
One question... They put traps on the Windows to crash the Netscape browser, don they?
Other : They forced the OEMs tou use Windows, at lower prices, don't did?
If this are NOT wrong on the market, what can be?
Oh yeah, I almost forgot this....
Did someone here hear about anyone that got the money
back when decided not to use Windows oan a OEM
machine?
And you know strangely enough if you rung up an average computer store and asked to not have an OS installed most would say yeah no problem. Big deal, if you as a consumer don't like it, don't buy it then, but I've yet to see anyone prove that microsoft forces computer developers to have Windows on the PC's and no other OS, then there's the resellers (who's forcing them?) then the end users?
So what if through advertising and various other means (which ain't nice, but ain't illegal either) Microsoft is the most well known brand of OS, and so in order to make more sales, most computer suppliers offer Windows with the new PC's... Welcome to the commercial world, where money speaks with a loud voice.
Note: I realise there more than likely is evidence that microsoft has forced corps, but my question still stands. Where is it? I've heard lotsa anti-micro$oft people say it's been proven, but I've never seen people hold the evidence up and say 'This proves it!' Please enlighten me...
It's in that place where I put that thing that time
Thanks for actually attempting to respond with some detail though the page you mentioned does not appear to hold anything other than:
Any computer maker is free to change the Windows boot-up sequence, the arrangement of icons on the desktop, and replace Internet Explorer or other "middleware" without fear of retaliation from Microsoft.This does not prove that micro$oft has forced any company to use it's software and other than restrictions in the contract (which the company agreed too), there is no reference too force... This statement does imply that micro$oft has retaliated against some computer suppliers, but doesn't prove it.
By the by, I do think micro$oft's business practices are questionable, and that they definitely aren't the best solution (or even in the top running [though it ain't as bad as a lot of people here believe]), but that does not mean that they have acted illegally, and I personally think that the court enforced breakup is the wrong way to break their hold on the software market... Try a) putting up a better solution and b) Educating people to that effect.
A strong reason as to why micro$oft is so powerful is that the common person out there does not know of another solution, and that those who do, actually think that micro$oft is the best solution.
It's in that place where I put that thing that time
Relatively good response :-P but a few comments to continue this discussion
Microsoft is widely regarded as a producer of mediocre products in a commodity marketI agree that in the computer savvy world micro$oft products are not known as the best, though I wouldn't use the discription mediocre just that there are better solutions. However for the rest of the people out there, so many of them only know of micro$oft products or the ones that know of others actually think that micro$oft is the best solution. So by the understanding that "Quality is not based upon a physical aspect but rather a percieved aspect." (Quote from somewhere I don't remember) stating that Micro$oft is not a luxury commodity or of highstandard is your view not the view of everyone out there, and so they can charge at the higher rate, because people believe that that is what their software is worth.
BTW, it's not my definition.Whose definition is it? If you've got a link I'd like to see it, mainly 'cause you mentioned that "First, a monopolist must be able to ..." and I'd like to see what some of the other definitions are.
Sun can charge more for their OS/hardware because they sell reliablility with it.This implies that Micro$oft software is not reliable or of high quality.... ok, you've got a point ;-) But reliability is a lot more than just how reliable the software itself is, it's also support networks that are in place, how quickly patches are released, how promptly response is over known issues and those other aspects. Now admittedly I've not had much experience with Sun's support network, but the amount of support I can get from the microsoft sites in terms of their knowledge bases and in particular the msdn sites is fairly impressive.
Then there is also that I don't need to go to micro$oft directly, I can go to just about any third party computer or solftware supplier / developer and get support for micro$oft products. And when I as a consumer purchase software, part of the reason I am paying that price is the expected support I will recieve.
It's in that place where I put that thing that time
So by your narrow definition there, porsche has a monopoly on the car market, because they charge more than the majority of their competitors??
It's in that place where I put that thing that time
Thanks for the well researched response, unfortunately haven't had a chance to check out any of the links yet (dang net connection), but before I do that, and respond to those, I wanted to clarify something
To say that software is reliable because a lot of people can fix it is, and that's all we have anyway, probably isn't the best argument.
I wasn't actually saying that (though I can understand why you interpreted my statement that way) what I said of "But reliability is a lot more than just how reliable the software itself is..." I was refering to more than just how reliable the software itself is (which I happen to agree with you, ms software ain't the most reliable). Reliability encompasses much more than that, the ability to find support for that software quickly and easily either from the source or other parties, having the ability to find out quickly and easily if what I am trying to do is a known issue and recommended work-arounds, etc... (c'mon use your imagination I'm sure there's more)
Now this is one of the better reasons to go with the market-leader in a particular area, some other reasons are the old name recognition, feeling of security, the knowledge that most of the bugs have been found (not necessarily fixed but at least have work-arounds). You as a customer or a commercial entity don't have to worry about all the issues of being the fore-runner of relatively untested software, so that ms "get away with such a large knowledge base.." can actually be a corporate advantage.
"But with M$, you are not paying them for support, because they won't give you any with the purchase of the product..."
I agree you won't see much if any support from ms, but that was not the support I was talking about, I meant that by buying ms products I am safe in the knowledge that I will be able to get support (not from ms but other parties), because it is so well known and large. In effect as a consumer I would be willing to pay a higher price because I know I can get that extra support, without going to the source. And because people are willing to pay more, ms charges more.
I want to get back to ya on your other points and the links you supplied (perhaps add a few of my own), so the time being these'll have to do. :-P
Also please note when I use I or You in this argument I am trying to personalize the issue rather than talking about what I or You actually do. As in I ain't a microsoft lackey.
It's in that place where I put that thing that time
Just wanted to say I agree with you on some points I mean the guy who wrote: "Exclusive control, as of a commodity or service, by 1 group" what an idiot! ;-)
Anyways to get to some of the articles.
The statements 'In order to get a place in our monopoly real estate, you can't do business with Netscape is NOT supported by If you agreed to be one of Microsoft's "Platinum Agreement" Web partners, you were restricted in dealing with other major companies making browsers, including Netscape.
For my mind it ain't a fair thing to do from a consumers perspective but from a competitors perspective, bad luck you didn't win that client. Welcome to the world where if two competitors are smoosching a client the client will usually choose one or the other, also the statement is restrict not can't. Aside from that it ain't fair from the clients perspective (I'd want my products/presence to be advertised prominently through multiple mediums and markets, not just one part of a market). And bringing that agreement under question definitely a good thing, though I would of thought the client would of at least questioned it prior to it being brought into the publics eye.
Now to some of your own statements (I assume these were your own and not meant to be linked to the previous article) ... (Before you claim they all hung themselves, remember exclusive tying deals and bought out developers all paid for with monopoly monies.) That is self-completing argument, sort of a catch-22 in that Microsoft is a monopoly because they forced deals and bought out developers with monopoly monies. I never claimed that they hung themselves, nor was I going to, in fact I happen to think that ms business practices are down-right rotten, but that doesn't change that ms is very good at marketing, and like someone else on slashdot said, it ain't brilliant new technology that sells, it's marketing (or something like that). So what if you made a brilliant bit of software, if you can't put it in peoples faces it ain't going to sell. Don't blame ms when they went full-steam ahead in marketing their software when ms's competitors slowed down on the marketing side.
Several points that definitely support the argument of ms being a monopoly is the more popular Windows became, the more special programs were written to work with Windows. Because Windows could do more, even more people wanted it. now this shows how microsoft grew to a size which could be termed 'monopoly' a much better argument than 'they charge more than their competitors'. But where is the line between a 'market leader' and a 'monopoly' if we throw out the tradition definition of monopoly Being the only supplier of a service/goods (Which doesn't make much commercial sense in the current global environment)...
Anyways, now that I've kinda finished my mis-matched response... My own personally belief is that ms is not a true monopoly, a super-power yes, obnoxious and overbearing yes. This is mainly because I don't agree with the definitions of what a monopoly (not that I have a better idea either..). Did the US government need to be brought in to break ms's strangle hold? I don't think so, there are some damn innovate people out there creating some great software, both commercially and OpenSource, given enough time they would of brought ms down to it's knees and restored the balance. Instead we have had the precedence set of a software developer being broken up by the government...
It's in that place where I put that thing that time
Oh, and a product that is slightly less shitty than your competitors product. And this one is optional In fact there are times when it helps to not actually have a product.
Kyle is right but we hate bill because of what he is now not what he was or even how he got there. We hate him because he is an arsehole who suffers from such hubris that you wonder if he is even in this world at all sometimes.
If you people would just do as you're told, everything would be OK.
I thought thats why he's in deep shit with the DoJ, because he didn't listen to the US Government.
And coming from a non-US location I have to say that having a foreign company take over an industry isn't so bad really.
I mean you mustn't think so either. Otherwise you'd be complaining bitterly about how US companies go overseas and take over industries.
If you people would just do as you're told, everything would be OK.
Hmmm...complex post, couple of points:
But isn't the most popular Linux revenue model based on support services?
Didn't Apple spend more hours in the usability labs with their single-button mouse and "won't show you the file unless you've got the software to open it" interfaces?
Think back to the hierarchy of highly paid IBM Systems Programmers (I was once one) paying homage to MVS, JES, VM, VTAM etc And you even had to license $ the system maintenance program (SMP).
I think that MS can take the credit for many horrible acts but fscking the computer industry isn't one of them....
**Vanuatu or bust**
And there should be a law requiring MS to support every tin pot platform you come up with?
Seems to me its rightly a commercial decision for them to make, if you don't like it WRITE YOUR OWN!!
**Vanuatu or bust**
Good post. I think mS are opening themselves up to some serious competition with their adoption of XML across the board - now its up to the market to write some good tools to exploit this open file format.
Word Lite would be nice.....
**Vanuatu or bust**
From memory (and it was a while ago) Lotus 123 were late to windows and produced a more expensive product because "they owned spreadsheets" (just like visicalc before them)
Apple screwed up not licensing their hardware, end of story
Errmm Oracle outperforms SQL on Sun Starfires, not what I choose to run as I'm not rich. SQL is nore usable, more stable (its a newer codebase) and hasn't sold its ass to Java
The netscape thing is not true, ie1/2 sucked to the max, ie3 rocked and thats when netscape tanked - they failed to innovate, got arrogant, lost a few good engineers...
Wrong on the engineering side, I've seen presentations by Dave Cutler, Charles Simonyi, Jim Grey, Hal Berenson, Dave Campbell and Goetz Graefe - these guys are comp sci giants
I'm afraid your post is pretty innacurate and your arrogant crack at the end puts you in the sad bearded & sandled UNIX bigot league.
I choose Windows for somethings, Solaris for others, and MVS for others - horses for courses.
....and I value my fellow workers
**Vanuatu or bust**
And this is the whole point....good post. If aplologists for capitalism areue that the market it good as it drives prices down and features up there comes a point in any market when someone wins.
In the UK in the past the Gov has taken over the resulting company (British Steel, British Coal, British Rail....) and then by ineptitude lost the market to competition.
Perhaps we should turn MS into the US Dept of Computing, appoint Janet or Bill as Sec. and let them drive it into the dirt?
(just an idea)
**Vanuatu or bust**
Sorry, but as an ex-J++ programmer you are wrong. It was/is easy to ask the compiler to flag use of MS specific extensions and use AWE instead of WFC.
However AWE being multiplatform sucked at perf on windows (like a $1000 Vegas wh0re sucks - hard, even with other VM's and I tried them all) so anyone wanting to build a half decent client app used WFC.....
**Vanuatu or bust**
but the word is "browserless" not "embedded" so you miss the point?
And if Microsoft innovate to make my life easier (and HTML Help is a darn site easier that the old HC help compiler) by guarenteeing that my apps help system will work they should be punished?
Perhaps they should stick with multi-MB downloads like Netscape?...c00l
**Vanuatu or bust**
How would innovation to the file format be managed?
(lemme see, file a form WD40 in triplicate with the Federal office with 3 FMX23's with the state, get Larry & Scott to sign (in blood) and then, if its not agreed (unanimously) buy a committee of (apparently) mutant goats fsck off......no wait, that's the Java process)
**Vanuatu or bust**
What is worse... a dominate software company or an oppressive federal government?
What if, as a compromise in the trial, M$ would be forced to provide a browser-independent API that would allow 3rd party developers to plug in their own browser that would do all OS level html rendering? Explorer and IE are intertwined so closely that their .exe's are merely containers for the activex objects...why not make the browser a plug-in and allow NS or whoever else (opera?) a shot at fully replacing IE within M$'s operating systems.
And now for something completely different...a man with three buttocks.
Were consumers demonstrably harmed by Microsoft? If so, how?
... Java, Linux, Netscape ... Is it necessary to give your product away for free to fight Microsoft to the point where they will resort to writing good software?
I'd argue that they have, by creating a technological and psychological climate which has made it very difficult for software to compete on the grounds of quality, both by maintaining a public perception that Microsoft is a stellar example of "innovation", and by squashing competitors who threatened this perception. No single company has done more to stifle the innovation of software than Microsoft. That's certainly harmful to consumers.
Of course, the consumers brought it on themselves. It's arguable whether we can blame Microsoft for taking advantage of their complacent, manipulable consumer base. Ripe bastardism is the captialist way, after all. There's a certain philosophical dissonance to anti-trust laws...they're a sort of pacifier to help us believe that capitalism is somehow fair. The market does not value fairness.
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. Capitalism is the wolves just eating the sheep."
The software quality situation is improving. Microsoft's own products are better than they use to be, and they are increasingly having to scramble because of competition on the quality continuum. Java and Linux are good examples of products which are succeeding because in large part because they are really good software. That's encouraging.
It's interesting that the government went after Internet Explorer, one of the best products Microsoft makes. It's also interesting that IE is one of the best. Hmmm
I'm not sure your arguements prove MS is a monopoly but you make an interesting point regarding the impact of a virus in a computing environment with little OS diversity.
There is a great bio-diversity analog which suggest that our bio-diversity (ie. natural genetic variation) makes it more difficult for a human virus to devastate an entire population. The natural genetic variations from person to person prevent a virus from being equally effective across an entire poplutaion.
May be a argument for greater OS diversity!
I find it quite unbelievable how /.'s blame MS for harming consumers.
It is a fact that consumers had the chance to vote with their dollars back then and they do now. As it turns out the consumers chose MS over Macs back then and choose MS crap over all the Linux crap that is out there now.
I find it very sickening to see people discuss the MS case with almost religious fervor only because they do not like the products not because they can actually prove harm done to the consumer.
Let's break up Ford because they produce crappy cars, have a large market share, oh yeah, AND I don't like them! Who cares about the fact that so many people bought the cars, they must have been oppressed into buying because of Ford's evil ways. There is no rhyme or reason to this argument.
What I find more dangerous is the question why Netscape suddenly got such cloud with the DOJ. Everything seems to point in the direction that Netscape and some others (Sun, Oracle) where ehavy money givers on Capitol Hill and got the ear of the DOJ that way. MS was stupid enough not to have representation in Washington back then.
Now THAT is un-American. If MS looses, the real loosers will be others like Oracle and AOL to whom the same arguments apply as they are used against MS right now.
It is the stupid consumers who made the decisions!
Mr Katz, do you remember that it was only with windows95 revision 2 that it would go to the trouble of repairing the file system after a crash. Ordinary consumers didn't know this. Microsoft didn't warn them. In those days when naive users asked me to do work on their computers I routinely invoked scandisk (the closest thing windows has to fsck) -- and I would routinely find dozens or even hundreds of unrepaired file-system errors.
This harmed consumers. This really harmed consumers. You have an O.S. that is as fragile as a house of cards -- one that crashes all the time, on practically a daily basis. And it fails to repair its filesystem when it reboots. This is a recipe for disaster. These disasters were routine. Lost files. Lost directories. Consumers blamed themselves. They thought they had been hit by viruses. But all they had been hit by was microsoft's shameful quality.
Then there are the Microsoft Word email viruses, like "I love you". These would not have been possible except for some shamefully negligent -- or worse -- design decisions on microsoft's part.
>This is where I have a big problem with your post. Yes, MS products in the past have had really shoddy stability. But NT 4 works well, and 2000 is even better. If you are using 95 or 98 in the office, you deserve to have to reboot it every day.
/Unix /BSD /Mac, (thatnks to M$ dominance) and even if there WAS software, it would have to communicate "seamlessly" (as the M$ people say) with everyone else running these proprietary formats.
Well, the company I work at was advised to "upgrade" to Win 3.11 - then 95 - then 98 - then NT 4 Workstation - and now Win2000. $$Thousands later, our office is STILL hoping desperately that Whistler will deliver the time-dishonored Microsoft promise, "It actually works." That's all we want. We were hoodwinked about the suitability of every piece of M$ software since about 1994. We can't switch over because the industrial apps we use will never be available for Linux
*We're trapped in hell*. THAT'S harm to the customer. In order to secure their profits, Microsoft STEALS ours. Endless hardware and software upgrades based on the promise that the new and improved version delivers what was promised last time. Our choice: use Microsoft or go broke. Hobson would be proud.
P.S. At best, Microsoft is like the "hot babe" who, once married, lets him / herself go so damn bad you can't stand looking at them, but there's nothing you can do since YOU'RE LOCKED IN WITH NO WAY OUT. EVER.
I think "The Road Ahead" is paved with phony "upgrades".
Claric
--
There's no problem that cannot be solved with a suitable amount of high explosives
But lying to a federal judge IS a crime.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
"Just for the sake of playing devil's advocate and pedantry, if you don't run MS products how do you know your computer crashes less often?" Ahh, perhaps he used to run Windows, and now that he uses Linux he has noticed his computer crashes less often?
"Maybe for once in my life people will call me 'sir' without adding 'you're making a scene'." -Homer Simpson
I'm not going to try to argue everything in your post (or all the issues brought up in the thread), but i will argue with this:
The original poster brings up one example of a worm (the ILOVEYOU worm) (yet calls it a virus), although there are actually many more examples; there are more than 54,000 such examples in the wild, which could be as little as 1% of all the viruses/worms/trojans written for Windows. If you compare this to other platforms, you will see a huge difference; there are fewer than 40 viruses/worms/trojans for the Mac, and there are only a handfull for *nix o/s'.
You cannot blame this only on the fact that Windows is the most popular platform; doing so would be horribly inaccurate/stupid. One of the biggest reasons these viruses/worms/trojans exist is becuase of flaws in Windows, and if you agree with that, then you have to agree that it is MSs fault. Don't agree? Then you clearly haven't been watching the security mailing lists, becuase if you did, you would know that many MS products have the highest number of exploits in thier peer group (o/s, http server, etc).
It is very clear that MS has neglected security in their products, and as a result has cuased many problems, including (but certainly not limited to) the thousands of viruses, worms, and trojans that are atleast partly caused by that neglect.
This certainly fits many peoples definition of consumer harm.
It's about time that someone examined this issue using logic rather than emotion and personal bias. A downright heroic essay. Hats off to Mr. Katz.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
Sounds to me like you're simply starting to think about this without the benefit of having already made up your mind at the outset. I am not a big fan of Microsoft, but if arrogance ought be a crime, as you imply, then Slashdot too is deserving of punishment. Has Microsoft done illegal and/or morally bad things? Yes, I think so. Ought they be punished for them? Insofar as they've done illegal things, yes. Ought the company be broke up by the draconian ruling of a hard-headed judge of whom it can also be plausibly said that he made up his mind long before the evidence had been examined? No, I don't think so. Judge Jackson's ruling strikes me as an edict from a man who got pissed off at what he saw rather than as an impartial judgement from a disinterested observer--which is what such rulings are supposed to be.
Microsoft has done many things that were illegal.
... akk...)
The judge did not look at things closely enough.
my view point is this:
if m$ had built a better product,
and thus gained dominance in the market, it
would be a negative thing, but tolerable.
They did for a while (who among us can deny
that at one time, he helped bring computers
to the lay person). But once they approached
dominance, they introduced an element of
sloppiness to their work (rem win95 v1? heh)
Then they used their abilities to drive other
products (netscape) under (i believe that it
would have fallen if not for aol
and (esp at the time) ie was nowhere near
as good as netscape. m$ products are 2nd
rate, and thus attained their position
through lies, undercutting the opposition,
and all of the other things the corps do to
each other. (of course (w netscape / ie all
these flashy graphx are a waste of
bandwidth anyway;)
Well, anyway, m$ cry of foul is ridiculous,
however, every big business tries to do the same.
And I personally hope that the other end
never becomes mainstream. Why? because I think
that power corrupts. I think that if (for
example) linux became dominant, the motivation
for innovation and excellence would be gone.
I think that the underdog will always be better
product, because they are busy fighting for the
top. The top will always be busy trying to
undermine the underdog that it perceives as a
threat.
-CrackElf
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
I recall, in my odd way, criticism of Bob Fosse. People were apalled that he spent 25 minutes on his own death in the semi-autobiographical "ALL THAT JAZZ". Some lone sane voice at the time said; If it had been me, I wouldn't have shown that much restraint, or some such.
People love to taunt the 500-pound gorilla, and Microsoft is definitely that. If I was the richest man in the world, and if I was Bill Gates, I would have almost definitely bought the six lots adjoining Larry Ellison's and the four adjoining Steve Jobs house and built an edifice large enough to block out the sun, but I digress...
Microsoft (and this is coming from a mac guy, mind you) has built the most amazing INTEGRATED suite of software ever developed. Even better is the fact that most of it actually works.
Did they break the law? I think so. Did they use their muscle to deep six no less than five companies? Yes. Are they going to change? No.
As we watch this decision overturned and gutted, and as we see linux gradually nibble away and eventually topple the giant; many of us will look to the late nineties as a golden age. A time when it was easy.
We won't need to worry about Microsoft becoming the Genom Corporation of our world. Innovation brought them here, and innovation will take them out.
Sounds pretty funny, doesn't it...
"If I were important, I would have a sig file..."
We had a disscusion on this a few days back.
Michigan is setting up just such a court. it will train the judges in the ways of technology and will be web based.
-The American people have overpaid; I am here to ask for a refund.
This is not quite correct. The problem is that the Judge gave some interviews before the trial and placed a one-year publication ban on those interviews. Now they're released and they indicate his opinions before the trial was even conducted. Microsoft is saying that the case was basically pre-decided.
Personally, I think the judge is an idiot to go on the record with those comments (before a trial), in the first place. If he'd kept those thoughts to himself, no big deal - I think the trial in court gave numerous instances where Microsoft clearly was trying to mislead or falsify evidence, and it be hard not to rule against them.
-- "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" [Oscar Wilde]
Regardless of the rightness/wrongness of the verdict, would it be good for the IT industry if Microsoft were split into several different companies ?
As a follow on question, would it be good for Linux/UNIX/BSD if Microsoft were split up ?
I can see a number of problems which may occur. For example, if a company was formed around Office, one marketing strategy would be for the company to increase its profits by providing Office for Linux, BSD et al. On the one hand, this may severely reduce the attractiveness of Windows over any other OS for business, but it would probably cause severe damage to fledgling Open Source office packages (e.g koffice) and currently available non-MS office packages (e.g. StarOffice).
As a result of a breakup, it's entirely possible we could end up with 2 or more 800lb gorillas instead of just one.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
Hi PE You bring up some interesting points, but to address your first statement,
Correct. However, the case in question isn't about what Microsoft's crimes were 'to you', but what the court found. And what the court found is that Microsoft violated the monopoly laws.
one of the main thrusts of Katz' argument is that the judge acted wrongly and that even independent legal experts and the appeals court judges have spoken against his ruling.
I don't think that a blanket statement like 'the courts have ruled so it is over' is a valid argument in this instance.
Once the case has gone through appeal and the supreme court, then you will have more leway with such statements. abe
abe
I don't want to be here.
I use MS OS more than I should and this has never ever happened to me. In fact, sound in Windows sounds a hell of a lot better than my sound in linux.
Microsoft customers who buy Windows/PC don't expect the kinda of quality one get's with Unix/Server technology
The average Microsoft customer who buy Windows/PC don't have a clue how to use or would ever need Unix/Server technology...and why would you use that for a PC anyway? I don't know if they don't expect it, but have no real alternative.
You have to look at the market here. The average computer user is dumb (no offence to anyone). They want easy to use simple programs/OS that works. What is their alternative? Linux? Ha! Everyone one here knows how much of a pain that is to set up let alone do anything with. Ok, I shouldn't say pain, but you have to agree that it is much more of a task to run and set up than windows.
Don't get me wrong. Windows is bloated (as Redhat slowly seems to be getting...) and does need to be rebooted often (well...maybe not 2000...), but how many times has my PC hung up or needed to be rebooted because of my Printer software?
I know this will upset lots of people here, but Windows isn't that bad. It really isn't. I'm not justifying what the company has done or is doing, but the software they put out really isn't THAT bad by todays standards. If you want to see crappy software I recomend you try to use AOL software...
To sum up. I think you are biased and the fact that I havn't gotten a blue screen in like 6 months proves, at least to me, that windows (though substandard to unix/linux) truly isn't as bad as everyone bitches about. Hell, have you ever tried to code with MSVS? Sweet damn is it easy.
-Mark
__
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
So the Apple II, the TI99/A, the CBM Vic-20, the CBM-64, they were what, chopped liver?
Do Lotus 123 and Visicalc ring a bell? And as for your claim that SQL server is so great, why does eBay, who is in a partnership with microsoft, use Sun servers for their databases?
OS/2 was available back then, and if it weren't such a memory hog (it thrashed on less than 8 megs), it would have mopped the floor with Windows 3.1; it was a better working environment.
I'd also be willing to take that bet. Give me a couple hours and an empty partition and I'll have a computer set up that would give a Windows 98 desktop a good run for the money, let alone Win 3.1
I'll agree that the US has a much stronger IT sector, but that's more because of lower taxes and less government intrusion. If microsoft were not to have existed, you would still see a very strong IT sector; there would still be a great want to hack.
Netscape 6 is pretty much crap, I'll give you that. It was based on Alpha test grade software with some of the more critical bugs ironed out; they should have waited for Mozilla to stabilize a bit more before they forked off. I don't have too much with ms DNS manager, so I can't comment too much on that, other than saying that Bind was designed more for a larger organization with a sizable amount of systems. Other DNS solutions for Unix/Linux exist for smaller setups. I'll even refute that an MS shop is the always the best solution for a small business. The company I work for has a "traditional" unix server/dumb terminal setup for most of the office uses; it has a lower cost, higher reliability and higher efficiency than a desktop solution.
Once again, almost right. Spreadsheet prices have remained pretty much constant - ~$100 for a standalone program, I just checked. Microsoft got big because they got lucky; the first company IBM approached to handle the OS was overly arrogant so IBM went elsewhere. Being in the right place at the right time, and selling an average product got them where they are.
So, in short, losing microsoft would do very little to the economy, unlike what you think. Refute me if you want, I can stand behind my words
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
You have to admit, watching Boies make Gates squirm in those deposition tapes is some classic footage!
--
--
silence is poetry.
Ok, this is my first post so hopefully I won't start a flame-war, BUT ...
/.ers.
1. While I have an MCSE and the money I earn comes directly from supporting M$ products, I DON'T agree with their predatory market practices.
2. I don't hold with a lot of people's views that one OS or another is the END-ALL-BE-ALL of OSdom. I think (and so do a lot of the people I work with and have worked with) that each OS has it's strengths and weaknesses that place it within a certain market niche. Microsoft fills a LOT of those niches and requirements with it's various OSs.
3. I DO think that, despite Microsofts claims, that they do hold a significant monopoly and do maintain business practices that are unethical at best and market insensitive at worst.
My position is as follows:
1. Microsoft should be broken up.
a) The company should be broken up VERTICALLY into 3 separate companies. A lottery would be held to RANDOMLY assign all current employees to the new derivative companies with a limitation set that NO employee can be cross-hired by any of the other two companies. This would extend from the lowest janitor to Mr. Gates himself.
b) The software assets of the companies should (up to Windows NT and Windows ME) be placed into escrow and if another company wants to be able to compete, they can purchase a licensed copy of the complete source code with the limitation that it is not to be publically disseminated/released.
c) All APIs for any MS derivitave OSs or applications will be PUBLIC. NO HIDDEN or unpublished APIs will be allowed or tolerated from any MS derivative company or licensee.
This, I think would be the ONLY way to truly even the playing field for all competing and also be fair to the shareholders of Microsoft stock. Of which most of you out there probably are if you have a 401(k) or have ANY technology related mutual funds.
Any comments? Over to you
Jon Katz fucks Hot Foreign Sheep.
-- We Remember Captain Kiploh --
It is truly sad that only a few people look at it this way. The government will always allow mergers/breakups where it thinks it will get more power. The media (undoubtedly) controlled by the government, be it directly or indirectly, puts a blanket over our eyes so it will all seem nice and fuzzy in the end. In a few years, when AOL/Time-Warner decide not to give the gov't what it wants, we'll see another 'anti-trust' lawsuit.
I really think even though they have done some things that might restrict people from having it easy to compete, I cant say I see Microsoft as being a Monopoly, I mean if they were the only OS you could buy then they would be. But if as people on slashdot are really proof to there being alot of people who use and perfer to use another OS besides Windows. Its about having the choice to choose. I my mother wanted to go buy Red Hat she could but she perfers not to. There is no crime in having products that people have herd of and are popular enough that people choose them over others, you might get upset cause you feel another OS is better and should be the most used but people decide this and marketing and just plain being around for awhile has gave MS a edge. But i dont see where you can say people cant go out right now and buy another OS. I am not all for microsoft but at the same time dont think its right to bash them such as people do here, if you dont like it dont use it.
I think that Microsoft should not have to split up. Afterall, it is their company and no one elses...Microsoft's success should not be questioned at all about anything...One thing that I can think of that Microsoft needs to work on though is their prices for software...That is just ridiculous.
So what if MS gets broken up and a new sw company from japan grows and takes over the industry. You think Gates is a tyrant think of what someone could do when they dont have to listen to the US government.
"All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
There is something to be said for mediocre products from Microsoft. Netscape's browser was out a couple of years before IE was even introduced. When IE came out it was based on Mosaic, the same foundation that Netscape was based on. Netscape had the initial advantage because software becomes more mature as it goes through release cycles (duh). I do not know for sure but I believe that Netscape was on Navigator 3.x when IE 1.0 was released. The point is, it was established. IE was horrible. Netscape touted that they were better, and sat back and watched the money roll in. IE continued to improve and Netscape started to panic. Instead of releasing a new improved, standards based browser they filed lawsuits. Netscape still has yet to release a browser that is as useable as IE 4.0. The current Navigator release is buggy and barely usable because of constant crashes. Netscape says that they lost the market share game because IE was bundled with Windows, I disagree.
/f (still around) that would give you a summary of your damage and fix some invalid clusters, or you would by Norton Disk Utilities, which amounted to a disk repair utility, defragger, and a couple of other utilities like disk explorer and a Hex editor. When DOS 5.0 (it may have been 6 I am not sure) came out it was to include a disk repair utility and a defragger. Everyone was elated. What did Norton do, they really licensed a stripped down version of their utility to Microsoft and beefed up their own product, thus they retained their market share and added some.
Small example. MS-DOS 1 through 4.0 had no disk repair utilities. If your hard disk had a problem, you either could run chkdsk
I am not saying that Netscape should have licensed their product to Microsoft, why would they, they were both based on the same open source, free, Mosaic browser. I am saying that Netscape was and is a bad company that was there on the ground floor of the browser market and did nothing to improve their product, or the medium. In response to their lazy attitude they thought they could solve it by suing Microsoft for their own misdeeds. There are other areas that Microsoft has done wrong but this is not one of them.
As a former Corel employee, I can tell you that there were several occasions where Corel was shut out of OEM contracts for WordPerfect Office because Microsoft threatened to raise the OEM's price for their Windows license significantly. IE: Bundle a competitive product, and we'll shut you out of the market completely.
.net or Linux - it was all about the anti-trust issue. From the press release in October: "In addition, both companies have agreed to settle certain legal issues between Corel and Microsoft"...
If that's not anti-trust behaviour, I don't know what is.
That's *really* what the recent Corel/MS stock deal was all about, IMHO. It had nothing to do with
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who has himself told interviewers he knows little about the issues involved
...
The appeal raises a host of complex issues, many of which fly well over my head
Right - so if Jackson can be discounted because he doesn't understand the issues, remind me again why I shouldn't discount this article?
-dair
I don't know which way it's going to go. Naturally, many forms of media _are_ in Microsoft's pocket and entirely dependent on MS for revenues directly or indirectly- how surprising can it be that these sources uniformly see the appeal as a huge vindication for MS? Clue: the verdict is NOT IN. There could be surprises- they could be engaging in some heavy Jackson bashing to clear themselves of the appearance of partiality, just as Jackson released findings of fact to insulate his work from the expected ravages of highly paid lawyers! Every step of the way the judges have had to go heavily on the defensive.
The appeals court cannot have failed to notice Microsoft lies in court ("I'm sorry, I don't buy that for a second"- this from their big ally?)
The appeals court cannot have failed to notice Microsoft introduced FAKE EVIDENCE (the video evidence of 'identical' windows boxes, one without IE)
Perjury _is_ a crime and contempt of court can lead to getting booted out of the courtroom- and if it was any _normal_ criminal, the antics of MS defense lawyers would have led to charges. It's not a normal criminal- there's a bottomless well of lawyers that can be dragged in and instructed to behave with the same contempt and untruthfulness, so booting the individual lawyers WILL NOT WORK. The judges are forced to let acts of perjury and contempt go unchallenged so the process doesn't get completely clogged. This is not reliable evidence that they are going to find for the lying, perjuring, and obviously, baldly guilty defendant.
Everyone swore that Jackson was going to let MS go up until the last minute as well- the media was uniformly convinced that nothing MS did was hurting them, and that Jackson would buy into the argument that as software didn't exist in the Industrial Age, antitrust didn't apply no matter what the company's motives were or what it did to twist arms.
Well- again, I am _autistic_ and even I am not so pedantic as to be completely stupid about this issue. The fact that I could write a word processor is not the freaking point! The fact that I would have to be totally insane to expect to SELL it, is. Microsoft has consistently taken over ENTIRE SECTORS of software development and made it completely absurd for a market to exist in them. That is the problem in a nutshell. It's irrelevant HOW they did it- although they did it with armtwisting and APIs, it would still be destruction of a market even if they'd made the market similarly barren using only quality (and that totally ignores the relevant point of distribution, and that's where we begin to see armtwisting again).
The judges are hearing this 'en banc' which is not an accident or trivial thing- and it may be speculative, but I can identify one very very good reason for the appeals court to put up the APPEARANCE that they totally disrespect Jackson's findings and procedures. If I was them, I would want to know if it were TRUE. Was Jackson a loon, or is Microsoft really so far gone that they will lie to the judges, fake evidence, make no sense at all? If the appeals court defers to Jackson on anything, it is a warning sign to Microsoft, and if I were the appeals court, I would want to send NO warning signs. Let the biggest MS supporter say anything he likes to reassure the MS defense- his courtroom comments ARE NOT VERDICTS! The chance that the MS defense can be baited into replicating their embarrassing performance in front of Jackson is too important to miss- the appeals court MUST KNOW if it was a fluke, or if the defense is that contemptuous, and most importantly they must know if Microsoft will respect the court enough to comply with sanctions after a previous failure to do so. Only a position of complete contempt for the court and the verdict will justify a structural remedy, as Jackson well knew, and as the appeals court believes even more strongly- otherwise it's much simpler to just issue conduct requirements and leave it at that.
Whatever the makeup of the 'en banc' appeals court, I do not believe for a second that it is an accident that the MS defense is being invited to exactly duplicate their attitude and performance they gave Jackson. They're being baited, coaxed to throw caution to the wind and show just how arrogant they can be, reveal their true colors before a full 'en banc' court of appeals judges (I assume they can talk to each other as a jury would?). Only this can truly reveal whether they are incapable of respecting a conduct remedy- and the court MUST know that, above all else, before passing judgement on whether Jackson's conclusions of law were correct. Many people feel they were correct.
Microsoft is a monopoly, and probably illegal. It isn't about netscape though, because netscape has always sucked. I remember netscape 1.1n, and I hated it, used it only when required. I remember 2.0 was worse. Netscape introduced frames, something I cannot forgive them for. (lynx has been my browser of choice for years) Anyone with money to pay programers could make a browser that would work better then netscape did, proof: Microsoft did.
Ask the Samba folks to prove microsoft is anti-competitive. Ask the Wine folks. They have the dealings with microsoft to prove it. Ask anyone who is trying to build a word processor that loads docments created with a microsoft product. They are the ones being harmed, not netscape. There are quality word processors out there created by someone other then microsoft. They don't work with Word though (well) so noone uses them.
I think you need to take a look at Windows Media Player. It is quickly outstripping RA. And it is included with Windows. You can get free updates for it simply and painlessly with Win98.
Will RA be around in a year? Maybe. Probably not doing as well, I'd wager. Has WinMP killed their market? Yep.
Now what is the cause? Well, there it gets complicated. The bundling is a big part. It really is killing them. The other part, however, is total irony--Microsoft is trying to use more open standards. They release the specs for their codecs, and then drive the codec via WMP platform bundling. The MS ASF format is much better than RA's format--better compression, better quality. A good thing.
So is MS innovating or destroying? A little of both. And that is why they are sooo damn effective. Anyone who says MS doesn't innovate is a fool. But anyone who thinks they get there on technical merit is equally a fool.
The REAL issue in all of this is: do Microsoft applicactions get an unfair advantage by being created by the company that makes AND ships the OS? I think the answer is clear: yes.
Could RA get bundled with the default installation of Windows 98--I doubt it. And there is the difference. Yes, RA let down their guard and got upstaged. But how do they compete with the Juggernaut that is "comes with Windows 98 Free!" ? Support the format? No--that will only kill them. The real competition is minshare--and MS has the lock on that, because it is their platform. Yes, I use Linux. But I also realize that Windows is pretty much the only game in town for 95% of computer users.
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
It's well-accepted word of mouth that MS vastly underplayed the importance of the internet at that time, and possibly still do.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
If you want to talk cheap then you are better off with PostgreSQL or even MySQL. Seeing as you already poo-poo'd Oracle and DB2 despite them being technically superior, proving that you are not interested in technical merits, you might as well pick the cheapest database.
These are databases, not e-mail clients. The fact that you consider "easy-to-use" a necessary feature for a database is ludicrous. Databases aren't useful by themselves. You additionally need the ability to program SQL and some variation of frontend language. This is PROGRAMMER TERRITORY, and so you should not be using the same criteria to select a database as you would pick an e-mail client or word processor.
This is a clear sign of the declining quality of computer professionals. You can read as much disgust into the emphasized word as you see fit. You apparently think the first criteria for choosing a database isn't data-integrity, robustness, transaction speed, rollback features, data-type support, customer support, or any other "true" criteria. You seem to think that the most important criteria is that you can click a mouse button and get a list of options. You have your priorities completely messed up.
I did say my purposes. Afterall, we were talking about databases, so in context I hadn't really thought that secretaries were the main issue here.
But on the matter of secretaries. Keep in mind that UNIX was invented so patent typists - i.e. secretaries - could enter information. My first computer-related job was in 1991 and involved upgrading an ISC system which had 10 VT100 dumb terminals hooked off a serial board. It was used by - wait for it - 10 secretaries who used vi and troff for preparing letters and invoices. I think people often underestimate the high intelligence required to be a good secretary.
I was of course talking about Word for DOS, which began to supplant WordPerfect because Word shipped "for free" on new PCs. This should have been obvious from my reference to MultiMate: the CPM/DOS word processor.
But your point is wrong anyway. There were WYSIWYG word processors in the 80s for the Amiga, the Atari, the Macintosh, etc. Microsoft even had a graphical version of Word on the Macintosh many years before Word for Windows appeared. And they certainly weren't the 1st WYSIWYG word processor for the Macintosh. Heck, I remember running some crappy WYSIWYG word processor on my C64.
I'm almost certain that GEM had a rather good WYSIWYG word processor as well, so that means you could have gotten WYSIWYG word processing on your IBM-PC before Windows even existed.
Quite possibly. I'm pretty sure the Apple II had a Microsoft BASIC. And the C128 definitely had a Microsoft BASIC. Grepping the C128 roms turns up "(C)1977 MICROSOFT CORP".
But the BASIC wasn't what made these computers sell well. The "killer" games and apps for these computers didn't use BASIC at all. They all wrote directly to the hardware.
This was what I meant when I said Microsoft played a small but non-important role in these earlier consoles.
Why? Why shouldn't Microsoft be able to say "if you want to use my property, you will sign this contract saying how you will use it. If you don't like those terms, don't use our software."?
They have a limited right to this, yes. What they DO NOT have the right to do is dicate what OTHER software they can do, both in interacting with their own software, and completely external to their software. This means that no, they cannot say you can use our OS, but not their applications. They also cannot say you can use our OS, so long as you *NEVER* use theirs..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
"I'd rather see MS challenged creatively in the marketplace, or by the generous spirit of movements like Open Source, than by a bunch of admittedly clueless federal bureaucrats, or an erratic judge."
So would I, BUT, the problem is that you are assuming that the marketplace is a level playing field where the consumer reigns supreme. This is NOT AT ALL TRUE. The marketplace is controlled, at least in large part, by the same large companies (Microsoft, RIA) and the same federal bureaucrats (DMCA, UCITA) and the same judges (Kaplan) that you say you don't want making this decision.
You say, "Let MS be challenged in the marketplace!"
I say, "Challenge the marketplace in court!"
From my perspective, all of the important battles (MPAA, 1-click patents, RIAA, DeCSS, UCITA, censorware, encryption export controls, GPL, carnivore, Napster...) will happen in the courtrooms and not in the marketplace. That's the sad truth of it.
Derek
My Point
Microsoft is forcing you to use their own Win32 Windowing system. You don't have a choice. You can't get it to load up with any other windowing system. Sure you can get shells that do a good job of pretending to be another system, and programs that bend the existing API to look like another system (Windowblinds), but you can't write your own window system to REPLACE win32.
So? Why did I buy windows95/98/ME/whatever? Was it for DOS? nope. Was it for karma? nope. Was it for the Win32 system? Yup.
If I want to replace Win32 (aka Windows) then fine, fdisk and Linux goes on. But why would I complain that I can't what I bought (windows) won't let me replace it. That's like getting pissed because I bought a Chevy but it won't let me put the oil filter and spark plugs from my Ford in it.
Should I also complain that I can't run Linux without running the Linux kernel?
Sure, on X, I can run Gnome/GTK/Xaw/Xlib/KDE/Motif apps, etc... but underneath they all are X windows apps that make calls to the Xlib layer.
The idea of the Windows product is to sell Windows - which *surprise* includes the windowing system built in. Should everthing now provide the ability to morph to something else? Should Word now be forced to let me use ispell? Should vi now support emacs keystokes? Should bash now understand setenv?
When I went from Bind 4 to Bind 8 I had to modify my named.conf. I guess Bind is harming people by having incompatiable file formatis between its products. I even had to make one or two mods to go to Bind 9.
The exploit in BIND was not written by bind, but the existence of the hole combined with the monopoly they have in the DNS "market" are what really caused the problem.
See...it works both ways. As for having to reboot everyday, the only time I rebooted my 2000 machine in the past few months has been to install a video capture card. The only reason I reboot my ME machine at home is because it gets turned off at night so I don't have to listen to the fans.
As for Office 2000, I run it because it works well, is a lot less buggy than any of the half-assed solutions on any other OS and has way too much functionality. Plus I like the little cat that does cute things on the bottom of my screen.
"Asked how small software companies could compete on products that Microsoft wants to fold into Windows, [Microsoft chief operating officer Bob] Herbold told Bloomberg News they could either fight a losing battle, sell out to Microsoft or a larger company or 'not go into business to begin with.'" - Newsweek, March 1998
Netscape's failure proves that it's impossible to compete against Microsoft if Microsoft decides it wants to have you out of business. Microsoft has near-infinite resources and near-infinite manpower; they can afford to develop workalikes for any company's software products then give these workalikes away for free until the competition is bankrupt.
I just priced windows Me...2 3& e=11016940
:(
http://www.bestbuy.com/software/Detail.asp?m=10
$89.95 for the WinMe upgrade. I paid $94.95 for the Win95 upgrade back in 1995.
How is that a price increase?
This is really the crux of the issue. Your facts are not facts at all, they are FUD. FUD intended to stir emotion.
The Appeals court on the other hand is worried only about the actual facts in the case. Not your Peter Pan fantasy dreams.
I'm amazed your post was rated a 5.
What we can count on now, as has been demonstated in the past, is that the press will not fairly report anything against Microsoft. The same is true for reporting on Car Dealerships in your local newspaper. With Microsoft the problem is only magnified. It all comes down to AD dollars. Mircosoft pays a lot of money to every major network for commercials. Expensive commercials. They also put a lot of money into politician's pockets. So not only has this case been grossly -under investigativly-reported, but the Federal politicians have no incentive to take on MicroSoft.
This case is a perfect example of AntiTrust. Microsoft holds monopoly control over the desktop and they abused that power in preventing competitors to provide competing products on that platform. OEM computer builders were required to install ONLY Internet Explorer on their machines, and in some cases they were required to pay for a Windows license for every machine they produced wether or not that Operating system was actually installed. Microsoft has hidden and continues to hide important API information making development on the platform very difficult for competitors and in some instaces actually modified the APIs to "break" competitor's products. The list goes on...
Microsoft controls the railroad and has prevented competitors from using that railroad to their detriment.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Microsoft deserves part of the blame for ILOVEYOU and Melissa. Their dominance has created a dangerous monoculture for the virus to propogate in. A most heterogenous network of computers would make it drastically harder for a virus or worm to propogate. Microsoft's consumer level operating systems effectively have no security, meaning that once a single user is infected, everyone on the machine is infected. This assumption of little to no security created an culture of programmers that assume that users have write access everywhere. As a result, lots of programs require Administrator access under NT. As a result, lots of users run under Administrator access under NT. So NT's security features are largely ignored.
However, this doesn't really count as harm for anti-trust purposes, making bad decisions in software design isn't against the law, just frustrating.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
It was very generous of Microsoft to keep prices down on all of those computers they sell. Oh, wait, Microsoft doesn't sell computers. In fact, the price of computers is low enough that the price of Windows is is a big chunk of the total cost of a new (low-end) machine. If you want to thank someone for affordable computers, thank Compaq for producing the first clone of the IBM PC.
What competition? How about OS/2, or DESQView? Many people were enjoying protected memory and pre-emptive multi-tasking before Microsoft chose to share it with us.
What is your evidence for Microsoft benefitting the economy? That they're big and everyone uses them? Standard Oil and AT&T were both big and everyone used them. The economy in both cases improved when they were broken up.
I trust you've tested your theory by comparing the economy with Microsoft to the economy of an alternate universe without Microsoft? We can't know for certain that Microsoft helped the economy. Maybe the economy would be stronger if there were many more companies all fighting against each other on more even terms.
Just compare Netscape 2 with IE 2. Microsoft didn't really have such a clear lead then. To give themselves the lead, Microsoft used their monopoly to take distribution channels away from Netscape. I don't see anything "fair-and-square" about threatening to kill Office for Mac unless Apple make IE the default Mac browser.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Exactly. You could pay MS a vast amount of money, and, if it decides that you won't be too much of a threat, it might let you use their Native API to create your own subsystem. Like that's going to happen.
Or you can code to their documented API (Win32) and use their GUI and front end.
If you actually read what I said, I said that some win32 API calls are actually wrappers around the NT Native API, I didn't say that they all are.
The difference here is openness. Anybody with a compiler can write a Win32 application. You try porting something like X to run as the native graphical front end (instead of an application on top of Win32). It just won't happen without a vast amount of reverse engineering & major hackery.
Yes, you can replace the Explorer shell, written to the Win32 API, but you can't replace the Win32 API, even though that is not the native NT API. NT does have a Posix subsytem built in, but you can't write your own, because they don't publish the API for it.
Am I getting my point across here?
My Point
Microsoft is forcing you to use their own Win32 Windowing system. You don't have a choice. You can't get it to load up with any other windowing system. Sure you can get shells that do a good job of pretending to be another system, and programs that bend the existing API to look like another system (Windowblinds), but you can't write your own window system to REPLACE win32.
-- Hulver's site
First time I ever say "Press CTRL-ALT-DEL" to login, I sat there laughing for a couple minutes while I tried figuring out what the actual way to login was, obviously this was an idiot-test that would reboot the machine. Then I realized they weren't kidding. Still not sure what I think of that...
The Windows 9x/ME versions of IE from 4.0 through 5.5 all run fairly well on WINE, and it's improving basically weekly. The only thing that can't be supported is Java, because MS cheats by running the JVM in a kernel driver. And we really don't want to let arbitrary Windows code run in kernel mode :)
Unfortunately the Fed missed the real opportunity to slap on something that Microsoft really wouldn't like, and it wouldn't be nearly so controversial as a break up. Force MS to support standard, open, and free file formats and interfaces.
In fact the government should ask the ACM or IEEE to come up with open and free standards for Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentation software, Databases, Boomarks, network file sharing, Scripting languages, and the like. These need to be of equivalent or better quality and capabilities than Microsoft's existing formats/interfaces. Then a ACM or IEEE standard is defined that states that to be ACM/IEEE xxxx.xx certified you must support these formats/interfaces NATIVELY, by DEFAULT, and as easy and similar to use as any proprietary formats as technically possible. Then force Microsoft to make their operating system and applications to be compliant with the most recent version of the standard.
This wouldn't stop Microsoft from continueing to play their games with their own proprietary formats and interfaces, but their products would at least get along nicely with any software that also supports these open and free standards.
Microsoft would always have to face the fact that as the standard evolved to support similar features to anything they added to their own proprietary features, they would have to support the standard implementation as well. This should over time make them want to just start supporting the open and free standard system, since they have to anyhow. They can then spend more of the effort making a better to use system, rather than a difficult to live without system.
Pete,
I hate to break out some bad news, but frankly, Linux in its current form is still not ready for prime time when it comes to the average home user. While setup has improved a lot in terms of ease of use, trying to do things like kernel upgrades and other code upgrades can still be a pretty tricky proposition at times. And I don't think the average home user wants to tackle the formidable command-line interface of Linux, which uses frequently confusing UNIX commands.
The Linux crowd really needs to support the likes of Eazel, which is developing the Nautilus GUI working under GNOME to substantially make it easier for the average person to use Linux. (It helps that Eazel has Andy Hertzfeld--who developed much of the ideas for the original Macintosh interface--working on the project.)
Once Linux has a consistent, easy-to-use GUI interface, the ability to easily update the OS code without a finicky kernel recompile and the ability to recognize and configure itself to use new hardware in a "hot docked" fashion over the USB and IEEE-1394 connections, THEN I will consider it a serious contender against Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP. In short, Linux is getting better, but it's still got a ways to go.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I hope you run like heck before all the Linux bigots flame you. :-)
Personally, I think the reason why Microsoft is so successful is the very fact that it was Microsoft's inclusion easy-to-setup networking features in both NIC and dial-up form in Windows 95 that really kicked off the explosive use of the Internet as we know it today. Before Windows 95, setting up your computer to connect to a Internet Service Provider was a very tricky situation, what with the fussy setup of Trumpet Winsock for Windows 3.1x.
Netscape made a lot of money in the early Windows 95 days because they got their Navigator 2.0x browser to work as a WIN32 API application; it took Microsoft a year before they released Internet Explorer 3.0, which matched Netscape's efforts.
What really killed Netscape was the fact that Netscape could not keep up with the improvements in Internet Explorer; by the time IE 5.0 came out, Netscape was way behind the times. So far, Netscape 6.0x is nowhere as fast and is far more resource hungry than IE 5.5 Service Pack 1.
Microsoft has something that few other companies have, and that is an excellent Usability Lab that does research into how to make programs easier to use. Note that IE 5.5 SP1 has a very "polished" feel because of this, while Netscape 6.0x feels like a mish-mash of menus in comparison.
The Linux crowd really needs to back the efforts of companies like Eazel, which seeks to create an easy-to-use, "polished feel" GUI for Linux running under GNOME. The fact that ex-Apple developer Andy Hertzfeld (one of the world's most foremost experts in GUI design) is doing much of the work on the Eazel Nautilus interface gives me hope that Linux will within a few years be able to successfully compete with Windows in terms of easy of installation and use.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I've always maintained that breaking up M$ is the dumbest thing to do.
M$ is and has always been a one trick pony. Their trick is see something that anyone else is doing and buy it outright or 'reverse engineer (can anyone say DMCA is a two edged sword?)' it and vanquish the competition under the elephantine weight of the leverage M$ has with its OS.
But they have proved completely incapable of competing fairly on the basis of product quality.
If you force them into competing fairly, they might be able to learn how to do it on other platforms and you've just metastacized the cancer of having to deal with an arrogant school yard bully onto the next generation of hardware.
Between the flat-lining of x86 sales, the competition with Linux and the arrival of the 64 bit hurdle onto the desktop, M$'s days are numbered (in surprizingly low numbers too, they have no assets beyond some real-estate,) as long as they effectively corrall themselves onto the x86.
Let M$ die with the x86 and it will merely have been an extremely expensive abberation and we can all get on with our lives.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Uh where did you get the line that M$ started anything about affordability? Linux and all the OpenSource stuff is FREE! Developped because somebody needed it and wasn't greedy with it.
Find me anything that M$ actually created that has not been an utter failure. Bob?
Pu-leez! M$ sees something and buys it outright (QDOS) or reverse-engineers it (Make it more like the Mac! -Gates) Before he acquired Express, there was MultiPlan, a VisiCalc clone. Want me to go on?
Gates is a pimp and a nasty bully one at that. Technology lets him have a bulding full of hos. But they're still hos.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Not the other way around. Its coming out to give M$ better XML capabilities.
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And now that there's no competition its going to come out as slowly as M$ can get away with it.
Look at the history of the business... IBM sold OS 360 well into the eighties on 360s and 370 because they could. Why did they want to when they had a better OS (MVS) waiting in the wings?
Because it was pure gravy . Zero development cost and zero marketing costs. Just pure gravy
Its not about you. Its never about you. Its about the bottom line.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
You don't use LT's gas. He open sourced a good formula for gas. Those people who wish to build the mini gas proccessing plant in their back yard can use this formula and get superior quality gas and miliage.
However, 90% of the people don't want to, or can't build their own plant.
They can still use his gas. RedHat will sell it to them, or they can get it at their local book store, or they can mail-order it from CheapBytes for $2 for a lifetime supply.
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And yet, I'm not using RR gas, I'm using Linus Torvalds gas, and have been since before Judge Jackson's ruling. Explain that.
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Which, I'd be willing to bet, means he would have his mechanic remove the engine and let you tow the car away. He keeps the engine for parts at considerable profit, charges you full price for the cars, and bills you for the labor.
Which makes my analogy perfect. Would we expect the government to step in and require him to sell you the car without the engine, at a discount?
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Your analogy is wrong because Microsoft doesn't sell computers. Just the "Engine"
Guess you missed the part where we were talking about buying the computer without having to pay for the OS.
You would have to make this world a place where people can swap out engines as easily as they do OS's.
No I don't, because that's the opposite of what we're talking about. OSes are easy to swap out, and the question of paying for the OS whether you want it or not is a matter for the market to settle, not the courts.
If you don't like Microsoft's policies, don't do business with them. If you make PCs, and you don't like Microsoft's policies, don't do business with them. If you're buying a PC, and you don't like the fact that manufacturer X won't sell you a computer without charging you for a Microsoft OS, don't do business with them.
Can't make as much money as you'd like that way? Well, I guess you're going to have to make a choice, aren't you? In real life, you don't always get to select from all the choices you'd like. It's not government's job to step in and force other FREE INDIVIDUALS to offer the choices you desire, even if those free individuals run multi-billion-dollar corporations that control the majority (not all, just the majority) of a segment of an industry.
You can buy a PC without Windows. You can buy a PC with Windows, and replace Windows. You can even buy a PC with another OS on it, and warranty support for both the PC and the non-Microsoft OS.
Anything else is unfair and unConstitutional interference by the government in completely legal free trade.
Microsoft management is a bunch of arrogant pricks; but it's not illegal to be an arrogant prick.
I remind you again that during the HEIGHT of Microsoft's supposed monopoly, it was still not only possible to buy a desktop computer without an OS, but it was possible to buy one with a factory-supported non-Microsoft OS. It was even possible to buy one with an Intel processor and a non-Microsoft OS. Indelible Blue predates the 1994 decision, and Sun, HP, and IBM have been selling Unix workstations forever.
Yes, they cost more; but it's not the purpose of government to force people to charge the same for all products in a market space.
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If you wrote something with the latest version of Word Perfect, you can't open it in Word Perfect 4.2, nor can you open it in emacs or possibly in Star Office (not sure about that but you get my point).
Yes, but if you wrote something in Word Perfect 4.2, you CAN open it in the latest Word Perfect.
If you wrote something in emacs 3.5, you CAN open it in the latest emacs.
If you wrote something in Star Office 5.0, you CAN open it in the latest Star Office.
The same is not necessarily true of Microsoft Word. You often have to keep the old version around so you can use your old documents, which can mean needing two computers if the new version can't coexist with the old one.
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But don't you think that computer manufacturers should be free to install Linux instead of Windows without repercussions from Microsoft? Don't you think they should be able to install an alternate web browser if they wish? Don't you think they should have control over what gets displayed first on their machines?
Yes; and I also think they should be free to sign contracts giving up those rights, if they think it's worth losing them in return for gaining access to somebody else's property, I.E. Microsoft's operating systems. I wouldn't want to choose that, but that doesn't mean I should have the right to force other people to agree with me.
Don't you think software makers should have the ability to make compatible software and use the same functions of Windows that Microsoft currently prohibits?
Why? Why shouldn't Microsoft be able to say "if you want to use my property, you will sign this contract saying how you will use it. If you don't like those terms, don't use our software."?
Is Windows a right?
If the license terms are onerous, don't use it. If that means people don't buy your computers, well, they have that right, too.
Before you accuse me of not being a Libertarian because I don't agree with you on this, you should perhaps check out the party's official position on the matter.
For those too lazy to follow the link, I'll tease it with the title from the press release: "Microsoft antitrust ruling: More costly than all the bank robbers in history."
This isn't a secret; we even made the front page of the Wall Street Journal with it.
The government should stay the hell out of this. The market as a whole, and consumers as individuals, should decide.
If you don't like the choices given you, make your own. If you don't have the skill to make your own, whose fault is that?
Not even your computer is a right, much less the operating system on it. But even if it were, you still have choices; run Linux. Run BSD. Or if you're just all fired-up set to pay somebody, run BeOS or Solaris.
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Well, actually, IBM was prevented from selling OS/2 by M$ when M$ said you can only get a reasonable price for W95 if IBM would drop OS/2.
You don't get it; that's only PREVENTING you from selling OS/2 if you CHOOSE to buy Win95.
IBM could have chosen to concentrate on OS/2 and blow off Win95.
They were free to choose. The market will make it's own choices.
Sometimes doing the right thing hurts. That's life.
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How can you claim they have a monopoly on a web site that is run on PC hardware using a non-Microsoft OS? One of many non-Microsoft OSes that will run on the hardware in question? A non-Microsoft OS that is sold preloaded on that company's PCs?
You have at least a dozen choices, and that's just on the particular hardware platform in question.
Microsoft doesn't even compete on most hardware platforms, and only competes effectively on one.
Monopoly? That would be like if Standard Oil had only operated in California and New York, but still got declared a monopoly.
Microsoft's "monopoly" is a joke that one judge agrees with, and a whole bunch of others don't.
If I don't pay for their crap, why do you think you are forced to?
As for IBM, they always have offered, and continue to offer, their own OS; AIX. It's superior to Windows in many ways. However, most consumers don't want it. This demands better programming and marketting from IBM, not government intervention.
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Sometimes doing the right thing hurts.
The retailers let Microsoft put them in that position, and they aren't all in it; there are several retailers who don't sell Windows with their PCs, and there are lots who sell both it and other OSes.
The fact is that you can choose to buy a computer and not put Windows on it, and that's the bottom line.
And yes, you've always been able to buy one with another OS preloaded. Sun, HP, and IBM have been selling workstations forever. Indelible Blue predates the web. VA Linux has a great reputation, despite being fairly new.
So it costs more. Is the lower price a RIGHT, or a consequence of economies of scale? I think the latter.
It's like trying to call Rolls Royce up and ask to buy one of their cars without an engine, so you can put your own engine in.
If Rolls says "sorry, no, we don't sell them that way", should the government step in and tell them they have to do it?
No, in the real world you have three choices; give up and buy nothing, buy the Rolls and remove the engine, or buy a Lexus. (Probably can't get them to sell it without the engine, either.)
Should the government then declare them a monopoly?
Microsoft doesn't make PCs. They don't make the only operating system available to consumers. They make a LUXURY, that is tied to another luxury.
If we were talking about General Mills securing an agreement with the majority of grocery stores that they would not carry any other brands of food, and would not sell any food to anyone without them buying a particular kind of food, you might have something, but we're not talking about food, we're talking about computers. We're not talking about removing all your choices, we're talking about reducing your cheap choices.
You aren't born endowed by your creator with the inalienable right to a cheap computer with a free OS on it.
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Well, under Unix someone with superuser access can replace /bin/login with a version that captures passwords, and that's not considered a security hole.
And that's what happened in the incident list. Some smart person got SYSTEM access through an IIS bug and then replaced the Gina with a password interceptor.
For an example of similar software that hooks into the gina, look no further than the Novell Client32 software.
The point of Ctrl+Alt+Del is that a unprivledged user that uses it can't be busted by a trojan on a uncomprimsed installation of the OS. Once you are owned, all bets are off. (Not to mention that you could create a 2-bit VB program that asked for a password and probably dupe 90% of the dupes, SAS or not.)
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
All MS needs to say is that it saw a trend and a new market emerging.
Which is somewhat true. The launch of Windows 95 in Aug 1995 was all about connectivity via the "integrated" MSN client. By December 7 1995, Microsoft had totally turned around and announced that future connectivity would be via integration with Internet Explorer. It took them all of 3 months to flush millions of dollars of R+D and MSN hype down the toliet (not to mention MSN contributing to the Win95 schedule slip), and this was based almost purely on a limited understanding of Andresson's comment about Netscape turning Windows into "a poorly debugged collection of device drivers". In retrospect, small thanks are in order for Microsoft to at least have the sense to not to try to lock us into MSN.
What lots of Slashdotter's miss is that after Dec 1995, Microsoft immedately started acting as if IE was "integrated", even though it took 2-3 more years before it actually was. That's right -- a good chunk of the trial evidence surrounded Microsoft's behavior with Internet Explorer versions 2.x and 3.x, both of which were not a superior product and were not really integrated in any way. A good example is OEMs, who are perfectly happy with IE5, but rightfully thought Microsoft was crazy when they suggested that IE 3 should be the default browser instead of Netscape (which had the most features and a 70% marketshare at the time).
Furthermore, nobody questions that Zero Cost Browsers (or psuedo-Zero Cost Browsers like Netscape was) benefit consumers. However, what real benefit has "Integration" (real or proposed) given anyone but Microsoft.
When MS announced the plan on Pearl Harbor day, everyone knew web browsers were slow and crashed alot. For more than 2 years after the plan was executed, Microsoft had a "Integrated shell" that was slow and crashed alot. It's widely felt that Windows 98 (which really was nothing more than a $99 browser upgrade) was a downgrade to the OS as a whole, but OEMs and IT Depts didn't really have the choice not to use it and use Win95.
Browser Integration was one of the biggest farces pawned off on the IT consumer ever, and Microsoft and their monopoly instincts are nearly 100% to blame. This came out in the trial when a MS Exec got on the stand and testified that not one of their supposed "integration" features (such as Windows Update) really depended on integration from a technical standpoint. Perhaps in Windows XP, there really will be some new functionality to come out of shell integration, but that's 7 years after Microsoft announced the idea.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
News Flash -- OS/2 was DEAD in the market by the time Windows 95 shipped. In case you weren't aware, it had been for sale since 1987 and had plenty of chances to find a real market, which it never did.
Lots of people at IBM (including most of the PC Group) were in favor of dropping it as a standard configuration because it was a big expense that competitors (Compaq, etc) didn't have to carry. I worked at a big IBM PC shop in 1994, and IBM sent a rep out to personally apologize for the nightmare of their preloaded OS/2 2.1 / Windows 3.1 machines duel-boot machines.
Furthermore, the "reasonable price" you are referring to was $11 for a copy of Windows. IBM was getting that low price because they co-owned Windows 3.0. Do you think Compaq and Dell were getting anything near this price? So, of course IBM took the bait -- they were getting a significant rebate for doing something they were going to do anyway (drop OS/2 as a standard configuration).
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
People don't know that MS decided way back with the PC/AT's 80286
IBM/Microsoft decided that 286+ support would be in OS/2 and and DOS would be legacied. PC customers rejected that decision, and it set the state of PC software back for a number of years. OS/2 was such a loser in the market that Microsoft was pretty much forced to come up with the protected mode DOS hack that is Windows today. That doesn't mean that they weren't holding their nose while they were doing it (see Windows NT).
Trying to blame MS for the long life of DOS is a no-go. Blame the consumers for not buying OS/2 (or later, NT), or blame IBM for making OS/2 into a viable product until many versions later.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Microsoft have allowed this to happen. They could've laid down standards on how PC hardware ought to operate.
You really are suggesting this? With a 90% marketshare, the OS independance of PC hardware is already hanging from a thin string, and I don't think most people would like the outcome of giving Microsoft more control over hardware. (See the "Secure Audio Path" issue...)
Bottom line is that there's nothing Microsoft can do about some OEM stuffing cheap ass RAM into a cheap ass machine for sale for $999 at Office Depot. Consumers are going to have to get smarter.
Other points:
+ Windows NT hardware certification list was originally intended for complete systems. Guess what? Folks don't want to have to buy some overpriced Compaq or IBM Certified "Workstation" when you can get a screwdriver box that does the same thing for half the price, and folks will bitch if Win2000 doesn't run on that mystery box. So testing when to shit to get broader hardware support and more drivers.
Again, blame the consumer -- when people were bitching about their Not-MS-Certified GeForce drivers running on their Not-MS-Certified Athlon motherboards with their Not-MS-Certified IDE controllers and their Not-MS-Certified SoundBlasters on Windows 2000 just to get maximum Quake fps, it's totally unreasonable to yell "Save Us Microsoft!".
+ Microsoft's PC OS Tax is nothing compared to Intel's CPU tax. The problem is that people want a 1000Mhz machine for $1000. They won't buy a better 700Mhz machine for that price. So the OEM have to skimp on everything, or give people value that they can *see* (stupid stuff like volume knobs on the keyboard are the only way they can get their margin up). Intel or AMD takes all the profit, not the OEM and not MS.
+ PCI hardware detection is documented. Linux uses it. Microsoft does have some real voodoo for ISA legacy non-PnP device detection (eg: old Token Ring and SCSI cards), but that is 99% a non-issue with new hardware.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
"Marketing" as in "We'll sustain the enormous R+D costs of maintaining two very similar operating systems, and then making them 98% compatible with each other; because by doing so we can use our monopoly position to 'upsell' consumers to the version that actually works somewhat well, and therefore we make higher profits."
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Nobody is complaining about what Microsoft did in the mid-to-late 1970s. Microsoft became harmful much later, (somewhere around 1987-1989) when they began to use preloads and per-processor agreements to restrict customer choice. This was long after computers had become affordable.
So does everyone else. Whether Microsoft's product are "good" (in the absolute sense) or not is debatable, but one thing is for sure: in the relative sense, their quality is well below average.
An office computer today can't do a damn thing that they weren't doing 10 years ago. 10 years is a lot of time for computer technology to stand still.
OS/2, Mac, Amiga, commercial Unixes, etc. In 1992, Windows 3.1 was way behind the average state of the art. In 1995, Windows 95 was way behind the average state of the art. And ever since then, if Microsoft has started to catch up, it's only because disheartened and disillusioned developers have stopped trying to advance the state of the art, due to the knowledge that they will never be allowed to compete in the market. Except for a few idealistic fringe groups, the only people who are still trying anymore, are the Linux dudes, since they don't have to worry about markets.
People wasting money on busywork that doesn't result in production, doesn't help the economy, it hurts it. When someone spends $600 paying me to clean up a mess that was caused by a Microsoft product, then regardless of whether or not I made some bucks, that was economic damage. When someone is emailed a Excel97 document that their Windows3.1+some_old_Excel workstation can't read, so that they spend money upgrading their whole box just to cope with the situation, that is damage. If you believe otherwise, then you must love how much hurricanes "help the economy" by creating construction jobs.
That's flat out false. Most MS opposition comes from MS customers. It's just that it's the competitors are the ones who have the legal basis for going after MS in court, so they are the ones you hear about. The customers don't have any way to air their grievences -- you can't sue someone for making a product that sucks -- except to "vote with their wallets". But the monopoly keeps them from doing that too. Antitrust is their only hope.
Not damaging Microsoft, will damage the consumer even worse.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
1) Before MS .. now computers are cheap.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc? Sorry. MS didn't cause the price drop. The prices had been dropping wildly before MS ever showed up.
2) MS brought down prices?
Have you priced a word processor recently? Remember how much WordStar cost? This is flagrantly false, except in certain restricted domains and periods of time.
3) MS => good software.
Sometimes. MS Word 5.1a for the Mac was the best word processor I've ever used. Sort of killed off the competition. Funny, the Windows version still hasn't gotten that good, and neither have the more recent versions of the Mac MSWord.
MS is known to be able to produce some good software when it sees a very good reason to, e.g. there's a lot of competition. The rest of the time it tends to let bloat and decay set in.
4) MS has benefitted the economy.
How do you know? I can't say for sure whether it did or not, though I tend to think not. It certainly hasn't benefitted me, except by inducing me to move to Linux.
5) Nearly all opposition is from jealous competitors.
Seriously? I've never thought of myself as a competitor to MS, and I'm certainly opposed to them. I used to be a mild supported until our office switched to a Windows standard. Since then I've hated them more every year.
6) The fact is...
That repeating falsehoods doesn't make them true.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
One can generally find something good to say about anything. That doesn't mean that on the balence it is good.
I don't have definite feelings about ctrl-alt-del as a login though. It does seem that to circumvent it one might need to alter the boot tracks, and I have no idea how difficult that is.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This might not hold up under law, but the main thing I've always been threatened about with MS was the sway they hold over default services installed with a PC.
1) You can't buy a new PC w/o paying for windows.
2) MS was trying to make it so that you couldn't buy a new PC with Netscape installed.
3) MS was trying to make it so that ISPs would have you install MS software. AT&T was the worst example of this: at one time, you couldn't sign up w/o installing IE and Outlook -- even on a Mac.
They failed at #3. They sortof failed at #2. I wonder if they would have tried harder if they weren't being watched.
I feel much better about the world w/ the presence of succesful Open Source solutions. I'll always have an alternative to MS stuff, now (at least until it's all illegal under the DMCA and/or copyright mechanisms in the hardware make it impossible to write open source drivers). But man, they deserve to take a shot for trying to control market channels by bullying rather than actually providing good products.
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Tweet, tweet.
There is also the point that with Unix you have to download it.. save it to disk.. chmod +x ... edit the first line so it'll run on your system.. and run it by hand....
Extention asside.. if Windows users were to look at AnnaKornikova.jpg.vbs they'd just feed it into Microsoft Media or some graphics viewer and get "not an image file" error...
Simply removing the single feature of feeding the file to the app (and Windows knowing what app to feed it to.. user not knowing) solves the problem...
Also alternitively... I do have kmail and it will feed files... but AnnaKornikova.jpg.pl will NOT be processed.. Becouse it is not a known multimedia format...
Anyway it's not that dumb of users... I think "dumb programmers" when I realise Windows is basicly feeding code sent by e-mail.. It shouldn't do that... Ok first time.. learn... FIX IT... No no we enchance.. now it runs code AUTOMATICLY... The user isn't being dumb to expect the software to know better... There is a huge diffrence on the software side between image files and executable files.
I don't actually exist.
This is getting a bit off-topic, but: Do you really mean good? I think a more accurate description would be just barely good enough for consumers who didn't know any better. The damage to consumers comes from this "just barely good enough" attitude combined with their monopoly position.
By the way, there is nothing illegal about being a monopoly (referring to the "although" in your comment). What is illegal is using that monopoly position to compete unfairly in new markets. The big squishy thing in this whole set of debates about Microsoft is defining the boundaries of these various markets. (Microsoft says everything is one big market; their competitors say that OSs and applications are different markets.)
Sure, but Linux consumers are quite a bit more discriminating than Microsoft consumers.
This is by far the worst Jon Katz article I've ever read. It's full of bad logic and misinformation.
It was also instrumental in spawning Open Source, Free Software
No, it was instrumental in perpetuating Open/Free software. Propietary Unix spawned it.
I'd rather see MS challenged creatively in the marketplace
Too bad MS' monopoly prevents free market forces from operating. That's why we need the government: to restore competition to the market.
It seems clear that no one in the federal government from Congress to the regulatory agencies to the White House -- is in a strong position to oversee or regulate the Net or the increasingly disparate tech nation.
How is forcing Microsoft, an illegal monopoly, into fair competition "regulation of the Net"??
Netscape distributed 160 million copies of Navigator
At the time [...] there were approximately 100 million Net users
I've gotta question numbers that claim Netscape had 160% of the market.
Is it true that these users were not free to choose Netscape?
Yes. Users were forced to take IE even if they didn't want it and were forced to download Netscape even if they wanted it pre-installed.
OEMs were not allowed to choose to pre-install Netscape instead of IE.
Jackson defined the "relevant market" that Microsoft controlled as operating systems and replacements to operating systems. But Microsoft's lawyers have repeatedly argued -- correctly -- that Navigator isn't an operating system
Repeat after me: it is a crime for a company with monopoly power in one market to use that power to influence/control a different market.
Several other justices said they were sympathetic to Microsoft's argument that it integrated IE with Windows because there was little or no real market for computers without browsers.
There's no market for computers without an email client. Should MS be allowed to "integrate" Outlook with Windows? Of course not. If they had simply *distributed* IE with Windows, and made it easier for OEMs and end users to remove, they wouldn't be in as much trouble.
There is NO technical reason whatsoever for this "integration". IE and Windows is the ONLY OS/browser combination that is "integrated", yet I can use several different browsers on several different OSes.
MS has a monopoly in desktop operating systems. A web browser is an application. Learn the difference.
Was Microsoft really supposed to sit back and allow competitors to dominate this critical market, surely threatening Windows in the process?
Repeat after me: it is a crime for a company with monopoly power in one market to use that power to influence/control a different market.
They can compete in the browser market, but they cannot use their monopoly power in OSes to help.
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
Katz....
None of those 'practices' would be illegal, IF THEY WERE NOT A MONOPOLY. But because they ARE, those things are illegal.
That's how antitrust works! That's the deal with monopolies! Once you become a monopoly, all the rules change.
Saying that lots of people successfully use MS products therefore it's not bad that they are a predatory monopoly means nothing... if they weren't around, they woudl be forced to cooperate. Microsoft has hindered the development of many cool things simply by keeping the barrier to entry for development of cool stuff for the world's most popular operating system high.
But NT 4 works well, and 2000 is even better.
Too little, too late. The mindset in the userbase is already established. And it's not primarily in the office, but at home. As someone else pointed out, users think it's normal to have to reboot. It's almost a reflex: BSOD -->> push button.
I agree that at work you should be using NT/W2K, especially if you have a qualified sysadmin to help to setup and maintain. But how many home users are going to know enough to setup an NT/W2K box? About as many as will be able to setup a Linux/*BSD box.
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
The government is BY DEFINITION involved in the market. The government awards corporate charters to corporations, awarding them preferential tax and liability considerations not available to private citizens, and corporations spend tremendous sums of money "educating" politicians...an activity again far too expensive for private citizens to engage in.
Capitalism may reward innovation (usually only when said innovation is accompanied by huge amounts of political wheel-greasing and marketing blitzes) but the government ALWAYS rewards the people who pay it. (hint...it's not you and me.)
So no, the government should not simply "laissez-faire", because the corporations spend money and effort to bias the government towards their interests (which is almost away from our own interests).
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
People don't know that MS decided way back with the PC/AT's 80286 to not use its hardware features to protect the O.S. from the applications. The virus industry enjoys MS' behavior.
People think that it's routine for computers to be unstable. As if it's somehow inherent in the metal. Not that "Support Staff" mind. Good thing they take more action about bridge design.
The biggest problem is the proprietary file formats. Data and documents belong to users, not to MS. But once the information is in an MS product, you're lucky if you can transfer it to something else. I dread having to access today's electronic government records in ten years -- who knows what MS Word 2010 will think of Word 6 .DOC?
I think the DOJ dropped the ball on that one. Whatever happened to the company, they should have required opening the APIs. Document the program interfaces, and document the data formats. Let others be able to process MS data formats.
"Don't let Microsoft control your computer. Use Bob's OS instead" But there was no choice.
:)
No kidding... Microsoft aquired that too. Remember MS-BOB? Sure sign of a monopoly when they aquire their competition (BOB OS) and then just repackage it with their name!
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
And the windows API ? Winsock ? The API where you need a hidden window to receive data on a socket ?
Not to be anal or anything, but I've got quite a lot of experience with the winsock API, and this isn't true, you don't need an HWND to use sockets. You can even write winsock console applications. I think that you might be confusing the low-level winsock stuff with those horrible MFC socket wrappers, that will do stuff like send you a message in the windows message queue to notify you of new data.
There are plenty of true reasons though why winsock sucks though (and the documentation is pretty lousy too), so why not just pick from the many of them? No need to use falseties! In fact, ANY Microsoft API has literally hundreds of valid things you could complain about. I've used Win32, Microsoft Frustration Classes, DirectX, WinCE Toolkit, winsock - they are all just brimming with braindamaged design and obfuscated, often outright incorrect documentation.
But to say "oog, I reboot windows every day" or "oog, blue screen!!!!" just shows ignorance and the inability to think objectively for yourself.
No it doesn't. It shows that the person uses Windows 9X (rather than NT or an NT derivative). The vast majority of people who buy PC's happen to be doing so because thats what came with their PC's.
To say that crashing machines and daily reboots are such a horrible problem, caused by Microsoft, is just a plain lie - or maybe you just haven't used anything Microsoft has made in the past couple of years.
The VAST MAJORITY of PC users are using Windows9X, which is PRECISELY "crashing machines and daily reboots". Forget about NT - only a small minority of PC users know about it. Microsoft's products have caused a HUGE amoung of damange to millions of people. It would be fine if this was some esoteric applications that a few engineers were using, but it isn't, it's Microsoft's *biggest application*. Go and learn what the Win16mutex is, and then try come tell me that Windows9X isn't a stinking pile of shit. Go do some Direct3D application development on Windows9X, and then try come tell me that Windows9X isn't a stinking pile of shit.
Yes, it does seem to be getting better. But how long should it take? Should it really take so many years to produce only slightly better versions of an OS? We should really be asking ourselves, what could it be like? Is it really acceptable that even in 2001 we still have MFC application toolbars that cannot handle more than 16 colours? It's ridiculously primitive.
I must say I also get the feeling that DOJ pressure is helping them put in a bit more effort, and right now most people would just be happy to settle for a little stability/quality in MS products. But do we really even want to settle for a stable, quality "operating system of the early/mid 90's"? Stable but years behind. I think we should be reaching a little higher than that. MS has had plenty of chances to "do the right thing", and every time they've just rejected it in favour of dirty underhanded anti-competitive tactics. We should stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. They've held computing back for long enough now.
Many people (you included) seem to think that Microsoft was the only company who ever wanted to try produce affordable software for the masses on consumer PCs. I've heard this argument a number of times before - basically, the argument is that if Microsoft hadn't been around, nobody would ever have had the "vision" to try develop anything in this market, and that we'd still be sitting with computers being expensive primitive mainframes.
This argument is, of course, completely ridiculous and laughable. Really - there were *hundreds* of people and companies who ALL saw that PCs were going to be BIG MONEY. Plenty of companies tried to get on this bandwagon. IBM was one of the big ones (but they had antitrust worries of their own back then.) But the fact is, if Microsoft had never existed, EVERYTHING that they have done, and more, would have been done by now by other companies - and most likely cheaper and better. Other companies would (and have, so this is a huge "duh") have made databases. Other companies would have made friendly GUI environments (and had (Mac), so this is another huge "duh"). Other companies would have produced cheap, easy to use spreadsheets. Other companies would have produced good word processors. Other companies would have come up with the "easy administration" thing long ago already. Microsoft is *not* the only company that ever thought these things would be big. Get real.
Yes, the Win16mutex is probably one of the most braindamaged things spawned by MS. I would confidently say that that #%$@#%$@$# alone has resulted in more than a week of my life wasted. In fact, one of the bugs happened to be winsock involved - I wasted about two days on it, eventually figuring out that winsock apparently grabs the Win16mutex, and I had a deadlock involving our network stuff and some GetDC locking on a DirectDraw surface. I began to suspect the Win16mutex at some stage, and I compiled the program on Windows2000, and voila, no deadlock. Geez was I pissed.
I'm sure we could make a veeery long list. How about the use of CR/LF pair for text files, wasn't that MS's idea too? And geez, somebody should explain protected mode to the Win9X team. I'm sure I could go on for days about the pain and damage that MS has inflicted on the computer industry. I must say though I'm a reasonably happier programmer now that I've started doing almost all of my work development on Win2K. It was not possible before due to the limited support of DirectX on NT. But when doing this sort of work on Win98, it is quite rare to manage a single days work without a reboot, and not uncommon to have the computer lock up more than 5 times in a single day. Problem with Win16mutex and DirectX - application crash between a lock/unlock? Sorry - hit reset. It is so fucking pathetic it is not even funny. When people start telling me "ah Windows isn't that bad" and "mine doesn't crash that often" or "mine never crashes" or "you must be doing something wrong", it drives me nuts, I wish I could force them to do months of DirectX development on Windows98. There is not one person on the planet who could possibly do more than a few months DirectX development on 98 and still come out not hating Win9X for the piece of shit that it is.
So by your narrow definition there, porsche has a monopoly on the car market, because they charge more than the majority of their competitors??
The price of a Porsche is not out of line from other luxury sports vehicles. The company charges more because they offer more. Sun can charge more for their OS/hardware because they sell reliablility with it. Microsoft is widely regarded as a producer of mediocre products in a commodity market. And yet they still are able to price their products independant of market forces.
BTW, it's not my definition.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I agree that in the computer savvy world micro$oft products are not known as the best, though I wouldn't use the discription mediocre just that there are better solutions. However for the rest of the people out there, so many of them only know of micro$oft products or the ones that know of others actually think that micro$oft is the best solution.
..." and I'd like to see what some of the other definitions are.
... "Microsoft can do neither (Allbritton)."
And this situation has grown from their monopoly power. If M$ were not so efficient at killing any competitor before they've had a chance to make a name for themselves, people would have heard of alternatives. If the sale of office software was not tied to the sale of PCs, people would comparison shop and know of alternatives. The fact that they are a monopoly enables them to lock out choices before the consumer has a chance to decide for themselves, and in that vacuum call themselves 'good'. This is harm to the consumer.
BTW, it's not my definition.
Whose definition is it? If you've got a link I'd like to see it, mainly 'cause you mentioned that "First, a monopolist must be able to
This link has a quote from M$:
Microsoft explains, "A monopoly, by definition, is a company that has the ability to restrict entry by new firms and unilaterally control prices."
M$ claim they can do neither, but they restricted Netscape, DR-DOS, and OS/2 from entering various aspects of PC markets. (Before you claim they all hung themselves, remember exclusive tying deals and bought out developers all paid for with monopoly monies.) As soon as competitors are out of the way, M$ charges whatever they please. Why has the price of the OS increased even though every cost in the computing world tanks?
This link has a little more on the definition of a monopoly, as well as attributing the last quote to Gates in testimony before Congress. This article defines monopoly as holding more than 70 percent of the market (but that definition is no fun because it doesn't leave room for argument, regardless of the fact that it is the legally correct one 8*). The article also explains some of the exclusivity deals that M$ had to choke off Netscape.
This link claims that M$ would have to have no competitors at all in order to be considered a monopoly. Obvious proof that the ability to publish in a college newspaper does not immediately imply that one has a clue.
This link calls the court find of M$ monopoly power "...a legal no-brainer, once you accepted the government's narrow definition of the relevant market..."
But reliability is a lot more than just how reliable the software itself is, it's also support networks that are in place, how quickly patches are released, how promptly response is over known issues and those other aspects.
No it is not. A reliable car does not mean a car that the shop can repair quickly. It means a car that does not have to be put in the shop to begin with.
Then there is also that I don't need to go to micro$oft directly,
Which you can't do without paying out the nose. M$ doesn't even support their own products unless you are a very large customer. They shove nearly all problems off onto hardware vendors. The 'knowledge base' is a cheap hack that nearly every OS has in one form or another. What I find impressive is that they can get away with such a large knowledge base. Keep in mind, each entry implies something not working in the OS. Something that in most cases is a bug found by the customer after they have paid for a working product.
when I as a consumer purchase software, part of the reason I am paying that price is the expected support I will recieve
But with M$, you are not paying them for support, because they won't give you any with the purchase of the product. You are paying in order to play on the monopolist field, because that is where everyone else is playing. It's easier to pay the monopolist and just get along, than it is to buck the trend. If someone puts up a sign pointing to another green/flatter/bigger field, M$ will put up a wall to keep anyone from seeing the sign. The few people that are playing on the better field will not be able to convince many to come with them, because 'that isn't where the big game is'.
The problem is, the big game will never be able to move if M$ is allowed to put up a wall every time someone puts up a sign pointing to the next field. To say that software is reliable because a lot of people can fix it is, and that's all we have anyway, probably isn't the best argument.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
As to the judgement, a deeper issue that you don't mention is that antitrust law itself is a tangled mess of subjective criteria to begin with. Monopoly is a concept solid enough to be fairly useful in economics, but not quite solid enough to be objectively definable in law.
Here, you are wrong. The definition of a monopoly is quite well defined by laws and by precedence. First, a monopolist must be able to have the power to set prices far above what a competitive market would command. Seeing as how nearly every other competitor in the x86 OS market is giving their software away, and yet MS can still charge $200US, I would say they have a monopoly.
Good try at subtle FUD, though.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Thus, M$'s own actions demonstrate the threat Netscape (and Sun) posed to Winduhs.
Yes, but it's not necessary to make the browser unremovable - there was testimony that significant segments of the market do not want a browser for security reasons, or have specific needs which M$IE does not meet, and that making M$IE essentially unremovable or unavoidable did that segment harm. The continued existence of Navigator and Opera prove that the browser need not be "integrated" into the OS or even the desktop. There's nothing wrong with merely including M$IE with Winduhs, any more than it's wrong for GM vehicles to include Philco radios; there is a lot wrong with "welding" either pair together.
It seems to me that POSIX is an OS standard which has done a lot for application portability but little thus far for the reunification of Unix... Many (all?) industries have had interop standards without reduction to monopoly; in fact I argue the opposite happens. Look at the competition in appliances, telephones, answering machines, televisions, VCRs, stereo components, dry cells; the selection in lightbulbs, the way railway rolling stock can travel the continent, screw threads, socket wrenches... just about anything you can name has one way or another thrived with competition because of interoperability standards. Why would OSs be any different, when the much-touted Web example exists only because of the predominance of interop standards?... I guess I've said enough to chew on for awhile =)
No it doesn't. I know cause I got that and I saw the .vbs extension and laughed at it and then deleted it. Please, stop making things up!
To be more precise: yes Windows hides the default filename extension but you still see the .jpb.vbs part on an incoming email. The hiding is in Explorer.
Agreed. Well... The parperclip annoyed millions of users...
On the contrary, there is a good reason for ctrl-alt-del. Unlike any other command keystroke and key combination, ctrl-alt-del cannot be caught programmatically. This means that on NT/2000, you cannot invoke a login prompt unless you are at the console or use something equivalent. This means that there cannot be some program placed on the system that will programmatically invoke a login prompt and brute-force attack the administrator's password. It's arguably more secure than linux's passing of runlevel at the lilo prompt (single mode).
However, once you get past the login prompt, the rest of your day may suck ;)
Winmodems are a product of the consumer, not MS. Have any of you seen a Microsoft-branded Winmodem (not the certification)? The reason winmodems are so prevalent is that they are cheaper. Microsoft provided the ubiquitous desktop. OEMs figured that the everyday user would use anything but Windows... and they were right. Who knows, maybe something good will come of them. Check out http://linmodems.org/.
Now now. Bill Gates didn't code any of the above except for BASIC. He bought or employed someone to write everything else. He's just responsible for BASIC. er... ACID BATH!!!!
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
You are absolutely right. Administering a windows 2000 machine is not easy or simple. Your average user is simply unable to cope with all the tricky things you need get your machine set up and working correctly.
For your average joe user or your mom or day windows 2000 is not a good choice because as you point out it requires a lot of expertise.
I would recommend the mac for most users and windows 2000 for power users or experts who can competently manage a complex operating system like windows 2000.
War is necrophilia.
[statement of mundane, well known fact]
[state easy and common observation]
[rant rant bitchity-bitch-bitch rant]
[introduce generic, repetitive solution]
[heedless filler (cherry flavored)]
[conclude utopianly]
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Moff Jerjerrod: Bill Gates is releasing IE 6.0?
Darth Vader: That is correct, Commander. And, he is most displeased with your apparent lack of progress.
Moff Jerjerrod: We shall double our efforts!
Darth Vader: I hope so, Commander, for your sake. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am.
Moff Jerjerrod: For great justice!
Darth Vader: All your base are belong to us...
The first 2 paragraphs of the post I'm replying to are an excellent description of the benefits of the AT&T breakup, BTW.
Best Slashdot Co
Well, I can't find the quotes now, but there are two quotes (the second by founding fathers I'm pretty sure): one says that capitalism inherently tends to destroy itself by devolving into monopolies...it is just simply the most efficient; the other says basically that corporations will always be driving for profit at the expense of the worker and consumer.
The free market isn't some magical panacea. And yes, it is the government's business to mess around in the marketplace.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Plenty very doubtful statements here, but I'll just bring up a very glaring one.
Sql Server, which is at least on a par with Oracle
I don't think you can find anyone doing serious DB work that will agree with that. SQL Server does have it's uses, but it's way behind Oracle in both quality and features.
But there are one or two things M$ does that I think should be criminal in a libertarian society. Ironically, they don't seem to be in this one.
The big one is that they, by controlling the OS, can and do make any competitors sowtware stop working at any time. I can't see why that should be any more legal than to burn down your competitors factories. But our legal notions of what's right and wrong in the world of software are still too confused to really get this. I think this is the big reason behind their success. everyone knows that it is impossible to compete with them, so they own all the interesting SW markets, where they make their real money.
Also their repeted and blatant theft of both ideas and source code is something I'd like to see them punished for. Rumor is that for many years Apple was referred to as the "M$ southern researh campus" within the company. I know, there are some thorny issues around intellectual property and what's really right and wrong there. But I want them dead for it.
None of this changes that the government is doing this to grab more power to itself, of course.
Read "Start Up" by Jerry Kaplan. It shows some startling insight into the way that MS is paraniod to kill off a product just in case.
Kaplan had formed a startup to try and produce PDA's - long before Palm. As a condition of the funding he received he had to look at using Windows CE. MS made him sign a very one sided NDA and IP form.
Several months later, Kaplan was on the verge of signing a massive contract with an Insurance firm to provide these PDA's to agents. It would have ensured the survival of his company and allowed him to expand his operations.
Suddenly found that this customer was no longer willing to buy his product. Why? Because MS had approached his customers and sold them on an MS PDA solution.
Kaplans company tanked because venture capatilists were no longer willing to invest in a company that was trying to compete in the same market space as Microsoft.
If this doesn't highlight that customers haven't been harmed, I don't know what does.
How are you gentlemen?
It appears that Microsoft did a moon-shot effort, created a web browser that competed on the same ground as the established favorite, and were fairly successful.
(opens dictionary, flips to "product")
product n 1: commodities offered for sale
- Internet Explorer is not a product. A product is something you sell. Microsoft has spent over $100 million developing and over $30 million marketing IE, and it is free. You cannot "compete" with a product if you are not a product. You can, however, "undercut", "hamstring", or "destroy" a product if you are almost as good and are free.
The process of flooding a new market with free or ultra-low-cost alternatives is called "dumping". It's illegal. It usually eliminates the market.
Mission accomplished!
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
5. Nearly all opposition to MS comes from jealous competitors.
.xls) documents that I get from vendors, co-workers, etc.
This statement is demonstrably untrue. I am not a competitor to Microsoft - I write embedded software for optical switches. I never use microsoft software, except on the dedicated machine I use to keep in touch with the rest of the world. I am forced to keep this second machine due to the closed standards (.doc,
Almost everyone I know in the computing field - my co-workers, our IS guys, our vendors, everyone hates Microsoft. They hate them so much that the very mention of the word makes them shake with anger. None of us compete with Microsoft, nor have we ever. We're embedded programmers, we're agnostic. But we're also good software engineers, and we know when we're having poorly designed, shitty software shoved down our throats. Like, say, vxworks. The difference in the embedded market is that we have a choice.
Why don't people talk about the real venom? Why don't they talk about the hidden viruses in windows, or the blatant plagarism in DOS 6.2, or the masses of forced non-interoperability in IE 4+ to push their server. or the faked videotape they showed a judge!
People with no vested interest in competing with Microsoft hate them. Not because they are jealous, but because they are not stupid.
This case is obvious to anyone who understands software.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
>>Why? Because MS is a monopoly.
And thats Microsofts fault? No, its the fault of the ignorant consumer.
It's the consumer's fault that Microsoft is a monopoly? Perhaps. Was it the consumer's fault that Standard Oil was a monopoly? That the railroads were monopolies?
Could you tell me which consumer, in particular, forced microsoft to build stealth viruses into their code?
I'd like to talk to that consumer.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
"I can't define p0rn, but I know it when I see it."
... and the anology will become clearer:
Now before you moderate this as offtopic, flamebait, or troll, hear me out
The general consensus is that Microsoft is a monopoly that "abused" it powers. For the record, I agree that M$ should be broken up, but I can't put my finger on exactly what it did that was wrong.
Can anyone specifically say what Microsoft did was wrong? (Aside from Gates lieing and falsifying evidence. Yeah, that will go over real well with the judge.)
It's funny that Microsoft "dumped" IE onto the market, when Netsacpe was doing the same thing with Navigator (free for non-commercial use.)
Bloat-ware has inherent problems; no matter how good a release is, the next feature-patch is capable of breaking 50% of everything because of shared bloat-ware libraries.
Ops. Didn't mean break.. I meant to destabalize. Obviously it would be broken out-right or they wouldn't have shipped the patch.
-Michael
-Michael
To be fair, the MS "enhancements" in their Java VM did not break any existing *pure* Java code. Instead, they changed how the interface to *native* code worked -- replacing Sun's JNI with something called J/Direct. I personally thought that J/Direct was more sophisticated than JNI; its only real sin was the lack of platform independence.
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
Nope, sorry. DirectInput lets you trap all control sequences with the exception of 2 (maybe just 1).
-It will not allow you to trap Ctrl+Alt+Del
-It will not (I think) allow trapping of Alt+Tab.
These are trapped at a lower level than DirectX, specifically for the reason given above.
Oops...posted under the wrong thread:
Nope, sorry. DirectInput lets you trap all control sequences with the exception of 2 (maybe just 1).
-It will not allow you to trap Ctrl+Alt+Del
-It will not (I think) allow trapping of Alt+Tab.
These are trapped at a lower level than DirectX, specifically for the reason given above.
WTF? What does it matter if it's Microsoft's fault that they have a monopoly? Why do people keep returning to this and say they got there through no fault of their own?
THAT DOESN'T HAVE A DAMN BIT OF RELEVENCE IN THIS CASE!
What MATTERS, is what they have done SINCE they gained their monopoly position!
In short...
1. Bribed/blackmailed OEMs into NOT shipping competing products
2. Paid large sums of money to ISPs to use their browser instead of netscape
3. Included IE in their desktop after agreeing NOT to bundle products in this manner
4. Doubled/Tripled/Quadrupled prices for OEMs that shipped competing products...
and during the trial
1. Lied
2. Forgot
3. Lied
4. Created false evidence
5. Forgot
Anyone who still insists that Microsoft doesn't deserve to be broken up is smoking some potent crack.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The code of conduct for the judiciary states that a judge must not appear biased at all, throughout the case, even throughout the full appellate process. The appeals court cannot now in good conscience remand the case back to Jackson, which would be an option that was open to them before now. So Jackson has screwed up the appellate process by showing bias now, even if he wasn't biased at the beginning of the trial.
[
"Open Source" fits in with capitalism nicely (though RMS would disagree).
No, he'd agree that "The Open Source Movement condones the mixture of proprietary and non-proprietary solutions, whereas the Free Software Movement has more ambitious goals to ensure freedoms by making software free of proprietary controls." (Paraphrased from his last letter re: Allchin and the American Way.)
Not that I agree with RMS's goals, but I try to at least understand his argument more clearly.
[
Microsoft provides a LOT of hooks in their operating system specifically to encourage third-party opportunities. It's just good business to let third parties write cool stuff to extend your platform. Those competitors who don't take advantage of the documented ones always cry about how there must be a lot of undocumented ones that give Microsoft the advantage. Walking through your arguments...
Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer (the file management program) [...] look and run the basically the same. For example, if you are running IE, you have the ability to browse AND MANAGE your local hard drive, just like in Windows Explorer. Now since MS also include that crappy My Computer program in their OS too, why did they allow their web browser to MANAGE FILES/FOLDERS? Explain this to me with a straight face please.
Norton and many other companies have long made complete rewrites/replacements for the shell. It's a documented registry/win.ini setting, and has been ever since HP wanted to replace the Windows 2.0 shell. "SHELL=EXPLORER.EXE" That's so hard to change to "SHELL=NAVIGATOR.EXE"?
Let's say that Netscape didn't WANT to compete with the integration with Explorer. Okay, another hook provided by Microsoft is the SHELLOPEN function that can hook "filename conventions" like "\\smbhost\smbshare", "http://host/page", "ftp://host/page", "file:///d:/path/file" and so on. Netscape could have provided any of those hooks, and been able to offer its advantages there, too.
This is not an exhaustive list. There are literally hundreds of hooks that Netscape could have used, but they decided to use the DoJ as a hook instead.
Secondly, in regards to the "freedom" that someone would have to install navigator onto their OS, that task requires the ABILITY to find, download and install the program in question . Out of those 100 million net users, how many do you think could have accomplished this?
Let's see, how many newbies are competent enough to download and install greeting card programs? Print shop programs? Email messages from Hotmail? The Melissa virus? Newbies are these app-makers' bread and butter. People download stuff all the time, and it's a mark of a competent software package to make that installation easy for those newbies. If Netscape found that the newbie was the barrier, that's Netscape's fault, not Microsoft's.
Finally, all of you who manage Win98 boxes know how friggin difficult it is to get rid of that IE program. I'm not talking about deleting the shortcut off of the desktop--I'm talking about annihilating the sucker off of the OS. How many places does that program hide in the OS?? Let me count the ways... On the desktop, notice that the IE shortcut sits right next to all of the other Win essential programs like My Computer, Network Neighborhood, whatever. This is on purpose. MS designed Explorer to be considered as an essential part of the OS (for the average users they covet)--make no mistake about it.
Hm, when I set up a recent laptop, it had Adobe Type Manager pre-installed. I pulled the shortcut out of the startup group. Same goes for the greeting card program, the Encarta shortcut, and about five other icons I didn't need, too. How many icons does RealPlayer add to your desktop, startup menu, personal folders, tray, and context menus? Geesh! Now, I could have gone through and eradicated the files, if I cared. I didn't care, I had tons of space left over. It was *functionally* gone. I'm sure one of those "cleanup" utilities would have found 50MB to reclaim.
Now, if you never show an address bar in your tray, and you never type a URL in the File,Run... box, and you never click on the IE, and you use Netscape for your daily web browsing, how is the IE's presence in the OS or on the disk really hurting you? It's *functionally* gone, even if it has files and hooks all over the place which you never use.
If you don't smoke, do you remove the ashtray component from your car? No, you either leave it idle or you put coins there. If you don't like Da Vinci, do you have to eradicate the museums who "waste space" or "waste your taxes" on those works?
So, please, tell me how free the average PC user was to choose Navigator instead...
Um, I dunno... how about "put cd in drive, press OK a few times"?
[
I don't understand the uproar over the Judge's comments, at least those after the trial. It is universally conceded that MS engaged in massive lying, including obviously fradulent videotapes, during the trial. In a venue where all are required to swear to tell the truth, why would anyone have anything except contempt for this behaviour? The judge heard the facts and saw the lies - why is his expression of distaste, based on this, such a big deal?
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Bloated == Has More Features
Get a computer magazine from ten years ago, and look at the ads. The biggest feature in word processing software of the day was search and replace.
Ten years later, the same program will do every part of the document development for you.
It's called progress.
4. Microsoft have benefitted the US economy. It really has. Compared with the UK, for instance, the strength of the US IT industry is vast - and much of this strength is due to Microsoft.
Indeed, the collapse of NASDAQ coincides almost exactly with Jackson's ruling (more precisely, with the growing sentiment up to the ruling that Microsoft and the government would not be able to settle). Almost everybody predicted that the economy and market would collapse if the ruling was against Microsoft. And it did.
Isn't it time the DOJ and Jackson took the fall for the faltering economy, instead of Greenspan?
Without Microsoft's monopoly, there would be many, many companies competing to be the best, and doing everything and anything required to get their.
Not really. Without Microsoft, it would be Scott McNealy's head in the borg suit, and everybody would be complaining how slow Sparc's are, how much they hate Java, and how difficult it is to delete a file named "-l". At least Microsoft controls just the software, and not the hardware. It could have been a lot worse.
As I understand it, IE for MAC shares almost no code with IE for Windows. If one looks at (say) CSS support, objective tests put the big 4 in the order: IE/Mac, Opera, Mozilla, IE/Win.
>>witness Real Audio's continued existance as evidence that just Microsoft monopolistic power isn't necessarily enough
RA is still around is as a direct result of this trial.
In 1999 Real Audio was hurting. Microsoft was offerring to set up free servers with tech support to popular websites. Many people thought that Real Audio was a thing of the past.
Then right when the trial was in full swing microsoft lisenced their codecs for Real to use in their clients.
Some people thought it was generosity on Microsoft's part. But I maintain that it was because of the trial.
So why is Word dominant today? It certainly isn't because Word was a better product
:)
Word is dominant today because it was easy to use for the average consumer, so they gobbled it up and made it dominant. It may not be the best product quality wise, but for the general user, it did everything they needed without problems. On the higher level, the more advanced users may start running into difficulties.
And that's the same with Windows. For the average consumer, for the general user, the majority of the market use it because it's easy to use and it does everything they want it to do. Microsoft didn't make themselves a monopoly single handedly - the consumer, the general mass market gobbled it up and made it a monopoly! SO - Microsoft products - to the advanced, more experienced user - are not necessarily the best products. But to the mass market, generally any regular person, Microsoft has accomplished what no one else has. Whether it was ethical or not, the consumers gobbled it up and wanted it. If it didn't do what they wanted it to do, they wouldn't accept it, and find other alternatives. So for the mass market, it WAS and still IS a good product. You can't say no one can do better or have a better product, because no one has come close. If someone wanted to overthrow Microsoft, they would have to convince the mass market, and maybe even unethically partner with Microsoft only to hitchhike on their compatibility to gain the mass market, until they can jump off and take the mass market with him. To beat Microsoft, you've got to be Microsoft, or use them against themselves, or act and grow in the same manner that they did.
Otherwise, you'll end up like Linux - growing fast, but no where near gaining mass market appeal - general, average users. Because it's not easy for them (when most people still don't know how to open their email program, let alone get connected to the internet), and it Windows has the most appeal. Until Linux can enter a standardized and compatible market with Windows, it will never gain mass market.
If you taunt Microsoft, they will stomp on you. If you befriend them to eventually turn against them, you can stab them in the back. That's just one way of gaining good cometitive ground in the mass market.
Plus, remember that the general consumer doesn't necessarily want a realistic and viable choice in OS's or any software for that matter. They will go to what is easiest and cheapest to use - together. If Linux and Windows had equal market share, it would NOT last long. Unless they were compatible with each other in the same market, people would readily accept one over the other, just so they don't have to worry about compatibility issues. Just like NS / IE. Linux and Windows will always be different, but they have to be compatible enough for most people, and everyone will more readily use the OS more geared to their requirements (eg - server, desktop, terminal, etc).
Linux and Windows NT/2000 probably have a fairly competitive marketplace... so obviously if you add in the desktop Windows 98/2000, Windows will have dominance... because Linux hasn't got the marketplace for average desktop users. And it never will until it (the extremist Linux user bunch) stops the blatant anti-MS, rebellious attitude. If someone likes MS over X, you've got to win them over, not make them sound like an idiot because it's so obvious X is better. Mass market will be insulted and generally not accept a product whose creators appear bigoted against what they like, since it seems unfair. So in a way, 'embrace and extend' - agree (gasp) that Windows/Microsoft have done a good job, and are a good product - because it's the truth, for the general mass market - and give them reasons, applying to them, why X is a better choice... but right now, X does not have the features and quality over Windows that the mass general market requires.
That's the end of the story, sorry if I seemed repetitive
Before MS, there was Lotus 123, Lotus AmiPro, WordStar, Borland and such. What happened to these guys?
There was a good WYSIWYG wordprocessor then, before MS. It was called Lotus AmiPro. This word processor won the PC Magazine's award for the year's best software. I used it for a senior thesis, with its equation editors, spell check, everything. This was in 1994/5. It took until 1997 (Word 97) to catch up to the feature set offered by Lotus AmiPro. Office 2000 still has numerous quirks, and is still not as consistent as AmiPro was about document formatting.
Did government antitrust prosecutors actually prove that Microsoft prevented Netscape, or any other rival, from bringing new products to the marketplace?
No. Any company could have brought any product they wanted to market, but it would have failed if it competed with MS since MS had everything tied to their OS.
Is it true that these users were not free to choose Netscape?
Sure, they could have chosen Netscape, but what percentage of computer users go out of their way to get a better product if a similar one is provided with the OS? Microsoft should have been required to provide IE for download from the MS site only (not on the Windows 9x CD). Tieing IE to Windows 98 was unnecessary, anti-competitive, hand illegal.
Why wasn't Microsoft justified in integrating Windows with its much-hyped OS?
Because IE was and is a seperate product unrelated to the OS. Regardless of what MS claims, IE is not a necessary part of Windows. See Win98Lite (a program that will let you remove IE) if you think it is).
Microsoft has been a predatory monopoly which needed legal intervention since the days of Windows 3.1. Anybody else remember when Lotus and Excel were first being put on Windows? MS "accidentally" neglected to notify Lotus of a minor, but fundamental, change which caused early versions of Lotus on Windows to not work (and significantly harm Lotus business). Since that time, there have been many similar instances ("oops, did we delete those files that that application needs?", etc).
IMNSHO, Microsoft needs to be broken up into at least 3 companies (one OS, one Office, and one Internet) and these companies need to be closely monitored to make sure that they don't keep pulling typical MS tricks.
Alternately, I would be satisfied if MS was forced to adhere to published standards (HTTP, Kerberos, etc) and other remedies so as to prevent abusing their monopolistic power to force users into MS-specific products (which seems to be what .net is intending).
If we lock up this bomb-throwing terrorist, another will just come along. Case dismissed!
Remember, once the gov't is entrenched in an area, disengagement is rare.
What is interesting is how other "market" forces (namely, Open Source) are making inroads against the monopoly that Microsoft holds. Could the gov't ever remedy the MSFT monopoly as well as the vast legions of Gnu developers? No way.
If the current ruling stands what will happen to KDE for "tying" Konqueror to its window manager? What about Gnome with Eazel and Mozilla? Please keep the gov't out of my $HOME.
Yes, I own MSFT stock. I bought it at $90 and $70. Yes, I'd like to see the price back up at $119. No, I don't think it ever will. But, not because of this ill-conceived ruling but rather from the changing market conditions. The latest Netcraft survey shows Apache gaining and IIS losing. IDC reports that Windows server installations grew by 20%, while Linux grew by 24% last year -- that's after the big Win2K release. Other analysts point out that Win2K adoption is slower due to Linux. These factors cause me to doubt MSFT shares will rise to previously-hyped levels.
We don't need a gov't remedy to MSFT's monopoly. What's better will win.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Um, actually I can think of two ways to do this:
--
News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Hardware companies could not sell DR DOS and MS DOS because MS would not allow it.
Stacker won their lawsuit over having their compression algorithm stolen. They had been basically out of business for a couple of years by the time they got this couple hundred million. A small cost for MS wipe out a competitor.(Okay, so disk compression is irrelevant, MS didn't know that when they wiped stacker out.)
Borland made the best compilers but every time MS upgraded DOS, and later Windows, there was a six month delay for Borland to rewrite their compiler because they didn't have access to the OS as early as the MS compiler teams did. This is a pattern with all software MS makes. Remember Word Perfect? Lotus?
Apple could turn itself into a competing OS except MS would pull its Office software. Windows would not exist if Apple was not forced to sign over some OS patents with the same threat.
All of these competitors are gone or minor now. It is impossible to say what any of these companies would have done if they were competing on a level field but their existence alone would give everyone more choices which would mean everyone would find a choice closer to exactly what they want. This is the harm MS has done to consumers
For starters, it's 9x that hold all the legacy code that is supposed to make DOS programs work. The whole *point* of 9x is to move DOS style applications to NT style applications. I think that MS would've been overjoyed if it could've dumped DOS & 9x all together long ago, it has a far superior product in its hands (NT).
So why is Microsoft charging twice as much for NT as for 9x? And why couldn't they have just done more work in the DOS virtualization department? For example, Windows 2000's VDM chokes on 32-bit programs that conform to the DPMI spec.
I'm not sure if Linux is suffering from the same problem (having to maitain compatability with legacy code, so you can't solve problems the most efficent way)
Linux has a legacy (POSIX; Single UNIX Spec; X11) but it's a quite well-designed legacy. DOS is nice as an embedded OS, but anything complex is ugly.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The ILOVEYOU virus ... breaks what law?
Computer tampering is a crime, at least in the United States.
Incompatible file formats ... breaks what law?
The Sherman Antitrust Act. The fact that important data cannot be read because it's under a layer of (weak) encryption (i.e. an undocumented file format) harms both competition and consumers.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I need file compatibility with the maximum number of people
If that's your biggest reason for choosing Office, have you considered HTML or LaTeX? HTML can be viewed or printed using any Web browser, and LaTeX can be edited on any machine with Emacs (includes Windows), compiled into a PDF, and viewed or printed on any platform that has an Acrobat Reader.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
the software equivalent of the FDA might be necessary
That would completely destroy the free software movement, as software would become a controlled substance. Pretty much everything would be patented, and you would need to wait 20 years for a generic, and even then your favorite software may be "by prescription only," with Microsoft colluding with licensed IT practitioners to get them to prescribe Microsoft software instead of its competitors'.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
a monopoly itself IS NOT ILLEGAL
Granted, but under the Sherman Act, a monopoly that practices anticompetition and harms the consumer is illegal. Consumers are harmed every time a Windows 9x box BSODs and no other pre-installed options (not even Windows 2000) are available at Wal-Mart or Best Buy because of Microsoft's exclusive contracts with all the major computer manufacturers.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
To an extent, Microsoft (the first major closed-source provider) did inspire the so-called "Open Source" movement. But the movement for free software explicitly for freedom's sake has been around since the early 1980s when Microsoft's influence on the industry was already great.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
How is it Microsoft's fault that Quicken 2000 or TurboTax 2001 won't run on thier P100 with 16 megs of ram and Windows 95?
Not Microsoft's fault. It's Intuit's fault for not targeting the machines that the target audience (consumers with hand-me-down computers) uses.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If click-and-drool was the reason for going to Windows, then they went the wrong way. They should be in Mac OS
Blame it on Lotus. People wanted to run Lotus 1-2-3 (and other software from the office) at home but also run a click-and-drool desktop on the same box (back then, boxen were expensive). At that time, PC emulation on Macintosh computers (then called SoftPC) was not usably fast.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
There is also the not minor factor of very different code bases at the root of each system. One has its roots in DOS while the other derives from VMS.
What's so important about that? Let me rephrase: "The biggest reason that the Windows OS sold to consumers in fall 1995 was built around DOS and not Microsoft's VMS clone is because of marketing." That sound better?
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Recently Microsoft has been claiming that the Judge was biased during the trial, because afterwards he said a few choice words about the company. Their Lawyers are trying to use this to wriggle out of the judgement, however the simple fact is that once the judgement has been reached by due process in a court of law then the judge is allowed to be predjudiced - he has to sentence them, after all.
Well, he also said a few choice words _during_ the trial as well, from what I understand. Apparently he had an agreement that those words not be published until after the trial.
But it doesn't just boil down to that. There are arguments that Jackson's idea for a breakup really didn't have any backing behind it. And now there's talk that MS was really doing what the consumer wanted by putting the browser in the OS. Apparently the idea is that there is no market for a browserless OS, so MS wouldn't supply one.
The issue has a few more colors, apparently.
Their Lawyers are trying to use this to wriggle out of the judgement,
That's their job. They're lawyers. They are paid to get people off. No, wait. That's prostitutes. Umm... same thing.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Ok, some minor editing where the "..." appears, but Katz really does say that above.
I believe it's a well known fact that RMS started the Free Software movement in 1984, when Microsoft's size was anything but "gargantuan". It's true that Stallman's goals were a response to proprietary software licensing restrictions, but Microsoft wasn't a significant player back then.
The concept of Open Source was born just a few years ago, but the only thing "instrumental in spawning" open source was a common negative reaction to Stallman's rhetoric. The goal was to bring the software to a larger audience, which had previously been turned off to the concept.
Are Stallman's tactics a failure? Does open source undermine the ultimate goals behind almost two decades of RMS and the FSF's hard work? Is it "ok" to say Linux without prepending a "GNU/" to it? Those are tough questions to answer.
Was Microsoft's monopoly "instrumental in spawning" either Free or Open Source Software? That's an easy one to answer, and as usual, Katz rambles on and ends up saying things that are obviously wrong.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Would it be as bad or worse if some other company was doing the same thing? Of course, but that only strenghtens the argument against allowing a single company in *any* industry to leverage a position where they are easily able to crush any competition, and the innovation that would have came with it.
________
The positive things in the computing world happend in spite of microsoft, not because of them.
Anyone who pretends for a minute that we would still be using punch cards if it wasn't for the tactics of Microsoft... just doesn't get it.
Innovation is not spawned from monolithic companies with control over everything, innovation is born from competition, and thrives on it. Without Microsoft's monopoly, there would be many, many companies competing to be the best, and doing everything and anything required to get their.
the over-used, but appropriate example is the telephone company. With a monopoly, there was no competition, no innovation, the customer could expect very little, and get less. Once the phone companies were broken up, competition reigned, prices plummeted, the industry re-invented itself to be better, cheaper, more efficient, more reliable, all because it needed to to survive the competition.
There is little doubt Microsoft would have been broken up long ago if it wasn't in a technology area, which our justice system is completely incompetent and unable to regulate properly.
________
This trial isn't about morals or ethics, it's about competition in the computer industry so that consumers can get better products. It's about economics, the foundation of a capitalist country! MS isn't getting split up because they look like a big bad evil company. They are getting split up because they are disallowing competition in the market with their barriers of entry to the computer market. The government is doing their job in trying to allow more companies to entry the computer market. America is not a true capitalist country, we still have the goverment to come in and try to solve business problems.
Without the goverment, how else are you going to end a monopoly? The only other way is through educating the consumer about his/her other choices, but this is difficult to near impossible to do. This is why we have the goverment interfere with our economics.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Since I have lived in Britain for a few years, I have come to think that in affairs like this expediency is often the best way. Idealogy should be left to students and High School pupils - there is no place for it in the grown up world, because it leads to a divorce from reality.
Ideology is divorced from reality. As in, men should have no coherent philosophy or framework in which to ground long-term goals and behavior, and should instead lurch from case to case on the "expedience" of the moment?
No thank you.
why wasn't Microsoft justified in integrating Windows with its much-hyped OS? Wouldn't doing otherwise prove corporate suicide? Was Microsoft really supposed to sit back and allow competitors to dominate this critical market, surely threatening Windows in the process?
They are fully justified in creating a browser that competes with Netscape. They are not justified in tying their browser to their OS and then using the monopoly status of their OS to turn their browser into a monopoly also. This is the heart of the case - you can't use a current monopoly to create for yourself a new monopoly. This is exactly what MicroSoft has done.
Of course, the ironic thing is MicroSoft probably didn't have to do this. Their browser now is arguably better than Netscape. If they had just competed fairly it is quite conceivable that they would have won the browser wars on technical merit alone. As it turned out, they got scared, they cheated, and I sincerely hope they get punished for it.
Judge Jackson ... who made critical
comments about Microsoft and its founder to reporters while the appeal
process is still underway.
I think it was The Register that pointed out that Judge Jackson didn't start making his provocative comments until 4 days after MicroSoft filed it's appeal. At that point in time he no longer had control over the case, it was now in the hands of the appeals court. Technically, Judge Jackson did nothing wrong, I think the appeals court is mainly having a personality conflict with Judge Jackson. (An old legal joke is that the way to increase the average intelligence of the appeals courts and the trial courts, at the same time, is to appoint a trial judge to the appeals court.)
Are other giant theme park operators really free to create new versions of Disney World
Actually, yes they are free to do so and are doing so successfully. The Six Flags and SeaWorld franchises are two competitors that immediately come to mind. All over America you will find local amuzement parks that, although not necessarily of the same size as Disney, still provide viable competition.
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Don Dugger
VA Linux Systems
Don Dugger
"Censeo Toto nos in Kansa esse decisse." - D. Gale
Punishing the winner when he takes steroids and shoots the other competitors sounds reasonable to me.
In KPPP, enter username, password and phone number. Click Connect. Wait 2 minutes. Open Konqueror and start browsing. Hardly the stuff of nightmares is it?
What does my argument have to do with the Soviet countries in the 1980s? I was saying that if it sells well then there's little economic incentive under capitalism to improve the product. If it sells well then there's no interest in making it better.
Until very recently Japanese and German cars were streets ahead in build quality and reliability. But still people bought Fords in their millions, proving my point. It was only when Ford started losing big to the likes of Honda that they started reviewing the 'don't worry be crappy' policy.
One day Americans like you will stop believing that any system but laissez-faire capitalism is totalitarian Soviet communism, but I doubt I'll be alive to see it.
Why the NRA of course.
You bring up some interesting peripheral points, but in the end, these don't matter much.
The REAL problem is this:
Microsoft brought an end to the term "computers don't make mistakes" Computers are unreliable as hell in most people's eyes, and rightly so. I get a little upset when I can't get my phone hooked up because the AT&T customer rep tells me that she was just typing in my info and now the screen turned blue.
Microsoft has designed a user interface that allows any idiot to use a computer instantly, without learning anything about what they are doing or how to do it right. They make every effort to get users using computers so they can buy products, but they make NO EFFORT to help people avoid the pitfalls of irresponsibly using a computer.
Microsoft software is not easy to use. It is easy to learn. Word is the most difficult program I have ever used. I love it when I'm writing a technical document and it tries to help me write a letter to grandma. There's a lot of software out there that is difficult to learn but easy to use, a good example of which is Photoshop: it's not intuitive, but once you learn to use it you can be extremely productive with it.
Microsoft has created the need for programs like Virus scanners, uninstallers, disk repair utilities, and all kinds of kludged utilities that let you "roll back" your system state to when it was once stable. They've created "self-repairing" software.... why should software ever break with a good package management system...or just good protection around core shared system libraries?
Microsoft has created an IT industry that spends billions every year working around the massive shortcomings of software that doesn't work.
Microsoft denies all of this.
Is any of this illegal? NO!
Oops, but wait, Microsoft maneuvered into and maintains their monopoly position illegally. They broke the law and action must therefore be taken against them... regardless of what anyone thinks of their software.
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Your anecdotal evidence of MS stuff working can be easily countered with my anecdotal evidence of MS stuff not working. All our Windows boxen run the latest updates of Win2K with SP1, and I have not seen the types of uptimes you have. The reason we moved to 2K is because NT4 was just that bad. The NT4 boxes crashed constantly, even though they ran on high-quality Dell servers and were very well maintained. Today another 2000 machine blew up when we applied a security fix... it now boots to a blue screen.
The Linux environment at work has never had any problems that were not found to be hardware related. Our Linux IT cost is virtually zero by comparison. All our development machines run on it, and their constantly running very much untested software yet their rate of failure is orders of magnitues less than the creative departments machines that run Photoshop and the administrative machines that use Word and ACT, all on up-to-date w2k installs.
At least with Win2K I don't get woken up at 3am just about every Saturday morining when the NT4 IIS boxes blue-screened (and didn't reboot, even though they were supposed too) due to the backup software running.
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Indeed; and before PC's in every home there were also Amiga's, Commodore 64's, Sinclair spectrums, Apples etc. in lot's of homes. So there already was a movement towards having computers at home. The pc, and certainly Microsoft, where not the first on that market.
I used to think this was odd too. But then I learned the reason for it. As I understand it, in Windows Ctl-Alt-Del is always trapped by the OS, never by a user program. So pressing Ctl-Alt-Del at the login ensures that the login screen you are seeing is actually the real OS login, and not a user program written by a malicious attacker who wants to deceive you into revealing your password.
As far as I can see, this is an improvement over standard Unix login procedures where the only you can determine its authenticity is to reboot first.
BH
BH
Fools! They laughed at me at the Sorbonne...!
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
You make a good point - however if Slashdot were to publish their server logs it would show something like 70% of their visitors use windows. (I believe one of the admins or possibly Taco once said something to this effect) Kind of throws the whole unified community theory out the window.
I do agree the editors should try to be consistent though. A better argument is that Slashdot shouldn't have posted this from Katz given that they have posted several pro-breakup articles in the past, rather than just mindlessly bashing MS, even if it is consistent. Or at least come forth that they are changing their editorial postition on this specific matter.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Whatever you think of MS, they were commonly seen as the bellwether of tech companies. A strong Microsoft spurred investment into computer companies in general, whereas Nasdaq took a dive riding on Microsoft's coattails.
The reality is, the stock market is driven by psychology. And what that means is, to paraphrase Alfred Sloan, is that whats good for Microsoft is good for the tech industry in general(in regards to stock prices) And vice-versa. People are fickle and tend to make sweeping generalizations about the computer industry.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Jon, walk for a bit in my shoes (currently, they're size 8 womens LL Bean big-ass snow boots, but I digress...). I'll demonstrate to you why people were not free to choose Navigator.
First, MS designed the Explorer program to be integrated into the OS in methods that you are grieviously omitting. For those of you who don't know this, the same basic "explorer" program engine (for lack of a better word) runs both Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer (the file management program). The programs look and run the basically the same. For example, if you are running IE, you have the ability to browse AND MANAGE your local hard drive, just like in Windows Explorer. Now since MS also include that crappy My Computer program in their OS too, why did they allow their web browser to MANAGE FILES/FOLDERS? Explain this to me with a straight face please.
Secondly, in regards to the "freedom" that someone would have to install navigator onto their OS, that task requires the ABILITY to find, download and install the program in question . Out of those 100 million net users, how many do you think could have accomplished this? I thought that PCs and the Internet were supposed to be "easy to use"? Isn't that in itself a huge disincentive for consumers to use Navigator instead???? (And to you /. folks, don't give me the bull---- line about "they should know how". I'm talking newbies, not 31337 folks like you.)
Finally, all of you who manage Win98 boxes know how friggin difficult it is to get rid of that IE program. I'm not talking about deleting the shortcut off of the desktop--I'm talking about annihilating the sucker off of the OS. How many places does that program hide in the OS?? Let me count the ways... On the desktop, notice that the IE shortcut sits right next to all of the other Win essential programs like My Computer, Network Neighborhood, whatever. This is on purpose. MS designed Explorer to be considered as an essential part of the OS (for the average users they covet)--make no mistake about it.
So, please, tell me how free the average PC user was to choose Navigator instead...
This is another view of the world.
Microsoft RULES!!
Dirty Pirate Hooker
"... once the judgement has been reached by due process in a court of law then the judge is allowed to be predjudiced ..."
It is impossible to be prejudiced after a trial. That's postjudice. Seriously, much of our society has come to view almost any opinion as "prejudice." That term is not appropriate for informed, reasoned opinion.
and so you will have a group of computer builders that cower before microsoft and don't sell anything else. if microsoft's product is super wonderful, then everyone will be happy. but when microsoft gets lazy - because they have the monopoly and don't have to compete - someone will get frustrated with only having one option. he will think, "you know? I can build a better computer" and he will. if it is really better, then is will challenge microsoft and perhaps upset the balance of power.
now i don't like microsoft either. but just because i think they suck is no reason to grant the government more power than they should have - or that they're permitted to have by the constitution.
capitalism rewards innovation. we've seen it happen to ibm, apple, and others. we'll see it happen to microsoft too.
wishus
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Yes, in GNU-world there is a very big difference between Open Source and Free Software. RMS is not fond of Open Source because it is not free enough, and while he insists that people can make a living from distribution and support of Free software, he believes that all software should be Free.
I understand his arguments perfectly, but didn't care to expound on them in my previous post. I mentioned RMS as more of a joke than an argument, but I probably shouldn't have mentioned him at all.
wishus
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Do you realize the federal government of the United States of America operated for over 150 years without an income tax?
Do you realize if the federal government got its ugly head out of the market once and for all, all money spend "educating" politicians would be a waste?
The government could go back to governing the people (the DEFINITION of government) according to the Constitution, and capitalism could reign unhindered in the marketplace, and we'd see a better country for everyone.
wishus
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Actually, most of Netscape's income came from its server, not its browser.
But, assuming that Netscape's only product was a browser, and people were not willing to pay extra to replace the browser that came with their OS, Netscape deserves to fail. Either (1) their browser is not better than the one that comes with the OS, or (2) their browser is better, but people are not willing to pay money for a better browser.
Lets say I create a super file manager, that's way better than Windows Explorer. I try to sell it, but no one buys it. Do I deserve to have the government come in and bail me out?
wishus
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AmiPro was a better word processor in its time than Word will ever be. I suppose there's not alot of us left who remember when 123 ruled the PC spreadsheet market. I get all teary thinking about it..
wishus
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You're right, he does hate Bill Gates on a personal level.
/. reader.
:)
You see, he's a
Go ahead, mod me down.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It'd be great if you were correct, and if you only look at the most recent history, you are.
Please re-examine Microsoft's attempts to eliminate DR-DOS and their approaches to OS/2.
Any OEM is not free to sell computers with whichever system they choose. If an OEM chooses to sell computers with Windows, and make the option for a different operating system instead of Windows available, then that OEM is subject to Microsoft's whim about whether to raise the cost of Windows for that OEM.
I don't blame the OEM's, they attempted to stay in business in the face of Microsoft charging them for using anything other than Windows. Please don't tell me that nobody wanted anything other than Windows PC's, you ignore DR-DOS, Os/2, IBM PC-DOS, desqview, and later, Be. OS/2 is only the biggest and best example, because it was Microsoft versus IBM. No infrastructure for ordering alternative software loads on oem hard drives? IBM had os/2 as an option, until they folded under pressure from Microsoft.
Yes, the Microsoft tax is much discussed, and misunderstood by many, but please don't deny the existence of people who wanted anything but Windows, and please consider history before you tell me how wrong I am.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
My initial reaction is not printable in a family oriented medium.
There's a saying in techdom about Microsoft: Don't moon the giant. Crossgain mooned Microsoft every which way. First, the ex-Microsofties poached some of their former colleagues to join them at the startup. Then they raised $10 million from investors, including The Barksdale Group, a venture firm run by Microsoft's chief nemesis at the antitrust trial, former Netscape Communications Corp. (AOL) CEO James Barksdale. A few months later, Crossgain named Mitchell Kertzman, an outspoken critic of Microsoft's business practices, a director. Kertzman is CEO of Liberate Technologies (LBRT), an interactive-TV software maker that competes fiercely with Microsoft interactive-TV technology
The last straw was Crossgain's decision to base its technology on non-Microsoft software. Instead of using such Microsoft products as the Windows 2000 operating system and SQL Server 2000 database package to develop its service, Crossgain opted for software made by rivals. ''It doesn't look very good for Microsoft if a company run by its former vice-president of developer relations is using software made by Oracle,'' says a former Microsoft executive.
With a potential lawsuit looming, Microsoft offered a deal, according to Crossgain and Microsoft. If Crossgain committed to building its service with Microsoft products, the company wouldn't pursue the noncompete claims. Crossgain sources say Microsoft specifically wanted to preclude the company from using Oracle database software. Microsoft sources deny that. Switching to Microsoft technologies meant huge delays and the loss of months of work for Crossgain, which hopes to launch its first service in March. But the deal also meant avoiding months, or perhaps years, of litigation with one of the wealthiest companies in the world. Crossgain execs thought they could win the litigation, but the time and expense to do it would be a huge drain.
[RANT]
It looks like what MS is doing my not be illegal, but that is only saying that the corporate equivalent of being a serial killer is not illegal. MS can intimidate, kill off, and consume their opposition because there is no law against being a monster. And the nicely legalistic judges say sorry, but they have to go free. Year after year the carnage goes on.
It is starting to look like MS is the Corporate Equivalent of Hannibal Lecter, in my opinion. And being rich, with all the lawyers, can make sure that such mass corporate murder and cannibalization is never made illegal. Again, in my opinion.
[/RANT]
Thank You for Your Support
Sounds like a good idea for a site, given the freshness of the movie in the minds of the public
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Open source/FSF folks need to worry about the precedent that is set if the court finds that giving something away for free is predatory and/or harms consumers. What company (Red Hat? VA Linux?) or individual(s) (Linus? ESR?) will then be fed into the DoJ woodchipper?
1) Microsoft makes money charging for software.
2) Netscape had grand visions of a browser-centric model of computing.
3) Microsoft gives away IE. This is a money-losing proposition. It doesn't make sense if you're playing "fair" - not trying to manipulate the market
No, it goes more like this:
1) Netscape realizes that browser features are going to be key to all operating systems going forward, decides to be "the" operating system of the future, but conveniently forgets that there's a great deal of software in between them and the hardware.
They then start giving away copies of their browser on the theory that if they give away enough of them, then folks will want to buy some copies, too. (???)
2) Microsoft also realizes that browsers are important (belatedly) and starts making one of their own. Realizing that Netscape is probably right about it being a key OS feature, they start incorporating it into their OS shipments for free, because they know that OS shipments are already a money-losing proposition where the only point is to get first chance to sell the user APPLICATIONS.
Meanwhile, as the MS browser slowly catches up with and then beats Netscape's browser in features and performance, the Netscape browser becomes an unstable, pork-filled mess. Whereas Netscape started the browser wars effectively driving the HTML standards process, in the end they found they could barely keep up with the latest standards. Microsoft's standards compliance is, err, creative as well but they manage to stay ahead of the curve more of the time than not.
3) Netscape finds out the hard way that there's no money in OS software, either new or old, and slowly spins out of control. All the while, they invent new "business models" of the week, each smaller in scope until finally they claim to be just a portal and are bought and stripped down for parts.
Microsoft is hardly angelic in this story, but if making fewer mistakes than your challengers is a crime, then I fear we'll have no businesses left.
If they get broken up, some other megacorporation will grow to take its place.
More of the same.
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Well unless we are all hypocrites, if we think its ok to do this to Microsoft, then it should be ok for the government to do this to any technology company who adds features to their own products that in turn make other products unsellable. I have split feelings on Microsoft. I think their tactics of trying to tell IBM they cant market OS2, or their office products if they want to buy Win95 at the same price as everyone else, is bullshit. But on the other hand, I believe in Microsofts right to include features in their OS, I believe its ok for them to create a web browser and give it away for free, and to include it in their OS. I'm not sure if anyone remembers the Lantasitc days. Lantastic sold a networking adon for Win 3.1. Well Lantastic got mad at Microsoft when MS came out with Windows for Workgroups. Lantastic, figured no one would buy their product is MS did that (and they where right) so they sued and lost. I do understand where Lantastic was coming from, but I believe in Microsofts right to include networking in their OS (could you image Linux without networking support simply because someone wanted to sell a networking addon?). I think the same goes for web browsers. Static HTML files are replacing everything from readme files, to help files. Is it fair for the government to tell us "No sorry, a web browser can not be included with the OS, you must purchase it separately if you want to read your help files"
I disagree that everyone is using MS products because there isn't something else. Have you ever tried to setup a 50 year old dial up customer who has never touched a computer in his life? I wouldn't bother if they didn't use Windows. I have to tell them whether to do one click or two, right click or left click. Can you imagine them trying to walk them through a pnpdump and setup eth0? (actually I have no idea how to setup dial up on linux, so Im comparing with LAN) And what if they are running Joe-Schmoe distrobution, do they use debian like packages or RPM? Because of the microsoft ease of use and huge market I can remember the setup on 4 versions as compared with this type of linux satire
Because they don't even know that other options exist, for the most part.
Why? Because MS is a monopoly.
And thats Microsofts fault? No, its the fault of the ignorant consumer. If you don't research your options you're going to have to put up with what you're given. For the 'average' user at home Windows is the best operating system.
It IS Microsoft's fault because (back before the DOJ investigation) Microsoft would not let a computer supplier sell Windows if they sold another OS. They did the same thing with IE. They told manufacturers "you cannot sell windows if Netscape is on the desktop." So because of Microsoft using its monopoly, consumers could not buy a computer with an alternative OS. Nor could they buy a computer with an alternative browser. That is why it's harmful.
Secondly, what good is research if you can't buy an alternative product preinstalled anyway? This is where the Microsoft tax came from. You couldn't buy a computer for use with Linux/FreeBSD/*NIX without also buying a copy of Windows, regardless of whether you actually USE Windows or not. Now do you still want to talk about fair?
I'm not going to argue 'who' is to blame in terms of MS being a monopoly.
The issue at stake is that they *are* a monopoly, and they have use said monopoly in ways that hurt the consumer, and in the process have also done illegal things to boot.
Even without the monopoly, those two things can be dealt with, but with the monopoly, they are much graver issues.
'For the average user at home Windows is the best operating system'
Did you forget the fact that there exists a system called Mac OS?
For the average user at home, perhaps the 'cheapest' system is a Windows OS with an Intel PC. But there are plenty of non cheap WinTel systems that put them in the same price range as the Mac OS. What then?
Then the fact that most people couldn't install Linux. Most people can't even install Windows! The cute thing is that those same people *can* install Mac OS. Not that I've done it (I can install Windows or Linux, btw), but it's supposed to be as simple as dragging a MacOS folder from a bootable CD onto the Apple machine, or something like that.
Microsoft does have a rival. The fact that people don't know about it is Apple's fault for being too stealthy in advertising. What if Apple advertised on all the strengths of their platform? I dunno what would happen, but I would think Macs would be more popular and common, and due to economic volume, cheaper and higher performance to boot!
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Just because someone or some thing is the victim of a witch hunt- that doesn't meant they're not a witch.
Click here for more information on the legal preciedence of the Nobody Likes Me Defense
Laws exist to maintain the idea of justice in the eyes of the public. If people think OJ did it, they don't think the 'system' works.
So, public flogging of unpopular business figures will be held on the Capital steps in D.C. on the first of each month. The "winners" will be chosen by secret election. You cannot be flogged more than twice in any given year (kind of like TRL).
Sure, it's curel. It's unusual. But did you ever hear of an over-arching operating systems monopoly when the Puritans ran the show?
I think not.
begin voting now for whom shall be flogged first
You've made one misstatement, and that concerns what people like to call the "Microsoft tax." In fact, there is no such thing. The OEM process works like this:
OEM predicts they will sell 2 million PCs this next year. Microsoft says if you buy 2 million licenses, you can pay $x. OEM agrees and buys the licenses.
Now the kicker comes when you want to order that new PC w/o Windows... until the recent build-to-order crazy, most companies had no infrastructure for managing customizations very well.... all of their Hard Drives came preloaded with their software.
At any rate, they just take the cost they paid for those 2 million licenses and divy that up across all the PCs. This is just the standard they use for management simplicity, and is NOT SOMETHING ENFORCED BY MICROSOFT. ANY OEM IS FREE AND CLEAR TO SELL PCs WITHOUT ANY OS CHARGES WHATSOEVER. This has *always* been the case.
In effect, you are blaming Microsoft because the OEMs were too lazy to deal with shipping PCs with no (or alternative) OSes installed. Besides... before the most recent times, the overhead with that sort of thing would negate any additional profits... until Linux became a buzzword, nobody WANTED PCs without Windows.
If you don't wanna get a PC with any software preloaded, do what I do and build your own.
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The IHA Forums
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
You are confusing several things here.
the NT kernel provides an API, called the Executive. It is usually hidden from most programs, for portability reasons, as well as logistical reasons. The native set has less than 300 APIs... most of the legwork is done in the individual subsystems. Win32 is *NOT* a simple wrapper to the Native API set....
There are several "subsystems", each of which talks to the kernel in its native API. The Win32 subsystem is the most common, and the one that the shell is based on. You also have the Win16, DOS, and POSIX subsystems.
Why couldn't IBM port PM to NT? They could, quite easily. Any company can sign agreements to get access to the kernel code; Executive software did that on NT3.x b/c that version of the kernel lacked defrag APIs.... ES signed with MS and gained the rights not only to get the code, but to modify it and distribute an updated kernel patch.
As it stands, anyone can replace the standard Explorer shell with something else, written to the Win32 API, or any other API subsystem. The graphics interface is also overridable... just look at Stardock's Windowblinds. The latest Version 2.x series is super fast (I can't tell the difference between it and native), and has few compatibility issues (mostly with apps that draw their own borders or widgets.)
It would be quite possible to design a *nix compatible subsystem/API, and Microsoft sells just such a thing called Interix. Why there isn't an Open Source project for this purpose, I don't know. If I were better at C++, I might just take it up myself.
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The IHA Forums
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
I don't think that Judge Jackson completely understand the implications to the industry if Microsoft were in fact broken up. This man, (I use the term loosely) has visions of cheap software, the glorious emergence of alternative OS, and happy users all over the world. I also thing that this guy has visions of his picture on the cover of every magazine in the world.
Judge Brown is after fame, period.
Don't get me wrong, I get as frustrated as anyone when I have to run a separate Win98 box to just collect my email but the software solutions that MS provides solutions for the ordinary user and they seem pretty happy about it.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
And you know, there are always two sides on the coin. I had HUGE problems with various Linux distros some time ago on my desktop machine at home. It would freeze every once in a while (maybe every 2-3 hours or so) under X, no matter what I tried. I changed hardware, changed my motherboard, CPU, memory.. no change.. Finally I installed Windows 98 on it and I had no problems. Sure, typically it would be the other way around, but if you have had 100 blue screens of death in one day on a Windows box, remember that there are people who have had similar experiences with other OS's. It's nothing Microsoft specific.
Switch distros. I had several problems with my hardware under RedHat 6.2. So I copied all the data I wanted to keep onto my Windows drive, and started over with Debian. Worked much better, but I still had minor issues with my soundcard. With RedHat 7 I have no problems at all, every piece of hardware works as well or better than under Windows. Total cost to fix problems? Nothing.
This is proof that competition works when it exists. IMHO, the improvement between RedHat 6.2 and RedHat 7 is vastly greater than the improvement between Win95 and Win98. And in much less than 4 years. Sure, the inital release had a lot of bugs, but most of them were fixed faster than Microsoft can issue a press release declaring a bug to be a feature.
This is the beauty of having to fight over market share - distros improve rapidly to avoid being beaten up by the other guy. Not so much the case with Microsoft. They're afraid at how fast Linux has caught up with Windows in all areas. They don't know how to turn out good software quickly. As the useability gap closes they have to be very afraid.
On the other hand, I downloaded the All YOur Base video and tried to play it under Windows. It freezes my whole machine hard - can't even reboot. Straight out of the box, my Windows 98 machine needed a reboot once a day to keep it happy. Can someone tell me where I can download a different version of Windows? I suppose I could shell out loads of money for Win2K but there is no guarantee whatsoever that it will solve my problems. I doubt MS will refund the purchase price when I tell them that my NIC still stops working randomly.
If your a Linux user with problems you can always try something else for relatively little cost when nothing else works. If you're an Windows user you're gonna have to wait for an upgrade (which means upgrading your RAM, HD, etc. to deal with this round of bloat), pay in advance and then hope it resolves your problems.
To me, Microsoft's crimes were arrogance, mediocrity and greed, the hallmarks of our corporatized culture -- none of them, alas, illegal in our business world.
Correct. However, the case in question isn't about what Microsoft's crimes were 'to you', but what the court found. And what the court found is that Microsoft violated the monopoly laws.
Much as people fault the quality of Microsoft's software and decry its practices, the truth is that tens of millions of people have used their products successfully to access the Net and the Web and run their PCs.
Much as people fault the tactics of the Mafia, the truth is that tens of millions of small business owners have run their businesses successfully. Of course, had the mob not taken their cut, those same small business owners would have been much more successful and happy. Similarly, had Microsoft not held progress back, imagine how much better those tens of millions of persons might have had it when using software. Can't imagine it? That's the problem: we'll never know what could have been had Microsoft not crushed rivals into the ground.
I'd rather see MS challenged creatively in the marketplace
Me too. Unfortunately, every time this happens, Microsoft manages to crush, buy out, or co-opt that creative competition.
Antitrust law says that for a company to behave illegally, it must establish a monopoly (not in itself illegal), engage in anti-competitive practices, and perhaps most importantly, harm consumers. Were consumers demonstrably harmed by Microsoft? If so, how?
By making it harder for them to have free choice. Note, I didn't say it was impossible for them to have free choice, for as you point out they could always get ahold of a Netscape disc somehow. But it required extra effort on their part.
A virus hits. Businesses have to take time to fix it. Media claims billions of dollars in damage in the form of lost productivity.
Microsoft forces Netscape off computers in the factory. Businesses have to take time to fix this by installing what they want instead. Yet this same form of lost productivity isn't 'damage'?
Did government antitrust prosecutors actually prove that Microsoft prevented Netscape, or any other rival, from bringing new products to the marketplace?
Microsoft did force Netscape to stop charging for its browser by giving its own browser away. When Japanese chip companies did something similar years ago, Washington was up in arms about 'dumping'. Certainly what Microsoft did caused great monetary damage to Netscape. Microsoft had the financial ability to absorb this loss, knowing that Netscape didn't.
Look, I'm not in favor of the government breaking up Microsoft, for I want the government to stay out of the way. But to pretend that Microsoft didn't violate any laws when they, say, blackmailed Apple into dropping Netscape is ludicrous!
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Private Essayist
However, there are two sides to ever coin. Behind the nice facade they put up, there is a ruthless company that's pretty much willing to engage in any nasty business practice they want to defeat competition. We can never forget that. And while it's true that we bash M$ religiously here, that kind of opposition is important. There always has to be a strong or at least existent counter-force to any entity (everyone needs a nemesis). What better and more willing people to do that than us? ...or the government?
I'm getting to the point... almost there.
The "Slashdot Community" as we call ourselves, should stick to our ideals. If we identify something as being bad, be it MS, AOL, Starbucks, or any other big corporate entity with a monopoly on their market delivering shady products and engaging in shady practices... we should not hesitate to bash them - provided we've thought about why we're doing it.
The rest of the world will look at our words and make up their own minds. No lynchings will occurr - we're not going to accidently wrongly sour the minds of the whole population with our ideas if they're too rash. We have our point of view. Everyone else has theirs. Everyone acts for their own reasons.
Okay! I'm at the point!
If the government has alterior motives for their cause, but their ideals are parallel to ours, we should not hesitate to 'take advantage of it' so to speak. It may be a little disturbing that the government can get its way, but we need to look at their acts as a step in the right direction. I stated earlier that MS are a ruthless company. Being that this is the case - my belief as well as others' - then I think it's acceptable for the government to be equally ruthless in dealing with them. It's the Golden Rule. By principle, Microsoft has done Bad Things to other corporations - unfairly playing hardball, and stifling them. They had to know that sometime, a bigger fish was going to come along and do the same to them.
It's been argued that the government is stepping out of its bounds in decided what's right, regardless of the law. Well, Microsoft have broken the law - repeatedly. And we shouldn't feel sorry for them. They'll get whatever they deserve, and on top of that, I assure you they'll be alright. They have deep pockets and large spheres of influence. The buying and selling of politicians will enter. They'll convince others to aid them. You get the idea. All and all, they're just being tripped up a little.
First off, unless something radically changed in 2k, MS recommends rebooting after performing almost any serious install.
I don't know of a single product install under w2k that asks for a reboot. This was a huge problem in NT4 (change the IP? reboot time). But because of the work that went into 2k any software application that tells you it needs to reboot is simply stupid, lazy or outdated. No MS product asks for a reboot of Win2k on install and no 3rd party products should.
Next even NT is highly volitale. Least we forget the blue-screen-of-death?? My favorite is when this happened at Bill Gates' presentation.
When was the last time you saw a BSOD on your NT machine? NT4 properly configured is very stable. I run whistler (beta) and freebsd-4.2-beta on two machines at home. Freebsd is less stable than Whistler.
The consumer windows versions (9x and ME) are pretty unstable, of course. My personal opinion on this is that MS should have ditched the 9x line and merged in the NT kernel a long time ago. But those of you who bash MS and cry about your OS being unstable should try running NT not 9x. And next time you get a win2k blue screen that is not the fault of some poorly written 3rd party driver you installed, send it to me.
You're assuming your situation is common. Your hardware configuration is relatively unique since there are so many possible configurations. One NT server and one W2K server do not make for a good review of the OSs. Your success with them may or may not be typical. MS products still have really shoddy stability. Every product they release has more documented bugs than the prior version. Do some research and find that non-MS OSs are almost always more stable. But then you probably use their servers because of their monopoly and wouldn't see much of the competition anyway...
Developers: We can use your help.
Look, I'm not going to bullshit here. I'll just give you the facts.
1. Before MS came along, computers were unaffordable. Now we all reap the benefits of a computer in every home.
2. MS have consistently brought down prices - they cut prices in the spreadsheet market; they are producing software that is cheaper than what was their before. And they're still doing it. MS Sql Server, which is at least on a par with Oracle, is much cheaper than it, and thus benefits consumers that way.
3. Believe it or not, Microsoft actually do produce good software. Certainly Windows 3.1 wasn't very stable, but in 1992 what competition was there? Certainly not Linux. And even given that, if you ask me if I want my secretary on the current state of the art Linux, or on Windows 3.1 and Word 2, I'll bet you a dollar to a hundred that she'll be more effective on Windows 3.1
4. Microsoft have benefitted the US economy. It really has. Compared with the UK, for instance, the strength of the US IT industry is vast - and much of this strength is due to Microsoft.
5. Nearly all opposition to MS comes from jealous competitors. Netscape have been beaten fair-and-square by MS, for instance - just compare Netscape 6 with MSIE, for instance. This just backs up my point - Microsoft software is of exceptional quality. They hire the best programmers because they can afford to, and they release top software. Word beats anything else on the market, and as a usable OS, so does Windows (and on stability, Windows 2000 ranks pretty highly to). Combine this with easy administration - the idiot in my office is in charge of DNS administration, which he can easily do using MS DNS manager, because it's just point, right click/properties. He'd have no chance with Bind.
The fact is, for a small business with not many staff, Microsoft software allows them to compete with the big guys - they can offer ISP provision, because they don't need highly paid admins. This is great news for the economy and great news for them.
6. The fact is, as I have stated, there is a lot of jealousy and resentment out there - whereas the truth is that Microsoft produce damn fine software, and their very low prices (believe me - just check the price of a spreadsheet 20 years ago), mean that although they have a monopoly, that has come through selling good software at low prices and therefore high volume.
Damaging Microsoft would damage the consumer. What do you want people to use? Star Office?
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Hi!
Sure there are. That is, there are other OSes out there that don't consider the browser to be built-in to the operating system, and rather bundle it as a separate application. New MacOS machines include IE as an app, and various Linux distributions include Netscape and other browsers. Just because people connect their machines to the internet doesn't mean they need an OS with an embedded browser.
"In the Corporate Republic, the land of AOL/Time-Warner and the Disney Corp., is Microsoft really that unusual, or even particularly predatory?" Yes. It has about 90% of the desktop OS market, which is well within the legal definition of "monopoly". AOL/Time-Warner, etc., doesn't have 50% of any one market. One more merger could change that--but that would be illegal. (I am a bit concerned that they might buy the Justice Dept. so they can get away with it.) Until they do attempt that last merger, there is no legal basis for anti-trust action. IANAL, but I think the legal side of this argument is just that simple.
On another note, if you don't like AOL or Disney, just don't buy from them, and don't watch their movies and TV channels. You don't lose anything but time- and mind-wasting diversions. Likewise, it is possible to avoid using MS OS's. But MS has used 18 years of guaranteed income and name recognition (at least) from it's OS's to gain almost as big a lock on the office software market. So if you are in business, you will have customers and vendors sending you data in Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, and you've got to be able to decode those formats. To some extent you can use third party software, but this was created by reverse-engineering Word and Excel files, not by using published documentation. When MS changes the format, it will be a year or so before other vendors can catch up, and probably some obscure features will never be properly interpreted. And so virtually every business in the US winds up buying at least one Windows box and MS Office, and buying it again every few years, because you can't afford to risk faulty communications with your customers.
Of course, that doesn't seem to be what Judge Jackson focused on. Trust the federal judiciary--even when they do the right thing, it will be for the wrong reason...
I remember when I got my first computer ... sometime in the 80's. It ran MS-DOS 3.10. Their was really no other choice in operating systems at the time so I was stuck paying the Microsoft tax of $50 or something like that so that my computer would do more then just beep. My next computers were a little better with DOS 5.0, DOS 6.22 with Windows 3.11, and DOS 7.10. Each time, I was forced to pay $50+ dollars for each new computer so that I would have the "latest and greatest" microsoft product. Their was really no choice in the matter, most consumers use what comes with their computers. I've owned several computers since then, continuing up until my last computer, which I built myself, and each time I payed the Microsoft Tax. I discovered Linux '98 and only payed $5 for it on something like linuxmall.com, and again $40 for a version of Mandrake. Amazing enough, this is less then I originally paid for DOS 3.10 in 198X. With respect to inflation in a non-monopolistic environment, a $50 product 15 years ago at 5% would approximately be $103 yet I'm paying much less for an equivalent product. Tell me this hasn't harmed consumers.
You stupid bastard, you don't have no arms left. It's just a flesh wound.
Neither did Mr Katz article address the accusation that Microsoft included booby-traps in its operating system code -- booby-traps that would make competitors programs fail. It is well-known that windows 3.1 was booby-trapped to fail if it detected it was being invoked form DR DOS, not MS DOS. Microsoft did settle their case with the owners of DR DOS out of court -- for nine figures. That is a pretty damning admission of guilt I'd say. Bill did pass the reins to Ballmer a couple of days later. Some have suggested that this was one of the clauses of the secret settlement.
Is this programming practice a typical one for Microsoft? Yes, I am ready to believe it is. When I heard that the source code for Windows 98 was fifty percent longer than that for Windows 95 I thought to myself, "what is that extra fifty percent code bloat doing? W98 is not 50% better than W95!" I suspected that much of that 50% code bloat was due to booby-traps.
Ok, this is my first post so hopefully I won't start a flame-war, BUT ...
/.ers.
1. While I have an MCSE and the money I earn comes directly from supporting M$ products, I DON'T agree with their predatory market practices.
2. I don't hold with a lot of people's views that one OS or another is the END-ALL-BE-ALL of OSdom. I think (and so do a lot of the people I work with and have worked with) that each OS has it's strengths and weaknesses that place it within a certain market niche. Microsoft fills a LOT of those niches and requirements with it's various OSs.
3. I DO think that, despite Microsofts claims, that they do hold a significant monopoly and do maintain business practices that are unethical at best and market insensitive at worst.
My position is as follows:
1. Microsoft should be broken up.
a) The company should be broken up
VERTICALLY into 3 separate companies. A
lottery would be held to RANDOMLY assign
all current employees to the new
derivative companies with a limitation
set that NO employee can be cross-hired
by any of the other two companies. This
would extend from the lowest janitor to
Mr. Gates himself.
b) The software assets of the companies
should (up to Windows NT and Windows ME)
be placed into escrow and if another
company wants to be able to compete,
they can purchase a licensed copy of
the complete source code with the
limitation that it is not to be
publically disseminated/released.
c) All APIs for any MS derivitave OSs or
applications will be PUBLIC. NO HIDDEN
or unpublished APIs will be allowed or
tolerated from any MS derivative company
or licensee.
This, I think would be the ONLY way to truly even the playing field for all competing and also be fair to the shareholders of Microsoft stock. Of which most of you out there probably are if you have a 401(k) or have ANY technology related mutual funds.
Any comments? Over to you
It was written:
I feel that I should say something strongly worded and possibly obscene, but I really bare you personally no ill will; this misunderstanding is easy enough to make (once).
The fact is, though, that this is simply and utterly as untrue as saying that rot13 is encryption. For the actual MS documentation on how to write a logon replacement window, see the msdn site. For some preliminary information on a windows NT rootkit observed in the wild which intercepts the login screen, see the archives of the incidents mailing list. (Some of the followup posts are very helpful; use the thread index)
One thing I do hope is that Microsoft can be forced to admit that the little helpful info tip they give on Win2k logon screens about keeping your password secure with Ctrl-Alt-Del is about as close to a total lie as is possible.
You're a piss-poor Libertarian then, who has chosen "temporary safety over liberty" and thus "deserves neither", if I may be excused the Ben Franklin mangling.
Microsoft never prevented me from choosing, even on the x86 platform.
OS/2, DR-DOS, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, Solaris, SCO, BeOS; that's just the choices I've used, there are others I haven't. Most of them (all but one, in fact) are still available, and OS/2 can still be used although of course it's a little difficult to find.
What Microsoft did was arrogant, immoral, and in the long run will be futile, but it was very rarely illegal. They pay a ton of top lawyers to help them NOT be illegal.
I don't think anybody should buy Microsoft's crappy products, and I won't buy them myself. However, I don't go running to Big Brother to force them to run their corporation the way I want it run. I'll start my own if I want that.
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You're making generalizations based on these two experiences? As a developer working closely with admins of 100's of NT boxes, I can tell you that your experiences may be typical for small servers running all MS software and being "hammered" on by one person. Put, say, Sybase or Oracle on them. Allow 100,000 people to hammer on them. You'll have to reboot them almost daily, or they will eventually DoS themselves. Blame Sybase and Oracle, you say? Nah, Sybase and Oracle run rock-solid on Sun. There are weaknesses in the OS that allows these things to happen.
But to say "oog, I reboot windows every day" or "oog, blue screen!!!!" just shows ignorance and the inability to think objectively for yourself.
We reboot our public Web servers every day. We have to, or services will mysteriously stop, or stop responding, among other things. Yes, we've worked with MS and the other vendors involved ad nauseum. I don't think this is ignorance or the inability to think objectively.
-bp
bp
In the heat of the browser wars, it was MS who pissed me off. The anti-trust case focuses on the integration of IE into win98, but let's go back a little bit. Before MS could get win98 and IE4 out there was a time when every single microsoft product would require you to install IE3. If you didn't install it, you couldn't install the program, even though the program didn't need IE and had nothing to do with the internet. I remember one case where a guy found that all you needed was one of the dlls from IE to be able to install Excel (if it wasn't Excel, it was some similar office program) and he got in trouble for distributing that dll so others could avoid installing IE3.
Forcing the consumer to install a program they may not want and generating artificial dependencies for other software on that program is NOT beneficial to the consumer. Especially since in these days lots of people didn't have an extra few megs harddrive space for some unwanted program.
The court issues may be with win98, but I think the real important, possibly illegal events were in the lead up to win98 and IE4. If we could go back and look closely at MS's distribution of IE, I think we'd see some pretty shady activities.
He said, "You'll be able to tell your grandchildren that you helped assemble the first NT supercomputer," and I cringed.
Libertarianism obviously means different things to different people. I do consider myself a libertarian (small l), but this doesn't blind me to the fact that it requires some features to be viable. One of these is a relatively level playing field. One of the legitimate purposes of government is to break up destructive monopolies. And nearly every monopoly, including government, has a tendency to be destructive. This is because people always put their own perceived interests first. This is neither good nor bad, but rather one of the rules of the game. A properly designed social system is designed to take this into account, and ensure that all players have a reasonable chance for a reasonable level of success. (FWIW, I like to play games on the Easy level. This probably shows through.)
Please remember, not everyone wants to play the same stupid games. A social system that is so designed that not only must everyone play the same games, but so that many will feel that it is rigged against them ab initio will have a lot of discontent. This does not contribute to social stability.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The problem as I see it is that Microsoft reduces personal choice for me. I can choose to run MacOS only because Microsoft has chosen to keep Apple around. A few years ago, Microsoft could have just let Apple fall into bankruptcy and today you'd only have Linux and Windows as reasonable choices. Today I use Linux, for many reasons, chief amongst them being that I want to preserve my right to have a choice in the matter. Sometimes doing things under Linux is more of a challenge and sometimes things can't be done at all, but I make that choice because I want to have an alternative to Windows.
So really, my Libertarian side is looking to see Microsoft smashed so that competition is restored and to insure that I will always have a choice about what OS, browser, and office software I use.
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
With the Open Source movement, there are plenty of non-MS alternatives
Maybe today the situation is approaching something you can call "choice", given the existence of projects like KDE and Gnome. But back around the time this whole netscape/IE thing was brewing, I remember still having to recompile the kernel just to get my sound card to work. That doesn't even begin to compete, for average computer users, with Windows95. Gnome did not exist, and KDE was an early alpha obscure blip on the horizon. Apple at that time looked like a seriously dying company, IBM had all but completely pulled out of the OS market, and the only other "platforms and altervatives" were the extremely expensive Unix mainframes, such as the SGI's and SUN's. SGI only fairly recently began to produce "affordable" computers, and this trend is still slow to take in big Unix companies. Alternatives? Hardly. The situation is starting to improve. Apple is back on its feet, and Linux is really getting there in terms of applications and usability. But the situation was quite different when the antitrust problems began. The damage has been though, and the law broken. Of course the new IE beats the old netscape - but that is exactly because of the damage inflicted by Microsoft. Many people look back now and say "oh IE is now better, so that must be why it beat Netscape out". Puh-lease - IE 3 stunk like shit, and IE 4 was as unstable and shitty as netscape 4, I remember using all of them. By the release of Netscape 4, though, Netscape was pretty much already dead, and couldn't afford to put the same development effort into NN. IE 5 is basically IE4 with bugfixes, which is hardly groundbreaking given the number of years it has taken them to do only that. That is what happens when a competitor uses cross-funding from other products to drastically undercut your main products pricing - no income, no programmers. No programmers, crappy software (NN4).
Its better to not look at this from a moral standpoint. M$ has a clear history of not playing nice with other software and systems, and only do so when market demand forces them to. However, this is their right. Do we really want the government mandating exactly how software should be designed?
The browser integration was a poor issue to use as a major point in the case. Its M$'s decision to integrate it. We in the UNIX world prefer a modular design. M$ does not, and any programmer can see that the integration _does_ offer some benefits, at the expense of other things. M$ has the right to choose this approach.
However, the real problems in my mind are:
MS has practically never "invented" anything. Every core idea was copied, stolen, or bought from someone else. Their innovations have been small asides amidst a vast sea of other companies/peoples ideas
MS shuts people out of the market. I don't know where the line is. If I owned a commercial software company, I would see great benefit in working with a Dell/Gateway like company and selling my software more cheaply in the interest of more sales. However at some point MS became more of a bully, making it difficult for these companies to NOT sell MS software. I'm not familiar enough with the laws to explain where the line is, but practices like this clearly harmed consumers, who had to pay for this software whether they wanted it or not.
Its also clear that MS has taken specific steps to hamper other companies software from working well on their systems. This to me is a fairly clear line. Its one thing for MS to take advantage of the fact that they make the OS and the software in order to design things well; this is their right. Its another to take effort to break other peoples software.
What MS calls "innovation" is really a combination of vast resources to quickly buy or copy other peoples ideas, and a huge market share to compensate for shortcoming in their software.
I hear repeatedly about all the things MS has given us, the boost they gave our economy, etc. If they were making all these innovations themselves, perhaps this would be the case. Its not. The wealth and economic push MS has been a part of is taken at the expense of all the other companies that could be part of the market but are shut out.
Perhaps you look at your windows environment and think, "Look at all they have given us". Instead, look at it and imagine all the superior products which could not suceed due to MS bullying resellers or sabatoging developers.
I don't know where to draw the lines or what the consequences should be, but it is clear that they have harmed consumers and hampered innovation.
The better solution would be a more enlightened public, but the technology can be hard for the average person to understand, and the lack of interoperability can make it hard for consumers to choose non-MS software. This is really the core of MS's talent - getting themselves in a position of doing little original work and having consumers buy it up. This market setup, just like MSs other "innovations", is of course nothing new in the economic world.
You can say what you want, but I believe that this improvement in quality is caused by the DOJ hearings, at least in part. With the world spotlighting their practices and software quality, MS simply has to put its best foot forward.
Would the people benefit if they get split? I think so. After all it's always better to have a company focus on one thing instead of many product lines. I don't really want features going into my OS that will make it easier for Word to run, but not WordPerfect for example.
Let MS::OS make the best possible windows, and then MS::APP try to build the best possible Office Suite on top of it. If the two product lines stant on their own, they will have to be of better quality.
Ñ'
Good thing, too, unless you missed the first paragraph where I explained that I'm just passing along info I heard somewhere else, and that I don't know what the original intentions were...
Besides, I never said it was good or useful. I totally agree that, if that explanation's right, it's just as silly as encryping your bank records with ROT13. But it's the only good explanation I've heard for why MS would pick Ctrl-Alt-Del -- the traditional "reboot" key sequence -- as "login".
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
If you speak to people who work in marketing (you may never have met any, but they're nice friendly people in general), they'll tell you that the easiest thing to market is a good product. Given the choice, they'd always work with marketing a good product than a bad, since it's a much easier and more rewarding job.
Obviously, I'm not PHYSICALLY harmed by an operating system (with the possible exception of STRESS).
Am I harmed by an OS that doens't have any competition? I don't know. If you assume that Windows is the ideal operating system, and that, if there was a competitor, they would be equal in quality, price, and features, then NO, I guess I'm not harmed.
Conversly, was I harmed by a telco that charged me $0.25/minute for a 'local toll call'? As soon as the opened up the 'local toll call' business, I found out that I could pay $0.10/minute. Wow, I was being harmed, and I didn't even know it.
So, from the fact that I don't have limited CHOICES, and that Microsoft is trying to LIMIT my choices (I couldn't buy a PC w/out Windows until this trial came up), I would say that until there IS competition, you will never know to what extent you are being harmed by a monopoly. Necessity drives innovation and competition drives necessity. Without them, I think I am DEFINATELY being HARMED.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
I think that the order to break up MS was wrong, not because breaking up the company is a bad idea, but because of the way it is to be done.
The order would break up MS into different companies with different products. The new companies would not compete against each other, because they are in different market segments. This would NOT help competition. There would STILL be a big OS company, a big APP company, etc. MAYBE information would be more available to third parties who wanted to write competing apps compatable with those of MS. However I think that a horizontal break up of the company, similar to what happened to standard oil would better help consumers, not the vertical breakup proposed.
Simple then - get a new judge.
What part of 'remand to the original judge' didn't you get?
Sure, Jackson could be recused, but if he weren't already biased (or tainted with the appearance of prejudice), then remanding to the original judge has a lot of benefits: the appellate court can have the original judge clarify or repair portions of the ruling without starting from scratch.
A new judge below the circuit court would have to start from scratch. Do you think that another two years on this case is good for competition and legal clarity on the general monopoly issues, or good for the consumers potentially harmed in 1996?
[
Is "One dollar == one vote" the future of American democracy?
No. It's the present. Otherwise, we wouldn't have laws such as the Bono Act and the DMCA.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Capitalism rewards innovation.
Yes, but capitalism rewards control even more. Being a monopoly means never having to say you're sorry.
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
They where certainly hurt financially. Do you think that the upgrade-race of recent years doesn't force people into buying more & more now apps and computers? My parents use one of my older computers, but it's a bit hard nowadays to buy software for it, because the machine is too slow, and the software too bloated. Conclusion, buy a new pc. Through this 'embrace' people pockets are being emptied at an alarming rate
The government is trying MS as a monopoly on the wrong grounds, and so are you guys who point to incompatible file formats, viruses, and crashes as proof of a monopoly.
The proof lies in how they killed OS/2.
The proof lies in how they killed DR-DOS.
No Dr-dos machines can easily run win3.1 or newer.
In fact, the install for win3.x checks to see if you have DR-DOS and complain if you do.
Similar issues for IBM PC-DOS.
the proof lies in how they punished small and large oems alike for what apps they chose to bundle on the computers they sold (no smartsuite, no netscape or you pay more for windows.)
The proof lies in how difficult it is to purchase a computer with anything other than Windows. Want os/2? tough, IBM has to pay for Windows for the machine shipped with os/2 or else Microsoft raises the cost of Windows for IBM.
Want Linux? tough, same rule. Microsoft even used to say, no other operating systems allowed or we'll either sell you Windows at so high a price you'll go under, or we won't even sell it to you at all.
Microsoft is a monopoly, but bringing them to court for greed and ancillary issues that came from them being monopolistic is not the proper path to justice.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
You got my point.
The problem is that there were always be some monopoly/dictator/evil empire.. what can we do?? Pass laws? Limit freedoms?? No.. people need to be more educated and aware in order to protect society in general from this sort of thing.
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One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Capitalism sometimes rewards innovation. The problem is that it some practices allowed in a totally unregeulated market don't demand on capitalism's benefits. They are alternatives to producing the best product and selling it at the best price.
Pricing games are the best example. Netscape's only product is a browser. Microsoft has many products, one of which is a browser. MS can give away the browser without going bankrupt. Netscape can't. You can't compete unless you're already in the business - innovation is prohibited in effect, though not in theory.
But that's only one of the anti-capitalist tricks in MS's bag - bullying OEMs into using only Windows, using vaporware like there's no tommorrow, tying products together, using its applications monopoly to prop up its OS monopoly, none of these tactics are based on market forces - they're dirty tricks to subvert market forces.
The only meaningful way to split up Microsoft is to put their marketing in one company, engineering in another, and forbid all contact between them.
It would work! Engineering would be forced to make products with MERIT, and marketing would be forced to hire a new round of engineers (and probably destroy themselves by being a well-funded dotcom with all hot air and no product). And in both cases, we get what we want - an opportunity for third parties to move in and reclaim market segments that were lost to questionable MS tactics years ago.
Obviously this will never happen - it's too likely to work, so no one will have the nads to attempt it.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
After all, Microsoft didn't use threats of increased prices and delayed shipments of Windows stop OEMs from making new systems start with Netscape as the default browser instead. Oh, wait, they did. Microsoft didn't use their monopoly position to demand that ISPs remove references to competing browsers from their literature and web sites and limit the percentage of users using Netscape or risk losing access to the Windows Referral Server. Oh, wait, they did too. Well, Microsoft certainly wouldn't use their monopoly position to force the exclusion of Netscape browsers from web sites on the IE Channel Bar. Oops, I guess they did that too. Well, Microsoft couldn't have threatened to kill Microsoft Office if Apple didn't make IE the preferred brower on Macs. Oh, they did that too?
Gosh, I can't see any possible reason why customers lacking knowledge of options is Microsoft's fault. It's not like they orchestrated a campaign to deny information to consumers.
Check the Findings of Fact. Especially the section Excluding Navigator from Important Distribution Channels.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
If you don't remember how consumers were hurt, reread the findings of fact, especially section VII, "The Effect on Consumers of Microsoft's Efforts to Protect the Applications Barrier to Entry. It's a remarkably readable document and the reasoning is easy to understand. In short, Microsoft took choices away from consumers and OEMs who wanted the choice.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
In this time period, as the Web was exploding, why wasn't Microsoft justified in integrating Windows with its much-hyped OS?
:)
No doubt I'm going to get jumped on for pointing out a logical error in this article, but this line made me think.
Why wasn't Microsoft procescuted for requiring Windows to run on top of it's OS. They don't give you a choice of Window manager. You only get one choice. Microsoft Win32. What happened to Desqview for NT? Why couldn't IBM port Presentation Manager to NT, along with the PM API? Because MS has used a secret API (the Native NT API) and only allowed people to use the Win32 Window Manager and it's API (which in Many cases is just a wrapper to the Native NT APIs.
We should sue
-- Hulver's site
Katz has IMO missed one or two things in his summary. The key to Microsoft's guild is, I think, in the motive.
One could suppose, as Katz put it, that any company that didn't try to tie it's browser to it's "much-hyped OS" would be committinc corporate suicide. Fair enough. The real question is not "Should they be allowed to do it?" but rather "Why did they try to do it?".
The key to that question is not to try and answer the question through hindsight. We have to put ourselves in Bill's shoes when he made the decisions he made. Let's break it down back in 1995 or thereabouts:
Which brings us more or less to today. It's easy to look back and say "Well, Microsoft should be allowed to integrate the OS and the browser, it's an obvious step." Sure it is. Of course, Microsoft probably stumbled onto it by accident, and it's ludicrous to decide that they should never be allowed to do this natural step just because they did it orginally for malicious purposes.
But that's the point! They did it for malicious purposes! They tried to use their existing monopoly to destroy a competitor. That's an anti-trust violation. It all comes down to motive. It's like an old legal riddle. If a man tries to fire a gun at you but doesn't know it's filled with blanks, what is he guilty of? He's still guilty of Attempted Murder even if he couldn't have suceeded becuase in his mind he was trying to do the deed. Simillarly for Microsoft; there may have been no actual threat (not really) but they sure tried to quash it and they should pay the price for their abusive actions.
There are, of course, other issues in the trial. The OEM licensing thing is IMO a damned good illustration of abuse of monopoly in and of itself and was part of the trial but doesn't get the coverage to the same degree that Netscape or Sun does. And at the end of the day, the truth is the trial demonstrated that Microsoft makes use of all its applications and software to defend it's OS monopoly. Although breaking them is hardly an ideal solution (even IMO), it would at least divest their OS division of an arsenal that it's been using to stave off the slightest bit of compitition. Which creates new products and ideas (I will not use the dreaded I-word if I can help it!) which is good for consumers. And if you don't take that into account when deciding if Microsoft's monopoly is good for consumers, you're just not seeing the whole picture.
My (long-winded) $0.02
Wood Shavings!
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
Think back to the AT&T breakup example. When AT&T was the only long distance provider, the system ran on copper. AT&T and Corning had invented fiber optics years before, but were in no hurry to role it out. After AT&T had competition from Sprint and MCI, fiber started be planted in the ground like it was going out of style. When you think of the major internet backbones, how many of them are (or were) run by AT&T? Few, if any. All of the major high speed fiber links were run by MCI and Sprint. (If my memory is correct.) Fiber is what makes the Internet possible today. AT&T's monopoly may have caused us to still be using 28.8 connections, with slow backbones, had they not been broken up.
.net means your web browser is now a platform. How many of you really believe Microsoft's .net products will work just as well on third party browsers as on Windows/IE?
Also, think of all the features offered today on your phone line. Compare that to the standard applications that come with windows. Call waiting, three-way-calling, caller id, etc., can be compared to "paint.exe", "wordpad.exe", etc. Since Microsoft has a monopoly on the consumer OS market, what incentive do they have to improve any of the feature already included with the opperating system. When is the last time and upgrade to windows included a better paint program? They've had since 1995! In six years, they should at least be able to upgrade it to be a mini-photoshop, much less handle more than one image at a time! If AT&T had not been broken up, whether we would have these inovations in telephone technology is a real question.
Look at KDE and Gnome. Even though they are not commercial products, they keep up with each other in terms of many of the "core" features. There is incentive to expand on the core features because there compititions has offered an enhancement. Microsoft does not have any of that incentive in the desktop market.
Also, the statement that Netscape had no chance of becoming a platform is dead wrong, and Microsoft knows it. It can be explained in four characters...".net".
Lastly, the punishment is not set in stone. I have heard lawers argue last week on CSPAN that it was never intended by judge Jackson to stick. A remedy needed to be entered for the trial to go on to the next step. The appeals court has the option of saying "we disagree with finding of fact A and D", therefore a trial must be held to come up with a new more fair remedy. More importantly, if they disagree with A and D, then B, C, and E are no longer open for discussion, since two courts have upheld them.
With that said, I would just like to say that the lawers in court right now have no clue what the case is really about. Get them off of their bullet point items, and they have no clue what their arguments should be. At least in many cases this is true for both sides of the case.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Using that key sequence to bring up a login dialog effectively prevents the "false login screen" style of password sniffers.
Control+Alt+Del only pulls up a login screen in GUI mode. Recent versions of Windows NT (4.03 and later including 5.x) include a technology called DirectInput that lets programs easily read the keyboard as a set of 104 buttons (which is how games prefer to read the keyboard). For example, if Control and Insert are player 1's and 2's fire buttons, and Alt and Delete are jump buttons, you don't want to put up a login screen when player 1 is firing and both players are jumping. Thus, a program that uses DirectInput can spoof a login screen.
"But NT isn't designed for games. Use Windows 9x instead."
Games are just another application. The only reason Windows 9x wasn't a version of NT is because of marketing.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
However, their attempts to cut off Netscape's OEM channels did appear predatory, and it may have fallen under anti-trust law. Yes, lots of folks downloaded Netscape, but this was before fat pipes to the home - many home users would have had to do an overnight download over 56K.
Furthermore, a starting user who wanted Netscape would have to use MSIE to download the software - I seem to remember MSIE was pretty bad at downloading more than an hour at a time. Was that a strategy?
Even if a new user wanted Netscape instead, he had MSIE, and could not excise it from the operating system. It may be free, but the end user already paid for it hard disk space. If he had to re-install Windows, there it was again, the default option, only a Windows Update away from the latest version.
MS will release IE 6.x soon, and they are already debating whether to release it on Windows 95 or not. This means that existing users will have to upgrade their operating system to browse with the latest browser. Yes, it's been done before, but Microsoft has a way of adding features so that in a few years, you won't be able to browse many sites without IE 6.0 or later.
Government intervention may not be the best bet, but something will have to give eventually. We should re-double our open-source, free software efforts.
Lets see here:
1) Microsoft makes money charging for software.
2) Netscape had grand visions of a browser-centric model of computing.
3) Microsoft gives away IE. This is a money-losing proposition. It doesn't make sense if you're playing "fair" - not trying to manipulate the market
4) Netscape gets obliterated.
There's nothing wrong with this?
The problem with the MS monopoly is that for average consumers there's no alternative to using MS software. This means that their no longer subject to the pressures of the market - you HAVE to buy Windows, and it can be whatever they want it to be.
The stealth DRM in Windows ME is a good example. MS will eventually disable your machine's ability to play any MP3 you haven't had "blessed" by MS. They plan to activate this feature once they have "acquired sufficent market share" - doubletalk for "once we've driven the competition out of business."
But unless I'm a real geek, I don't have an alternative. In a normal market, the competition would be running adds with slogans like "Don't let Microsoft control your computer. Use Bob's OS instead." But there's no choice. Linux, maybe, but the average person doesn't want to install a frickin shareware program on their machine. They're gonna run Linux?
The only competition that can survive is free software, because MS can't use it's predatory pricing to drive it out of existence.
Did Microsoft get a fair trial? Probably not. Bear in mind this America, you no longer have the right to a fair trial. You can be sentenced to death while your lawyer is taking a nap and that's not grounds for a new trial. Microsoft got something that approximates a fair trial better than a lot of trials. Tactless comments by the judge don't change the facts - they're anticompetitive.
Previous antitrust actions in overly concentrated markets have had the desired effect - Long distance is cheaper now than it was before. Going back to the heydays of antitrust, our petroleum-dependent economy would have been bled to death by Standard Oil. Our information-dependent economy will be bled to death by Microsoft if we let them - subscription software is how they'll suck the life out of you.
Similarly, how the judged seemed to downplay Netscape as a competitor -- certainly not now, but in 95-96, they could have been big. I remember distinctly Netscape and Sun saying that with the browser and Java, you could have your own operating system, and they were pushing that as the Microsoft killer. However, when MS included IE and their specialized Java VM (which they have already been punished for branding as such), they broke a lot of Java code, and since "everyone" was using IE, Netscape could not break into this market further.
Plus, you need to consider that Netscape at one point was payware for commercial use -- they only dropped the fee when IE started to gain market ground. That's rather strong evidence of a monopoly using their power. Of course, nowadays, a non-free browser that doesn't have something extra (read: Opera) is considered laughable.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Machines that you expect to have to reboot every day.
This is where I have a big problem with your post. Yes, MS products in the past have had really shoddy stability. But NT 4 works well, and 2000 is even better. If you are using 95 or 98 in the office, you deserve to have to reboot it every day.
I've got two servers at work. One is running NT 4, and I never mess with it. It's a PDC for a small network. I've been ignoring it for months, and it's still going.
My other server is running W2K. It's a domain controller, DNS server, SQL server, and IIS server. I hammer on it every day. It's current uptime is about 52 days. So far this semester it's uptime is 99.995% and counting. That's not bad considering it's not on a UPS, and I'm just a lowly undergraduate student without any professional supervision.
I'm not MS fan. I run FreeBSD in my apartment, and I love it. I won't try to defend Microsoft's idealology or actions. But to say "oog, I reboot windows every day" or "oog, blue screen!!!!" just shows ignorance and the inability to think objectively for yourself.
What further doesn't make sense about this whole situation is that Jackson seems to be targeting the ties between Office and Windows as the big threat. This is Microsoft's current power base and Jackson realized this, but I think the leap of logic to say that because of the netscape debacle they should break up the office products from the OS is pushing it. The great danger with IE has nothing to do with office, but rather that they can leverage that monopoly to push a monopoly in the server realm (proprietary ties between IE and IIS that push people away from open platforms). In fact, if you look at Microsoft's current models it looks like they want to get rid of the traditional packaging of Office and replace it with pay-per-use on-line software driven by a Microsoft server and browser.
So, I think that the DOJ and Jackson really dropped the ball on this one. I think that Microsoft is a dangerous monopoly, and once this suit falls apart (which I think is an almost certainty), Microsoft will feel free to start using both hands again to strangle competition. Microsoft won't really learn anything (except that it's a good idea to send large checks to politicians) and we'll continue to have a Microsoft dominated industry for the foreseeable future.
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
No. You're mistaken. You compare "install Linux" to "use Windows". You think most people can install Windows themselves? They can't. They rely on whatever comes with the computer. Many don't even differentiate the OS from the hardware. And MS created a monopoly for itself at the computer manufacturer level back in the late 80's early 90's with the predatory practices that eventually caused them to settle their original DOJ case.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
- The ILOVEYOU virus and its infinite children. Though MS didn't write the virus, the existence of the hole combined with the monopoly they have in the OS market are what really caused the problem. If somebody wrote a virus for a tiny hole in BeOS would it have affected the world like this one did?
- Incompatible file formats between its own products year after year. I love it when Office97 tells me "Oh, not everyone has Office97, you should save in Office95 format."
- Machines that you expect to have to reboot every day.
People *ignore* these things, because they figure that it is just par for the course. Know what? It's not. I call it demonstrable harm to the consumer. People hate Windows, we know that. All day, on the subway, at lunch, in meetings, you can hear people commiserating over their latest crash or virus. But they never blame Microsoft. They never say "I'm not going to use MS products." Why?Because they don't even know that other options exist, for the most part.
Why? Because MS is a monopoly.
Isn't that demonstrable harm to the consumer? This is not a case of "what they don't know won't hurt them". They don't know that better solutions exist. It's hurting them, they just don't know it.
I do not run Microsoft products. I pay less for hardware and software, my computer runs faster, and crashes less. That, too, would seem like demonstrable harm by Microsoft. When I point out Linux to users of Windows they do not argue the qualities of the software with me. Know what they say? "I have to run Office2000 because everyone else does." That, again, is a sign of the monopoly that MS has.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
dmorin writes:
"Let's look at what else MS has given us:
The ILOVEYOU virus and its infinite children.
Though MS didn't write the virus, the existence of the hole combined with the monopoly they have in the OS market are what really caused the problem. If somebody wrote a virus for a tiny hole in BeOS would it have affected the world like this one did?"
Oh come on! You can't show that Microsoft "harms consumers" because some idiot wrote a worm and other idiots helped spread it by executing a script file attachment to an email. It's not like the thing just auto-spread. There was a lot of stupidity involved. You could as easily send a Perl script to any UNIX out there ask the users to save the attachment and then execute it. Same result. Granted Outlook didn't have enough warnings about executing scripts but to say tht it shows that *Microsoft* has harmed consumers is just plain stupid. I mean really, wake up!
"Incompatible file formats between its own products year after year. I love it when Office97 tells me "Oh, not everyone has Office97, you should save in Office95 format.""
Incompatible file formats is nothing Microsoft specific. If you wrote something with the latest version of Word Perfect, you can't open it in Word Perfect 4.2, nor can you open it in emacs or possibly in Star Office (not sure about that but you get my point). Yes, Microsoft isn't any better than the rest, and quite possibly is the worst of them all, but again, it's nothing that Microsoft introduced. The same problem has always been there. And at least Office supports a ton of formats so you can communicate with the rest of the world if you know what you're doing.
"Machines that you expect to have to reboot every day."
We have shitloads of servers at work - both Linux and NT, about 50% of each.. We run pretty similar stuff on them; a database (MS SQL and Oracle mostly), a web server (IIS & Apache), a Java servlet engine (JRun) and a variety of other stuff like SMS gateways, SMTP servers, LDAP servers etc. etc. and uptime is not a problem for any of these machines. Yes, the Linux boxes have less problems but we consistently have uptimes of several months on all of the machines. Rebooting typically happens when we need to do some major upgrage - not when something crashes.
As workstations, we have NT4's and Windows 2000 and there too uptime and crashes are not a problem. I can't remember when I would have rebooted my NT4 workstation last - must be several months ago. On my laptop, I have Windows 2000 and I haven't seen a single blue screen of death or OS crash.
To say that crashing machines and daily reboots are such a horrible problem, caused by Microsoft, is just a plain lie - or maybe you just haven't used anything Microsoft has made in the past couple of years. Maybe you should try so that you know what you're talking about.
Please people, realize that this isn't some blind pro-Microsoft post. I would just prefer that people stick to FACTS when they post their anti-Microsoft ramblings.
And you know, there are always two sides on the coin. I had HUGE problems with various Linux distros some time ago on my desktop machine at home. It would freeze every once in a while (maybe every 2-3 hours or so) under X, no matter what I tried. I changed hardware, changed my motherboard, CPU, memory.. no change.. Finally I installed Windows 98 on it and I had no problems. Sure, typically it would be the other way around, but if you have had 100 blue screens of death in one day on a Windows box, remember that there are people who have had similar experiences with other OS's. It's nothing Microsoft specific.
I heard a good explanation for the control-alt-delete to login thing. Whether or not this was MS's intention, I'm not sure, but it certainly works out well.
Using that key sequence to bring up a login dialog effectively prevents the "false login screen" style of password sniffers. If one of those were running, you'd press C-A-D to login, and get the wrong screen, so immediately you'd know something was wrong.
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"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
A number of errors here. Microsoft certainly triggered no such revolution - it rode a wave that was well underway, and excelled at profiting from it. At most, one might argue that they accelerated a revolution that would have happened no matter what. Microsoft certainly did not in any way "spawn... Free Software" - the GNU project started when MS was still a very small player, providing an early and primitive version of dos for IBM, along with their basic engine and the like. Free Software was a reaction, yes, but to the actions of the likes of SUN and DEC, not MS.
While I think I agree with the overall point of your article (certainly I agree that "One of the problems is that our media has become a mob, lurching one way, then the other. Perspective and clarity is hard to come by." and that Jacksons decision has some flaws...) I really can't imagine that you would want to spread such misinformation as this.
As to the judgement, a deeper issue that you don't mention is that antitrust law itself is a tangled mess of subjective criteria to begin with. Monopoly is a concept solid enough to be fairly useful in economics, but not quite solid enough to be objectively definable in law. A monopoly is a single supplier in a given market. In order to determine whether or not MS "is" a monopoly, one must define the relevant market. Personal computer software? Not a monopoly. Desktop x86 computer software? Not a monopoly. MS-Windows compatible software? There they are a monopoly, and given the share of the total personal computer market that represents, that makes them a juggernaught, for sure, but there are some definate reasons to find such a narrow definition of the market for legal purposes quite troubling - it nearly makes them a monopoly by definition. By that criteria, Apple must be a monopolist (just a monopolist in a smaller market) and so is SUN, and hell, Symantec has a monopoly on Norton Utilities, right?
So I've watched this whole story with very mixed feelings. Microsoft has a tremendous market clout which they've used in VERY questionable ways. They do stifle innovation, they do harm consumers, and it's tempting to view anything that strips them of a little part of their all too great and all too often abused power as a good thing. But antitrust law is just as scary and abusable.
At any rate, a thought provoking article. Please do correct the factual errors before publishing an article like this in the future though - it's bad enough that an army of MS Marketdroids are out there misinforming people about the history of computing - the last thing that should happen is people like you helping them.
"That old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed."
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Your examples are too recent. M$ brought much more to us:
Basic everywhere. At time of smalltalk and lisp, they pushed basic. Thanks for that. They ruined my life.
DOS, EMM, XMS, 640Kb limit, A20 gate. The whole DOS api. It was not at stone age, folks, it was in the 80's. This harmed a lot of children, that ended-up re-developing unix in the 90's. Digital civilisation lost about 10 years in the process.
The paperclip. This harmed millions of users.
The login panel that is dismissed with the escape key. The 'control-alt-del' to login. Someone should pay for that.
Winmodems. Don't forget winmodems.
Oh, and the 10bits in the cylinder number. The 504Mb limitation of hard drive ? And the 8Gb limit ?
And FAT, the Fragmented Allocation Table ? Who should pay for the countless hours morons spend looking DEFRAG.EXE painfully moving blocks around ?
And the windows API ? Winsock ? The API where you need a hidden window to receive data on a socket ?
Oh my god. I don't want to break microsoft apart, I want to dissolve bill gates in an acid bath.
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Capitalism does not reward innovation in anything but marketing. The best car is not always the best-selling car for example, it's an image thing. Capitalism only works properly when the consumers have all the information required to make the correct choice. Only then is innovation rewarded. The idea of marketing is to prevent this from happening. Letting the market decide has produced so many monopolies and cartels in the past 150 or so years that there has to be a balance, and the only organisation big enough to take on an abusive monopoly is a government.
Yes, it's not the government's business to mess around in the marketplace. Capitalism rewards innovation. Letting capitalism take its course may not produce results as quickly as the government would, but it will produce better results in the end.
And "Open Source" fits in with capitalism nicely (though RMS would disagree).
wishus
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Having said that, some elements of this trial do worry me. As an American ex-patriot, now living in London, I am worried about the ideaology that this trial represents. It didn't seem to be about Justice, it seemed to be about the government imposing its economic ideals.
Since I have lived in Britain for a few years, I have come to think that in affairs like this expediency is often the best way. Idealogy should be left to students and High School pupils - there is no place for it in the grown up world, because it leads to a divorce from reality/
Also, the hypocrisy of many people in the tech industry worries me. It seems that they are libertarian in their outlook everywhere, except for when it comes to Microsoft. Why the two-faced attitude? It is emotion clouding their viewpoint.
I am an expatriate; events like this are turning me into an ex-patriot.
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Because they don't even know that other options exist, for the most part.
Why? Because MS is a monopoly.
And thats Microsofts fault? No, its the fault of the ignorant consumer. If you don't research your options you're going to have to put up with what you're given. For the 'average' user at home Windows is the best operating system. Most people couldn't even install, for example, Linux. Its simply not as obvious and easy to use as Windows. Consumers are a stupid bunch. They tend to like little paperclip assistants, 'Wizards', and autorunning CDs. It doesn't require any thought. That suits most people fine. Microsoft have dumped vast amounts of money into simplifying computer systems so that they can sell to as many people as possible. Maybe one day Linux will be as easy to use as Windows. Until then though Microsoft will not have a rival in consumer operating systems, irrespective of what the US courts rule.
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