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Microsoft to Change OEM Licensing
IdleMindUI writes: "According to this article on MSNBC, OEMs will now have the option of adding products to or removing products from the windows desktop. Earlier licensing agreements prohibited OEMs from changing the windows desktop. "Reserving its harshest criticism for this practice, the court said Microsoft used its power to illegally maintain a monopoly by pushing potential competitors off the computer desktop, considered to be the prime real estate of new computers."" Microsoft's press release has more information on what Microsoft will and will not permit OEM's to do.
Well, hell yeah... I mean why not pull out comctl32.dll, comdlg32.dll, and gdi32.dll while we are at it! Who needs things like standardized toolbars, menubars, check boxes, radio buttons, printer dialogs, file open dialogs, color picker dialogs, rectangle drawing, etc.
After all, application vendors can just ship whatever dll's they want and install 'em in their "application directory and run it when they need to without touching the rest of the system."
Or better yet, lets just force developers to go back to static linking and programming from the ground up at the interrupt level. I mean really, let's just roll back the past ten years or so of software development and entirely do away with the concept of dynamic linking and uniform shared libraries.
Grab a clue guys, IE is not just about "web browsing". A lot of the individual pieces that make IE work are useful in their own right, often independent of just the "browsing" functionality.
HTML parsing and rendering with support for DOM/DHTML, useful for all sorts of help and presentation files... sort of a glorified form of Rich Text and there is builtin support for RTF in Windows.
HTTP session management, URI/URL parsing, etc. useful for other applications... how 'bout SOAP remote component sessions via XML over HTTP?
Hyperlinking and link management... anyone ever hear of HyperCard? Isn't hypertext a useful concept even outside of the WWW?
Progressive GIF, JPG, PNG rendering. Hey, this can be useful on its own without "web browsing" can't it?
XML parsing... did you know that functionality has been built into the latest versions of IE's libraries?
Scripting engines... hey, these engines for VBScript and JScript/Javascript are useful outside of browsing. Ever hear of Windows Scripting Host?
Why shouldn't there be a uniform standard for many of these things, that developers can RELY upon?
I can't call up Toyota and ask them to walk me through replacing the starter on the car, especially if I don't know what a wrench is. They'll tell me to bring it to the repair shop. I can't demand that Maytag explain to me how to repair a washing machine through the phone, even if it is under warranty!
I suppose that this is because computers are fairly unreliable, and the tech support sort of offsets what would otherwise be a really high failure rate or a massive network of on-site repair people. But still, helping people fix a computer through the phone is a horrible experience.
How about it, Mr. Dell?
So now we'll see a new menu option (well just those stuck with windows actually will) to "Optimize the desktop", this will put the "correct" icons back after the OEM's screw up the trancendental default windows experience.
Windows XP is an incredible step forward for end users and partners, unlocking the possibilities of the digital world," said Jim Allchin, group vice president for platforms at Microsoft.
It's just insane to say something like this, Windows XP is just a small step in terms of usability. And it's more about locking in the possibilities [for microsoft] than unlocking them...
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
The whole thing is that the agreement allows OEMS to remove IE from the machine. Removing MSN or Windows Media is not allowed. They already have the market share in Browsers so removing IE on a couple machines isnt gonna hurt anything. On the other hand, the AOL-MSN and Windows Media fronts haven't been won, which makes their removal a bit more troublesome for the company. Should we expect anything less?
It's worthless.
Why? Let's say you decide you don't like IE, so you uninstall it.
Then you try and install the latest version of Word. Oops, Word doesn't work without IE - so you have to install. Nor does any component of the Office suite. OK, maybe you can deal without Office - but what about Visual Studio? Oops, VS doesn't work without IE. Plus, without IE, the "standalone" MSDN ceases to function. Or maybe you'd like to install Quicken? Guess again. It requires IE.
In other words, it's an empty, empty promise. The core OS might not need the IE icons or whatever, but they'll be back in force each and every time you install a Microsoft product. Microsoft has spent too much time, money, and energy getting the industry hooked on IE to ever give you the real choice of removing it. Too many of their products depend on IE (whether artificially or not) for them to ever really allow you to dump it.
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Exactly what is wrong with having the browser be part of the OS? It does OS-like things in a very natural way, and you have the advantage of using the same tool to browse the internet that you use to browse your hard drive.
My "objection" is not that the browser is part of the OS. My objection is that Internet Explorer is the browser.
What's wrong with having a published API so that if a competitor comes along and creates a better browser that obeys the published API, I can replace Microsoft's browser with the competitors? (Answer: that's not in Microsoft's best interest, and therefore they will not provide it to their customers - so much for being consumer-driven.)
Until the day Microsoft affords me the ability to replace - completely replace - Internet Explorer with a third-party browser control, and have that extend to Windows Explorer, Windows help, Visual Studio help (so that when I load up Windows Explorer, that third party browser is in the right-hand pane, not IE), then any offer by Microsoft to add IE to the Add/Remove menu, or the ability to get rid of the icons, is AT BEST a meaningless gesture.
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Don't get me wrong, I used to work for a small computer OEM and we chafed under Microsoft's heavy-handed tactics to control how we set up the computers we sold. So much so that we tried to subvert them at every opportunity until MS finally sued us (we won the court battle).
However, I don't think that Microsoft's decision will really change anything at this point. I mean, IE is integrated into the Windows, who cares if it has an icon on the desktop, or if the icon is replaced with a Netscape/Mozilla/Opera icon? A lot of IE code starts up whether you want to run IE or not. This makes running any other browser a waste of resources. For instance, Mozilla can't beat IE's start up time unless they use the IE tactic of cheating by using the "turbo" mode. But who wants to have two browsers loaded at start up?
I think the only solution for this is for MS to completely publish the interface IE uses to talk to the rest of windows, so other software makers can reimpliment it. Then OEMs must be allowed to pull out IE and replace it with a third part browser or rendering engine.
This would actually be a design more along the lines of the Unix philosophy, where we have many small, specialized components that work together to do a job, but where there may be any number of replacements for a particular component, each with its own strengths.
I don't see this sort of thing happening without intervention by the court. Used on a wider scale, though, I think this type of solution would be better then simply breaking up MS. I believe the FSF proposed something along these lines, but I can't find a link.
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"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."
"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."
--Henry David Thoreau
Didn't Microsoft executives swear in open court under oath that removing IE would break Windows? Is this perjury, or will every Windows user receive a patch to "fix" Windows with IE removed? :) Inquiring minds (with functional memories) want to know!
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How gracious of them. Note how this does not say that OEMs can actually *remove* the IE software itself. Proof that this isn't just an oversight in the phrasing comes in another benefit where "consumers will have the option to remove the IE program using Add/Remove Programs."
Oh, and won't it be grand to have the desktop icons as added revenue for OEMs. I'm gonna hold out for the Gateway "HornyGuy 3000" which comes with a desktop full of 31337 pr0n link icons.
Big deal! bah.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
I blame this on Microsoft
There used to be a time when to use a computer meant you had to go through some sort of training. But Microsoft has brainwashed the masses that computers are really simple to use and training is not needed. You see this in all their propaganda as to how they brought computing to the average user. I'm not saying only geeks should have access to computers by any means.
But we have to stop living under the delusion that they are really simple to use. They aren't. Maybe they will be one day but today they aren't. That includes any flavour of Windoze you choose. At least Linux is honest about the fact that you have to RTFM. I have installed Windows from 95-Win2K on a clean machine and sometimes its a piece of cake and sometimes I curse Bill and his merry gang of thieves. Same with Linux (Red Hat) sometimes it's easy other times ... lets not go there.
But once you have people believing computers are simple to use and fix then it's natural that they will expect to be able to fix problems through the phone.
Funny thing is the same people who won't open the hood of their car think they can install hardware without knowing an IRQ from a hole in the wall.
Since the integration of IE with windows, it has been very integral to my system. A browser makes an ideal way to access the contents of your computer. Hyperlinks are an ideal way to link related documents.
Exactly what is wrong with having the browser be part of the OS? It does OS-like things in a very natural way, and you have the advantage of using the same tool to browse the internet that you use to browse your hard drive.
Why should Microsoft be forced to remove IE from Windows? That to me seems the weakest of the antitrust arguments, because it is clear to me that IE is not just "bundled" but an integral part of the system.
If someone has a clear refutation of the above, I'd be very interested to hear it.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Having control of the desktop is bigger than some icons. If IE, WMP, and other such things are still bundled with Windows, icon or no icon, developers will ASSUME they are there and when you need to connect to the web while interacting with an app, you know what that app is going to call up...IE....
This doesn't even mention thier bullying of Intel, Apple, Compaq, and others...
Burn Hollywood Burn