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Separate Code Files And Commingling?
ScottyB writes: "According to an article in the Washington Post, 'Microsoft Seeks to Revisit Code Ruling,' Microsoft is asking the Appeals Court to revisit the 'commingling' issue in its ruling." As the article states, "'Microsoft did not commingle software code specific to Web browsing with software code used for other purposes in the same files,' the company said. 'Rather, in organizing software code into files, Microsoft placed related functions close to one another' to benefit users.'" Wouldn't being in the same binaries or binary distribution constitute commingling?"
Microsoft's petition essentially argues that there was no evidence supporting Judge Jackson's finding that there was browsing-specific code in SHDOCVW, one of the dynamic link library (DLL) files in Windows 98. They cite Government's Exhibit 1686, which is a spreadsheet created by Microsoft that contains a list of the 1,769 functions in SHDOCVW. The spreadsheet shows which functions are invoked when a user (1) uses Internet Explorer to visit the Microsoft.com homepage, and (2) uses the Windows shell to browse the C: drive. According to Microsoft, 1,069 of these functions are invoked in both scenarios.
Microsoft created this spreadsheet for the purposes of this litigation, in an attempt to show that the Web browser and the operating system were "integrated." But the spreadsheet backfired, because it showed that there were some functions in SHDOCVW that were used by IE, but not by the operating system. In yesterday's petition, Microsoft argues that if it had run the Windows shell through a wider variety of different scenarios, it would have used all of the functions in SHDOCVW. That would have provided a very powerful piece of evidence for Microsoft's position -- so why didn't Microsoft produce it? They certainly had the resources and motivation to do so. They even tried to do so -- and failed.
The Court of Appeals can reverse a finding of fact only if it is clearly erroneous; i.e., if there is no reasonable inference from the trial evidence that can support it. They have to defer to the trial judge, who sat through the trial and was in a position to weigh the evidence. So it should be clear that Judge Jackson was entitled to infer that the reason Microsoft failed to produce a spreadsheet proving that there was no browser-specific code in Windows was that, in fact, there is such code in Windows.
Everybody knows the standard C library function strcpy(). (Well, not everybody, but you get the point :)... it's been around since the year dot.)
For some reason, Microsoft introduced a new function called StrCpy. An MS-specific extension to the standard C library, no doubt a combination of convenience and locking coders in to Windows specific code... no surprise there.
What is surprising is that any application that uses this function can only be run on a computer with IE4.0 or later!
So this means that even applications that don't use IE in any way at all, suddenly find themselves requiring IE4 to be installed on the computer.
I discovered this when I inherited a small win32 application at work. It was just a small dialog-based application, but on computers without IE4 or later installed, it just wouldn't work.
Very strange, and smells of commingling to me.
(BTW, see here, and here, for details.)
HOWEVER, let's look at this a bit closer. You can certainly re-use networking code, URL & URI parsers, font libraries, image handlers, XML, etc. But none of these constitute a "Web Browser", or web browsing capability. They are merely common functions.
"Web Browsing" implies handlers for HTML, DHTML, JScript (as opposed to Javascript), Visual Basic, Bookmarks, Web Caches, Web Proxies and other "high-level" functionality.
Now, I can understand someone putting image handlers for various image formats all in one library, maybe combined with font libraries and anti-aliasing code. These are all related, and grouping them will generally improve the performance of applications. (You'll generally want to display multiple types of image in a single application, so loading all the handlers as a single unit will make a difference.)
On the other hand, what would ANYONE be doing, putting, say, JScript handlers next to a JPEG parser? Sure, JScript code -may- refer to images, but that's not a requirement. It makes no sense, either from the perspective of the programmer or from the OS. (The user doesn't care what's combined where, because they can't see that level of detail.)
It would be comparable to Sun waking up one day and moving the Swing and AWT heirarchies in Java into the java.net package, and link them together in such a way as to make them inseperable. Sure, it'd make a marginal impact to network-related Swing and AWT code, but it would severely impact any graphical code that didn't use the network.
In light of them dropping Java -- in essence, killing it off on the desktop and relegating it to non-Windows servers -- this could spell doom for Microsoft. IBM tried similar stunts, and that damn near killed them. This is a dangerous gamble.
Given that Microsoft ==IS== the computing world, to many people, this could also cause a complete re-think on how widely-used computers are. Think about it. IT Department invests millions in migrating a company or a University to the web, using Java, IIS and Internet Explorer. Head of IT Department then goes to the boss and says "sorry, you now have to give us twice as much again to re-write everything in .NET, or we become unsupported."
Because everything is so tightly merged, don't even think a 3rd-party can write a Java add-on. There's nowhere to add it!!!
This time, next year, either .NET or Java will be dead, and the future of Microsoft will have been decided, one way or the other. If .NET wins, Microsoft will have total power. The UN and NATO might as will surrender to it, if that happens.
If Java wins, Microsoft will either have to completely re-implement Java (something they just DON'T do, and may not have time to do), OR they will have to eat humble pie (which BG3 has declared inedible) and include AS-IS the standard JAVA JVM and development tools. Since nobody likes a loser, that'll kill any hopes they have on the Anti-Trust appeals. Which, in turn, may lead to an even-more radical breakup, or even being disolved, in view of their attempt to turn the entire Internet into a Microsoft VPN.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"because commingled with those MSIE DLL functions were general-use functions that the other software took advantage of, "
Yeah like that damn HTML rendering engine that is so easy to be leveraged!
Those bastards, we need to go back to the good old days when programming was hard work. To hell with component based development!
Actually, Sun has provided a couple of different ways to integrate their JVM into IE and Netscape 4. There's the Java Plug-in, which makes it possible to write applets that will be run inside an add-on Sun JVM.
Even better, there is now the Java Web Start application manager utility, which provides great support for deploying Java based applets and applications to people's desktops.
We use these methods to deploy Ganymede to folks here at the laboratory, and everything works great, be it in IE, Netscape 4, or whatever.
- jon
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Is there a cult of people starting to show up who think they can assign any meaning to any word to suit their own purposes?
A friend and I just had a discussion with some girl over ICQ that was of the belief that a person should not be 'tied to the meanings of words' and that we should 'open our minds'. I believe her mind was so open that her brains flew out the door.
There is something inherently wrong with randomly giving a meaning to a word for ones own use. It rather defeats the purpose of words, language, thought, etc, since society must usually universally agree on the meaning.
Microsoft: We do not commingle code, we put related functions close to each other for ease of use
Translation: I have a fuzzy puppy dog, and he likes to eat socks.
see how that doesnt work? might as well throw away the language if one cannot assign a specific set of meanings to words and have society universally agree on the meaning.
--onyx--
That's true now, but when IE 4.0 was released, the only way to get the updated COMCTL32.DLL was to sign a IE distribution contract with Microsoft, and install the whole browser package. (And didn't the orginal release of IE make itself the "default browser" without asking first?)
Initially, those distribution contracts had requirements such as using IE-specific features on the company's public website and other IE cross-marketing.
(Don't forget the anti-trust case is all about actions in the past - the IE3/IE4 era.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The Register also has an article concerning this here which is a little more detailed.
My head is kind of turning in circles on what exactly Microsoft is trying to say...let's see if we can decode this...
So first Microsoft tried to say that they could not take IE out since it was an integral part of the OS, which was mostly shot down in trial by government lawyers with the "Look, you can uninstall IE, and the OS still works fine, so you guys were bundling the browser with the OS."
Then the Appeals court happened, and the court decided concerning commingling that MS had illegally thrown source code of IE into other parts of the OS (i.e., in a somewhat random manner as to "tie" the browser to the OS).
So now Microsoft is what, trying to say, "No, actually we did not tie IE into the OS, but rather IE's sources/functions were put into separate files"?
I guess this means that the last quote would be conveniently missing the "... which means that you can easily separate IE from the OS," which would go against their initial argument and show them to be trying to deceive the courts and the public.
Go figure.
Microsoft's argument that mixing IE and other code in libraries wasn't comingling sounds an awful lot like arguing that you didn't comingle salt and water when you poured salt in the glass of water and stirred it: it conveniently ignores the very definition of "comingle".
Well, if the files aren't commingled (eck, hate that word) but are indeed just "related functions close to one another", then they damned well could have taken the IE functionality out, couldn't they have?
Obligatory Monty Python quote:
Inspector: Then we have Number Four, Number Four: "Crunchy Frog".
Mr. Hilton: Ah, yes?
I: Am I right in thinking there's a *real* frog in 'ere?
H: Yes, a little one.
I: What sort of frog??
H: A... dead frog.
I: Is it cooked??
H: We use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple-smooth treble-milk chocolate envelope, and lovingly frosted with glucose.
I: That's as may be, but it's still a frog!
H: What else?
I: Well, don't you even take the bones out??
H: If we took the *bones* out, it wouldn't be *crunchy*, would it?
From the Crunchy Frog sketch
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
The files in the distribution are irrelevalant. Who cares if Windows ships with all sorts of unrelated Microsoft .exe and .dll files?
What matters here is the user interface. If Microsoft had included Internet Explorer, but required users to download one key piece (that added the icon to the desktop and start menu; nothing else), then Netscape would have been on a level playing field. The issue is what's visible to the user, not the nature of obscure files that Joe User will never care about.
Of course, Microsoft's problem is that they bought into the government's arguement that the browsers and operating systems are legitimate markets to distinguish. Microsoft should have argued that they are really in the user interface market, and as such, the operating system and browser are naturally related.
You're exactly right. Microsoft's been trying to
have it both ways the whole time.
I wrote an article on this a while back... it seemed to me Microsoft's arguments were a lot like having a car mechanic say he coldn't remove
your car stereo because that would entail removing the battery too and then the car wouldn't work.
An application? Or integral part of the OS? Which way is it, Redmond?
--
Tweet, tweet.
Windows links to IE base code libraries only
IE links to Windows base code libraries only
They both make calls to each others basic code libraries
Figuring out which libraries to LPGL for IE could be, um, problematic at best.
I'd preffer that they be forced to LPGL both, of course. That would allow some one to write an OS that could compete with Windows in it's own space (Would you like some Wine with your cheese, Mr. Gates?) ^_^
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
How will the users know where the code is? The in-house developers, maybe, if they are the ones developing the code, but not the users.
I think they've painted themselves in a corner here. Remember (paraphrased) "the browser and the OS are tightly integrated and cannot be separated "? Well, if the files aren't commingled (eck, hate that word) but are indeed just "related functions close to one another", then they damned well could have taken the IE functionality out, couldn't they have? Judges will pick up on that at least, I hope.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Otherwise every application could be considered part of the OS.
Microsoft isn't the only organization that believes that. GNU is an operating system. GIMP is a part of GNU. Thus GIMP is a part of an operating system. Wow!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Of course. I am not disputing that GIMP is not necessary. I just find it strange that GNU considers GIMP and other end user applications to be a part of the operating system. As equally strange as Microsoft claiming IE is part of the OS.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It's like the window managers that come with Red Hat.
Slightly more relevant, though still a bad analogy, would be package management. RPM is an integral part of Redhat. The DEB format is an alternate format that has a few advantages over RPM. Yet you cannot totally remove RPM from you Redhat system and replace it with DEB! You would then be unable to install any Redhat packages. Even if you used alien or other similar tool, you still need RPM around.
Or maybe even more germane: GNOME. Many of the Redhat utilities use the GNOME libraries. You must have parts of GNOME installed even if you use the KDE desktop, or you have to forego the use of those Redhat utilities. If I use Netscape on Windows I still have to have Exploder installed. If I use KDE on Redhat I still have to have GNOME installed.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
This is getting ridiculous.
First is the definition of evolution, all the way up to the definitions of "is".
I say get those fools a dictionary and make them stick to it.
-Ben
So far ...
...
Judge 1: You're guilty. And you suck.
MS: You're wrong. I want to ask Judge 2.
Judge 2: You're guilty. Judge 1, that "you suck" was out of line.
MS: What a victory! Now, Judge 2, we still think you're wrong. Can you reconsider?
My prediction
Judge 2: You're guilty. And you know what? You do suck.
SOAP toolkit 2 requires that you upgrade your browser to 5.5. Yes just to use msxml3.dll you have to download 30 megabytes worth of stuff (if you have IE 5.x already installed).
Of course your app won't work on anybodies machine unless they have ie5.5 too. Face it MS owns us. They can make us install whatever they want whenever they want. It will only get worse with XP.
War is necrophilia.
How will the users know where the code is? The in-house developers, maybe, if they are the ones developing the code, but not the users. Developers like myself don't particularly care where the code is either, as long as we know which library to link against. Of course, the judges don't know that.
Best Slashdot Co
From http://adequacy.org/
Mormonism is, along with Scientology and Islam, one of three religions officially recognized by the editors this web site
Eh? Wtf? Scientology is half pyramid scheme, half mind control cult and half horse crap. And how would you possible reconcile Mormanism and Islam? Is Mohammed coming to take the faithful to their home planet, just like in Scientology and Mormanism? News to me.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
It is the viral nature of the Microsoft IE code which extends its tendrils into all other parts of the operating system.
Microsoft should consider licensing its IE code under LGPL so that the community can help to better enforce a clear distinction between the browser libraries and the applications which use them.
The issue, it seems to me, is not about whether IE was commingled into the distribution, but as MS says if parts of IE were in the same binary file as some non-IE functions. The effect being that to remove all IE binaries would not be possible if they were commingled in this way. This appears to be an Add/Remove Software issue.
On a related note, as I understancd it, what we call IE is a relatively small amount of code to give a UI to the relatively large amount of code which comprises the internet functionality of Windows. When people talk about "removing IE", they seem to be talking about removing the small amount of code which is the IE UI. I don't think anyone really wants internet functionality removed, and I think adding it to Windows was a big gain for the user. Steve.
When you buy a car, do you buy a car with a steering wheel from a Mercedes, an engine from a Ford, brakes from a Toyota?.
When you buy a car from Ford do you have to use a Ford stereo? Is there a component in the stereo which is used by your anti-lock brakes, so that if you don't own a Ford(tm) stereo your ABS will not work? Sure, you could install a second stereo with better features, but why bother if you must have the Ford one as well.
... is if the DoJ figured out that this is just YA delay tactic, and filed for an injunction to temporarily halt MS from shipping *anything* until the penalties have been assigned and agreed to. Of course, this probably won't be filed for by the DoJ, let alone approved by the Court of Appeals, so it's a moot point.
--
Having the courts or the government rule on methodology of software engineering is a very bad precedent.
Source code is akin to blueprints. Follow the instructions to make the actual product.
If the blueprints for your landscaping are mixed with the blueprints for your house, or the wiring within the house, how does this damage anything that the user does?
If the blueprints for ParseHtmlTable() are mixed with the blueprints for an FTP file server, again, how does this put the user at risk? Ultimate file size of the binaries is the only downside. If they expose the API to the developers, then every developer on the platform can use it, regardless of what bloated binary holds the bytes.
I think that the court shouldn't even tell the manufacturer what features can and cannot belong in a product: that's what the marketplace is for. Telling them HOW to build code, where it holds no relevance to the safety or choice of the user and infringement of copyright, is outside the expertise and purpose of the court.
You can change Microsoft and Adobe and Doubleclick's ways. Change them with your dollars, with your own quality competition, and with your voice.
[
Of COURSE MS separated this stuff out. Chances are they follow reasonably good engineering practices and put different classes in different files, separate interface from implementation, etc.
It sounds to me like they're trying to confuse the court with technospeak (for BOfH readers... kinda stuff), obfuscating an issue that has NOTHING to do with how the software is presented to the user (i.e., in an integrated manner).
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
MS could have simply distributed the new comctl32.dll in the latest service packs, but chose to include them only in IE, apparently so that those applications would require IE.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
When an application that you write can't use the same controls that other Microsoft apps use without installing Internet Explorer, I think that constitutes 'commingling'.
Who am I to blow against the wind? -- Paul Simon
I don't think it's such a straightforward question. It's more like saying "Your browser uses one set of C Libraries, so your system has to link with a completely different set"
DLLs are an interesting idea--and it's kind of true that a desktop window looks a lot like a browser window--sometimes you can even type a URL into the desktop window if you like... it is, effectivly, a browser window.
But microsoft kinds screwed themselves when they said that they couldn't remove the browser without harming windows. That's what it really comes down to. Most people would have been happy if MS would have just removed the damn E from their desktop!
On the other hand, enforcing this ruling might lead toward a plug-in windowing system. Remove your IE style desktop windows and install netscape style windows. The exact opposite of what MS was trying to accomplish in the first place. Cool.
Furthermore, stemming off of point number 2, if you saw the source, and then tried to work on a GPL or other open source project, MS could search through the source for similiar code such as "# include stdio.h" and say "See this is exactly the same as in windows" and then sue your pants off.
My rommmate at the time figured out that if you used the IE3 uninstaller, you weren't left with the fatal aftereffects that the IE4 uninstaller had.
In other words, it looks like Microsofft wilfully broke many peoples systems just so that they could make this argument.
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
They are just using every single legal way how to delay the case from getting back to lower court which could assign some immediate remedies based on upholding of the findings of facts. I can see that they just try to ship WinXP before the court can even consider the case...
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Microsoft says "to benefit the user" about as often as a politician says "to protect the children" and with about as much sincerity.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
I am really tired of them trying to finnagle their way out of legal judgements and traps in a way that is based on only legal loopholes.
This is just something that convicts them more and each day in my eyes.
It is like happened with Clinton, who got nailed for parsing every last syllable in his statements.
Bill Clinton's old arkansas nickname was "Slick Willy". Looks like Bill Gates is a "Slick Willy" too.
With this much bad karma accumulating this quickly, the MS management and legal staff could bypass re-incarnating as Bugs, and go straight back to being mud and pond scum.
It would be an act of mercy to nuke them from orbit. It would stop their every more rapid decline.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
In the spirit of the term FUD, we need an acronym for this MS behavior.
SCLAT: Selective Creation of Legal Terminology
or perhaps more clear at a glance,
LIE: Leveraging Ignorance Everywhere
In more seriousness though, that's what they're doing; hoping that they can establish a legal definition for what "comingling" means, so that they can then prove themselves innocent of the crime they just (mis)defined.
Does anybody know how a technology expert can suggest an alternate definition of how dynamically include()d/require()d code works to the Appeals (or soon-to-be assigned Circuit) court? Not that I'd be that expert, but someone who is ought to draft a proposal.
In every GNU OS installer I've ever used, there is a little checkbox (or similiar iface item) next to "The GIMP" which allows me to say I don't want it.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
[...]
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
[...]
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
I think this is quite clear in delineating what is "commingled" vs. what is not - and it's on their website!
sulli
RTFJ.
I do hardware and software tech support. In order to fix an XML issue that pops up from time to time, we techies have been instructed by the powers that be to direct customers to install or reinstall IE 5.5 to fix the problem with their XML libraries instead of just downloading the files they need. So even the company I work for is (and thusly, I am too) helping M$ commingle their OS and Browser together.
not_anne
My comments here are my own; I do not speak for my employer.
Yeah like that damn HTML rendering engine that is so easy to be leveraged!
An HTML engine can be distributed without requiring that the entire browser be installed and running on the system at all times. Take a look at Mozilla if you need an example.
Those bastards, we need to go back to the good old days when programming was hard work. To hell with component based development!
The problem is not the component nature of MSIE, the problem is that Microsoft required people to install the entire browser to legally use the HTML renderer with their application.
"And like that
Let me get this straight.
Microsoft argued in court that MSIE could not be removed from the operating system, or the operating system would no longer work correctly.
Now they are telling the appeals court that code for the operating system is not commingled with code for MSIE.
Oh what a tangled web we weave...
"And like that
The files in the distribution are irrelevalant. Who cares if Windows ships with all sorts of unrelated Microsoft .exe and .dll files?
The way Microsoft forced MSIE onto everyone before they could integrate it with Windows was to include the MSIE install on all Microsoft software. Worse yet, practically every Microsoft product in that time period required MSIE to be installed, because commingled with those MSIE DLL functions were general-use functions that the other software took advantage of, and Microsoft would not allow people to install just the DLL's required. This is the same reason why programs like Quicken required MSIE to be installed, and didn't just ship with the "free" Microsoft DLL's that contained the code they needed.
THIS is how Microsoft used it's monopoly to force everyone to install MSIE, regardless of whether you ever upgraded Windows to a version that included MSIE.
And once you've got MSIE installed and constantly loaded into memory, it becomes real easy to eventually give up using Netscape et. al.
"And like that
You still can't stand the things he does- you just can't talk to him about it anymore.
Which is actually what's funny about the comment from Microsoft. How exactly does putting certain functions in the same file benefit users? While there may be a performance boost (or hit), I can't imagine Joe AOL snapping his finger, "Gosh almighty. I sure am glad Microsoft organized its source code into files according to related functions. Where's my pr0n?"
---
Beware typoes.
Now they are claiming that the location of the relevant function calls right next to each other in the source code is something they did to help the *users*? Errmm, excuse me, but even a Windows *developer* doesn't care about the location in code of the function calls, only whether they are well documented in how you call them (which is a whole different rant). What the hell would a *user* care?
Basicly, it looks to me like they're trying to avoid admitting they scattered IE functions throughout un-related code in order to bolster their original claims, now that those claims have been found to be bogus and that was upheld on the appeal.
--Dave Rickey
The better products do not win simply by being better. That is what this is all about. Microsoft's abuse of monopoly power to maintain their monopoly.
Tell me...what happened to word perfect? Corel? Citrix? Borland?
But this is kkkorporate Amerikkka we are dealing with, so it should come as no surprise.
Check out the Internet's most controversial website: adeqacy.org. Like a breath of fresh air, and trolling is not tolerated!!
I need a dictionary to decrypt that little article there.... And I'm a law student..
--- My Karma is bigger than your...
------ This sentence no verb
------ Ths sntnc n vwl
*That* would be fairly easy.
First things first, you *can* replace the TCP/IP on windows, it's quite easy and painless.
All you need to do is write your own WinSock2 library (the spesification is free, as well as any implementations).
Second, yes, it *is* easy to replace IE with Mozilla.
If Mozilla implement *all* of IE's interfaces.
IE is implemented as a seria of COM objects, with well-defined and *un-changable* interfaces.
I understand that Mozilla implement much of IInternet interface, so it's a good start.
Next, you register Mozilla with IE's GUID, and instantly you get Mozilla where-ever you used to get IE.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
stop the presses! to benefit users, Microsoft has created a new performance metric: Average Distance Between Bytes! Wow! IE minimizes ADBB! Now I feel a lot better!
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
commingle (k-mnggl)
v. commingled, commingling, commingles
v. intr.
To become blended.
Yes, I suppose it would.
Screw 3...
I think this was really Microsoft's argument to begin with. The starting assumption for anyone trying to market something is market segmentation:
Q: Do you sell soap and water?
A: Oh no, sir! We sell shampoo, and dish washing liquids, and body gels, and bubble solutions (you know, for kids!), and industrial grime removing agents, and inedable emlusifiers, and...
But then the internet came along, and someone in marketing realized that they could implicitly take credit for all that content, if they made it seem like it was "part" of their core product. So the company that makes edit, notepad, wordpad, word, wordview, etc. sudenly decided that there was no internet segment after all; the internet, they decided, was just part of Windows.
But the forgot to put on their turn signals when they reversed course, and now they get to tap dance.
-- MarkusQ
With an unlimited "Appeal" operation, users may simply sit back and watch their control-z-initiated laywers "revisit" all those annoying unwanted automatic modifications to their Word documents and the like, and keep on "appealing" until they end up with document they had in mind in the first place.
Hmm. What an "appealing" idea...
Can't mix code, huh? I guess Konqueror (KDE) and Netscape are screwed. Konqueror, of course, adds browser functionality to the OS like IE, and Netscape has always net you browse local files (however awkwardly).
But what I'd rather see in my computer is more commingling, because frankly, that seems to be the best thing for getting things to work. When you buy a car, do you buy a car with a steering wheel from a Mercedes, an engine from a Ford, brakes from a Toyota? No, your car was an integrated object designed by one company. However, it seems like computers are just the opposite. Everyone has a piece of the action and often times these things don't interlock too well. I would be all for commingling if it actually fostered a more integrated product, so I dont have things conflicting with each other.
It's ashame that this enforces Microsoft's monopoly, but I think it's truly better for the consumer.
"Yeah honey, I took that other woman to dinner, but I -swear- we didn't commingle. We were just placed close to one another! You've gotta believe me!"
Whatever you say Bill!!
~Windfinder
~Windfinder