Slashdot Mirror
Cringely On Microsoft Settlement
sandalwood writes: "Robert X Cringley has a new article about the proposed settlement in the Microsoft antitrust case. He includes information on where to write to make your views known (the 'proposed Final Judgement' accepts comments from the public for a period of 60 days after it's been published)."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A darned good idea (imho) would be to force Microsoft to publish their APIs, and restrict them from anti-competitive practices. IBM was doing this 20 years ago in the mainframe world and the European Union slapped them down hard for it.
It's mentioned in this article on gnu.org, but one of the links to the settlement details (the most important part) is broken, the new location for ibm1984ec.html is here.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Posting AC due to paranoia 8S
/.'ers comment to the DoJ (read, take action and not just wish you could) about this it will crash and burn like a corrupt copy of Windows 95. Read the Article, it does have some instructions at on where to go from here for the commonfolk. Also, a non-partisan board is a Good Thing(tm) in this whole mess.
MSFT is lobbying HARD on this to get this settlement through cause they know they will come out smelling like roses in the end, but with the growing awareness of the language of the settlement, it seems highly unlikely that it will breeze through. If enough people like
Then again, I am just preaching to the choir on this, right?
Is this legal FUD practiced by both sides of this case?
My solution? Require Microsoft to develop its own technology without outside help for 5 years. They can't acquire technology, buy companies or lease patents. See how long they last...
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
The parent to this is NOT a troll, but his comments, though valid, are useless. I am thoughouly convinced that not only do none of the slashdot editors read any of the comments posted to the stories (otherwise they woluld have to take notice to the many duplicate story postings we point out), but they don't even frequent their own site. The story duplication is getting insanely ridiculous. For every duplicate story, a good one gets rejected. How can we get THROUGH to these guys? PAY ATTENTION TO THE SITE YOU WORK FOR! God, and people want me to pay for a subscription for this???
Thought some people might wanna see one of the many related links I have scattered around from rejected stories and junk:
Rep. Ed Markey's letter to John Ashcroft (pdf) in opposition to the settlement.
Actually, they should be forced to ask more, like $3000 per copy.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Up until the last paragraph, this was a very intelligent comment. Then all of a sudden you start promoting virii and DDOS attacks??? This makes you sound like an immature teenager.
How about instead of breaking the law, and making Open Source hackers look like thugs in the process, we design our own micropayment system, BSD license it, and offer it up as a vastly more secure and powerful solution that passport? Or would that me to "non-31337" for you?
why not rms? he would be "tough but fair" in enforcing msft's deal, right?
Oooh. That's a scary, scary story. Cringely had an article about commoditizing the net, too, in which MS would offer its own solution to the virus problem -- proprietary protocols. TCP/IP will be marketed as the cause of viruses and all other MS problems.
I think you should send your info to Cringely. He'll run with it. Maybe he can even get confirmation that you're right.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
First you have the guy saying he knows someone on the inside, and getting quotes so it sounds more authoritative and authentic.
Then you have a bunch of links that really add nothing but look good.
Next, you have a bunch of opinions stated as facts. IE as an unprofitable venture?? Microsoft was giving the damn thing away from day one!
Lastly, the coup de grace, advocating virii and worms to stop MS!
Please moderators, read thru the damn thing before you automatically mod something because it looks or sounds good.
read about it here.
I saw this today and it had a very interesting tidbit of information. In the settlement, Microsoft is valuing the software part at $840 million. Apple contends that actual cost of that software would be more like $1 million and only 5%-6% of the value of the settlement would be able to be used to buy non-Microsoft technology.
I bet that they do read the site, but they have some hidden agenda against PBS.
PBS IT Guy 1: Oh no! Slashdot linked to us again!
PBS IT Guy 2: Those bastards! The last Slashdot effect nearly killed us! What'll we do boss?
PBS IT Guy 1: We pray they realize it's a duplicate story son. We pray...
CmdrTaco: Good Evening Gentlemen etc etc etc
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
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To: microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov
Subject: Micosoft Settlement
The manner in which APIs would be revealed are limiting to Microsoft's main competitor: Free and Open Source Software ("Free" defined as "without restriction" not "free of cost").
This software is created largely by individuals in informal and generally noncommercial cooperation. This is a very significant movement, and provides great potential benefits for American consumers. I think that makes such Free and Open Source Software *the* essential beneficiary of the ruling against Microsoft. This case was not a question of whether businesses were harmed by the monopoly, but rather consumers. It is essential that this pro-consumer movement be helped by the settlement. Instead they speficially discriminated against by the settlement.
Under provisions to release the API of Microsoft products, Microsoft is given discretion as to who they will release information: namely, "viable businesses", with Microsoft being able to interpret that as they wish.
I am personally involved in many projects that have the potential to benefit consumers, but are not businesses of any sort, rather a conglomeration of individual developers. I would expect that these groups will be excluded under this settlement.
Instead of this model, APIs should be made fully public. Individuals, in some manner, should be able to ask questions of Microsoft regarding these APIs, and have them answered publically. If it seems too difficult to allow any individual to ask such a question, an electronic petition process could be used instead, as long as a group of individuals can have the same weight as a commercial organization.
It is essential that the API information be made public. If it is hindered by any sort of NDA it will be *absolutely useless* to Free/Open Source software projects. We have formed a legal and social structure where we do not have the ability to keep pieces of our code private. This process must be respected by the settlement, as it forms the most serious competition for Microsoft, and is of large benefit to consumers.
It is also essential that non-commercial groups of individuals be able to access API documentation, and have questions resolved by Microsoft. In general, it is dangerous to allow Microsoft to have discretion on any aspect of this manner, as they can use that to further punish their most stringent competitors as they have done so many times in the past.
It is also dangerous to allow them discretion on security issues. While it is acceptable that they be allowed a short, private period to resolve security issues before making them public, all aspects of their systems must be made public. It is all too easy to add security aspects to nearly any portion of a system. It is even potentially a good thing that they add security at many parts of their system. However, they should not need to be private about their security measures to ensure the effectiveness of that security. The Free/Open Source communities have created large amounts of software that is secure while being open. Microsoft should do the same. This process is completely possible, and has been demonstrated over and over for as long as computer security has existed.
Section III(J)(2) reads:
So, that does indeed seem to give MS the right to stonewall Free Software projects like Samba, but only on security APIs. However, section III (D) reads:
And "ISV" is defined in VI (I) as:
The 'or' doesn't seem to leave much room for MS to define who the section applies to.
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
If you +1 this funny, -1 the parent troll, punk.
Wonderful idea there. (cough). How about we offer up something as good or better ? Private corporations dominating a space through de facto standards happen because nobody else has stepped up with a Free (as in speech) solution that's better. Some cases to take into consideration:
- 16-bit ISA took off because anyone could build to the IBM PC published spec (essentially free-as-in-beer).
- Then Microchannel flubbed it (must license from IBM).
(Unfortunate footnote -- for 32-bit slots, VESA came along, and was destroyed by Intel's PCI when they slaughtered their competition in the PC chipset market.)So instead of proposing that people DDoS Passport sites, maybe we need to make ubiquitous a better solution that's published and freely implementable. Microsoft did lose out on the browser encryption fight (shttp vs https) and SSLeay / OpenSSL provided free reference implementations that let people use encryption without having to play with the big monopolies (um, except for Verisign). We can come up with a system that delivers Passport / .NET's functionality too.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
MS had already got off with the damn anti-trust case, now those greedy bastards want to even push further.
What they are basically are doing is to kill off Apple and pay fine using their own software. it's like printing money to pay for your stuff.
This time, MS had gone way too far, they shall pay dearly for this.
kawai
My first reaction to this comment was pretty inflamed, but I had a hard time figuring out why.
Then I remembered reading Atlas Shrugged in college, and I understood.
I've looked at your posting history, dfeldman, and find you to be a pretty reasonable sort most of the time. But on this occasion, your post smacked of the worst kind of collectivist rhetoric.
(Sorry about the name-calling. I'm all grouchy now.)
This is, in my opinion, the exact sort of rhetoric that makes the open source community look, all too often, like a bunch of neo-hippie outsiders, forever isolated from the mainstream of society. Not that I'm saying the mainstream is so great, but as long as people assume that you subscribe to weirdo politics because open-source software is your hobby or passion or whatever, you're effectively prevented from making any kind of political comment whatsoever.
Please leave off with the talk of how the government must stop Microsoft. That's ridiculous. Does anybody here believe that Microsoft is actually evil, in the Hitler-Darth Vader-Satan sense? No, of course not. Is Microsoft (personified by Bill Gates) greedy? Of course! So am I, deep down inside, and so are most of you. If you say you're not, then you're either a saint, a liar, or a fool, and one of those is much less likely than the other two.
Does Microsoft make crappy software? A lot of the time, yes. Do I trust Microsoft, with their track record, to design a secure system for conducting business on the Internet? No, I don't.
But I don't think they should be prevented from doing so by the government, or a bunch of hackers as you suggest, or anybody else. What I'd like best is if somebody could come up with something better than what Microsoft is pushing this week.
The rules of the open market are not at fault here. The simple, unvarnished truth is that, for all Microsoft's faults, they do things right (in the business, not moral, sense) most of the time, and nobody-- not Apple, not IBM, not the Open Source Community-- has figured out a way to beat them in the open market yet.
And posts like yours aren't going to get us anywhere closer to that goal.
Bercaw?
Are you joking, 'foobar'? How is it that at this point in time, you are still saying 'Please leave off with the talk of how the government must stop Microsoft. That's ridiculous.' when the real question is, can EVEN the government stop Microsoft?
I'm not sure how old you are, but when you argue Microsoft (collectively) is not 'evil' in the 'Hitler-Darth Vader-Satan' sense, you're talking like a high school kid who's just discovered Ayn Rand. Is Union Carbide evil, after Bhopal? What makes you class the leader of the Nazi Party with a fictional character and an archetype? It may have escaped your memory but one of those guys was REAL- and after power, just like Microsoft- and didn't think in terms of playing nice with others, just like Microsoft- where do you get off drawing a line in the sand and saying 'OK, this is evil and this is not'?
The rules of the open market ARE at fault here- at least in practice, because as practiced by Microsoft they are cancerous. In completely denying the concept of 'benefit of society' or 'commons' and operating only on the value of maximized local profit they are suboptimal to the point that, taken far enough, they can _ruin_ society, reduce it to a state that resembles totalitarian states. Instead of a government mandating only one overpriced, defective solution for everything, you get no government control- and the same pitiable failure of the market, but this time because any smaller entrant is so easily crushed that there is no sense in underwriting such an effort.
Don't believe me? Write a better word processor than Word, and get someone to underwrite your IPO.
You can't beat a cheater. This would seem obvious, but clearly it's not obvious to you. Your definition of 'business right' strongly resembles racketeering and organized crime- using ALL the possible 'incentives' to seize total control. You seem to be supporting this because it clearly returns the most profit of any business method. However, it's a scorched-earth policy: it destroys the very market you claim to revere! And THAT is why we need government to set rules: in this context rules are like bricks, used to make buildings instead of tents. You can say they're in the way, inflexible, limiting- but you can't build up multiple stories, keep out the cold, resist hurricanes etc. without 'em.
I guess I am just wondering- WHY do you hate rules so? You are over two years old, I trust? Is your sense of morals and ethics also over two?
I think a week or two would be adequate. Although to implement it would possibly be a pain because you would need a seperate table for both for Stories and links. I could see it in a three point zero release, however.
Translation: Not this week, anyhow.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Micropayments? Getting a cut of internet sales? Sites being propped up by venture capital? Money being made from "internet wallets"?
It all sounds soooo "late 1999", doesn't it? Which is approximately when the business plan for Passport was turning this dumb wallet into a replacement for the operating system as a means to survive.
Forward to today. The hot model is site subscription with premiums. The internet is facing skepticism as only 3% believe it is an important information source. There IS no venture capital money - forget about propping anything up. The only sites that are seen as viable are those with a strong business model oriented around actually making money - not giving bits of money up to other vendors, when your competition is busy leaving the net altogether.
Remember the Amazon vs B&N vs Borders war? Try borders.com now. Amazon doesn't want Passport if it's the only Internet vendor that anyone uses -- Passort can only do them harm. Neither will any of the Yahoo Stores. If the size of the whole pie is smaller, the worth of a slice of that pie is diminished as well, y'know?
Getting in bed with MS is not like getting a Visa merchant account to handle payments. Along with your customers' financial data, MS could have access to their personal information, buying habits, etc. This means that the competitors of any MS partner will avoid signing up, no matter what. I'm not talking about Borland, here; I'm talking about AOL Time Warner, Sony, Sears, Visa/MC themselves, and many others that aren't rolling off the tip of my tongue.
Dominating the software world is one thing; dominating the rest of the world is entirely another.
Most companies have barged cluelessly into the net and it has hurt them. I don't see why MS's hard right turn into the net should not give them a few fits as well. And they're hardly omnipotent - as your "Bob" example should point out.
Perhaps the DOJ needs to borrow Microsoft's PR spin doctor folks.
< /cynic >
ChicagoFan
Cringely's new article comes out every Thursday at the I, Cringely website.
::Colz Grigor
You can add an automatic link to the newest article from your Slashdot Homepage Preferences. Scroll down to the Customize Slashboxes tab and add I, Cringely.
My proposal is this: rather than having to submit a story about Cringely's latest article (as is done every week) in order for the article to receive acceptance by a Slashdot editor in order for it to become a story and receive a Slashdot forum, why not just have an automatic forum placed at the bottom of the I, Cringely slashbox? Every Thursday, a new forum is created for the new article, and there's no need to submit the story to the editors and wait until Sunday to post our comments. Kind of like the way the Slashdot Poll is handled.
--
The thing about the latest generation of intellectual property laws is that they could still prevent people from using that information.
Prime example: CSS and the ways to break it. According to some interpretations of the law, if you can write the code yourself you can use it, but you can't provide a library for others to use or use a library written by others.
This is completely contrary to the reason why IP laws were created in the first place, of course, but IP laws haven't served the public interest for some time now.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
As part of the enforcement/settlement a trust, funded by MS, should be created that's overseen by an independent board.
MS must then release all its OS source to this board. Then the board should finance Win32 API (including Active X & Direct X) ports to the other X86 OSes, such as BeOS, Linux, Sco/Caldera Unix, BSD, OS/2, Solaris, QNX, etc. So those OSes could be compatible with W32 apps without emulation (a la WINE 'n Odin)
Also MS must not be allowed to release any of its application software (Office, Works, Encarta, 'Empires', etc) untill they bring out native BeOS, OS/2, Mac & Linux ports of those apps (the Linux port must be designed for transparent recompiling to other nixes, such as Caldera Unix, Solaris 'n QNX). They must be tested by the previously mentioned trustee before release.
To avoid claims that this would make thing too complicated for stockists & retailers, make MS retail all ports of each application together in the same box - like BeOS 'retail' has both the X86 & PPC ports bundled together, or like the way Claris works had both the Mac Classic & W16 ports bundled together (with 'Mac & Windows compatible' printed on the box) or like the way the new Gobe office suite has both the BeOS, W32 & Linux ports bundled together complete with a cross port license. MS could then have 'compatible with Windows, Macintosh, OS/2, BeOS & Linux' stickers on their boxed applications, so its spelled out to the customers that they can be used with all 4 of those OSes.
I bet within a year MS would have developed a development API for itself for developing applications that transparently port them across to X86 W32, X86 OS/2, X86 BeOS, X86 Linux & the PPC Mac.
God can you imagine how Gates 'n co would react if the court came out with a judgement like this.....LOL
First of all, comparing Microsoft to Union Carbide is a little out of line; say what you want about them, but I am not aware of Microsoft's ever causing anyone's wrongful death.
But to answer your question, no, Union Carbide was not evil. Negligent, sure. In a horrible way, with devastating consequences. But not evil; evil implies malicious intent, and there simply was none then.
Likewise, I don't believe (as you seem to) that Microsoft the company, or any of its board or executives, intends to do harm to any person. They're just doing what they have to do: trying to make big bunches of money for Microsoft's shareholders. That's how companies work.
The question of whether anybody could market a better word processor than Microsoft Word is kind of a double-edged one. On the one hand, of course you're right; trying to convince millions of people to use SurfWriter (or whatever) instead would be tough because Word is so entrenched. But on the other hand, it seems clear that nobody yet has written a better word processor than MS Word, so the whole question is moot.
I'm a programmer, so I don't word-process much. But when I do, I use Word, because I value the ability to exchange documents with coworkers without having to handshake first; this is a boost to my productivity and to that of my company. It seems to me that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in that example.
So, in a very real sense, having most everybody using the same word processor is a good thing. It means I can spend more time feeding my family and less time worrying about whether Phil downstairs in Marketing can open a SurfWriter 2.5 document, or whether I need to convert it to plain text first.
I think the most important thing we have to remember here is that we are in the very earliest stages of the-- for lack of a better term-- information age. I'm writing this on a laptop in my living room wirelessly connected to a high-speed Internet connection. That would have been impossible ten years ago, and unimagined fifty years ago. In less than two generations, our entire world view has changed with respect to information and the role of computers in distributing and accessing it.
In that context, how can you be so arrogant to assume that Microsoft's technologies must be a bad thing? I don't mean bad in the sense of flawed and imperfect; we can poke holes in every idea they've ever marketed, but the same is true of any product in any industry. I mean "bad" in the sense of "bad for society." No one alive now can possibly know what impact Microsoft will have on the evolution of society thorough the next century and beyond. Could you have predicted that the mass production of cars would lead directly to the growth of suburban areas around big cities? To think that we can see into the future is sheer hubris.
I think Microsoft has probably used some unfair business practices in the past, and they probably continue to do so now. And I think that some kind of legislative penalty is probably the right thing, although I don't pretend to know that that penalty should be.
But I simply refuse to jump to the conclusion that a number of relatively minor regulatory violations (minor as compared to the deaths of well over 1,000 people in India; you brought up that comparison, not I) means Microsoft is an evil force out for world domination. That's just... silly.
Okay, with all of that said, I want to send one last passing wave to my karma and conclude with this: people who deride other people's work without having the skill, talent, or tenacity to do anything of merit themselves piss me off. If you don't like MS Word, or Passport, or whatever, fine! Lord knows that I don't, especially. But at least I'm respectful and level-headed enough to see that Microsoft has been very, very successful, and to acknowledge that they have accomplished some things that make my life better, in the same breath that I use to criticize them.
Credit where it's due. Or, in even more appropriate terms, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's."
The very concept of micropayments is bad.
Why?
My opinion on the subject is this: if I were changed a dime to read a story on the CNN.com web site, I would recognize that I'm not paying for the information itself, but rather the method of delivery. Paying somebody to deliver something to me is a concept that I'm very comfortable with, as my local pizza delivery will testify.
So why are you so convinced that micropayments are bad?
Scorched earth policies aren't sustainable long-term. Cheaters may prosper for a while, but they always die sooner or later -- and while corrupt governments may also die, they take longer and cause more pain in doing so than similarly abusive commercial concerns.
Thus, I will take a weak government and abusive companies over weak companies and an abusive government any day of the weak. Surely this is reasonable.
The part many people refuse to see is that any government, given too much power, becomes abusive towards someone -- a concept better codified simply as "power corrupts".
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
Competition isn't so much from large corporations, but rather from 2 guys in a garage. Look Linux and other open source projects, they come from individual efforts.
The most dangerous guy in the world is one with computer access, and an ability to write a killer app, like the original MS basic. That is what Bill Gates is worried about.
The API's need to be available to anyone with USD $50 at a bookstore.
How does this settlement help Be's stockholders? Microsoft was FOUND GUILTY of ILLEGALLY controlling the market - resulting in Be going out of business and Microsoft having, is it $26 or $36, BILLION in the bank.
And the BIGGEST COST of some computers now is the cost of Windows. What about some penalty to be used to compensate all of us who have paid so much money to Microsoft because of this ILLEGAL monopoly?
And they used this ILLEGAL monopoly to force us all into using their desktop applications, which now cost about FOUR TIMES what the would cost if there was competition.
What about compensating everyone who has had to fork over extra cash to pay for their products?
And what about the companies that had competing products? What about compensating them?
Do you know HOWMS Word became the dominant word processor?
When Win 3.1 was released the ONLY company that knew the APIs as Microsoft. Word Perfect couldn't get their product working. That is how Word took over from Word Perfect, and Excel took over from Lotus 123.
Is that the "free market"? Or is that an ILLEGAL MONOPOLY excercising monopoly power to crush competition?
What really strikes me about the libertarians and Republicans is that they didn't have these philosophical arguments about the government picking on poor little Microsoft until Microsoft started spreading the influence cash around.
Just because Big Bill isn't going "Bwahahahaha" the whole time, doesn't mean that M$ ain't evil. Your definition sounds more like a cartoon stereotype than a reasonable working def. Putting your profits ahead of the life, health, and freedom from pain of any number of others? *That's* evil.
Would you say that a corporation that considers the welfare of people, whether workers, consumers, or general public, as unimportant, to be evil? I would, and that to me makes Union Carbide evil. They exemplify what I consider to be values that are *morally wrong*, ie evil. Remember too that many of the atrocities committed in this world weren't committed out of a desire to make people suffer: they were motivated by some other desire, and the suffering of others was considered negligible. *That's* evil, not some barking mad Evil Overlord with plans to take over the universe.
I'm not sure that I'd consider M$ evil, but I"m damned sure they're bad for a lot of reasons. This "everything goes in the market" crap is foolish and irresponsible: capitalism is an *economic* theory, remember, and offers no guarantees as to morals. Lots of things can be (and have been) justified in the name of profit, and I'm damned sure I'd call some of those outright evil. Responsible adults should consider the consequences of whatever they do, and accept the responsibility for same: saying "Oh, I'm innocent, I was just after a profit" is cowardly and selfish.
End rant. Sorry, but there's too damned much rights and too little responsibility in some of these arguments. If we can hold wee script kiddies responsible for *their* actions, why not CEOs? Why not directors? They make the decisions, for god's sake. And get paid handsomely for doing so.
Cringely sez APIs are available only to viable companies, but not government or non profits, under the proposed settlement.
So what if a viable business such as RedHat or IBM reads the APIs, then modifies Apache, Samba, Linux, etc. to work well with Windoze. Of course, the GNU license would require that the source code for those changes be made available. But RedHat/IBM/whoever never published the MS API.
No problem, right?
-jimbo
XML Tools for Mac OS X
Microsoft's biggest advantage over the open source community is that they have a plan. What the open source community needs is a meta-project to plan how Linux, Apache, PHP, PostgreSQL, and Mozilla (to name some representative products) can combine to form a complete end-to-end platform.
Microsoft can and does improve the interdependent functionality of it's corresponding products (XP, IIS, C#, SQL Server, and IE) to more closely tie users into a complete platform. As soon as a developer decides that one component (e.g., IE) is superior to its competition there is an overwhelming seductive pressure to adopt the other components.
Yeah, I like Office Space too.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Recently, I was told to seek out and find a decent computer for my cousin for a Christmas present. After searching around, I found that Dell had the best systems.
:) When it comes to laptops, your SOL. Windows or no computer.
To make a long story short, I was told by the person taking my order that I am required to purchase a copy of Windows XP with the new system. I told him that I wasn't going to put Windows on that machine, it would be a Linux only system. The guy didn't really care. If I wanted them to pre-install a copy of Red Hat, they would charge me quite a bit. Mainly, becuase I would need to buy a higher up machine. Either way, I already own (Haven't used in years) a copy of Windows 98. Why should I buy required to buy another copy when I already own a copy (older yes, but it would work if I had to) of Windows. I am being charged $200 for a OEM version of XP. If I removed Windows XP, and install another OS, then decied to go back to XP. (Not like I would) I would have to call Dell for an authorization number. I am not sure how true it is, but it pisses me off to say the least.
I think this should be apart of the settlement as well. If I don't want an OS installed, or there custom software. I shouldn't have to pay for it. The computer comes with a few other applications that I have no choice but to pay for. Most of which, is MS products. Why do I have to pay for a copy of MS Office, when I would use Star Office if anything at all.
Thats like buying a TV (just a normal TV) and having the salesmen tell me I am required to purchase a cable hookup on the spot. I have no choice, other then not buying the TV.
Once I got the computer, its littered with stickers giving disclamiers and license numbers for all the MS products I didn't even want. On the side of the computer is a lable with the XP license number AND a warenty number. Which, I can't remove or I loose the warenty. Which, IMO, is complete BS. Don't mind me, I am just sick and tired of dealing with MS these days. I want to run something else, and keep getting backed into the wall. Yes, I could have build the computer for her. But, my family just wanted to buy it right off the bat, and not worry about fixing it them selfs. (More like me fixing it
Something seriously needs to be done.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
I suggest a new user option:
"Do not display duplicate story postings."
The judge should show concern over the effect of the settlement on Free Software, as it seems that Free Software, too, has become a viable competitor. No more is the software market made up largely of producers such as Microsoft and consumers, who were the users of shrink-wrapped software. The market is now more complicated than that, because much of the software that now runs the Internet and which most of us /. readers use all the time is created and used by prosumers, to borrow a neologism from Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave , and this software created by and for the users, is rapidly becoming a major part of the software marketplace. GNU/Linux, Apache, and their ilk are testimony to that. To ignore it as the DOJ has, or to not think of it as part of the marketplace, as you have, is to ignore this fact about today's software industry.
Yes, Microsoft is right, the software industry is radically different from the more traditional industries that antitrust law was originally created to address, but not in the way Microsoft presented to the DOJ. In the software industry, anyone and everyone can potentially be a viable part of the marketplace, so the only choice really will be to totally open up the protocols and API's to anyone and everyone who wants to see them, if the DOJ's settlement is to have any real effectivity in fulfilling the spirit of antitrust law.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
It leaves IE for dead in many ways.
& now that MS has dumped Netscape plugins its even more compatible. Plus it has its own mail, news 'n ICQ clients built inside it.
& it gives you the choice of SDI & MDI GUIs
only in a couple of small areas does IE do better.
But a Active X Netscape plugin is being developed as we speak, so soon Opera will be Active X plugin compatible via its netscape plugin vacility.
I admit that Opera 4 was as iffy as hell, but Opera has to be the most improved browser in the last year or so.
Here's the Opera homepage.
This is a great Opera resources FAQs & tips site.
Opera is very configurable, here's how I have it configured
Here's what it looks like without the add
And you know this is true because .... ???
History and law. The worst a company can do -- the worst any company has ever (legally) done -- is to produce a bad product, sell it at a high price and try to prevent any competition from coming in and giving the consumers a fair deal. The only companies which have ever done anything worse than this have been able to do it only because of having government support. The most abusive monopolies, from The East India Company to Pacific Gas & Electric, always exist because of government support. (You think this is false? Counterexamples welcome!)
Even if you can find worse abuses, none of them compare to those committed by governments against the people they supposedly represent. Did Nazi Germany represent the Jews? Does the "People's Republic" of China really acting in the best interests of the people? The Soview Union? The worst massacres, the worst slaughters, are always done by the hand of government.
Yes, I prefer authoritarian decision making, made by a few rich people, with effects which are limited to producing bad product and selling at a high price (corporations) to authoritarian decision making, made by a few rich people, with effects that result in wars, jail sentences and unjust laws (government). The United States Government does not represent me, and it represents you no more. The best it can do, therefore, is get out of the way.
Corporate power is inherently limited; when I give money (power) to a corporation, it is because I have freely entered into a contract with that corporation because I thought it in my best interests to do so. When I give money to the government, I do so at the barrel of a gun. You tell me which is better.
What makes you think I'm a libertarian? ;-)
As I've said before, I agree that Microsoft broke laws, and that that's a Bad Thing, and that penalties should be assigned somehow. This is not in dispute.
My gripe is with people who apply the fruit-of-the-poison-tree principle to everything Microsoft produces. I don't like the Passport idea much, but I'm not okay with arguing against it on moral grounds.
I believe this: the playing field is not level, and it never will be. It's okay for society (in this case, the gub-mint) to establish boundaries for just how un-level the field can get, but the purpose of these boundaries is not to make the playing field level. Any attempt to level the playing field by limiting the success of a company that has not broken any laws is, in my opinion, morally unjustifiable, and short-sighted to boot.
Of course, my philosophy can't be applied in a black-and-white fashion; my whole point here is that, while Microsoft has broken some laws and should pay for that somehow, it is irresponsible of us-- people who understand technology, I mean-- to advocate going beyond the socially established guidelines for business behavior in an effort to somehow make the open market more "fair."
Yes, Microsoft did some nasty things in the recent past. Yup, you betcha.
Some of those things were against the law; a court said so. These things should be rectified in some way. If Microsoft and the government can't come up with a compromise that they can both accept, it'll be up to a judge to say how Microsoft should be penalized.
But the rest of the things Microsoft did, mean and nasty and downright unfriendly they might have been, were not against the law. At least, they weren't until a judge says that they were.
My thesis, since apparently I haven't gotten the idea across so far, is that Microsoft was not morally wrong to do the mean, nasty, unfriendly but legal things that it has done. That is how a competitive market works. The executives of Microsoft Corp. have a responsibility to their shareholders to make them lots of money, doing everything necessary to achieve that goal as long as they stay within the limits of the law.
They didn't. As I said, fine. Punish them for that.
But you can't-- we, as a society, cannot-- punish Microsoft for being nasty. Being nasty isn't against the law. Bundling PowerPoint with Word and Excel and whatever else and calling it Office and not allowing me to buy just PowerPoint is nasty. But it's not illegal. And it's not immoral, and it's not unethical, and it's not wrong.
Look, think of it like basketball. Ever play basketball, or even watch it on TV? The players on each team know that they have to do whatever they can to win, but without breaking the rules. So you get in there and you push a little bit, and you shove a little, and you get a little rough, and as long as you don't foul your opponent, it's okay. Better than okay, it's good basketball.
If the other team can't take a little push now and then, a little elbow at the net, then they shouldn't play basketball. They should play tennis instead, or some other game where you don't have to worry about being jostled.
Microsoft is like a really good basketball team. A nasty one with a bad attitude that nobody, not even their fans, like very much, but a really good one. They get out there with their game faces on and they rough it up a little. And when they foul, they get caught and they lose the ball and that's the end of it.
When the Bulls were winning championship after championship in a row and nobody could touch them, did you hear other teams whining that the Bulls were playing too rough? Did anybody complain that they were cheating? No, of course not. Because they weren't. They just happened to be playing the game better than anybody else.
That's Microsoft. They play the game, and when they get a little too rough, they get penalized, but that doesn't make them stop playing the game. They're rough, and they're serious, and they don't have any fans, but if you understand the game, you've gotta respect the fact that they know how to play.
I agree with you: a company that considered their profits to be more important than people's lives would be evil.
I just don't know of any companies like that.
Back to the Union Carbide example: they chose to cut corners, with the intention of being more profitable, and those shortcuts ended up leading to a horrible accident. Whether a reasonable person could have foreseen the consequences of those actions is up for debate, but I think it's fair to say that either way, nobody intended to cause that accident, or to kill anybody.
Likewise, I don't have any evidence that makes me believe that Microsoft, or anybody associated with Microsoft, intends to cause anybody personal harm. They intend for everybody in the world to use their operating system and their applications, you bet. And they intend for all the web sites out there to run on their servers, uh-huh. And they're willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.
To the extent that they stay within the law, I say good for them. That's exactly what they should be doing.
Step outside the law, get caught, pay a fine or some other suitable penalty. But then get back to work. That's how that's supposed to happen, too.
So, through all this rhetoric, will somebody please convince me I'm wrong? Will somebody give me just one example of Microsoft's doing something that could be considered bad for society as a whole?
Okay, they never killed anybody. Did they ever maim anyone? Did they ever run over anybody's puppy? Did they ever prank-call your house in the middle of the night? Anything?
They produce software that isn't up to my personal standards. I wish, since I have to use it sometimes, that their OS and applications were better designed. But that doesn't equate to personal harm.
All right, let's really reach. Microsoft designed a scripting architecture for Windows that gave malicious users the ability to write viruses that can overload systems and cause the indirect loss of money for companies that use Windows (i.e., pretty much all of them) and users individually. All right, that was a pretty bad idea. But let's remember to put it in perspective: did anybody die because of ILOVEYOU?
I'm no Microsoft fan, not by a long shot. But I guess I just don't think they're as horrible as many people seem to believe they are.
Well, as long as we're listing qualifications, you outrank me. I'm not 40; I'm 30. So you have experience on your side and I respect that.
I also see the same pattern you describe quite a bit. The markets I work in are pretty rarified-- flight and visual simulation, media, and stuff like that-- so I've never had to compete with Microsoft, either directly or indirectly. I'm lucky, I guess.
But I simply don't believe that Microsoft is unbeatable. Yeah, they have a lot of advantages. But having more money than God is not against the law; it just sucks if you're the other guy.
I don't have the answer to this problem. I don't know how to counter Microsoft's defense. It's just that I get annoyed by defeatists and collectivists who stop talking about how to beat Microsoft in the market and start talking about how to beat them in the courtroom or in Congress.
If-- and when-- Microsoft breaks the law, they should be punished. But we're just hurting ourselves and our society if we-- the smart people, I mean, the people who can do things-- just give up and stop trying.
I have a friend who recently took this idea to a surprising conclusion: he took a job at Microsoft. The company he was working for was on hard times-- because of mismanagement rather than competition-- and Microsoft was hiring, so he signed up. He told me he got plenty of hassle from ex-coworkers about joining the "evil empire" and other hyperbole, but in the end, he did it so he could improve Microsoft's products in some small way.
Hell, there are a lot of talented programmers out there who hate Windows and Office and IIS and all that. That's fine. But most of them seem to channel that into hating Microsoft, too. That's a shame. If enough of them got together to improve the products they hate so much, maybe they could actually make a difference.
Choose whatever path you like; just play within the system instead of trying to legislate Microsoft out of it.
Nope. I'm saying that if your objective is to be more successful than your competitors, then you have a responsibility to do whatever it takes except breaking the law.
And if you think the relative merits of your products is the only criterion that defines success in the marketplace, then you're being pretty naive. For better or for worse, that's simply not how the world works.
Why are these things hard to understand?
Why do you THINK you cannot buy a computer with Windows and another operating system? [and so on]
I know precisely why this is. As much as you'd like to think that Microsoft is breaking the law left and right, and that everything they do is immoral and wrong, the fact is that their infractions have been fairly limited. If you consider how much business Microsoft does in a single year, you'll see that they're within the law the vast majority of the time.
The reason why the market is the way it is right now is simple: Microsoft is kicking their competitor's asses.
I don't happen to like this, but at least I'm sufficiently realistic to acknowledge that it's true, and to understand that it's not up to the government to step in and sort this all out. If we (the community) want to change this, then it's up to us to do it. But we should do it by improving ourselves and our products to beat Microsoft at their own game, or by cooperating with Microsoft where we can't beat them. If we tried to change the market by hindering Microsoft's legal business practices (as opposed to their illegal ones, which I've said before are bad, bad, bad), then we're doing ourselves, our industry, and our economy a disservice.
On the whole, Microsoft has been more of a good thing for the industry in particular and the economy as a whole than a bad thing. They're ruthless and nasty and I wouldn't want them to house-sit for me while I'm out of town, but they're excellent at what they do, and (I'm repeating myself here) you have to respect that.
The Nazis didn't even pretend to represent the people. The philosophy was one of authoritarian control for the profit of the comapnies. Which is what you are asking for here.
Nothing of the sort. I don't ask for any kind of authoritarian control (if I did, I'd be a right-winger, but I'm not). I ask, rather, for a lack thereof.
If Americanism is believing the shared dream (that the government truly is representative of the governed), then yes, I'm out of it. Can you sit back and watch Vietnam, Cuba, Iran-Contra, Watergate, the DMCA, the USA Act, the PATRIOT Act, the Zimmerman case, the Skylarov case, the SSSCA and tell me the government is acting in your best interests? Name one thing the Federal government does other than those powers explicitly granted in the Constitution that you think we're better off with it doing.
America is about the PEOPLE making decisions. Maybe you should be living somewhere with the authoritarianism you crave?
Yes, America is about rich, white PEOPLE making decisions. Early in American history, rich, landed white men made the decisions while pretending to speak for the country as a whole. Today, rich, landed white men make the decisions while pretending to speak for the country as a whole. Those in government don't act in your best interests or mine, but rather in their own. The political system may attempt to align their interests with ours, but such alignment is merely coincidental. I see far too many people who "drink the Kool-Aid" and come to think that those in power are truly looking out for them. Nobody looks out for anyone but his or herself -- not me, not you, not anyone -- and those who claim they do are fools or liars (to themselves if not to others).
That said, I am by no means interested in an authoritarian government. As I said, I want less government, not more. Anarchy (which is just a bit further than I'm willing to go, but in the same direction) is most certainly not authoritarian.
I'd like to see you back your claim that the Nazi government came about for the purpose of maximizing corporate profit. I suppose you're going to tell me that Pol Pot was acting in the interests of corporate power as well, and that Stalin's massacres of his own people were done for financial gain. Even if some government massacres were done at the urging of (rich, white) men who happened to own businesses, they are still government massacres. I doubt we'll ever see tanks with McDonald's logos rolling over protesters.
Putting your profits ahead of the life, health, and freedom from pain of any number of others? *That's* evil.
Okay, then, show me one - just one - example of Microsoft's having taken anybody's life, health, and freedom.
Let me clarify a little here, before you *nix-freaks breathe down my throat.
By "life," I mean just that. How many people have died as a direct result of anything Microsoft has ever done? I can't think of any.
By "health," I mean physical health. How many people have gotten physically sick (and I'm not talking about hand injuries from smacking the computer from the latest BSOD) from MS? Again, I can't think of any.
And finally, "freedom from pain." First off, I don't think that this is a valid freedom - pain is and must be a part of life. But even still, show me one person who has been physically harmed as a direct result of MS's actions. Show me just one.
Calling Microsoft evil because they want to make money is ridiculous. Calling them evil because they drove a few competitors out of business is also ridiculous... perhaps they have acted unethically, but "evil" is another step up.
Putting Jews in concentration camps, or killing thousands of innocent farmers in purges - that's evil. But driving one's competitors out of business by making a better product available at a lower cost, or even by the arguably-unethical act of packaging it with the newest version of your OS - that's business. That's not evil, that's profit.
I'll agree with you when you show me an example of someone whom Microsoft has deliberately killed, or deprived of their health.
InigoMontoya(tm)
This signature is self-referential.
>So, through all this rhetoric, will somebody please >convince me I'm wrong? Will somebody give me just >one example of Microsoft's doing something that >could be considered bad for society as a whole?
:) (by all the means provided by the market)
Microsoft employees gave misleading testimony during the trial including faking a demo comparing a computer with Internet Explorer to one with it removed and several times denying that they had made statements which the prosecutors then showed they had made (via email). So perjury is the one glaring wrong that I see MS guilty of. And I am not one bit reluctant to hit each liar with jail time or a major fine.
As for the rest, I agree, I don't think taking MS down in court is the right way to go about things. I wouldn't call them evil but definitely bad. I would prefer a world without MS's dirty tactics to one with and as such, I try to refrain from buying and using their products as well as discouraging others. Just because they have a right to do business doesn't mean people shouldn't try and force _them_ out of business
Microsoft employees gave misleading testimony during the trial...
;-)
Okay, conceded. I forgot about that. That's definitely wrong.
I don't know the whole story-- I don't know if that was an organized attempt to deceive or just the misguided work of a couple of idiots-- but that definitely qualifies as a screw-up.
One point for you.
We did vote Democrat. But the Republicans counted the votes.
The rules of the open market ARE at fault here- at least in practice, because as practiced by Microsoft they are cancerous.
Also there no longer is any kind of open market in this area of software.
You can't beat a cheater. This would seem obvious, but clearly it's not obvious to you. Your definition of 'business right' strongly resembles racketeering and organized crime- using ALL the possible 'incentives' to seize total control.
This is to my mind part of the problem. Whereas RICO laws have been applied to some rather bizare cases it hasn't been applied to Microsoft. Even though things such as their OEM contracts look not unlike "protection rackets".
As an aside, let me add that I know the the CEO of one of my employers fairly well (well enough to tease each other on occasion and lunch together not infrequently); the other company I work for (the one which allows me less control in my job and is otherwise less enjoyable) is a sole proprietership; I know its owner too. Both companies are multi-million dollar concerns. Both employers are decent people; the first is motivated by money and desire to make a cool product, and the latter is (pretty much) motivated by money alone. Both are ethical people, however, and both their businesses treat me fairly (or else I'd not work for them). Yes, I've had contact with those who run businesses, and I'm not repulsed by any means.
Huh? Since when were laws needed to allow unions to organize? I can see the government "acting in your best interests" by repealing laws that prevent unions from organizing, but organizing into unions (like any other action) is allowed by default, unless the government supresses it. In short, there's nothing about labor unions that explicitly requires governmental power. In fact, the Teamsters had over $1 million in the treasury in 1925; Labor Day was started as a celebration of union power in 1882.
Ooh, great. So if it's not a semi-socialist government, strong enough to control the corporations, then it's both non-representative and fascist.
Bull.
I think we agree, by the way, that the problem is corporations controlling government. However, we disagree on the solution. You would expand government so that it can control the corporations, whereas I would limit government so that there's not enough power there to make it profitable for the corporations to control.
The examples I listed -- Stalin and Pol Pot included -- are demonstrations of the former approach. We both know what that one does when it goes wrong. The smaller federal government -- the one subserviant to the states -- involves no such risks.
Public control and accountability is a myth in any government of sufficient size. Can you tell me you know what goes on inside the NSA? Did "public control" stop Reagan and Bush from violating congressional laws and selling arms to the contras? Is there anything you, personally, can do about the information being withdraws from public libraries for "security reasons" or to stop the wiretaps done without court approval?
Don't tell me about public accountability.
The thing that keeps people acting in the best interests of the whole is when those same actions that serve them best also serve others. Those who organize to build a quality product and sell it at a fair price act both in their best interests and the interests of others. Further, being that their goals are financial, they are predictable in nature and thus basically harmless.
Those who seek power over others, on the other hand, have much more capability to go past selfishness and reach true evil.
I've given examples of governments founded in the name of having public control over profit-making entities which came out to harm the people they founded. Why don't you give me a few examples of "serfdom" so we can see whose worst-case is more serious?
Microsoft releases a really crappy 1.0 release of what you already have. It's worse than yours, the reviews say so, but people buy it in droves because it's from Microsoft
Consider also that the MS version is probably either bundled with the OS, part of some service pack or on the windowsupdate website. So even if your version is better it is more hassle for people to get it and may well cost money whilst the MS version is "free".
If-- and when-- Microsoft breaks the law, they should be punished. But we're just hurting ourselves and our society if we-- the smart people, I mean, the people who can do things-- just give up and stop trying.
But the problem is they have been repeatedly found to have broken the law, but go unpunished.
As for the punishing doing possible harm well no-one worries about that with drug dealers or The Mafia. Even where they are also involved in prefectly legitimate business.
Your statement is, of course, complete bull. In my lab I have several Macs, three Octanes, some Origins, a couple of AlphaStations, an SGI 750, about half a dozen SGI 230s and an RS/6000. All of which are configured as purchased, and none of which came with Windows.
But as for choices, how about electricity? I've been trying and trying, but I can't seem to find a provider that will deliver 50 Hz AC to my house. They just won't do it! It must be illegal collusion!
Bastards!
You, sir, are a mother fucking pimp.
P.S. - are you at the karma cap yet?
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.