Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat CTO Testifies at MS trial
An anonymous reader writes "Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann testified on behalf of the 9 states in MS's trial. From the article on SF Gate: "Red Hat Chief Technology Officer Michael Tiemann said Microsoft adds 'extensions' to critical communications methods that computers use to transmit security information, print, and perform other tasks. Those extensions are proprietary to Microsoft, he said, and despite recent actions Microsoft has not been forthcoming in releasing details of those changes.""
Were these words used at all in his testimony?
umm, that is the majority of the world. Get over it. It isn't going to change probably ever.
as far as MS having to divulge its secrets in protecting their networks, I don't think that is viable. I am no MS fan by any means, but I don't see why they should be forced to allow open access from other OS's.
If they want to block out whatever, I think that they should have that right.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist; that conviction has been upheld on appeal, and the Supreme Court has declined to review the case, so the current judgement stands.
That's winning?
Oh, yeah. It's Microsoft, so they can argue with a straight face that their punishment shouldn't be punitive.
And at one point in time everyone is this stupid person until they learn a *nix OS. Some of the best programmers and admins I know started with an MCSE, ugh.
Looks like the players previously too cowed to come out into the open and talk about M$ tactics are now talking: in detail and in court.
At this point, though, given how much Windows XP sucks, the FBI security warning about it, the slow rate of adoption in the corporate setting.... does it really matter what the guy from Red Hat says?
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
I saw a Red Hat exec. on Fox News the other day talking with Neil Cavuto (sp?) about their just released financial results. He was rather unimpressive in his answers about Red Hat's results, its future, its business plan, competition from MS, etc. This is not meant as flamebait at all, but if I was a RH shareholder, I would have been very nervous after watching that interview.
As the "flagship" company for Linux, with all eyes upon it, I hope RH has some top notch execs working behind the scenes. Running a business takes *alot* more than just great coders and passion. Especially when competing against one of the most ruthless companies on the planet.
Proprietary protocols are but one of Microsoft's ways to keep customers nicely handcuffed.
Just as an example, look at the hoops the folks doing the Samba development had to jump through in order to make Samba able to mount Windows shared drives.
==================================
neophase
You're just too cool for your own good. The problem is, that they leave these highly extensive systems to l33t hax0rs like yourself. For real now... There are too many people like yourself who consider somebody "Stupid" for not understanding. Perhaps if you gave people a little more chance to learn, or maybe you should take the oppurtunity to teach them. Instead you'd just rather give the "I'm better than you" attitude. That's part of the reason that the many *nix systems aren't as mainstream.
Yes - that may be true - but they have done things since RH Linux was started that affected them. Part of this trial is about stopping them from further illegal actions too - they need to know what the things they've done were first - before they can implement measures to stop them doing them again in the future.
Video Game cheats, hints a
I could be wrong, but I don't think he was really appearing as somebody from RedHat, but more like an industry expert who just happens to be from RedHat.
I've got a mind like a steel trap - it's got an animal's foot stuck in it.
Quoted from The Washington Post:
This is an interesting proposal that I hadn't heard about before. Does anybody have a complete list of what the unsettling states have asked for?
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Lest we forget, Microsoft broke the law, and this is being suggested as a punishment for having done that. The question isn't "is this fair?" it's "is this an appropriate punishment for the crime that has been committed?". I think it's more appropriate than many of the punishments that have been suggested, but considering that this isn't Microsoft's first offence, I think a structural remedy is more appropriate.
-- this is not a
Well
Technically, if they decide to hold out long enough, they can do nearly anything they like.
Unfortunately, most likely, the 9 states think that holding out more will eventually lead microsoft to offering those states lots of money to make them go away. (I still say the recent tobacco-company settlements in texas and elsewhere are going to have bad consequences for just years to come...)
However, they are, like, you know, sovereign states. As the representatives of the law of those states, if those 9 attorneys general just keep holding out, as long as they feel MS has violated the fair business practice laws of their states, they have it perfectly within their rights to (they can at LEAST do this much) block MS from selling software in that state.. which would be a horrible catastrophe for microsoft, not so much because they couldn't make money in that state but just because software sales in that state would suddenly become a huge source of funding for any new or existant company or companies that might want to become serious competitors to microsoft. That state would become a neat little hole in the software market barrier to entry.. and microsoft depends on that barrier to entry being impenatrable.
This has nothing to do with what the states *can* do. The states are, well, remember, *sovereign states*. They set the rules within their boundaries, except where amendments to the U.S. constitution stop them. The states can do what they like, and since microsoft has is currently in the eyes and laws of the states an outlaw awaiting judgement, the attourneys general and state courts can render judgement however they see fit.
The question is what the states *will* do-- when will the attourneys general give up and wander off, or be rotated out of office and replaced with pro-monopoly equivilents.
I don't think anyone realizes exactly how big the amount of power these states hold at the moment. Microsoft's banking almost everything on the hope that these states will eventually be placated by some settlements and turn around a couple times, forget anything happened, and go to sleep..
But if they don't.. and the states decide that justice carried out against microsoft really is what they want, and decide to exert their power as soverign states.. they can pretty much do what they want.
There are those programmers who exist that are simply to stupid to produce an easy to learn, fully functional operating system.
My friends, co-workers, and I refer to these individuals those who suffer from A*PWCFTD, or Another *nix Programmer Who Can't Finish The Details. Signs include programs that never quite make it out of beta because everything sort of works, but nothing is standard and some features are never added because the programmer got bored after solving the hard problems and didn't want to put the finishing touches on the app. Or the programmer said, well, I finished it enough to pretty much scratch my original itch, I don't care if no one else can use it.
Do YOU know anyone suffering from this?
Yeah, I know. I let a Troll bait me. That's why I'm doing the AC thing. But I will tell you this. The consistency and polish of amatuer windows programs usually, but not always, exceeds that of *nix programs. If kylix takes off, this will change drastically.
At this stage, the states needs to justify their proposed penalties. That's why Tiemann is there. To give the current state of the software industry and to explain why the states proposed penalties (in this case, full disclosure) is appropriate. It is not to discuss new violations or prove whether M$ is still a monopoly.
Yeah, yeah, like this is news.
We know that MS plays like this, Mike Tiemann knows this, and so do all the lawyers and judges hearing what he has to say.
But the events of last week showed the judge was more interested in closely following a particular legal track.
Are these allegations going to be entered into the proceedings of the court, or are they likely to be stricken out as "hearsay" because they do not very strictly address what the court wants to hear?
Maybe I'm getting the 9 dissenting states' separate suit confused with the remedy phase of the original MS trial. My apologies and hopes that someone more knowledgeable can clear this up for me...
"Provided by the management for your protection."
More importantly, what exactly is Microsoft so "guilty" of in this situation (I assume Red Hat is bitching about the Kerberos extensions). Read this article by Theodore Ts'o, one of the Kerberos developers at MIT. Microsoft changed its Kerberos extension in response to feedback on its initial design. Now it is true that it did not document the extension fully, but if you think about that article, Ts'o is really saying that Microsoft is not doing a good enough job of embracing and extending...because if Microsoft documented its NT PAC, they would have eagerly helped make it a standard.
Anyway, what Microsoft is doing with Kerberos is perfectly legal and allowed by the standard. Sure it might hurt Red Hat -- so what? Red Hat is a competitor of Microsoft!! It's not clear what Red Hat really wants from this case. Would they be happy with anything less than Microsoft going open source, releasing all their intellectual property, and a government guarantee of X% market share for Linux? If so, they are dreaming and I have little sympathy for them.
- adam
So as the governmental party bringing the case, if the Justice Dept. agrees to accept a consent decree and terminate the case, it can. And that consent decree can even include items such as (a) this consent decree cannot be used as evidence in civil lawsuits [hint: it does] (b) the consent decree can be used to prevent Microsoft's competitors from taking certain actions under the threat of DMCA prosecution [hint: it does].
So much for being "convicted".
sPh
From what I gather, Microsoft is adding extensions to communication protocols that they developed. True? If that's the case, then so what? They are free to do so. They aren't modifying some existing standard so that it's inoperable with other products. They're not hijacking a standard (like they did with Java). So what's the problem? If Microsoft developed the protocol, aren't they free to do with it whatever they like.
The problem is that the states are spending nearly ALL of their time discussing issues that were not part of the initial trial, nor the appeal. Since this is the penalty phase of the case, new evidence will most-likely be dismissed by the judge, so while the topics being brought up make for great headlines ... it will amount to sensationalistic garbage come the end of this phase.
Once again.
You are limited in your actions even if they might otherwise be legal if you do them to maintain your monopoly.
Straw man.
The nine states are seeking enforcement of good old standard antitrust law that has said essentially the same thing for nearly a hundred years now. If Red Hat asks for anything beyond the scope of the law be assured that the judge (you know, someone who has actually made a career out of studying this stuff) will surely show them the door.
It's not as though antitrust law was dreamed up in the last few years just to "get" Microsoft.
So? What is wrong with using proprietary software? IBM has token standards (proprietary), Cisco has routing protocols (IGRP+EIGRP: proprietary). Do I need to go on?
Just because something is proprietary doesn't mean its bad. Also, we don't need everything to be open. Some people actually like to make money off of ideas.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
> Well the last time I looked Netscape was fucking FREE
:)
But what about the first time you looked? As memory serves, Netscape had to offer their browser for free because MS started offering IE for free. MS wouldn't have been able to afford to offer IE for free had they not used their success as an OS monopoly in the browser market.
Why does it not surprise me that XP tech support lacks any knowledge on the history of their own companies wrong doings?
I'm only pointing this out because you're asking for replies, and you seem to omit the aforementionned detail in this post, which really just furthur drives home why you work for Satan
"Old man yells at systemd"
This is another article on the testimony, this time by Reuters at Yahoo.
It mentions the barriers Microsoft tried to impose on getting linux pre-installed on a system.
What would make much more sense to me is complete documentation of the formats used in Office, with a mandatory N-month lead time (they were convicted of monopoly, weren't they?) before implementing new, um, features [yeah, that's what they are, features...]. This would allow compatibility filters from the competing office suites, and remove the window of opportunity for new versions from MS while the others chase the changes.
Oh, and the penalty for failure-to-disclose would be public source release of Office; that would almost guarantee they behave, since there'd be legions of open-source eyes looking for any inconsistencies.
I've read the word zealot used in reference to Linux people, but I understood it when I watched the interview a couple of months ago with Tiemann, Ballmer, and some of the other big names. I forget the particular open source event it took place at, but I remember feeling embarrassed for the guy because of the way he was acting. He was lashing out at Ballmer and MS and in that particular situation it was totally unprofessional.
I wouldn't accept his testimony for anything other than blind/passionate MS hatred.
Microsoft implemented the CIFS protocol in Windows NT 4.0, where it is used for network file access in Microsoft Windows NT. Client systems use CIFS to request file and print services from server systems over a network.
...
...
Desler said that none of the three latest moves were necessary under the proposed settlement--also known as the consent decree--in the antitrust case between Microsoft and the Department of Justice, which requires Microsoft to disclose to third parties any communications protocol implemented in a Windows desktop operating system that is used to interoperate with a Microsoft server operating system.
"The CIFS, Kerberos and SISLP announcements are above and beyond the conditions of the consent decree. As such, this is yet another step we are taking to enhance the interoperability of Windows clients with non-Microsoft operating systems," he said.
For crackin' ice. Sometimes I wonder if I was fooled for 10 years and Microsoft really is a lying sack of crap. Let's see, CIFS is used for clients to request file and print services from servers...and the settlement requires Microsoft to disclose any communication protocol implemented in the Windows desktop that is used to talk to a server...and CIFS does not apply and is "beyond the conditions of the consent decree"?!?
I'll assume for now that this spokesman is just an idiot, but if not, this could indicate a very narrow interpretation of the decree on Microsoft's part. That is, if they take "implemented in the Windows desktop" to mean only network client code that is "in the desktop" (as opposed to in the kernel, say)...I figured "in the desktop" just meant "in the client"!
FYI I think Microsoft should release *all* it's source as I stated a year ago.
- adam
I am not a supporter of Microsoft and its products, but it seems sometimes that people are jealous of its success. Yes, ms stole windows from apple, but they stole it from Xerox. They played around with it, and now 93% of all computers on the earth run some version of ms windows. They were the ones who made it work, they are the ones that are making the billions, and they are the ones that make people jealous. I think we should back off, ms will fail one day, lets let them go down in flames on their own.
As far as "not buying the products", you tell me where to buy a Windows-free PC and I'll run there; oh wait, you guys are harassing white-box shops that do that, and you certainly won't be able to get one from the major companies like Compaq, HP, Dell, etc.
Some Dell models can be ordered preloaded with Linux
Look at:
dell.com/linux
compaq.com/linux
hp.com/linux
etc.
Computers are quite a different beast than any of the technologies before them. Capitalism and competition get us a long way, but at very high environmental and social costs. I'm not convinced that competition is the best way to produce software. Infact, I'm convinced it's not. It saddens me that this country (culture) is so concerned with the details of the laws that we cannot think about real change, which is what is needed.
Cheers, Joshua
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
Red Hat was founded in 1994, according to their Corporate Information page. Plenty of time to be around for Windows 95 bundling, all of those shady OEM deals, etc.
I'd expect a lot of this kind of behavior from MS. They will do something that they claim is out of the goodness of their heart, and not required by the settlement, but actually is. However, since MS is performing the required action, there is no impetus for whoever enforces the settlement to go out of their way to prove that it -is- required. They aren't going to engage MS' lawyers just to counter some PR. Thus MS manages to turn everything it does because it essentialy has to into positive PR. If it works well enough, it could sour attempts to go after them further, because they've shown themselves to be such nice guys. Thus they use today's judgement to prevent future ones.
I don't like them, but sometimes I have to be amazed by their saavy.
The enemies of Democracy are
Capitalism? What Microsoft engages in isnt capitalism. If you look at the constituent elements in their strategies like total control of their market and 5 year plans you'll note their idea of 'capitalism' has more in common with an entirely different kind of economy. Which, of course, is why they're in court in the first place.
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure this is wrong. This is called the "remedy" phase of the trial. That means that the reaction to a guilty finding of antitrust law is not punishment. It's a remedy to bringing back competition to the market. So the *only* thing that the judge has to order is something that she believes will bring a remedy to the problem of non-competition w/in the market.
Now, of course, Microsoft is guilty of being an illegal monopolist. So they're subject to a huge number of civil suits. Punitive damages (i.e. punishment) may be part of those trials. But the result of the antitrust trial will be a remedy, not a punishment.
This is significant because the standard is only to restore competition to the market. AFAIK, that's all that antitrust law calls for, and it seems like something much less painful for Microsoft than punishment.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
1.) If there are states still holding out, how can you consider it over?
2.) What does a president's opinion have to do with state governments?
3.) When did presidential terms get extended to 8 years?
4.) How does McDonalds enter into all this?
The thing is, these aren't *PCs*.. they're servers. Big difference. This guy is looking for a *personal computer*, not a server machine.
"Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed is the most surely the one wasted." -Sebastian Roch Nicol
Nope, I don't know anyone "too stupid to use *nix." Not since this hit the street.
And by the way the sentiment that you're expressing is a huge problem for Linux. It will never - not ever - become a widely used desktop operating system until elitists like yourself realize that there is a lot of genuine value in software that is easy to learn and use. Until and unless that happens Linux will remain a geek toy and a server OS. But maybe that's what you types really want.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Nonsense.
When one side has acted illegally (which the courts have already ruled) and the other side is using the courts to get some relief from those illegal acts, how is that the same thing?
If they develop a product/protocol of their own that's great. In fact, I wholeheartedly support that.
The thing I don't agree with is the sort of tactic where they take an existing protocol/standard and extend it in such a way that it will only work with other MS products. Then, to add insult to injury, they tout how they support the open standard.
Kerberos is a good example. Take a company running BIND as their DNS server. They decide to implement Active Directory. This means the Domain Controller must be able to update DNS. The NT guys go talk to the UNIX group: "We're taking DNS from you because you can't accept secure updates."
"Sure we do. Use Kerberos."
"We did. It didn't work. We're going to use a MS DNS server because yours is substandard. Send us your zone files by tomorrow morning."
And all of that when everybody on the planet supports the kerberos protocol except for them. And the only reason they changed it was to make it proprietary.
They're working on DHCP too. They've extended the DHCP protocol so that it includes some extra messages. It implements some wacky scheme where it checks with the Active Directory to make sure that it's authorized to hand out addresses. It's billed as a way to prevent rogue DHCP servers from raising hell on your network. The fact is that it only prevents rogue MS DHCP servers and is thus of little use... for now. NT admins who never bother to learn anything about the actual protocol then come to you and say, "We have to use MS DHCP because yours won't participate in the Authorization scheme."
Don't be surprised to find that later on, some kind of dependency is actually developed that does that. Oh, and by the way, the MS DHCP server will only do secure updates to a MS DNS server.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
According to this article at CNN, MS is saying RH did little to popularize Linux.
I don't really like the term blue print for source code,
But it's such an apt description. After all, the courts have determined that taking a machine with a bunch of switches and flipping some of those switches constitutes making a "new machine" that can be patented. Of course, you can't just flip any old switches and get them patented, but if you give some real world meaning to the switches being flipped, patent away!
Heck, I finally realized that I have been thinking about math all wrong all these years. I used to think that there was no difference between an algorithm and a use of that algorithm with real world numbers, but I must have been wrong. That's because these are two totally different things since you can't patent an algorithm running on a computer if it's just the algorithm itself, but you can patent it if it's somehow related to the real world. That simply blew me away when I finally came to the stunning realization that word problems are different and harder than "math problems". After all, I grew up thinking that word problems were easy since you were just doing the same thing as the regular math problems, except you gave some real-world meaning to the numbers being used, but man was I wrong.
That's where the blueprints come in. If the software running on the computer is somehow related to something in the real world, then it stops being a bunch of ideas and just using a machine, and becomes a Real Thing, a New Machine! And, we all know that if you want to create a complex Real Thing you'd better have some plans, and blueprints are the perfect thing for that!
Yes folks, by the miracle of modern technology, we can take two pure ideas (mathematical algorithm) + (giving real-world meaning to numbers) and obtain (A Real Thing That Can Be Patented).
It's the New Math: (Pure Idea)+(Pure Idea)=(Real Thing).
Can't you see that? So the "blueprints" analogy is just perfect.
You just don't get it and you need to go back to third grade and look at all of your math books again and understand this time that "word problems are really tough because they aren't the same as the pure math problems where the numbers have no real world meaning".
That's the most amazing thing of all. If you have a computer program that will solve some homework problems for you, the computer is just your plain old computer when you're using it to solve the regular math problems. However, the moment that you start to use it to solve a word problem, it becomes a New Machine! Because even though the steps it does are the same, since you gave real world meaning to the inputs and outputs, you have taken two pure ideas and made a Real Thing. Aren't you proud of yourself for building a New Machine just to do your math homework? I know I am.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
I have noticed a trend in Microsoft's approach to 'standards' and that is that they completely ignore the 'spirit' behind the idea of 'open standards'. One of the key reasons to define open standards is to promote system interoperability. This interoperatility allows two different systems to interface with one another.
Microsoft has begun using open standards as a multi-edged sword: First, to leverage the scalability of these protocols. Second, to save them the 'innovation time' required to develop their own protocols. Third, as a rallying cry/advertising claim/defense against criticism.
The problem is that they are not using the standards to promote interoperatility.
There are two strong examples of this: Windows2000 authentication and Kerberos. Microsoft decided to exploit a (graned) 'user-definable field' in the kerberos packet to store custom information for their authentication scheme. Perfectly legal. But then they listed the contents of the field (as they use it) as proprietary and therefore shutting out any other Kerberos server to provide authentication to a Microsoft client.
A second example is in the Exchange 2000 server. All of the Exchange servers are now capable of using SMTP as their inter-server communication protocol. In fact, they have implemented the SMTP Pipelining RFC (1854) to increase message rates between servers that support that extension. Again. All very valid. Then they also created what they call ESMTP: Encapsulated SMTP. This is different from the ESMTP standard: Extended SMTP. Encapsulated SMTP makes the body of the message proprietary mime type and only another Exchange SMTP server can decode that message. No other server can read it.
Where these aren't technically extensions to the protocol, they do violate the GOAL behind the open-protocols, which is what makes me believe that Microsoft might be even more malicious than people may believe them to be, and that all of these 'exploitations' are so subtle that the court, the general public, and even a lot of systems people will completely miss, untill it is too costly to remove the components from their infrastructure.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
Take a closer look at the Dells. Some are "workstations". Obviously not quite the same as a cheap desktop (and I'm all for inexpensive desktops) but it isn't just servers...
Plus look here for HP's which aren't nearly as jazzed up as those Dell workstations:
e x.html
http://www.hp.com/workstations/products/linux/ind
So you can buy a desktop preloaded with linux. If you want a cheap one do it yourself. There isn't much benefit in HP or Dell providing one. Note that I didn't read this whole thread as I don't feel like wasting time doing so as the arguements are probably the same old regurgitated crap. So if you guys are argueing about cheap desktops oh well.
So then you suggest we just blindly follow laws? Have you forgotten about the DMCA already? The "monopoly" laws are NOT fair. No more so than the music industry telling you what you can do with music that you bought. "Monopoly" laws are designed to punish successful companies.
You obviously have been out of touch for the last 5 years or so. Otherwise you would know that monopolies play by a different set of rules. Microsoft has been determined to be a monopoly and has been convicted of monopolistic behavior. The remedy is supposed to help competition return to the relevant market(s). Sometimes it's done in a heavy-handed way (like the AT&T breakup). Sometimes it's done more creatively, such as what we're seeing now.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Other companies do it!
Yeah, but other companies aren't monopolies
Once you're a monopoly, you have to play by different rules.
In terms of world demographic, if the infrastructure of the net continues to spread, then Open Source Operating Systems and Apps will win by dint of being more readily available to the less affluent states. In the long run the file types of Open Source will predominate. But as Keynes pointed out, 'In the long run we're all dead.' Put in this perspective the battle between MicroSoft and Open Source becomes a tug of war between two factions of the Industrialized First World Nations.
It may seem mean and low and ugly but at least it's being played out in a supposed open and transparent fashion in the courts of the land rather than say, what might have been the case, a century ago, or the larger portion of the geopolitical world today. Who knows maybe we'll all learn to play nice and share?.... Yea, right.
heuristic algorithm seeks stochastic relationship
Actually, I disagree. I think it aughtta be federal law that ever computer operating system come with a copy of its source.
At this time I don't think people quite realize at what risk they put themselves at by using a closed-source OS. The OS is what makes the computer do stuff, and I want to be damned sure my computer is doing the stuff I want it to do, at the same time as disallowing stuff I don't want it to do. I don't think I have to clarify on that. I don't want hotfixes.
While the general populous has no direct need for the source code for an OS, bugfixes come alot sooner that way. Why shouldn't the source be included? I am sure these geniuses can figure out how to freely distribute source without hurting thier cash flow... Plus, it'd keep companies like M$ alot more honest. I'd like to see M$ get punished for what they've been convicted of, but I'd also like to see a piece of pro-consumer legislation out of the deal. The taxpayers could end up saving money, too.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
Does Microsoft really care if they get sued? Probably not very much as long as the politicians that they purchased can limit Microsoft's liability.
I had to laugh when I read that Microsoft was complaining that the states were bringing up new violations.
States: "You are still violating the law!"
Microsoft: "Put it on our tab."
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
It's insane.
Basically: MS is a competitive business and has been competing for however many years. One day the government decies that, while MS has been using the same business practices all along, "Oh, well back on this day we've decided you were a monopoly. From this day forward the competitive practices you've been using were illegal. Maybe you should have recognized that you were a monopoly and immediately became non-competitive just in case. We're going to punish you now."
It's totally absurd. The government should decide whether or not they're a monopoly, then set restrictions on the types of competition the company can engage in. They weren't declared a monopoly in 1995, so they shouldn't be punished for legal [for a regular business] actions they practiced in 1995.
Who better than a Linux Distro company, they can testify that say windows version whatever will not interoperate with a standards compliant server or client, the code has been audited with an independant third party and is completely compatable with the published standards.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I dispute the statement that I am astroturfing however. First of all do you mean on behalf of the book, or of Microsoft. For the book, I am not being sneaky, I just put the site as my homepage (having nothing better to put). For Microsoft, it's true I worked there, but I don't anymore and I'm not posting because of some secret plan to help Microsoft...just interested in truth, justice, and high karma (which is getting dinged by those bogus Flamebait mods).
Driving on Redmond Way around 5:20 pm today, saw a dark green Jetta (I think) with a /. country oval (like the ones in Europe). Was it you?
- adam
Oh, well back on this day we've decided you were a monopoly. From this day forward the competitive practices you've been using were illegal. Maybe you should have recognized that you were a monopoly and immediately became non-competitive just in case. We're going to punish you now.
They signed a consent decree around that time. There is a long road from monopoly to the DOJ becoming a plaintiff.
"...isn't this where/"
"/we came in?" -Pink Floyd, The Wall
I laughed and laughed o_O
When did the world go completely insane, and where can I get off? :P
In theory, this would work. But don't we know the .doc file format already? It's just a collection of COM objects. The problem isn't that the file format isn't documented. It is. The problem is that you have to emulate a massive chunk of windows just to view an Excel file.
.net and passport in general. And there needs to be a whole boatload of other things done at the sales and finance level that I don't even know how to approach.
/., and as a result we forget the contradiction right in front of our faces. On the one hand, some say "Microsoft's products are shoddy" and "nothing wins on technical merit" and then other people say "if you give us the file format, we'll win". The solution to this problem is not a purely technical one. We need real restrictions on how these people operate. There is some fundamentally wrong things in the way they do business, and statutes need to be set up so that no one else can do these kinds of things again.
No... the monopoly problem goes way way beyond the simple "Document it and it'll be fine" solution. We need to get some real business and legal restrictions. OEM's need to be allowed to alter the desktop as they wish. They need to be able to install alternative OS's on their machines. There needs to be some serious inquiry in to
We tend to focus on the technical side of things here at
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
creatively, such as what we're seeing now.
If what we're seeing now is "creative", then I'd sure hate to see what you call "agonizingly tedious and clueless".
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I said "more creatively", referring to the breakup of AT&T. I happen to agree that a lot of what the states are asking for is pointless, but unfortunately it's still better than the DOJ's decision to give Microsoft a lollipop and send them on their way.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer