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Professor Testifies Windows Is Modular, Separable
circlejtp writes: "Princeton University professor Andrew Appel said in written testimony that modular design is an accepted standard in the industry, and Microsoft has already created a version of Windows for interactive television boxes that has removable functions. The full story can be found on the Tacoma Tribune website." At issue is Microsoft's claim that separating Windows' components would cripple the OS.
What do they mean, Windows would be crippled? ;-)
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Here is proof.
maybe someone will figure out how to uninstall the BSOD program... it tends to run randomly and always seems to crash my computer.
Nosce te Ipsum
Apple doesn't have a monopoly to leverage, so there is no recourse. For the same reason, Red Hat doesn't get in trouble for bundling various applications with their Linux distribution since they are not a monopoly.
For more information, click here.
The only thing it would cripple is their business model. So in a sense they aren't lying.
Exactly! But that's an admission of gult there! Check it: the DOJ has found that their business model is monopolistic and anti-competative. Ergo, any solution that would rectify that situation would by necessity cause them to change the way they do business.
That's why these nine states are holding out, because the current government settlement will not stop microsoft from deploying its monopoly of the desktop in anti-competative ways.
The problem is that with the influence of Sun and AOL/TW, this case is becoming more about giving up market share to existing competitors (cementing the current plutocratic high-tech oligarchy) and not about opening the field to innovation, entrepeneurialism and true competition.
Sadly, it's mega-corp vs mega-corp at this point... feels a bit like the last presidential election: you root for the lesser of two evils.
Howard Dean for president
I could be incorect though.. this is just speculation on my part.
Remove iTunes.
OS X still works.
Remove iPhoto.
OS X still works.
Remove IE.
OS X still works.
It doesn't come back and say "No, you can't use Kodak's software - you must use iPhoto!" You don't have to fear something coming back and making iMovie your default application over Adobe Studio (or whatever it is).
That's the big difference. If you try and remove IE from Windows, Microsoft gets pissed off because that's a big bad no-no, so you have no choice but to have that software whether you want it or not. It was put on to keep their monopoly - not because they thought they had a better browser. (Whether it became a better browser is not for debate here - that happened after Netscape basically was dried up.)
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I tell you. This is a simple fact. If you want to hurt microsoft, force them to release specs to the office file formats
<homie>WORD!</homie>
No pun intended, but props. I don't know why people don't go after this more zealously. If seamless interoperability were possible with other applications (and there's no technical reason why it shouldn't be), M$'s office monopoly would crumble. Without the office monopoly, the server-side monopoly has no basis. The house of cards will crumble.
Howard Dean for president
That's true, since it's absolutely crucial to Microsoft's business model to avoid giving any ground to any of Microsoft's competitors.
Microsoft will *not* release a version of Windows that's stripped-down with the browser removed. Period.
They will assert to the end that it's simply not possible for them to do. Eventually the government will require them to, but then they'll do like they did during the court case in 1999 and make a version of Windows which simply doesn't work, and they'll point to this as proof that they were right all along.
When the government continues to require Microsoft to release a version of Windows that doesn't have IE bundled in, Microsoft will continue to not offer such a product. The court case will drag on for another seven years. If eventually Microsoft is backed into a corner and somehow *forced* to offer a stripped-down version of Windows, then it'll be more expensive than the standard version, have more bugs, and PC makers will face stiff penalties from Microsoft if they use it. And then *that* court case will drag on for seven more years.
Meanwhile, Microsoft will misrepresent this to the public as 'the government is trying to get us to remove useful software from Windows and not let you have it for free!'
The real problem is that Joe Sixpack doesn't understand the big deal. He gets Windows with his PC, and it comes with a web browser and an instant messager built in, and any great new killer apps to appear in the future will have a workalike clone also built into Windows so that he doesn't have to go figure out how to download and install it. He doesn't understand that he's paying for these 'freebies' in the cost of Windows, which is part of the cost of his PC. He doesn't understand that without competition these handy utilities won't be any better than they need to be, as long as they're not so bad that he is driven to figure out how to download/install other companies' software.
In previous court testimony he has said that source code is free speach (see his public policy page). Yet he seems to be suggesting that Microsoft's private free speach can be regulated by law while others cannot. I want to have my cake and eat it too as well, but it seems to me that he has to pick one postion or the other.
K.
K
I don't know what kind of world you program in, but where I code, componentisation and coupling are not even close to the same thing. For example:
Mozilla encourages use of its components. Anyone can use the rendering engine and distribute it with his own product, saving on development time while still providing a product to the widest possible market.
Internet Explorer promotes coupling. Anyone can use its rendering engine, except that nobody is allowed to distribute its rendering engine except as part of the full Internet Explorer package. This cuts down on development time at the cost of forcing all your users to run Internet Explorer.
See the difference?
How modular is Linux?
How easy is it to pull apart the pieces?
(I honestly don't know the answers, so input would be great).
Honestly, coders strive for modularity on almost every project. Theory says its possible, but anyone that's worked on a large OO project knows that there is always an exception (usually a dozen) to the rule, and "seperating" the modules is a lot more work than you'd think.
So, the professor is correct that THEORETICALLY there is modularity that's simple to seperate.
It always gets me when people ask professors about stuff that a business does. Like this. Most professors (note: I said "most", not "all") go to school and get their bachelors, then grad school for masters and PhD, then off to teaching. Most haven't had much of a job outside the schooling system. Sure they know the theory expertly, but theory and practice, as always, are different.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The fact that konqueror is not integrated. You don't have to have konqueror to use KDE. Also you don't have to have KDE to run Linux. You don't pay anything for either of them, and finally, KDE is not a monopoly.
The whole issue is the "tying" of IE (at the time not a monopoly product) to Windows (a monopoloy) for the sole purpose of harming a competitot (Netscape). If this isn't clear to you, then I suggest you are not up on the issues.
Read the Findings of Fact in the case. The present debate is only over the remedy. No one has successfully challenged the findings of fact. Read. Learn. Enjoy. Then come back and tell me there is no difference between the two.
Ignorance is bliss and we are a happy country.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess depending on your perspective) this is probably pretty easily defended. The difference between an embeded OS and a consumer computer OS is pretty significant. In the embedded OS, you can take out a bunch of features and not consider the OS to be crippled. Whereas the lack of those features in a general purpose consumer computer would make that OS crippled.
The reason is that in the embedded space, the OS tends to be used for very specific services. Thus removing any services not related to the one being provided does not cripple the OS. But in a general purpose computer, as the name implies, the OS is expected to do a huge variety of things. Hence losing some of those features would cripple a general purpose OS, but not cripple an embedded OS.
An analogy: an automobile that came with no radio, no cup holders, no airconditioning, a net instead of a drivers window, and no doors, would by consumer standards be crippled. However those same things that cripple a consumer car are requirements on a car that's going to race for NASCAR.
So while it's interesting to see that MS *can* modularize their system. It's not a very compelling argument.
(Just a minute, I gotta get on the asbestos suit on... ok flame away.)
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Bit of history, because we're all forgetting this stuff: Back in the day, Netscape's claim was that Navigator was more than a browser, that because of its plug-in architecture people would write applications that would run under Netscape. Since Netscape ran on multiple OS'es, applications written to Netscape API's, rather than OS API's, would be portable, rendering the underlying OS irrelevant, or at least much less significant. This "middleware" aspect to Netscape -- a platform on the platform -- was what frightened Microsoft (according to Netscape, mind you), causing Bill and company to come after Netscape with chains and knives.
iWhatever, AFAIK, are simply programs that do stuff themselves, not platforms upon which other programs are to be built.
Ah, but you say that you've never seen a database or word-processor written as a Netscape plugin? Me neither, nor did Netscape ever bring one out and show it to people as a proof-of-concept. Still, they convinced the court.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
And that's all fine and dandy.
However, there's nothing stopping a developer from writing their own controls or using a library such as Qt for their UI. Since it's not mandatory that a developer use the Windows Common Controls to write a Windows application, Microsoft's argument that the browser is too tightly integrated to remove is absolute bullshit, and always has been.
The example of XP embedded is a very good one - as far as I can tell, the lionshare of Internet Exploder "embedding" has been in the Common Controls. The most glaring example I can think of is the CReBarCtrl - a new toolbar style that you had to install IE 4.0 or higher to have access to. Again, it's not mandatory that you use it, and since it's not mandatory, Microsoft's lawyers simply prove that they're full of it.
The larger problem here is that here on SlashDot, we are the technically elite. We are the upper 1% of the technically minded, Mom and Pop AOL user wouldn't understand my comments, and unfortunately, neither would most judges. Lawyers, on the other hand, get to submit partial information and not full disclosure to try and sway a judge's opinion. The crux of this is: Did Microsoft embed Internet Exploder into Windows? Yes. Is it mandatory to use this? NO!
And thus, Microsoft's argument that they can't remove IE fails. Some applications may need the extension, but that's their own damned problem.
When will you guys understand? Windows has always been modular, in that it separates functions nicely into DLLs which export APIs and can be replaced or removed as needed. It's rather that as a standard part of Windows, many MS and non-MS apps use components from IE to do various things, like render HTML (including many non-"web" apps that use the HTML renderer as a quick way to have a nice UI), or do network stuff like HTTP queries without having to "reinvent the wheel" with each app.
If you remove IE (meaning all the dlls that form it, not just the stub executable which is little more than a front-end to the underlying HTML rendering and networking DLLs), sure the OS will still run and you could definitely still use it as a server, BUT a lot of user-level stuff like the shell and applications, not just IE, would suddenly break. So even if it were removed, you would need to have some sort of other implementation of the functionality that IE provides to other apps via COM.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
My problem wasn't that MS was bundling IE with Windows. That's the media's gross oversimplification of the problem.
The problem was Microsoft leveraging their near-OS monopoly to bully OEMs and competitors. The bundling of IE was just part of that attack strategy.
Apple, of course, doesn't have any OEMs to bully nor a desktop monopoly to leverage. That's the difference.
but then they'll do like they did during the court case in 1999 and make a version of Windows which simply doesn't work.
As opposed to all the other times when it did work.
but then they'll do like they did during the court case in 1999 and make a version of Windows which simply doesn't work
You mean like WinME?
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Each PC needs to have a sticker on it that says "$120 of the price of this PC goes to Microsoft for its products" like they have for the $.33 gasoline tax here in Indiana.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Who cares about a Windows without IE6? Let's start with a Windows that it's not illegal to sell as dual-boot Windows/Linux from computer shops.
Imagine MS trying to lie their way out of a prejury charge. That would be funny.
"You lied back there!"
"No I didn't!"
"There! You just lied again!"
"No I didn't!"
"Again!"
At this point Steve Balmer jumps up, calls the interrogator a communist, and does a little monkey dance. Then Mundie talks about how he can't understand why anybody would want to use non-MS products. It's really all quite nonsensical.
It's been a long time.
Good point - IE is a very good browser. And to date the only one (AFAIK) that does XSLT internally. And it only took 3 years to get there, but Mozilla's a pretty good browser now, too - it adopts a different feel that Microsoft. And you're onto an important point here: The SHARED components that Microsoft built into Windows and then designed the newest versions of explorer around also power the desktop and many other applications. That's the nature of shared components.
Having an embeddable HTML widget as part of the OS is indeed very useful. In an ideal world, this component would be totally modular, and you could plug in gecko or KHTML and everything would work fine. However, because actually making this work well enough to ship in a consumer product would require a kind of cooperation rarely found between tech companies, short of (aha!) legislative intervention. This is what makes Microsoft arguments so hard to dismiss - they push the limits of the argument, but there's usually a decent point somewhere in the core.
That said, the existence of an embedded widget is not the problem - it's the fact that it's a moving target. It's abundantly clear that Microsoft has used their control of the HTML widget to try to control larger aspects of how Web traffic moves, the latest version of this being XPassportMessengIEr.
Yes, it's a bit tricky to involve regulatory agencies in the design process of some product, but just imagine how people would feel if Microsoft was a grocery store. Sure, you can get Post cereals at the store controlling 88% of the market, but you'll have to go in the back and use the pallet loader to move some stuff and unwrap the box. Is that fair? To what extent do you tell MicroSafeway where to put stuff on it's shelves?
Well, IE is technically not a browser at all. To call something a "web browser" it must at least adhere to RFC 2616. Well, MSIE does not. To quote the RFC:
Thus, a browser MUST adhere the Content-Type if it's given.
OK, now load IE and try to visit this site, or this site (warning: browser will crash). Note that the content type of these sites is text/plain and thus the text should simply be displayed on screen.
Therefore, IE6 is not a "web browser" and thus the best browser for the M$Win platform is Mozilla.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Without the intrusive middleware, the thing would actually work. People would not be looking for the latest version, and hence rely on their doggedly old Windows1836, just as we have old clunkers on the road.
Since a working windows would not help Microsoft take over the world, it would be ....
crippled!
{OT subject="cripple"}Years ago, I heard that you could circumvent viruses by renaming command.com to 1234567.com, and doing a few string hacks in the kernel. Lots of other 7-letter words work: legless.com and cripple.com. Armed with the wheel-chair icon, it makes a dandy command propt for Windows.{/OT}
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.