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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.
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
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
Because computer source code is an expressive means for the exchange of information and ideas about computer programming, we hold that it is protected by the First Amendment.
Now if Microsoft wanted to release the source code to their IE/Windows, I don't think Appel (or anyone here) would argue with their right to do so, even if IE and Windows were inextricably tangled. Clearly, that isn't going to happen. The issue is over the executables they release. Which are not protected. The Windows CDs which MS provides do not provide for the exhange of information and ideas about programming. As a matter of fact, the EULA you have to accept to run this software specifically binds you not to try to figure out how it works. No sane person would consider a non-human-readable executable to be protected free speech. Come on.
Read Bujold. Free (as in
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.
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.