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MS Exec Testifies In Favor of OS Manipulation
Niscenus writes: "The NYTimes, where free registration is required, reports that a Microsoft VP, Christopher Jones, explains that Microsoft must be allowed to prevent competitors' programmes from being installed for the consumer's best interest. Most interesting quote: 'In his written testimony, Mr. Jones said the states' proposals would confuse consumers, enabling competitors to cover up icons like the "Start" button on the Windows desktop screen that consumers use to navigate and even allowing a competing operating system like Linux to start up instead of Windows.' Any dualboot LiLo user who learned they can't defrag the hard way can understand this ..."
Is it just me, or does Microsoft seem really condescending all the time? I don't understand their PR policy of considering their users idiots.
...However appropiate that labeling may be. ;)
I was once in favour of some sort of moderate compromise. Allowing OEMs more leeway with what they can do with th OS and eliminating anti-competitive activies from MS at a sales level. (The "MS-tax", punishing alternative OS, etc.) After reading that, maybe we need to disband Microsoft, take the source code and OSS it. Not so much from a consumer standpoint, but if this the official MS line, then maybe MS shouldn't exist.
What do covering up the start button and installation have to do with one another? I really don't understand why you need to prevent installation just to avoid having the Start button obscured. Couldn't you just make the windows task bar Always-On-Top? Or just disallow anything to be drawn there while not in fullscreen mode?
His argument is pretty weak for the VP of a major corporation. Hopefully the court sees through it.
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
I'm completely disgusted.
In his written testimony, Mr. Jones said the states' proposals would confuse consumers, enabling competitors to cover up icons like the "Start" button on the Windows desktop screen that consumers use to navigate and even allowing a competing operating system like Linux to start up instead of Windows.
Yeah, God forbid we should allow a competing operating system to start up instead of Windows. If this is the kind of stuff coming out of a Microsoft exec's mouth during trial, the states must be having a field day.
Now what's all this about the Start button? Maybe Microsoft has predicted that the next step for companies who are trying desperately to get into the desktop (Yahoo, etc.) to offer their own customized Start Menu replacements?
"even allowing a competing operating system like Linux to start up instead of Windows"
This is part of their *defense* against punishment for illegally using monopolistic powers?
KFG
You may say "But what if we make installation so easy that people can just do it later?" That's a flawed premise. Installation of Linux is already fairly easy, especially when compared with Windows' primitive text-based installer that can hardly do anything. Besides the fact that most people are never going to bother with the installation of a new OS, the problem is that people who convert to Linux will want to preserve their existing Windows systems. To do so, they will have to resize their existing partitions, which are increasingly in Microsoft's proprietary NTFS file system format. Resizing NTFS partitions, to my knowledge, is not possible with any Linux installer, and if it is made possible, MS can threaten to sue those who implement it over their NTFS patents (as they have done in the past), as well as alter the standard unpredictably. This makes it almost impossible to implement simple dual boot installation, unless you're willing to piggyback on NTFS and the Windows bootloader -- generally a bad idea for obvious reasons.
Simply put, if Microsoft keeps the OEM channel, gaining ground outside schools and developing countries will be hard.
And what, except posting this comment r u doing?
--tzan
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson was right on: Cut out the OS - give it to a separtate company and let all the other's compete as they choose on applications.
As long as this clear separation is avoided, there is bickering and cheating - in particular from the side of Microsoft. They are very skillful in this game. That's why they got there in the first place.
The company owning the OS and writing applications to it always has an advantage and Microsoft tried and is succeeding in blurring the border between OS and applications to keep this advantage.
This opportunity to clean this up was missed due to the fact that the judges of the appeals court are wimps.
Just look at the possibility of being prejudiced. Has it ever been looked at if any of the judges or their close relatives had any stock or mututal fund with Microsoft stock in it? I doubt it.
The courage to do "what is right" is missing in the US judidical system, things are done which are "politially right" or "don't hurt the consumer". What a mess!
Very disappointing.
It has. Try Lycoris or Mandrake. Nowadays you play Solitaire during the install. Of course not all hardware is supported, but that, again, is the result of Microsoft's monopoly.
MS's setup is the best OS setup I have ever used, period.
Then why doesn't the Windows XP installer recognize my FreeBSD and Linux partitions and allow me to select them from its boot manager, or allow me to resize or create any non-Windows file system? That's right, because Microsoft has a monopoly and doesn't need to implement certain functionality others do need to implement. Feature-wise, Linux installers are far superior.
With no worries about antitrust prosecution, we're going to see a lot more of this stuff. We've already seen them state flat out that "donated" computers must have a legal Microsoft OS and attack the GPL directly; more FUD will surely follow.
The only question is how far their "customers" can be pushed. My guess is pretty far. Never underestimate the pointy-hair factor. Most places, "learning something new" is interpereted as "complete retraining". PHBs regard doing anything new the way a nun would regard going to work in a brothel.
About the only thing we can do is to make sure Open Source solutions don't get wired out due to:
1. Laws or standards that mandate the use of patented/licensed technology. (*Must* use GIF, *must* pony up US$5000 to Unisys.)
2. Laws that specify "maufacturer's liability" (release an Open Source program; get sued if somebody doesn't like it.)
3. Laws mandating DRM hardware/software.
I'm sure we're going to see a flood of these from the Microsoft keiretsu.
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
I'm not gay, and I thought that comment was in poor taste as well.
Not a good way to rally the troops, especially the same-sex partnered coders.
What scares me most is the fact that most judges are about 75 years old and that most lawyers (including the ones that present the case) have only used computers with a button on the bottom left part of the screen that says "start". They'll probably think it's something that comes with the computer, and has nothing to do with Microsoft... and that linux is something you find somewhere in "start > programs > linux". A judge might think putting Linux on a PC is like a Ford dealer substituting the Ford badges with the dealer's brand name...
You see, I think that's one of the problems. I've actually met a system administrator (IQ of about 60) who thought Linux was installed on a DOS partition, and that in any case you need a Microsoft product to get the system running (ie. to partition the harddrive...)..... Just imagine a 75 year old judge...
But it's becoming a necessity!
I no longer blame Microsoft. I design hardware and software and I am begining to think that consumers are 100% responsible for the state of the computing market today.
Microsoft, as I see, it is simply responding to the pressures consumers have been putting on manufacturers all along. It's a sad state that is deeply tied to the design of computers.
The Operating System is a crucial part of the computer. Mostly because the computer has nothing to offer but performance. It's up to the OS to apply algorithms and extract functionality.
As a result the operating system isn't a feature of the computer but an altogether separate product in its own right.
The automobile may need an engine but the functionality comes from the dashboard which rarely affects critical performance concerns.
Until consumers show interest in computers beyond email and web surfing, I believe we're always going to be fighting uphill.
How come not many neighborhoods have a public server locally hosted that the community can use to communicate, check the policies, vote from home, attend neighborhood meetings?
Consumers are way too passive for any industry's good. We will have to take that into consideration for a long time I'm afraid.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Please, calm down, Don't breathe for ten minutes, after that you can talk more bullshit
I'm sure that, sometime during the antitrust cast against Rockefeller's oil monopoly, they cried about how the quality of oil the consumer gets would decline if they were'nt in charge of every drop of it.
Yep, the old "we're doing it for the consumer's benefit" plea. How can they continue with the "Msft is a giant because of consumer choice" party line and, at the same time, do everything possible to take away consumer choice? And I don't mean consumers 'chose' dos back in 1981 and so it's gotta to be that way forever. I mean, just like in the US once a politician is democratically elected he isn't in power forever, every 2-4-6 years he has to be chosen again.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I don't care what other meanings it has, it's still offensive. If it's offensive, stop it.
Why is the argument for overly P.C.-isizing one's comments more valid than the argument for the reader to simply choose against taking offense?
It seems to me that there are two components to an offense: the offender, and the offendee. Why should the offender be compelled to censor his verbiage, and the offendee not expected to control his emotional reactions?
There will always be offensive people, but it remains *your* choice whether to take offense, or to simply ignore the comment. That choice is the difference between lot of unecessary distress, and a bit of serenity.
the states' proposals would confuse consumers, enabling competitors to cover up icons like the "Start" button on the Windows desktop screen that consumers use to navigate and even allowing a competing operating system like Linux to start up instead of Windows.
are they saying that some confused customer will create a new paration on their HD, format it, and install and configure linux on it all out of confusion???
If they made their own hardware platform, then nobody would care what they did with their OS. Its when they try to control the generic PC market that I take offense.
Here we have yet another senior MS executive who is saying that
- MS should be able to restrict competition if it thinks it's in the interests of the consumer
- arguing that the decisions that they made about Netscape (and found to have been illegal and against consumer interests) are in the consumer's interests
- arguing that having a machine boot up into Linux by default is bad for consumers. (remember that they argued that Linux is one of the few viable competetor to themselves).
They are, in effect, arguing that the DOJ agreement should stand because it would allow them to continue the sorts of anti-competitive actions that they've been convicted of, and that the agreement is supposed to remedy.Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.