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Microsoft Expert Witness Stumbles
parking_god writes "MIT prof Stuart Madnick, testifying on MS's behalf, was caught out twice when a government attorney asked him to name an OS (other than one made by Microsoft) where the browser couldn't be removed.
Madnick also faltered on several other questions." Basically he doesn't
understand what GNOME and KDE are, and since we're all
holier-than-thou know-it-alls around here, we might as well laugh at Microsoft's expense ;)
Yes, this guy obviously doesn't have a clue what an operating system is. However, it's true that any KDE-based distro is in the same situation as Windows is: Sure you can remove the browser, but that will kill certain other programs that need to be replaced as well (e.g. the file browser) and other programs using the browser functionality will also lose freatures (e.g. no more HTML help in your IDE).
If someone who is a CS prof at MIT doesn't understand what a window manager is, I fear for the future of CS research. I have friends who are English majors and could explain that KDE, Gnome, and XFree86 are all prograams that may or may not be installed on a particular Linux system.
:)
Although I have to wonder what sort of deal did Microsoft offer him to forget the difference between Windoze and KDE?
THE shell? would that be bash, ksh or tcsh?
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
The shell is a program that runs on top of UNIX and can be replaced with a different shell at the discretion of the computer's user. I don't have to use bash; I could use tcsh if I wanted to.
IE is a program that runs as an integral part of the Windows kernel and can not be replaced by a different browser. Or so the states are trying to argue.
Does Unix require one type of shell over another? You could write init scripts that used csh, ksh, bash, tcsh, or something else entirely. You could use python interactively, or make emacs the default shell. There is no requirement of one over another fundamentally.
This has been bugging me forever. Nobody is saying that they need to remove the browser from the OS, they just need to disable it. How hard is it to remove the icons for it, and disable the "internet http browser" aspect until the user voluntarily downloads a tiny piece of plug-in code which enables the browser to work with internet protocols? If the world's largest and most powerful software company can't figure out how to do this, then how in the world are they getting big business to pay them millions of dollars to manage their mission critical software?
Josh Woodward
Reaching way back to Windows 3.1 days: Microsoft called it "Microsoft Windows 3.1 Operating System" right on the front of the box. Of course, it was just a GUI that ran on top of DOS.
Based on that reasoning, KDE and Gnome could be considered operating systems too. They're GUIs that run on top of *nix.
It's wrong, but they're using the term consistently. Perhaps they have some adgenda to redefine the term "operating system".
If Internet Explorer is so tightly integrated into Windows, how come you can upgrade it? I just upgraded the browser on my NT workstation here at the office from Internet Explorer 5.5 to Internet Explorer 6.0. Does that mean I also upgraded my operating system? Do I get better performance reading large files? Can I crunch data faster? Is there better communication between my hard drive controller and my memory sub-system? Microsoft is SO full of shit.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
But that is not the point. Fact is that they destroyed his credibility with these questions. Excellent work. I have a bit more faith that the DOJ actually has some brains about going after M$ this time.
But really - what does this mean? The layperson out and about won't hear about this. They are not informed about this and regardless of what happenes, short of M$ being broken up - people won't stop using their products. I like all of this news, but the masses just don't hear about these things (they don't read slashodot).
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
Allright. I agree this guy should have known the difference between KDE/GNOME and Linux. But, to be honest with you, I could see where he's coming from. In the world of Windows, there IS no difference between operating system and a desktop enviornment (since DOS was officially killed). Now, his example was admittedly a poor one, since you can change your desktop enviornment every week with Linux (if you want), but him using KDE got me thinking: how easy is it to remove Konquerer from KDE? Now, it's certainly doable, but how much functionality do you lose?
I couldn't tell if you were experimenting with poor-man's cryogenics or looking for the orange sherbet.
I believe the proper term here is Self-Immolation. Imagine facing his peers after those gaffs.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Mac OS X? Piece of cake. Drag the MSIE icon to the trash, Empty Trash. Thanks to OS X's application bundles, the entire app in there under that one icon. Couldn't be easier.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
Actually, you are completely correct.. and nothing is wrong with it except for Microsoft did it, so most people here hate the idea (Don't mention that KDE does it also, the kealots won't link that).
The two rules for success are:
1) Never tell them everything you know.
He is most famous for co-authoring the book mostly called "Madnick and Donovan" which was some sort of IBM 360 OS bible back in the way-back days of punch cards.
BTW, it is might be interesting to note that Richard Schmalensee was the MIT professor who humiliated himself on the stand in the first phase of the trial, and he is also a professor of management in the same school at MIT. It's really not a bad school, they only look bad when they whore themselves for Microsoft money
You don't just get scared. You are scared because you fear something happening that you don't want to.
...
...
What don't they want to happen? Microsoft split up, or shackled.
They would actually like to be fined massively (as a final, no other restrictions remedy) - out of existence is almost impossible given how much cash they have, and without the shackles, they'll just tack it onto the cost of the next version of windows and office.
So if Microsoft know that the situations that they fear are not going to happen, they're not going to be scared, are they
Of course the expert doesn't understand the difference between an application and an OS. The concept that there is a difference is alien to the entire Microsoft argument at this point
Konqi serves the same purpose in KDE/Linux as Internet/Windows Explorer (same thing these days) serves in Windows. It does file management, web browsing, help, and html email rendering. Both do all of this through a component architecture.
What would KDE be without Konq? Same thing as Windows. Not really usable the way it was intended.
The article ribs the witness for calling KDE an operating system. Well, no, KDE is a user interface / window manager / shell sitting on top of the Linux (or other) kernel. Same as Explorer, which is a user interface / window manager / shell on top of the Windows NT kernel (in NT/2000/XP anyway). Perhaps he should have said KDE/Linux, but do we really want to go there?
This has been said several times, but must be said
again and again. Madnick is not a computer
science professor at MIT!!!! I find this
frustrating, especially having graduated from MIT
in CS. I'm so sad that this guy is spoiling the
reputation of the MIT CS department.
He teaches management!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[686 parkerlocal@waikiki Documentation]$ finger madnick@mit.edu
[mit.edu]
...
There was 1 match to your request.
name: Madnick, Stuart E
email: smadnick@MIT.EDU
phone: (617) 253-6671
address: E53-321
department: School Of Mgmt
title: J N Maguire Prof Of Info Tech
url: http://mit.edu/smadnick/www/home.html
alias: S-madnick
Seems to me all you'd have to do is force MS to publically document the API. Actually they should be forced to document APIs, file formats and protocols BEFORE their products are released, and they should be compelled to use only protocols and formats unencumbered by patents or copyrights (for things like XML DTDs.) The documentation should be unencumbered by any license and should be freely available on their web site for all to download.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
> the general business press is taking the line that Microsoft's legal team has everything under control this time and is crushing the States.
Let's not forget that the business press exists for the sole purpose of keeping stock prices high. It's hard to imagine that they would say anything different no matter what was going on.
But of course, they have the DoJ's desire to throw the game to give them confidence that they're going to be right this time anyway.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The shell in Unix underlies the Unix permissions system.
You haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about. Not even a little.
Permissions are applied to files by the filesystem code, typically a kernel module.
The shell is a program that runs on top of the OS, interprets user commands and runs programs (as well as providing a programming language, in many cases). It is totally separable from the OS.
Maybe you meant capabilities, but again, this would typically be imposed by kernel code, with the shell utilizing the information provided. In no way could the shell be said to underly any of this.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Windows is a GUI system with emulated DOS. Linux is a kernel, shell, X, then a windowing system. There are multiple layers involved where you are free to build on one as you please. Explorer is a larger more integrated part of what is known as windows. I, like BeOS really don't see the problem with MS making explorer part of windows because that's what works for performance. I have my gripes about the way MS does some things but this is not one of them. To me this is kind of like going after the mafia for tax evasion, if it's the only thing that holds water go with it.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
I don't know why Microsoft keeps on claiming that the application itself is nonremoveable. Just delete the IE binary; of course it's removeable. What they should do is have some kind of "Internet Services Pack" or whatever which is a basic, nonremoveable part of Windoze, and then just have IE be the shell that accesses those components. There, problem solved. I'm guessing it'd just be a matter of repackaging some things.
I'm guessing that MS is still claiming that IE the application can't be removed just because they want to keep everyone using it by default. Keepin' the resellers down and all. Or hell, I don't care if IE keeps on getting shipped with Windows, just let the poor OEM people install Mozilla by default! Anyway, yeah.
I could be totally wrong about all that, but that's how it seems to me.
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
That's so right. The really sad part is that I think the states would be happy if MS would just let the OEMs remove the IE shortcut from the desktop when they set up their customers' computers. It isn't even about removing IE, it's about not having IE staring you in the face and preventing any other browser from appearing anywhere. If MS wants to use IE for internal stuff so that it pops up when used automatically, who cares? Just let Dell and Gateway put Netscape on the desktop and remove IE from the desktop if they want. All of this bitching is over default icons on the desktop. :P
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
The issue is not the ability to install and use another browser. It's a tad more complicated than that.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I am surprised (pleasantly) that the lawyer recognized and was able to deal with the situation. I mean, sure, I have little doubt that the lawyers have been briefed, but this lawyer:
- Had to know that GNOME and KDE existed
- Had to know what they were, generally
- Had to understand that the answer was wrong
- Had to be able to articulate that the answer was wrong, with enough accuracy/confidence to have a witness with Comp Sci experience admit his error
I haven't been wowwed by this trial (I think MS has stiffled the industry, and I think the charges have focused on the wrong elements of MS behavior), but I am pleased to see that the legal staff has assumed an apparently comfortable amount of non-MS technical familiarity. This is a rare bit of good foreshadowing for future technical cases.1. The Judge knows little about the technical arguments. Her experience is in criminal law.
2. The Judge knows little about anti-trust. Between that and and trying to understand the technical arguments, she won't learn it all, and in this case it's necessary.
3. The Microsoft legal team has been using "legal FUD" on the Judge. They've been harrassing her non-stop on issues of who has jurisdiction, that there's no precedent for non-federal organizations to prosecute under federal laws (which is bogus), etc. This works in this case because this is basically her first "big and public case", it's in a relatively new (and little-understood by non-professionals) sector, and because they're feeding on and fueling her fears of screwing up.
(1,2,3) Notice how she has ruled on very little of the technology and broader legal based motions. She's trying to give herself as much time as possible to understand them, and given how much time it's been, it's clear she understands very little of the background pertaining to the motions.
4. Because of (1.), she'll defer the bases of her opinions to the things she has the most exposure to, which would be (3.) and (2.)
5. Gates is EXTREMELY charasmatic. Girls think he's the most tender and sensitive being on the planet. I've seen it over and over. As much as I think him and his actions are repulsive, it's still really hard to hate him when you see him in person, or even on TV. I think journalists actually have a hard time finding photographs of him that reflect his unhealthy nature.
6. The states aren't doing they're job dispelling the arguments Microsoft is presenting and the bases they're manipulating in 1,2,3,4. They can argue all day about it being technologically feasible to do whatever, but the Judge will never understand it in time, so she'll defer to more basic law-based arguments that in comparison have almost nothing to do with the case.
I'm not quite sure how they've been so successful in the server market, though.
The answer lies in your analysis of their success in the desktop OS segment. Here's how it works:
Cisco employs similar tactics, but since they don't have the license audit leverage, they engage in character assassination of IT people who resist Cisco implementations. Isn't capitalism fun?
Why do OEM's care so much about altering the desktop? It's M$'s product, the OEM's shouldn't be allowed to mess with it.
The fact that you can't be a licensed Windows PC Provider AND sell naked PC's or PC's with Linux or ANY OTHER OS on them when you sign the contract with Microsoft is the issue they should be looking at.
If I told you that you could sell PC's with Mandrake on them but if you signed up to do so were then legally inable to sell naked PC's or PC's with Windows on them you'd be pissed too.
What you don't comprehend is that UNIX is modular. This allows us to replace virtually every single command/component in the system with a different one. It also is what allows us to fairly easily support multiple differnt file systems of which linux supports over a dozen (maybe almost 2 dozen), different terminal programs, window managers, desktop environments (kde/gnome/etc) and web browsers.
What MS is trying to do (and having a hard time with) is actually having a stand-alone component be integrated. If MS wants to be able to upgrade IE (and it history proves that it does), it MUST be modular. The very fact that IE is upgradable totally blows MS's argument that IE cannot be separated.
Now there is the argument that you would lose the shell. This is bull. MS already has a IE-free shell that was available in 95 and NT4. What they did since then was add hooks in the shell to call IE at various places.
The bottom line is that there is no reason that Mozilla / netscape / opera couldn't use the same APIs that windows uses to "integrate" with IE other than the fact that MS keeps those APIs secret.
Would everyone who wishes to point out that Stuart Madnick is a business professor, and not a computer science professor, please check in at the desk, take a number, and wait in line over there along the far wall?
Thank you.
Someone you trust is one of us.
By definition, anything that hurts Microsoft will help their competitors. How does hurting Microsoft help the consumer?
The consumer is supposed to be served by a free market. A free market requires competitors. Yet, Microsoft has been rather skillfull in dismantling that free market - abusing their position to remove competition.
The remedy phase is designed to help consumers by restoring competition. Let's not obscure the truth with anti-market Microsoft cheering.