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MS to Implement Some DoJ Settlement Terms Preemptively
lysurgon writes: "The New York Times (free registration, blah blah blah) is reporting that Microsoft will today announce it is taking some steps in implementing parts of the original DoJ settlement, a settlement which is still under review and not yet official. It's seen as a tactic to influence Judge Kollar-Kotelly's deliberation on the more stringent restrictions asked for by nine states attorneys general. Looks like MS wants to get off making some cosmetic changes (no surprise there), but given their rather stormy relationship with the judge, it could backfire. The other interesting thing is that at this stage, without an official ruling, no matter what they do or why they say they're doing it it's legally voluntary." Update: 08/05 17:00 GMT by T : HeUnique adds a link to another story on ZDnet which tosses in a few numbers while remaining fairly vague on what exactly will be released and under what terms.
Red Herring. Boy crying wolf.
Given that Microsoft has in the past stated that all of the DOJ's proposed remedies were unacceptable to them, isn't this a dangerous move to suddenly implement these previously unacceptable remedies voluntarily?
What is to make supporting multiple versions of Windows unacceptable in the future, given that these remedies were once unacceptable in the past?
Is there something I'm missing, or could their legal department really be that incompetent?
I hope that *finally*, their arrogance and insane, childish brinksmanship through this whole process comes back and bites them in the ass.
You CAN get just the Linux kernel right now, or anything between that and a full-blown distribution. Where can I get just a stripped-down WIndows OS? I just want to play a few games and run Quicken without subsidizing MS's IE, WMP, Messenger, Passport, etc. strategies.
(Yes, I think requiring MS to offer a stripped-down OS at a suitably lower price to OEMs and alongside the "deluxe" OS would be at least part of a good solution.)
Win 1-3 were almost certainly NOT OSs. They were just applications running on top of MS/PC/DR-DOS. Windows NT, 2K & XP are almost certainly Operating Systems. Windows 9X is not so clear cut.
that with SP3 you can now remove Internet Exporer, Outlook Express, and Windows Media Player using the windows component wizard in add/remove programs... Has anyone tried removing Internet Explorer yet, and how does it affect the system?
None of the Linux distributors have illegally abused a monopoly, which is why they are not required to stop abusing a monopoly, which is why they are therefore not having the same kind of restrictions put on them. Got it now?
... I have to disagree with people. All they were doing was giving people features they want.
Are you saying that instead of having one set of rules, we should have several that depend on the size of your organization and the amount of power it wields?
I have no problem with the government coming out and saying the MS abused it's monopoly by forcing people to only sell computers with windows installed. However, when it comes to the question of wether or not MS abused it's monopoly by also distributing a tcp/ip stack, a web browser, a media player, notepad, etc
People bitch and moan around here because the MPAA and RIAA are using the government to prevent them from have to change their business models with the times. Well, I find it awfully ironic that it's pretty much the same thing that Netscape did with the trial.
Which is taken directly from Sun's framework, and improved it just a bit. .NET's language independence is a bit exagerated. It is not possible to create a VM which would be able to hold all different kinds of languages. It simply does not make sense, since there are many different type of languages. .NET languages are not the real languages. They are crippled and extended versions to fit into CLR.
.NET. Sun's way is much better. By the way, there are Java 3 gossips around. Beware the Gosling's new attack. Remember, he designed Java 10 years ago. :)
.NET 2. Mono will always come with a minimum 2 years lag behind original .NET. .NET to Ecma. ADO.NET, Winforms, and maybe the most important, Enterprise Services framework (which contains very important parts, such as transactions.) are not given to the Ecma for instance. Since MS holds the patents, it is not possible for Mono or any other .NET implementation to implement them. Mono already step back from its previous claim and said they will not implement Winforms etc. So, .NET will never be cross platform. Tweaking? Oh, please don't make me laugh. .NET is there for more than 2 years. Mono is there for 1.5 years, still no release. After the release, nobody will trust it at least until it proves itself. MS even have problems with it. .NET, even on Windows platforms is not moving fastly. Lately Billy_the_McCarty said .NET needs 4 years to mature. Java is already mature, and it is already cross platform. .NET? Why should I care about Mono? Everything it promisses is already available with Java NOW. Which is mature and cross platform already.
I personally don't see anything beautiful in
Mono, actually, do not interest me a gram because of the following reasons:
- MS already started
- MS did not give everything about
- What estonishing speed are you talking about????
- What I am seing is, everybody is moving to Java. Why should I wait for
Dear Bill, do you have a
Didn't the FTC examine those APIs in the early 90s, and didn't Microsoft claim that there wasn't any reason for them to use undocumented APIs in their applications, or something like that? Internal APIs are hard to avoid, and you can get into deep trouble if someone relies on them (because you cannot change them after that). If Microsoft was using these APIs for applications (and not system components), then they knew that they made two fundamental errors: they violated the previous FTC agreement, and good software engineering practices.
Both errors are hardly surprising, though.
No, hes saying that when a company breaks the law they should be punished. MS has been convicted of breaking a law, hence they should be punished by forcing modularity.
Anti-trust law is about leveling the playing field when one company is more powerful than another. It's not about changing the rules to give one side or another an advantage.
I wonder if we're really looking for Microsoft competitors, or just looking for Microsoft to act the benevolent part of being a benevolent dictator.
While everyone wishes there was a viable desktop alternative to Microsoft, there isn't one and NO set of DOJ terms (except, maybe, open-sourcing of Windows) is going to bring forward a desktop alternative.
I think most people would be happy if MS would just appreciate that they own the market for PC desktops and many corporate server installations and quit trying to own the *world*. If MS actually focused on producing quality, secure products, providing sane documentation (more sane than "see technet article xyz123 involving registry key additions and changes...") for products and APIs, and licensing terms that didn't feel like sodomy I think most people could live with it.
The computer biz largely thrives on standards; you don't have to guess or reinvent the wheel every day, and I think the MS desktop standard is certainly not that much worse than any other monopoly desktop standard would be other than the bloodthirsty, all-your-base-are-belong-to-us marketing philosophy.