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Microsoft's New Hurdles
gnuadam writes "The New York Times (free reg. required) is now running a
piece about how the recently accepted
settlement between Microsoft and the DOJ will affect the ever-so-loving relationship between them and the "worldwide community of volunteer programmers" who work on Linux and associated programs. Of interest, one interviewee quipped, "My prediction is that within three years time, Microsoft will `give away' its operating system to preserve its revenue in the applications business." Would Microsoft give away Windows to sell Office? Stay tuned." Update: 11/04 19:33 GMT by T : In related news, an anonymous reader writes "In an interview with Linux and Main Free Software Foundation General Counsel Eben Moglen reacts to Friday's U.S. v. Microsoft ruling and describes how it and 'trusted computing' will figure in formulating the next version of the GPL, expected in the next few months."
Microsoft will probably start giving away a *nix-based .Net runtime first. Once you have all your products running on an abstraction layer, the OS becsome irrelevant.
Would you cut off your right hand to become left-handed?
Microsoft will never give away the crown jewels to save the application side of the house. It can keep the source closed and fight open source for the next twenty years and make billions at it.
If they were foolish enough to open their Windows source, all the links and hooks for Office would be out for everyone to integrate into Open Office. That would kill their app business within a couple of years.
No, they will depend on:
1) DMCA
2) Palladium
3) Congressional lobbying
4) DRM
5) FUD
to maintain their lead.
Just my 2 cents.
I know I will get a lot of heat for this, but I think getting windows for free would be good for the consumer (though might screw Linux over big-time).
First, let me say I am an avid fan of Linux. I only use it for light desktop work, but I see that it is great for servers and such.
Now, let me also say that Windows is a good OS. While many people (most of which on this site) flame Windows XP... I think it's a great OS. The only thing that sucks is the draconian Activation scheme they used with it. Other than that, it's been even more stable than my Win2K box.
Now, while this would be great for the average consumner, I'm afraid Linux would take a big hit. I mean, sure... Linux would be more powerful and not have all the GUI fluff of windows for server stuff. But a lot of people will look at the situation and say "Well, Linux was cool 'cause it was free, but now I can get Windows for free too. Who needs linux?"
This might actually be the biggest step MS could take to squash Linux in the home.
MS is in the business of selling software. The juggernaut of OS's is comming to a close, so they have for the last few years been expanding into other areas. (If you own 99% of the market in one area, why would you stay there?)
So now they've got office software, game software, mouse hardware, keyboard hardware, xbox hardware...
They need to decide what is the best way to keep making money. Competing against OS which they cannot compete against, (and have already gotten the most market share they will ever get). Or giving the OS away, to keep the monopoly of other areas viable.
It's a no brainer folks.
They're already following the Gillette business model of give away the razors and make your money on the blades with the XBox. Granted, that actually discourage them from trying the same thing with their OS/Apps.
I can almost see MS giving away the OS and charging for bug fixes.
I believe Microsoft will give away their operating system but will NEVER give their source code up. 3rd party companies would clean up and make their OS more efficient than Microsoft's bloated version, creating competition that Microsoft doesn't need. However, would Microsoft lose their footing in the OS department if other companies were releasing their own versions of Windows?
Confucious says: Man who runs behind car gets exhausted.
// jeku.com
Remember that MS was virtually non-existant in the applications space till the Windows OS (with its secret apis) became a desktop standard - think of Lotus, WordPerfect and the millions of other applications that have been squashed over the last decade.
All your favorite sites in one place!
If they had to. Given that Office already runs, somewhat, on Linux, they don't need to sell Windows to sell Office. And people care much more about the apps than they do about the underlying OS.
Best Slashdot Co
This wouldn't be a real new strategy for them. I mean - they're giving away the Xbox to sell games, aren't they?
anything i tell you will cloud your opinion.
What would be a fair settlement is Microsoft doing exactly that. GPL'ing Windows would then allow a Red Hat Windows (if they so chose) or whatever. It would create competition in the desktop os category (or os for idiots category...call it what you will). Personally, I don't see them as a monopoly but it makes things difficult when exchange users continually spread worms thus causing the internet excess traffic thanks to the infectious messages being transmitted.
Gorkman
The Operating System isn't the "killer application" anymore. Windows XP doesn't really do anything remarkably different than Red Hat...other than run Windows apps better than any other non-Windows OS. They may not make Windows open source, but they could give it away for "free" in order to keep the real money-makers, the applications, alive and well.
What surprises me is that Microsoft is also openning up the file formats of their applications more. Word is gonna be true XML. I gotta wonder what MS' plans are for the future of Word Processing in general.
How about asking this, can MS afford NOT to give away their OS in a few years? Wine is making good strides in fucntionality, besides that a LOT of people are already skipping the next Office upgrade(s). I know our fortune 500 company is, we're bowing out of the OS XP and Office XP all together.
My prediction is that within three years time, Microsoft will `give away' its operating system to preserve its revenue in the applications business.
In other news, Microsoft announced that it will 'give away' its operating system to schools in Namibia to preserve their education system.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
1. Free operating systems like Linux will become more popular. Revenue on Windows will drop and cease to be profitable.
2. Microsoft will get into the service market. Be it enterprise services, or internet/media (they're not close to the xxAAs' positions for nothing), the nature of their core product will change.
Giving the platform away will only encourage both enterprise and home users to go with the services that make the OS useful. Whether or not this is a Good Thing for the open-source community, I guess, is yet to be seen.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Microsoft is already "giving away" windows, by allowing so many pirated versions to spread. If they wanted to, they could have made it very hard from the beginning. Didn't Steve Ballmer say something about piracy helping them to gain a market share?
Remember: If you buy anything from spammers, you have a small penis.
Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.
Ignore the noise.
Keep coding.
Keep releasing.
That's what will win the battle.
"It remains to be seen if the human brain is powerful enough to solve the problems it has created." Dr. Richard Wallace
I could see them making the OS gratis. It would really be a smart move on their part, and I really hope they aren't that smart. Because you know, even if they do give it away, it will be free as in gratis but NEVER Free as in liberty. Unfortunately, if they did that, they might distract and confuse enough people to stay in power. And that would be a great tragedy.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
as time extends out, the need for a "visible" operating system" is going to be less and less necessary. The OS will be a part of the hardware. When was the last time you upgrade the operating software of your television?
As OS's become invisble, the need for upgrading them is going to be lost on consumers, so MS would have a hard time trying to sell it as a product. It will become a commodity only.
I think MS's only options for maintaining a business model are to either expand into other software areas (there aren't many left) or to start renting software, which they seem inline to do.
The Linux strategy is to undercut Microsoft,
Wow, is this really the Linux mission statement? I thought it was more about making a great operating system for free, not controlling the market.
This article really doesn't say anything, and says the above quite wrongly I think. I doubt Microsoft will ever give away windows...that would be an interesting day if they did. Over here in East Germany, almost everybody uses StarOffice because it's free and just as good. Free Windows and Free StarOffice...nobody would complain (except microsoft)!
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
And you thought AOL was over zealous when it came to mailing out CDs...
Right now, Microsoft is becoming a huge partner in providing Operating Systems for periphials such as PDAs, Tablet PCs, Media Boxes, etc. etc. Heck, they're even help create hardware to further departmentalize their OS. They would never give that away. What they will do is help subsidize hardware research and development and make sure their OS is the only one that works on that new product.
They don't need the PC market any more, they've found something much much better. *shudder*
Zech Harvey, MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA
Despite what the summary says, I wasn't prompted for registration, but thanks to news.google.com,
Here is the article sans-registration for those of you that are prompted.
"My prediction is that within three years time, Microsoft will `give away' its operating system to preserve its revenue in the applications business."
Stephenson hints around this concept in 'In the Beginning was the Command Line'. I don't remember the exact wording, but the concept was that the operating system is basically a commodity when compared to application software. The only thing that makes an OS necessary is that you'll use it to accomplish tasks necessary to run an application.
We've seen this kind of commoditization in browser software. I know I'm not the only who remembers walking into an EB and seeing a boxed copy of Netscape on the wall. What Netscape realized and MS copied was that the browser was merely a commodity necessary for individuals to access the internet. There were already freeware browsers. Netscape essentially gave away its browser so that it's compliment, Netscape Web Server-- later iPlanet server-- would sell better.
OS's are going the same way. Where does MS make its money? Windows revenue accounts for precisely *dick* when measured up against a million OEM MSOffice licenses, per-seat DB licenses, multiprocessor Exchange licenses, etc. (My company recently dropped $15k for MSSQL on a 2 processor box.) If Windows was more important in terms of revenue than Office, why is Microsoft still making Office for Mac? Why not force those users to switch to Windows to use Office?
Microsoft wants to charge for Windows and bust people for using pirated copies simply because they still can get away with it at this point. When they can't-- such as currently is the case in the PRChina-- they'll start turning a blind eye to OS piracy and may even tacitly circulate a few copies themselves to increase 'market penetration'. Eventually, they'll start offering ridiculously low-priced 'Student Discount' copies of Windows, like they have in the past, with both OS's and development tools. Eventually, as OpenOffice, AbiWord, and other Office competitors mature, You'll start being able to get more and more Windows feature for free while MS continues to extract flesh for licenses for Office, MSSQL, Exchange, and other servers and apps.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The price of Linux and it's many apps are starting to eat into Microsofts profit center and to combat that, expect to see the price for MS Windows to drop by shipping a bootable MSN client that stays running as long as you pay your monthly MSN bill.
I wouldn't be surprised if the MSN client actually updated an INSTALLED MS Windows OS so that it is disabled if you stop using MSN. Of course this could only happen legally if you installed SP3 on w2k or wxp( via new EULA ).
This would not surprise me at all. Opening up the source to MS Windows will not happen. IMHO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I can really see this. But for one main reason: To keep PC vendors selling consumer Windows boxes. Without the price pressures, Dell et. al. may not bother with offering Linux installed. I can't be sure on this, but if MS moves to this model quickly enough, it could really kill the Linux installed PC market quickly.
Why would MS do that? Well, not only to protect its MS Office, etc. franchise, which it may or may not do. But to keep developers on their side. As long as a majority of "developers" know only Windows programming, and use only MS tools, Microsoft can stay on top in the long run. In fact, MS is starting to show some of this now. Point of Fact, while not requiring it, MS is trying to entice developers to move to a subscription model for the tools. You won't buy VB6 anymore, but a year's worth of development using all MS tools. Paying every year....
Keep developers on your tools, you keep selling the back end to support the applications those tools create.
Remember in big business mindshare is everything.
OTOH, I wouldn't mind MS giving away the OS, because then you'd see much less junk thrown in as part of the OS!
I don't see things in black and white; I see the gray. Heck, I actually see in color, which makes things more difficult
You don't lose functionality by not upgrading. You just don't gain anything new.
Honestly, it's not unreasonable to expect Microsoft to change their base coding level once in a while. And SP3 is free. Yes, I'm aware of the licensing issues but if you don't want to use it, well then stay at the level you're at. You lose nothing.
Cheers,
Ian
"My prediction is that within three years time, Microsoft will `give away' its operating system to preserve its revenue in the applications business."
I dont think that MS would be giving away the OS, as much as they will be possibly forced to in the Future.
I Still say that the best remedy to the Antitrust case would have been simply to Force MS to GPL OSS all previous, current and Future Operating systems, as well as the software Attached to it, Such as Wordpad and IE.
The reason for this being that for years MS competitors have claimed that MS used it's OS monopoly to create a monopoly around other markets, such as IE or Office, and to cripple products that compete with them. By Forcing them to OSS all OS's, competitors to these other marketrs, Such as Corel Wordperfect, could make their product better simply by Knowing exactly how the OS works, making their product work better with the OS. This also opens up the door to Windows Distrubutions such as the Case with Linux, Creating Competition in the OS Sector, and Creating Better Windows Emulation on Other OS's such as Wine for Linux.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
But that's just it. Many companies are looking at the upgrade license terms & fees, and deciding that what they have is good enough. They don't lose functionality by not upgrading, they just don't get the new features
Microsoft's own Steve Ballmer: "Linux is a tough competitor."
Sombebody's been lying...
When was the last time you upgrade the operating software of your television?
When was the last time your television was connected to the internet, or balanced your checkbook?
There will always be a need for "transluscent" operating system, at any rate. Kinda like Tivo. Sure, you won't necessarilly see the distinction between the OS and the applications, but there will always be a need for upgrades (if for no other reason that hardening the system against recently-discovered exploits).
This is true for the forseeable future, at any rate. Perhaps someday, say in thirty years, we won't need operating systems. But that is so far in the future, we'd be fools to try to predict what will be visible, what will be hidden, and what is even important.
I predict in sixty years we'll need upgrades to our brains' wetware to protect against newly-discovered exploits.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
bah.
They'll keep selling it _because_ they can. IS budgets have been set for years now to accommodate it. In if, like most budgets, you loose it if you don't use it, they spend it on MS Windows.
Besides, think of cell phones. Either you get a cheap free phone, and pay higher service charges, or you buy expensive phones, and choose your plan.
Do you think any corporations sign up for the free phone deals, even if it _is_ from Verizon?
I don't have a sig...Do you??
Windows may be givin away in magazines free, but that damn Plus! pack will cost you an arm and leg!
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
.. I'm pretty confident we'll see MS giving away Windows very soon after they get Palladium and Digital Restrictions Management up and running properly.
The reason being is that they know damn well that Palladium has the benefit of:
1. Consistent, adjustable revenue streams
2. Heavy network effects (as in, good luck finding an Open Office to translate Palladium documents)
3. Governmental backing
4. Removing unwanted illegal evidence
5. Burying free software.
The only trick to getting all of these is to get a widespread base of people using Palladium in the first place. What better way then to "concede" victory to Linux in the OS market and start giving away Windows? This would take away the one immediately tangible benefit that Linux boosters can point to.
My reasoning to these benefits can be found at this here.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
"Right now, the biggest threat to their OS is Crossover Office. Why use Windows to run OFfice when Linux can do it so much better?"
I wonder how long before MS uses the EULA hammer and the DMCA anvil to crush things like Crossover Office and WINE? Not long now that CKK has given Ballmer and Co. a mild tap on the wrist (not even a slap) despite their being CONVICTED of a corporate felony.
Reading the CKK ruling, MS is going to be "monitored" by a comitte that will be made up of... MS board members. Not likely to see any evil.
Frankly, I see one great silver lining in the stupid ruling of yet another federal judgetrix: MS will not be saved from ITSELF by the government.
MS's greatest enemy isn't Linux, but itself. Management that thinks it's shit doesn't stink. Management that thinks that they can REALLY foist anything on the public, charge ANY price, and they will buy it.
If you think what MS has done with XP, product activation, Office XP, and Licensing 6.0 are bad, just you WAIT until their strategy gets emboldened by their "win" in CKK's court.
Every time you read about them sending the BSA after a school, threatening to block a merger (Bluelight), or price increases to the point where Windows/Office is by far the single most expensive part of a PC, Microsoft is marketing Linux.
A billion dollars spent on Linux marketing couldn't do as good a job as MS's own actions.
Ashcroft and CKK saved MS from breakup. But who will save MS from themselves?
Corporatism != Free Market
Same thing that the original article means, the author is speaking out the back of his trousers.
Microsoft has no intention to make Windows free, the anonymous comment came from a Linux weenie in need of a clue, the revenue comment was a deliberate troll.
The Microsoft decision means only that the states lost and in the process the cases brought by Sun et al were gutted. Sure they can rely upon the monopoly findings by Jackson, but the appeals court threw out the singificant ones. In particular CK-K found that Microsoft had a right to bundle an incompatible VM. Microsoft has a right to rely on that finding of fact in the Sun suit.
Microsoft will publish a small amount of additional information about their product. That is pretty unimportant since what is really needed is for Microsoft to write an architecture guide for Windows. VMS used to be like Windows, a vast operating system with an amazing amount of complexity. The key to understanding the 'gray wall' was a single volume called the VMS architecture guide. If you read that you knew how to use the rest of the documentation. There is no single similar guide for Windows, there are twenty partial attempts.
My experience of programmers set to work on Windows stuff is that they frequently cry 'Microsoft is the fault' when the real problem is that they can't be bothered to read the manual. Blaming Microsoft is a great excuse for the lazy or incompetent programmer. Now Microsoft certainly does not put out all the info it should, but don't think that it is any different out there in Redmond. If you work with those guys you will soon hear them complaining of having to do the type of reverse engineering that non Microsofties complain of.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
This prediction makes no sense: On the one hand, with vmware and wine able to or soon will be able to run office, they can still sell it for those platforms. On the other hand, with open office, abi, staroffice etc, the handwriting is on the wall for Office as much as it is (or isn't) for Windoze. I don't think Microsoft is in any imminent danger though.
Besides, their OS is on virtually every new PC sold in the last 20 years, so why bother to give it away? The only people who would benefit from that would be Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Not quite. Since MS is changing the file format for Office documents, companies will lose the ability to open documents created in the new versions. This will effectively force them to upgrade, even if they don't care about new features.
Quite true.
But what browser is the most common?
Not the best, not your favorite, not my favorite,
but the most common?
Isn't that IE? The "free" browser Microsfot gives away?
Not the same as an operating system, but there is precedent for giving something away in order to profit elsewhere.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
MS was virtually non-existant in the applications space till the Windows OS (with its secret apis) became a desktop standard
Well, that isn't 100% true, which of course means that it isn't 100% false also.
What MS did do, was buy, early and completely, into the windowing metaphor. They did make use of undocumented MS Windows APIs, yes. But I really don't believe that made any substantive difference between their products and the competitors.
For example, before MS Windows was ever released, even in V1.0 form, MS was working on its Excel application, on the Mac. Not only that, they listened to the customers and Apple's user interface gurus on how to improve the product. The end result was that when MS Windows 1.0 came out, MS had a reasonably good worksheet program for it; and had a several year head start on the competition in how to create windowed applications.
Anyone who claims that building windowed applications is the same, and a quick port, from DOS based ones hasn't even had to do that port. It isn't easy or intuitive.
Add on to this the fact that many or MS competitors tried to create menu structures and interface conventions different from the "standard" (which, yes, was written by MS) only hurt them. I remember many journalists making a mark for themselves in the early Mac and MS Windows days by just finding and attacking those products which didn't follow the guidelines. (This was particularly true in the Apple world, where not following the guidelines was tantamount to being a satanist during the Spanish Inquisitions.)
Microsoft has done many illegal and morally corrupt actions in their history, including the use of undocumented APIs. But that use of "hidden" APIs was not the main reason their applications succeeded and others failed.
I don't see things in black and white; I see the gray. Heck, I actually see in color, which makes things more difficult
Those bastards! Not supporting Windows 95! How dare them end-of-life a 9 year old piece of software!
Nevermind the fact that Apple no longer supports anything other than OS X, and is planning on making most systems not boot into OS 9 after a date in the very near future.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Think on this for a moment. When Microsoft developed the Win32 API, one of the design goals was to take full advantage of the 32 bit chips from Intel. No problem. The other design goal was to make it as backwards-compatible as possible with Win16 and OS/2. Serious problem. While developers were able to easily port Windows 3.x apps to 95 and NT, the OS was crippled.
Just as an example, the worst part of NT's core security protocol, NTLM, was not even written by Microsoft. It was coded by IBM for OS/2... and left in for backwards-compatability.
Fast forward to the present. Microsoft Windows, as a platform, is insanely difficult to develop for (unless you are using VB). The learning curve to get started with C or C++ is insane. (eg: COM, COM+, OLE, OLE2, OLEDB, ATL, MFC, ADO, RDO, etc.) Not to mention the cost of getting your hands on Visual Studio.
Linux, on the other hand, is easy to develop for. The tools are free, the compiler is free, and getting your code up and running is as simple as make, make install. It is one of the biggest advantages Linux has (forget security and stability for a moment). Also, Java never worked out on Windows. Even with the WFC extentions, Windows developers never used it to code Win32 apps.
Now, however, MS has .NET. Thanks to its deployment mechanism (assemblies), its somewhat unique object code (CLI, the rough equivilent of Java's VM), and its code libraries (covering about 99% of the Win32 API, but not dependent on Win32), .NET is in a position to make Win32 obsolete.
My guess is that the interviewee is right. MS's next version of Windows will most likely be a platform for .NET, with a stripped down API for 'native' apps. And MS wants .NET ported to everything. In fact, becuase the JITC compiles down to assembly, how much effort would it take to port .NET to Linux? On the IA-32 platform? That the JITC already compiles to? Think on that for a while.
Windows is dead. .NET lives.
When I purchased Visual C++ back in 98', it came with NT 4.0 in the box. I had just bought Windows 95 at full price(~$200?) and that was kind of a jip when I could have just purchased Visual C++ and got an OS too for ~$99. Had I known about Linux, gcc, and X-Windows at the time, I would have bought them instead. In my opinion, the important lesson is that even if MS begins giving out its OS for free, it will never be able to rival a distribution like Redhat or Mandrake which has everything that MS has, in one package, and for much less. The only thing that I lacked was the knowledge that there was an alternative that had everything Windows had.
Didn't Microsoft say during the trial that they couldn't offer a stripped version? If they did offer one wouldn't that mean they'd lied?
Oh, wait...
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
The crux of the argument is that to sell Office, they'll give Windows away for free. Why would they do that?
If the money is in Office and there is little money, and thus little value in Windows, then it would be better for them to port their apps to Linux, OSX, etc., offering their apps to a greater market, and still offering their OS at a (nonzero) price for those that can value Windows.
More likely is that successful competition from OSX, Linux and OpenOffice and StarOffice increasing marketshare of these OSs and apps would drive Microsoft to:
1) Port Office to Linux and OSX
2) Offer Windows licenses at a reduced price
This is a price discrimination argument. For those buyers that can understand/afford the Linux self-help model, they can buy the features (office) at a reduced price. For those that need the support they perceive from Microsoft, or those that can afford not to learn the new UI, or those that perceive whatever value they see in Windows, will pay more to buy Windows.
Consider switching costs alone. People will pay not to have to learn new things and experience more risk. Even if Windows on PC had no value whatsoever in Microsoft's eyes, Windows on PC has lots of values to consumers of newer markets, that is, consumers of Pocket PCs, Tablet Computers, Microsoft Windows Phones, Microsoft Windows Cars, and even Microsoft Windows Routers. (Um, not to mention Microsoft Windows Navy Destroyers). Consumers of all of these devices will naturally prefer to use Windows, and some (most) will pay for that option.
If Microsoft is moving to give Windows away, look for less and less R&D and marketing being spent on Windows itself. If Microsoft perceives value (and profit) in Windows, look for increased R&D and more marketing being spent on Windows, itself.
For all intents and purposes, from the perspective of the average user who gets Windows bundled with their OEMbox, MS has been giving away the OS for a long time. Sure, they charge you for it, but the cost is lumped in with the cost of the hardware and you never notice it unless you look carefully.
Nowadays, of course, this point is somewhat diluted, since you *can* buy a blank-slate PC with no OS pre-installed, but even today 99% of your average computer users will want to buy a computer that comes with an OS installed on it, as it will be fairly useless until one can be installed.
But during the crucial period when MS was building its monopoly on the strength of its control of the desktop OS, you really couldn't buy an OEM built PC that didn't have an OS already installed on it.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
If this sounds crazy, go to the AOLTW corporate site and look at their financials for the last couple of years. There is already talk about undoing the merger (see the recent article in Businesweek, for instance), and although some of the issues in re-splitting the company are tricky (in particular, how to split debt between the two companies) someone coming along with a giant pile of cash would solve may of those problems quite nicely.
Now that you know, try to act surprised when it happens.
All you open source programmers, now is our chance. Palladium is still a few years down the road. If you truly believe that the open source model is better, then you believe that open source can do trusted computing better. Let's give them a better solution instead of complaining about Microsoft's solution. We have an unprecedented chance here to make a pre-emptive strike.
Anything that cannot be done securely in open source, cannot be done securely at all. After all, the machine code is always available. Let's put our energy to good use and come up with a better answer.
I think some great open source solutions have already been implemented for creating an environment which we trust to protect our personal data. These are always improving.
Now everyone brainstorm an answer to the other side of the question:
How can open source provide an environment that companies like the MPAA and RIAA will trust to protect their proprietary data?
This space intentionally left blank.
"The Linux strategy is to undercut Microsoft..."
And all this time I thought our strategy was to just keep making Linux better and to hell with anyone else...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
...doesn't mean they'll do it.
;)
First, they will NEVER give away source (there seems to be some confusion over what is being given away). The debate can only be over binaries.
I completely agree with you - combatting piracy (or, alternatively, charging for the OS) will simply erode their monopoly. Their business simply depends too little on revenue from the OS not to give it away, when all their other business depends on a windows platform. In fact, the better question is whether this would be interpreted as anticompetitive pricing (ie, price dumping). The only response to that is that there is no competition now.
However, this doesn't mean they will do it, as M$ has historically made many decisions that aren't all that smart (though, granted, they've made a lot that were). They tend to be extremely arrogant institutionally, and piracy is a fight that comes from the top (ie, Bill). Giving the OS away will leave a taste of failure in his mouth, whether it is rational or not. So no, I really don't think they will ever give windows away. And they're even stepping up their fight against piracy. XP is their first OS to use spyware for registration (I believe).
If they were smart and rational, they would continue to force OEM's to pay for crappy versions of windows, then charge for upgrades...similar to what they do now. But the key part of the plan is to back way off of piracy enforcement, as it was in the pre-BSA, pre-Win XP days. That way they have their Windows revenue AND monopoly, without fear of any "anticompetitive" claims.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
They will end up giving it away discounted to 0$, but bundled to a $ copy of Office so that its not truly free. Perhaps even a small discount on Office if you get the 'package'.
:)
/. been horribly slow since the move, or is it just us in the Midwest?
Sort of how its done with hardware now.. bundle @ a discount.. to get you in the door.
And once you have both, you are tied in.. The rule will be you must run your copy of office ONLY with your copy of windows.. perhaps even key locked together..
Sort of how its done with hardware now
btw, has
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Windows has NEVER been free to new PC buyers. It's been "included" yes. But MS charges the manufacturer of the PC, and ALWAYS has. And I guarantee that Michael Dell isn't fronting the cost for you. It's absolutely included in the price of the computer. And for that matter, has grown to become one of the largest single costs of a new computer. How do you think WalMart can afford to sell the No-OS PC's so cheap. Because they don't have to give MS over $100 for a copy of XP. That's how.
And why in gods name would MS care about drumming up interest in hardware upgrades? Last I checked they didn't market any of the parts that actually need to be upgraded regularly. Intel, Seagate, and the Dramurai owe their businesses to MS pushing upgrades. But MS doesn't get squat from that side of things.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
I suppose it's possible that this can happen for Microsoft, with or without the flying pigs, but then I'm a bit of an optimist.
This sig no verb.
is 2-3 times stronger than the right.
Keep in mind, that MS makes FAR more profits off Office and applications, than they do off of the OS.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Considering the licensing requirements of SP3 can put a compliant company on the wrong side of the law (1, 2) I would not consider it to be free (in any sense of the term). But considering the number of problems/issues that SP3 supposedly addresses (in the areas of "application compatibility, operating system reliability, security, and setup"), leaving your system as is (in a potentially vulnerable state) is also not something that people would feel free to do. Because of one law, they are in violation if they don't patch, and because of Microsoft's licensing, they're in violation of the law if they do patch.
So forcing users to make/keep their computers ineligible to be used legally seems to me to be a rather significant loss of functionality.
"But that's just it. Many companies are looking at the upgrade license terms & fees, and deciding that what they have is good enough. They don't lose functionality by not upgrading, they just don't get the new features"
Until MS sends in the BSA stormtroopers. Only if you turn down their "special" offer to upgrade to the Licensing 6.0 rental regeime.
If you refuse, you better have EVERY license, every box, every receipt...
They have been doing this. I see no reason now why they won't continue, if not INTENSIFY their BSA stormtrooper extortion.
Corporatism != Free Market
Not that I usually criticize Slashdot for lack of editorial judgement - that would be like criticizing the devil for being naughty - but the "one interviewee" who foretold MS giving away Windows for free was Brian Behlendorf, who can't exactly be called neutral where questions about Microsoft and open source software are concerned.
In other news, Bill Gates says "We will crush Linux like a bug," and Steve Jobs says, "Mac OS X is just so insanely great, it's insane in its greatness." Ho hum.
Linux gets improved by huge numbers of people willing to work on it. But without the source for Windows, no one could work on Windows.
Eventually, people might switch because Windows has gotten so poor.
I also don't get the notion from the posts that this will help MS Office products, because it seems that OpenOffice is closer to replacing MS Office, than Linux is to replacing Windows.
My 2 cents.
Oscar
.NET is in a position to make Win32 obsolete
Which will not greatly surprise Microsoft.
Unfortunately, it's also in a position to make Linux obsolete, since Linux has no VM.
The major open development streams (Kernel, Debian, KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice) have no plans for using a VM.
There's Mono, of course, but I'm not alone in having misgivings about that.
Which leaves Java... is it too late already?
This BBC Article Microsoft looks beyond the court: :-)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2399857.stm
is pretty hopeful. At one point they say, "By contrast Linux is free and much more secure than Windows in any of its incarnations." Its nice to see that in print.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
If MS can get away with what they have, then Linux can get away with a hell of a lot more.
For ever action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The degree of illegal and unfair action, there is a equal degree of fair and legal action.
When was the last time you read the Declairation of Independance?
Those in the US have a right and duty.... Those outside the US have a US document to use as a model or inspiration.
Funny, I didnt have to sign my first born son over to Debian when I apt-get upgraded.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Never use a lawyer to fix an economic condition. Throughout history, whenever a particular company has a commanding lead in a particular market, its gross profit margin is very high.
Examples of former companies with high gross profit margins in their industries: IBM (computing), Rockefeller oil company (oil industry), US Steel (steel).
Why is this the case? Because hardly anyone knew anything about the business of that industry at the time because it was tied to a new technology. The oil and steel were tightly attached to the automobile, train, electrical appliances, and electrical machine industries.
In each of these cases, it took the consumer and technological investments from other companies to overtake these companies and make them just another company in the industry.
Forget what the government does--it matters what you do and how you (the person or the manager) spend your money that determines the outcome of Microsoft and any other monopoly. Research your decisions properly and make a wise business investment based on 1) your company's goals, 2) your division's goals, and 3) your ideas about the technology industry and how it can be used as a tool.
I truely believe that if people simply research the many different ways to solve a problem using technology that Microsoft would be by now simply one of many software companies out there.
Actually, this reminds me of the "old days" of Windows. Versions of Windows prior to version 3.0 were pretty limited and most copies of Windows were shipped packaged with a handful of applications like Pagemaker that depended on Windows for its GUI and printing functions. Windows was still in its infancy and most software was still being coded to run under MS/PC DOS. There was little acceptance of Windows at that time as it was very taxing on the Intel processors that were popular at that time (mostly 8088s and 80286s) and didn't yet offer enough advantages to convince developers to code to it.
As a result only a handful of programs were written to use the Windows APIs and very few copies were sold to end users. To boost use of Windows, Microsoft provided Windows app developers a slimmed-down version of Windows that they would package with their applications. This "runtime" version of Windows would be installed first, followed by the application which would run under it. Digital Research's GEM interface was another GUI/shell that took the same approach; it was primarily known as the GUI for the original versions of the Ventura Publisher desktop publishing software.
Then Microsoft released Windows 3.0, beating IBM's OS/2 to the market and providing the end user with a decent GUI OS shell that had support for the advanced features of the new 80386 processor. This was also the death knell for Digital Research's GEM product as developers migrated their apps from GEM to Windows. Windows 3.0 was an instant hit with the users (simultaneously making the lives of IS professionals used to simpler server-hosted DOS apps a headache) and it quickly became a popular product.
From that time forward Windows has been a money maker for Microsoft, making "runtime" Windows a thing of the past.
The basic strength of the GPL is that it is optional. You do not need to be bound by the GPL in order to use GPLed software. Given that, I don't really see how version 3 of the GPL can combat trusted computing. Will it address software that makes use of trusted computing features? That would be a mistake, given that hardware-assisted system security will likely benefit greatly from the hardware DRM features. It would be nice, for example, to have system logs be absolutely protected from tampering by hardware DRM.
I dunno. I'll wait for the draft and see then. For now "You may distribute this software under version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) or, at your option, any later version" will continue to be in my programs.
MSIE was the best browser 1999-2002, that's a long time to get ingrained.
I live in a giant bucket.
Yeah, that makes it really easy to send Word forms and to revise and edit the documents, and send them back to the owner.
pre-SP3 release of WinXP
SP1 just came out recently =)
More importantly, there's a
distinct difference here; the difference between OS 9 and OS X
is more significant than the difference between W95 and WXP.
(Yes, I know XP is NT under the hood, but OS X is still even
more different from OS 9.)
Apple is stopping support for an old version that has no real
multitasking, no memory protection, no cli (therefore, a pain to
support, especialy remotely), and in any number of other ways is
generally horrible under the hood
You can say the same about Windows 95, I'm sure of it, but Apple didn't include as many compatibility layers as with WinXP. If an old program doesn't work under XP, don't fret -- there's tons of things you can do about it.
XP lets old programs run as isolated, protected processes, that older versions of Windows didn't permit. Also, on the XP CD there is a utility that allows you to tweak hundreds of API and environment settings for that application, including to the "Compatibility" tab on the application shortcut.
This is very frustrating for a OS X user that is trying to run Classic apps -- they have to start the Classic OS 9 in a separate window, with its own desktop! That's like VMWare almost! At the least I think OS X should provide a facility where API translation is provided, such that Classic apps can run in process directly under OS X. Just like FreeBSD can run Linux binaries, OS X should run OS n.X binaries.
I know the Kmart 'fiasco' is one clear example, but it was not a completly normal situation, I have transferred software licences of Microsoft Windows / Office many times, it does take time (the last transfer took like 4 months to get done!) but it is possible. UNLESS you sign up to a special deal directly with MS that prohibits you from doing this, I believe the kmart case was along those lines..
Companies sell assessts all the time, they also go bust, change ownership and everything else..
Free Software Foundation General Counsel Eben Moglen reacts to Friday's U.S. v. Microsoft ruling and describes how it and 'trusted computing' will figure in formulating the next version of the GPL
Who would ever have thunk it. The FSF is reactionary. The Free Software Community shouldn't be reacting to Microsoft, the DOJ or anything else external to Free Software. That's only going to cause collateral damage. We should be running our own lives instead of letting Microsoft dictate our actions.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I like to think that some people are just ignorant or inexperienced - point out a few trolls and they'll be able to detect them on they're own. I may be too charitable, though.
XML causes global warming.
"The Free Software Community shouldn't be reacting to Microsoft, the DOJ or anything else external to Free Software."
Actually, the judge doesn't believe free software is competition to Microsoft. But free software does have to react because it *does* compete with Microsoft. And for every legal action (more restrictive licensing, Palladium) comes and equal and opposite legal reaction (GPL 3).
The battle is far from over. We should all await the best GPL yet.
In her ruling last week, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington recognized that server software competition represented the most likely threat to Microsoft. She specifically required Microsoft to disclose more technical information to its server rivals. Her provision is an attempt to ensure that Microsoft competes more fairly against Linux than it did against Netscape in the browser wars.
This is such a backwards take on things that I'm confused how to address it. The only reason MS has had any success in the server market is that they have owned the client market for the 7 years.
More like a skeet shoot than hurdles for MS.
Why is Triangle Man so MEAN?
Conversely, I don't see too much porting of stuff from Windows to Linux. It is quite likely there will remain a huge amount of software that is Windows-derivative-only, while the above changes would vastly reduce how much software is Linux-only.
I doubt they would ever merge. More likely a new system will arise that is designed to be clean but is capable of hosting a run-time "super Wine" that is really able to handle any Windows program. The necessary redesign needed to support this and also support Unix interfaces may lead to some clever new ideas nobody has thought of today. If successful, this system would likely replace both Windows and Linux.
But what browser is the most common?
How would you ever find out about that? Look for the referer field in the weblogs? With the number of servers deliberately discriminating users of nonMS browsers you cannot expect refer fields to be true. Here is the last page I came across which plain refuses to be shown in any browser but IE.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
Trying to claim that MSIE isn't the dominant browser by market share? Come on, time for a reality check.
IE is the dominant browser on the Internet. Period. Personally, I like Mozilla better, but IE is still the most widely used BY FAR.
Oh come on. I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy here, but even I'll admit that IE isn't even close to being touched right now. Even referrals from /., which has a reputation as being linux-biased, are >50% IE.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Especially since they'll likely charge for 'product updates' (which would include everything from bug patches, security patches, and kludged together privacy-violating contraptions).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
PR Newswire is reporting that
'Federal District Judge J. Frederick Motz of Baltimore today ruled that Microsoft will not be allowed to contest 395 separate findings that were made against the company in the case brought by the Department of Justice. Judge Motz entered today's ruling in cases brought by consumer plaintiffs, Sun Microsystems, Netscape Communications, Be Incorporated and Burst.com. Under today's decision, Microsoft cannot offer any evidence at trial to dispute any of the 395 factual findings. The findings provide the foundation for the determination in the Government case that Microsoft violated federal antitrust laws by illegally maintaining its Windows monopoly.
'This ruling is significant because it will make it much easier for the consumer and competitor plaintiffs to win their cases against Microsoft,' said Stanley M. Chesley, co-chair of the group of attorneys representing the consumer plaintiffs. 'Microsoft now enters the trial with one or two strikes against it,' he said. 'Microsoft had its day in court and lost when the District of Columbia court ruled against it on these 395 findings. Microsoft is now conclusively found to have engaged in numerous anticompetitive acts in order to maintain its dominance of the market, overcharge the public for Windows and stifle innovation of better, competing products.'
Dozens of consumer cases against Microsoft were filed in courts throughout the United States and transferred to Judge Motz in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. The cases allege that Microsoft abused its monopoly power to prevent competition in the market for personal computer operating systems, leveraged its Windows monopoly to obtain monopolies in the markets for word processing and spreadsheet software and used its monopoly positions in these markets to overcharge purchasers of Windows, Word, Excel and Office software.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
2nd that...The M$ consultants onsite here are SHARP guys, and they end up doing their own research because they can't find the doc from M$.
If you've ever been through a premier technet and MSDN subscription you'll see what it is like...I am sure there is a system they use somewhere, but I will be damn'd if I can figure it out, and I often resort to entire juke box searches to find documents on a related subject spread acrossed 15 bloody DVD's in 7 different collections...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
You forget that one of the main purposes of Windows is to let MS apps have a hidden advantage over any and all competitors. It's to give you the illusion that Microsoft is all you'll ever need.
Let's say Microsoft makes a KDE port of Microsoft Office; now they're at the mercy of the KDE development roadmap. Or they make their own Linux GUI, but with MS-proprietary widgets to prevent other apps from fully using it; now they have to fight for mindshare in an entrenched battlefield.
No, it is unreasonable to hope for Microsoft to migrate to a platform they don't control. The Mac ports survive due to special reasons, mainly the hardware factor. Porting to a Linux GUI would cost them a big chunk of control they have now.
I have used VMS since the manuals had blue covers and sometimes still do as a major client still uses it for their backend. The point with VMS isn't just that the customers had the manual, Digital had it too. The system had some basic concepts, which once learned were reused all over the place. With WinXX, there isn't really a single unifying concept or architecture behind it and those that do exist change frequently and in incompatible manner.
Even if Microsoft's internal documentation is better than ours, they have the source code and if someone on the Office team has a problem with a GUI call, they can look at the implementation. We can't unless we sign our life away and even then there is no guarantee that you won't get shafted by a new release. This is just sloppy engineering management.
See my journal, I write things there
I see lots of people here saying how M$ would never give away Windows, and how they make too much money from OEM's. Peanuts. Would you like fries with that?
.NET. Did they know it would be .NET back then? No. But you can bet they did realize the idea of running applications served via a remote machine was a cash cow waiting to be born. Getting everyone to use IE wasn't to kill Netscape, it was to keep everyone in a position where something like .NET would be easy to do, and thus get them all hooked on it.
.NET services, applications in general, and DRM in particular. Think about it.
.NET service), and $100/year for Visual Studio cross-platform (meaning it will compile apps that can run as a .NET service and might work on an OS X client). You suddenly are getting your original OS cost back four-fold, since most people only bought the new os/computer every 3-4 years anyways.
M$ gave away IE just to gain market share in the browser universe. Why? So that they could be in a position to create their own "standards", and eventually develop
M$ would gladly give away their OS (which would REMAIN closed-source, BTW) in exchange for the general public's continued dependance on it for
Ok, so you now give the OS away. Now you charge $30/year for the license to a DRM-compliant media player, $50/year for M$-Office 2004 (only availalbe as a
I won't even mention how much they can charge for enterprise licensing of things like SQL Server... those of you who work with things of that nature already know how much you're being soaked. Triple that and require an always-on T1 connection and you know what to expect.
I'm sure glad the DoJ is there to watch out for us!
Many companies are looking at the upgrade license terms & fees, and deciding that what they have is good enough. They don't lose functionality by not upgrading, they just don't get the new features.
Many of the new "features" can easily fit in the "bells and whistles" catagory.
Problems come if they have to handle files from outside or can no longer get licences for the old software. (Possibly with Microsoft's new model they could force the use of only the "latest and greatest".)
Yeah, that makes it really easy to send Word forms and to revise and edit the documents, and send them back to the owner.
In many cases word documents are sent as attachments as an alternative to printing and putting in an envelope or feeding to a fax machine. Converting to PDF makes no practical difference.
If people want to send word files back and forth for editing between different organisations then there are all sorts of gotchas they need to be careful to avoid.
My guess is they did not write the entire operating system during 1995 but your basic math skill should be applauded.
Nevermind the fact that over half the code in win95 is 3.1 goo that might be older than the box of condoms in your nightstand.
No. Look at an Opera string: "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows XP) Opera 6.05 [en]"
If your log analyzer can't tell what browser that really is, get a new one.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Because when they went into the store, they'd see that while they can save $200 (unrealistically high) on the system, they won't be able to run ANY of the apps that the store sells.
None of the programs they've been using for years will run. None of the hot new games will run.
And none of the Linux boxen will sell, because of that. The end user absolutely will care what OS is on the machine because they don't want to just get a computer. They want to run things on it too.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
That's exactly what I am suggesting... We all just do our own thing. We keep making Linux better and better not worring too much about anything else.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!