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EU's Mind 'made up' on Microsoft
Alain Williams writes "The BBC reports that Microsoft could soon be facing multi-billion euro fines and other sanctions for breaking European competition law.
The European Commission has finished drafting its decision in the case it brought against the software giant." Let's just hope that the EU can fine them cash and not accept Microsoft coupons like the US does. Clearly the best solution to an operating system monopoly is to give free copies of windows to school and eliminate the competition as early in the education process as possible.
Mr. Ballmer was just down at my sons' preschool dropping off copies of something called Microsoft Bob...
"Until you do what you believe in, how do you know whether you believe in it or not?" -- Leo Tolstoy
I hope the EU goes through with the proposal to force MS to unbundle Media Player. It will be so great to watch them squirm if this happens: there's no technical reason why not (XP Embedded) and it will force their hand over the bundling of IE (again). A large fine will barely dent their $50b cash reserves :-/
The EU has some real teeth when it comes to noncompetitive practices. The maximum is something like 10% of annual earnings (could be profit). Ouch.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
It's not just the government- take a look at Mike Rowe: given an xbox, and decided to drop his case...
England wants to knight him. Europe wants to hate him. Strange.
I've tried to convince them of the stability and efficiency of Linux, and told them that Microsoft is going to lock them in soon, but they refuse to listen.
With an 80% gross margin, I guess it won't hurt them that much... Especially with Bush's obvious support, EU will have to be somehow less severe (maybe indulgent).
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I want audio and video software as part of my OS, nicely bundled and integrated.
I don't want to a half-baked OS that requires a lot more decisions to get a useful modern OS.
Maybe with MS have been "forcing suppliers to include its own media software", but have MS been preventing suppliers from also supplying other media software? The BBC article does not make clear.
It will be nice though if MS do "reveal more information to its competitors about how its operating system interacts with others and with software applications"
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Activate "Operation European Freedom" immediately.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No other DRM system actually lets you choose your player. iTunes only talks to iPod, at least w/o burning and re-ripping. You want to talk product tying -- MS doesn't even sell an MP3 player, let alone force you to use theirs.
But heh. Don't listen to me. I'm just a hardcore Linux user w/ a half terabyte RAID-5 FreeBSD box with fond memories of his old Apple IIgs days.
Not to mention I think this round of DRM won't end up any differently than it did for DAT/Minidisc/Dataplay -- eventual marginalization vs. products that actually want to work.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
...do what exactly? With US 52.8 billion dollars in the bank, even they take half that, they still have 26+ billion dollars. With profit margins of 25%, and revenue of 32 billion a quarter, those would have to be some hefty cash fines to even make the smallest dent in how MS does business.
Not to mention that Bill Gates could sell some of his stock if he wanted to, and put that money back in the company.
libertarianswag.com
yeah! c'mon europe! we can do it!
> have a good laugh as Microsoft get's the Benny Hill punishments...
Have them chased around by a bevy of babes in lingerie? No wonder so many people want to have a monopoly!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A half-baked OS designed by baked designers for consumers in all degrees of...(Crap. Here's where, had my mind worked, I would have inserted another word continuing the pun. Feel free to do so if you can.)
The real litigious bastards...
can someone explain how exactly the EU can fine microsoft, or for that matter any company not based in one of their member countries?
With the Euro on the rise compared to USD, its going to eat a little more of that 50Billion USD pile that M$ is sitting on. Ouch.
Free XBox, PS2
. . .and may demand that it stops forcing suppliers to include its own media software at the expense of competitors such as Real Networks and Apple.
I'm not a great fan of Media Player, though it does it's job pretty well, but doesn't the modern definition of a desktop OS contain a media player?
From what I can tell, the options Microsoft will have would be to either have no media player whatsoever, or a vast myraid of them. I would be willing to guess that MS will take the former option, with a recomended update through Windows update being Media Player.
So, by removing some functionality of the OS, how will this help consumers in general? Indeed will they be more likely to use another media player simply because there isn't one currently available, or will they simply get the recommended one from Microsoft?
Yes, it would be just great if the pc manufacturers preloaded RealONE onto my pc instead. Oh dream of dreams, joy of joys.
You should contact the people behind other Linux in the schools projects and ask them for advice. You can for example write to someone in the Norwegian School Linux via "kontakt" or click "linker" and find a link to another project and make the contacts there.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Microsoft is a legal entity in many EU countries. They have a large presence in Ireland (research & production) and local sales & translation offices almost everywhere.
Rubbish.
The EU isn't afraid of fining European Companies. You just have to look in to Car manufacturers, i.e., BMW, Volkwagan etc.
Plenty of these firms have been fined *heavily* for anti competitive practices and price fixing.
If MS was a European Company, it wouldn't be let off the hook, as it would be seen to be crushing other EU software companies as well...
I have a loose consultative association with prosecutors trying the antitrust case in France. He feels it's a fairly straightforward case in legal terms, but the real challenge is the remedy phase. I have been persuading him to shoot for a remedy that forces Microsoft to port all of their major products to Linux so that they may easily be installed by a commericial vrsion of apt-get or similar packaging tool. Trusted apt-get has been in development for some time and is the obvious choice for deploying Microsoft products whilst still providing the security and necessary commerical restrictions that Microsoft requires for all of their products.
Expect to hear about Microsoft and this apt-get remedy shortly. Watch this space.
I think, dear breech, that little nugget you're speaking of might be sarcasm.
See this is what i don't get. Even besides accepting "coupons" from MS. Why the hell does the government (and I mean any government) even use thier software if they know the company uses unfair and ILLEGAL buisness practices.
What if it's found out that a company was supplying weapons to drug lords in South america. And lets say that this company sells CPUs and has 4 other maret rivals. Also this company has contracts with the US government to supply CPUs to the military, even though said cpus are kinda low grade. If the US government found out about it's illegal activity, I'd hope they'd switch to one of it's competitors, besides just get the company fined and what not for it's activity.
Ok I'm starting to make no sence, I need coffee.
I want my OS to come with a browser just like I want it to come with a media player. I hope M$ fight it and win!
Microsoft has done much worse things like preventing the sale of naked PCs (do that, and your OEM licence discounts miraculously shrink), embracing and extending everything from Java to HTML and, of course, spreading FUD left right and centre about anything that might threaten Bill's plans for world domination. These are the issues the EU should be focusing on, not whether they bundle a Windows app that plays MP3s.
Oh yeah, and Bill gives loads of money to charity, but there are more tax-efficient ways of giving to charity than overpaying for mediocre software.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Gates is getting a knighthood for contributions to international business while at the same time the EU (therefore by extension the UK) is fining microsoft for anti-competitive practices. Don't you just love irony?
Clearly the best solution to an operating system monopoly is to give free copies of windows to school and eliminate the competition as early in the education process as possible.
They're giving it away for free. Free is good, right? Or all of the sudden when it's Microsoft, free is bribery, isn't it?
This does mean that the school is urged to use Windows, because it would not be polite to not use it. For a school, however, Windows does come with many benefits, primarily ease-of-use. It is a much easier operating system to learn, for sure. I can't imagine middle schoolers using linux.... faaar too stupid.
webpage
That's because essentially all Windows players that support DRM utilize the MS supplied directshow API (and whatever codecs) to decode the content.
It's not too dissimilar to how applications that embed IE are using mshtml.dll. iexplore.exe (and explorer.exe) itself is nothing more than a thin wrapper application that loads mshtml.dll.
one word: piracy. ms loses.
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
As an EU residing, mostly Linux & reluctant Windows user, I'm not sure that I see much in this story...
I can fully appreciate that Microsoft's general monopolistic attitude needs to be curtailed, no doubting that.
I can also see that had the US/EU laws against monopolistic practices been brought down five or six years ago, then IE might not have been the dominant browser and we might now be accessing web sites that are far less browser dependant.
I can appreciate that restricting the bundling of WMP with Windows might mean that Microsoft's DRM methods will not be dominant technology in the whole rights management argument.
But, to me, DRM is *STILL* a technology that restricts my rights to do what I like with music and media that I legitimately own and whether Microsoft's or A. N. Other's DRM technology is used is neither here nor there. Surely it's DRM that is at the centre of this argument, not WMP?
Where an application forces changes in an open standard (like HTML), then there is a good case to limit the impact of that application but there are enough multimedia formats that I can download or buy any number of non-Microsoft media players to play what I like on whatever OS I like without resorting to WMP.
And although I might not like the impact DRM has or will have with Open Source software, I'll simply take the stance of not buying DRM'ed hardware & media that curtails my rights as a user.
Am I missing something here?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Why do none of the remedys require microsoft to release all APIs? This would solve the problems, would not destroy their business but would reduce their ability to harm consumers more than any other action.
iTunes isn't a DRM system. It's an application. AAC is a DRM system and it is open.
.. will ensure many years before it comes to court, by when either MS will be gone.. or they will have encompassed everything....
Have a nice day!
Boeing also receives government subsidies. Its just called Defense spending
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
"A shining example of this is Airbus who clearly benefits from government subsidies, etc."
EU may be corrupt and protectionistic, but more so than the US? You'll have to convince me. Lockheed and Boing aren't very nice companies either, by the way.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Which one do we (and should we) hate more, Microsoft or the european union?
Microsoft won't pay in blood.
It seems to me that if the EU finds the balls to criticise Microsoft, the US Government will put _heavy_ pressure on them to forget to punish.
Either way the EU is unlikely to produce a tough verdict that will withstand an appeal.
Liberal english interventionalist I may be, but even I can see that the only way MS will ever really be beaten is in the marketplace.
There is no such thing as a ploy or conspiracy in this case. And it's definitely within their reach.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
I'm sure that the EU will distribute these funds to the poor windows users who were so abused, right?
Or will it just sit in an EU bank account to help pay for trips, cars, etc. for the EU ranking members?
Can we say "cash grab"?
Casual Games/Downloads
The funny thing is that if Microsoft was a company based in the EU they would be getting government money and protection from the EU
What is funny is that EVERY TIME an article about EU/MS pops up, someone says this. They then tend to get modded to +5 insightful whereupon the following thread turns into a US vs EU flamefest. And speaking of which:
A shining example of this is Airbus who clearly benefits from government subsidies, etc.
Agh, and you just had to bring up the Airbus/Boeing conflict too? This ought to be a subset of Godwin's law.
For the record, I think both Airbus and Boeing use government subsidies to prevent fair competition, and it sucks. However, in the EU/MS case, could it not be possible that somewhere in the EU beaurocracy there are some people who are actually trying to do the right thing?
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Junk.
The only reason why there aren't other friendly operating systems is that the presence of Microsoft in the market means that attempting to produce one is economic suicide. That's also not because the MS one is the best, it's because MS got there first and scored the network effect.
Most obvious counterexample: they could use BeOS. It's nice and user friendly, very fast, and has web browser support enough to do ordering. Sure, the web browser's a bit elderly, but I kinda think that Euro sites would update rather quick if this happened, don't you?
McDonalds has a competative advantage over its rivals, so lets force McDonalds to offer whoppers to its customers. CocaCola has a competative advantage over its rivals so lets force it to attach a bottle of pepsi to its bottles of coke. General Motors shouldn't be allowed to install dvd players in the backs of minivans because that would infringe on Toyota -- your kids should be whining "are we there yet" instead of watchign nemo and allowing you to drive in relative peace.
MS has competition from apple and from linux and from unix the fact that people choose microsoft over these alternatives shouldn't in any way hamper MS's ability to expand the services in their product.
If you think this is about MS being evil, you're dead wrong. This is about MS having a 10 billion dollar liquid slush fund and governments wanting their piece of that pie.
The UK has always been a relatively marginal member of the EU, what with all of their constant whining about NATIONAL SOVEREIGNITY. Now giving Bill the BIG DUB kind of miffed them. So they got pissed. They said to themselves, how can I express my anger without going back to THE BOMB. Cause now they are friends and lovers and they quarrel instead of really fight. But they are too inhibited to even have a COLD WAR among themselves so they have a LUKEWARM war and so they says to themselves, looky here, if Queenie E wants to call Billy G a big K daddy, then we will say BUGGAR OFF YE OLDE ENGLIGH FLIBBERTIGIBBETS! And so they are going to fine Microsoft instead of overtly expressing their repressed rage and jealousy that those damned lucky English royals can still confer such an obviously silly but oooooh-I-want-one-tooooooo-oooh-come-on-Queen-I-am -worthy-tooooo-pleeassse-oh-I-am-not-going-to-lowe r-myself-to-actually-ask-damn-damn-dammit-grommit kind of HONOR.
That is because MP3 players are still somewhat innovative, and Microsoft "innovates" at the speed of evolution. In fact, instead of making their own, they'll probably just buy out some company that makes them. They obviously can't buy the iPod, and haven't found a suitable one to purchase and call their own.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Last time I checked, my copy of iTunes talked to my little 64MB Nomad over USB... And works with many, many other units. Of course, I can only play .mp3 on the Nomad, but that's hardly Apple's fault, is it?
quite apart from the fact that microsoft only ever stole other peoples' ideas and never quite believed in the internet. remember msn v1? "it will replace the internet". ha bloody ha!
windows did deliver computing to the masses, yes, but what microsoft giveth with ease of use, microsoft taketh with lack of security. viruses and trojans will make mom and dad wonder why they ever bothered buying that piece of junk.
luckily linux makes the answer easy. pop-in a knoppix, reboot, and you can work again. even you could use it, nberadi.
"You guys all have Microsoft to thanks for the advancement of the internet on the masses and if you think anything else you are crazy and blind." You're kidding right? How did MS do that exactly? Perhaps I'm crazy and blind.
WWI and WWII marked the struggle for industrial supremecy around the world. Now we are get the beginning of another global battle. Digital supremecy. Who is going to win the war? No one can tell, but the war is brewing. History loves to repeat itself and those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Especially presidents who don't study history in school and can't even explain the significance of important wars throughout history. At least his father was educated and knowledgible about world affairs.
This is just a ploy by the EU to try and influence global commerce beyond their reach. They want to matter.
Hhhmmmm...
Poor little us, not being big enough to matter to global commerce! Methinks you need to look at some statistics comparing the GDP of the USA with the EU.
And you've been modded as "insightful". I think there should be a new category of mods. "Insightful (American)"
Kids' minds are like sponges. Give them the chance and they can learn a lot, especially when you make the learning fun. This has been shown many times in foreign language education; the eariler a kid starts learning another language, the higher the chance of that kid learning the language and learning it well. The reason why foreign language education still doesn't start at an early age for most children is due to adults' prejudices. They think it's too difficult to learn another language, so therefore it is way too difficult for the kiddies.
It's the same way with computer stuff. Computer-phobe adults are the ones who end up instilling a "fear" of computers in children. You know the drill. "I don't understand computers." "It's too hard to figure out." Because adults think Linux is too difficult (often without trying it first), they think kids can never learn it.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Maersk and SAS (the air carrier, not the statistics package or the military unit) was given huge fines by EU for having non-competition agreements. EU is very active on that, in Denmark many age-old trusts have been stopped by the EU.
Airbus is not a monopoly, it is an European attempt to break Boeings monopoly on air planes.
Microsoft is a European company too, having subsidaries in many EU countries. Obviously, it should not be excempt from EU law, just because its headquarter is located elsewhere. Everyone who does business in EU must perform that business according to EU law. I can't see why that could be a surprise to anyone.
And yes, EU based companies has to obey US laws as well, when doing business in the the US. I don't know if anyone of them are dominating enough in the US market to come in conflict with US anti-trust law, but if so, no the EU would not be silly enough to claim that the US does not have the power to enforce US law on US ground. (The US have the power to enforce US law everywhere on the planet and close space, but on US ground, they also have the legal and moral right to do so).
Off topic I know, but I'm sick of seeing this bull about Airbus - Boeing has been funded to produce items "In the national interest" for decades. Airbus funding _in the 70s_ was at least upfront. Airbus is winning at the moment because It is building aircraft the airlines want!
The EU is a much more unfront place to do business - unlike the US with it Trade sanctions (steel), trade supsidies and poor consumer protection (I like my beef hormone-free)
To drag this back ontopic...
MS is finding it harder to influence the decisions than they did in the US - new President - case was essencially dropped - After a GUILTY verdict! Unbelievable...
t.
If the punishments for breaking antitrust law in EU are so harsh, Microsoft should just comply and design a windows update that will uninstall what falls into the category of "bundled software", beginning with all the outlook patches and Windows Media Player. Someone above mentioned 10% of earnings, which sounds right, considering ALL the managers of recent Italian food giant Parmalat are sitting in jail, since the revelation of a $23bn hole in their balance sheet.
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You know I find it interesting that any post that is even slightly anti-*nix and pro-windows gets modded down within a few seconds of posting. People like Windows. If they didn't, they wouldn't buy it. People want a computer to do things for them and not have to do things for their computer. Microsoft provided the masses a way to do this, albeit for a high cost (cash and security).
"Clearly the best solution to an operating system monopoly is to give free copies of windows to school and eliminate the competition as early in the education process as possible."
You know, I remember all through school (k-12) we were forced to use Apple products of varying models. Since then, I have never used an Apple, and all the forced Apple knowledge was wasted.
Neo: Do you always look at the Matrix encoded like that?
Cipher: The decryption routines work for the construct. You get used to it after a while. I don't even see the code. I see Blonde, Brunette, Redhead...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Why does everyone want governments to sue Microsoft. Yes the monopoly is a bad thing but what it did was build a more "religious" call to Linux.
If Microsoft was much smaller, would Linux be getting so big, so fast? The monopoly did what I think monopolies should do, spurred aggressive competition. The government did not make Linux big by suing Microsoft and, if the EU wins, YOU won't see any of the money.
In my personal opinion, suing is bad no matter who the target is (ok, yes pure intentional negligence should be punished).
www.thejulingtoncreekplantaion.com
Mods on crack as usual. -1 ignorant would be more suitable.
SonCorn is talking out his ass. EU has fined plenty of EUian companies for anti-competetive practices. And we're not taking slaps on the wrists either.
The obvious long-term solution in this "war on IT terror" is for the EU and other nations to rebuild their IT infrastructures cooperatively and relatively inexpensively upon open source foundation. By removing the bottleneck that is at Microsoft Way One, Redmond, countries (incl. the US of A) can launch a renaissaince of innovation and information sharing between countries and individuals while nurturing a more balanced distribution of local employment across the world.
Governments are fundamentally responsible for establishing the basic infrastructure upon which the people can build their lives and business without artificial impediments. Imagine what the life would be like today if printing presses, typewriters and even the lowly sheets of paper had been incredulously controlled by some mediaval robber baron!? Why should one provenly immoral corporation be allowed to "own" the formats in which data (incl. writing itself!) is excanged, recorded and backed up!? It's insane.
The EU is fully capable of first introducing a set of recommendations and later (after the OSS-based support and development structures have been established) requirements for publically-owned and open IT systems that can also be easily adopted by other countries across the globe. Microsoft is fully welcome to participate in this "New Deal" but they must remove their foot from the oxygen tubes or risk becoming totally irrelevant.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Mr. Bolkestein, EU commissioner, is rock-hard and has a deep hatred of monopolies. Hee will not be bribed with coupons or an Xbox. The only thing can will stop him from kicking Gates in his nuts, is the council of EU ministers, which can force him politically to play it softer. So it all comes down to politics. This will be interesting.
No, not even that.
AAC is an audio compression format. No more, no less. It's the audio layer from MPEG-4, in fact, and is just as open as MP3. You can rip/convert to and from AAC with no restrictions. (It's not Apple's format: they didn't create it and don't control it -- anyone can license the format and build it into any player; Apple are just another user.)
In particular, AAC itself is unencrypted. No DRM.
What the iTunes Music Store sells are .m4p files: AAC files that have been wrapped in a FairPlay encryption layer. It's FairPlay that stops you playing on other machines &c.
To summarise:
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
I've noticed this popping up a lot recently as well. People seem to have this idea that microsoft had something to do with the creation of the internet and gui's etc....
The shear fact is that the EU is totaly anti-american, be it Bush jr, or MS. Ok, I'm not a fan of bill's little crappy os'(writing from a g3 with osX on it) but lets look at the "anti-competitive" aspect of it.... 1 Do consumers have choice of what OS comes with the G4/G5?(if you said yes, think again) 2 Can you buy Linux based computers from OEMS(if you said no, go back to the end of the line)
3 IS Linux the answer to all of your problems?(maybe, but it still won't stop those pimples on your face) The EU is a very angry organization, infighting, always stabbing each other in the back. If you are SO anti(whatever this minute) Stop using windows. You have half a brain make that choice! Look I'm not here to defend M$, but I don't think that we should start forcing people to ditch something they are used to either.
> England wants to knight him.
England doesn't, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown do. These two have always fawned on obvious wealth, remember the picture of billG on the steps of number 10 Downing Street. Remember the change of legislation on tobacco company sponsorship after Bernie Ecclestone gave the party 1M.
Europe isn't a borg collective. There are people who have difference opinions. Believe me, more people than not don't like Gates in England. Just because the Queen has given away a KBE doesn't mean that everyone's falling over themselves to grovel at his feet.
As I recall, the US government wasn't particularly harsh on Microsoft. Does that mean all USians adore their products?
Is that supposed to be impressive? These days you can do that with three drives, and if you would spring for a fourth you could have RAID 1 and get rid of that parity nonsense.
I run four 1 TB RAID 0 arrays rsync'ed across servers. That gives me complete redundancy and until today it hadn't occurred to me that that was anything special. Your array is pitiful by today's standards.
Microsoft does something clearly wrong.
Governments overstep their power and instead of simply enforcing laws, agendas come into play.
Microsoft gets a slap on the wrist, but no true enforcement is enacted. (this would be fair)
Microsoft gets bent over and shafted because of public opinion/government power plays.
Microsoft's bad reputation has swollen past the reasonable line. Mod me down if you want, but Windows is still the easiest and most polished OS around... But the fanatic MS-haters can't admit that it is the main reason for windows' success... can it? Of course not, because there is a group of MS-haters that are pushing their agenda... and the ignorant power-hungry polititians are just going with the squeaky wheel instead of being truly fair. I'm as interested as Microsoft being taken down a notch as anyone else, but we're past the stage of being simply fair and simply enforcing laws. We're now into the greedy, lawsuit-happy bastards stage where every government tries to rob the rich corporation for as much dough as possible without really putting restrictions on the monopolistic practices.
Why don't they just write a law that says "if you are bad, we'll take everything you own and you'll be our biatch for the rest of your life"?
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
I'm with the cash grab people on this one.
Reading the article I found it interesting to note that in the penalties section a heavy fine was expected but the media player issue was preceded by "may". In other words, pay us a bunch of money and we will let the whole media player issue slide.
Also, not sure if anyone noticed this, but in the first section they threw in the word "servers" as one of the embedded systems that has broken the cometition laws. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention the last time I rebuilt my 2000 or XP boxes, but I could have sworn all the servers were optional installs, I mean if they weren't why would Apache have more installs than IIS...?
And on the IE issue, I still remember hacking the CSS file for windows explorer several years ago to put a little lemming in the top left of my windows explorer pages...Sure they could just not include the IE icon in the system, but removing all things IE from the system would require a rewrite of a lot of the GUI which is currently based on CSS and HTML, something that I think is actually a nifty idea, no matter who is doing it.
And last, and more specifically, Media Player. Those of you who have problems with it grabbing file associations and popping up on it's own and such, err, to bad. I have no pity for you. I haven't seen Windows media player since I last reinstalled me windows boxes. I did nothing special that I am aware of, I'm by no means a Systems expert, I just associated the files to other programs. Took a couple minutes. Oh the pain. Maybe your confusing Windows Media Player with Real Player, the spyware posing as media crap.
Whee signature.
See the movie, The Corporation,
The purpose of a corporation is to make money for its investors. That is all. A corporation is amoral. Viewed as a "person" a corporation is psychotic. This is the nature of corporations.
Outside influences to get corporations to "behave" can only have limited control due to the structure of our society.
Good Summary
And this is the chap they decided to give the honor of a KBE to?
In the past Knights had to ride horses and poke people with big woodies. Alas such a fate should befall our Mr. Gates, KBE.
With RedHat, Suse, *BSD you can easily strip the application software and leave the kernel bare if so you wish. You have freedom of choice in how your hardware and software resources should work.
Try to uninstall some of the applications from XP. Good luck.
I hope that explains fully the meaning of "bundling" in this context.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"A shining example of this is Airbus who clearly benefits from government subsidies, etc."
lol, so ?
Do you think the US is any different?
The US government makes all it can to push US products using industry espionages and it's political/economical influence.
For example, do you really think all those countries bought the F-16 because it's a modern and good fighter plane?
The scenario: EU fines MS lots of cash, then various EU countries use it to fund their migration to Linux... (a la Munich, etc).
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Wouldn't the EU be better employed taking Microsoft to task over the poor security in Windows/Outlook allowing yet another worm/virus to cause system outages and lost revenue to myriads of companies and individuals? Rather than worrying about a bloated MP3 player???
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Notethe part: It will also be necessary to take account of the effective economic capacity of offenders to cause significant damage to other operators - in particular consumers - and to set the fine at a level which ensures that it has a sufficiently deterrent effect.
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If it's just writing documents, then they can use OpenOffice and learn MSOffice later. It's not like they can't learn more things.
If they're learning hardware, the OS shouldn't matter.
If they're learning programming, a mix would be best. Learn the Microsoft tools, learn python, learn C++, whatever.
The only reason I can see to specifically run Windows is if you're running an MCSE program.
But for the INFRASTRUCTURE, go with Linux.
The shear fact is that the EU is totaly anti-american, be it Bush jr, or MS.
Anti-Bush != Anti-American
Anti-MS != Anti-American
Outside of the USA, there are very few people who like Bush. But that does not mean we are anti-American. That's just the kind of limited thinking that Bush seems to promote. You're either with him, or against him, and if you're against him, then you're Unamerican.
According to Bush:
Anti-Bush == Unamerican where person == American
Anti-Bush == Anti-American where person != American
You make it appear like if you can freely choose what OS you want to use.
If it was not for the fine folks that bring us *BSD and Linux, your choices would be down to MS and between a tiny company called Apple making some nice computers. er, somewhere, which received some major investment from MS itself.
Do you like an out of the box os? Fine, good for you. I don't and I should not be forced to get one if I want to buy a new computer from any major manufacturer.
I can convince some of them to sell me a computer without OS but they masy still charge me fro an OS I did not buy. Try buying a new laptop without Windows. That is the convinience and choice to which lazy people are sommiting all of us.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Likewise, all the companies and individuals suffering outages due to another worm virus getting through poor Microsoft product security can countersue Microsoft...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Yes! Yes! Flog them into submission!
Consider:
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
Go and check the definition of what an OS is.
Damn, people here are suppossed to be informed about these issues....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You know what I would like to see ... is that Microsoft just pull all copies out of all of Europe and then let Europe experience the horror of trying to use Linux. Sure Linux is good for us nerds, but lets see how much of an uprise there is when the internet market in Europe takes a dive because the mom and pop shops can no longer use the ineternet to place orders and mom and dad can no longer buy their goods off line because they can't figure out how to launch the internet browser.
Creating a good OS isn't hard. Look at BeOS. If Microsoft did pull out all it's copies from Europe, then there'd be a race to see who could fill the gap in the market. Capitalism, you see, when not abused by monopolies, responds well to situations like that. People could use OSX, or a few billion could be thrown toward Linux, and the problem would be solved. The only difficulty is lock-in. If you remove that, Microsoft wouldn't stand too much of a chance. Look at IE compared to Firebird. Clearly the latter is superior, but the former is more widely used. Why? Because Microsoft bundles it in.
You guys all have Microsoft to thanks for the advancement of the internet on the masses and if you think anything else you are crazy and blind. The internet would still be something that is used in the back of corporations down in the basement if it wasn't for Microsoft giving everybody a PC that they could easily use.
This is the same Microsoft that missed the whole start of the home internet revolution? If Microsoft wasn't around, that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be easy-to-use PCs. Hell, there's always Macs, even if you can't accept the possibility that other companies and individuals can design OSes much better than Microsoft can.
There is a fundamental difference being having a competitive advantage (which is a GOOD thing) and anti-comptetitive behavior. Having a monopoly isn't even illegal. Using an existing monopoly (such as Windows) as leverage to acquite another monoppoly (such as browsers or media players) is however illegal.
The heights of genius are only measurable by the depths of stupidity
Let's repeat one more time...
People don't buy Windows. They buy computers that happen to have Windows installed.
Only now in the US are we starting to see places offer PC's with Linux pre-installed. I don't know of ANY big stores that do that in Europe (admittedly, my knowledge is restricted to Spain and Italy).
The UK is very much part of the EU. Please don't mod things as informative just because they might look like they know what they're talking about.
Wouldn't that indicate illegal subsidies and unfair trade? Surely MSFT could then push the US government in to taking action via the WTO. If the EU were to do this, all we'd hear would be the sound of Americans whining like they do about Boeing and Airbus.
then you always end up with endless arguments about what constitutes a person or company's "net worth."
Now that tax preparation season is upon U.S. the CCR lyrics come to mind...
"Provided by the management for your protection."
MS is a convicted abuser of their monopoly power.
Repeat to me: convicted. We are not guessing, we are not venturing an opinion, we are stating a matter of fact proven in a court of law.
I did not make it up. They lost, not only once, but twice when they went to appeal.
If MS has some amount of competition that is beyond the point, that has been facilitated by a ruling that although only slapped them in the wirst, showed without any doubt the immorall company they are.
The situation is so bad that the only way a creadible competition could be organized was for people mightly desperate about the state of affairs decided to donate their work to ensure there is some freedom of choice.
For all practical purposes, any commercial alternatives were buried due to the predatory practices of MS.
But people like you will not rest until Photoshop goes away, Tomb Raider goes away, AutoCad goes away and every single software company that ever had an idea goes away and the only company allowed to produce software, and by extension, the only company that decides how and when people access the Internet, is MS.
I want no part of your world, thank you very much.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
For all you North Americans- there is symbolism attached to having the decision released May 1st.
That's labour day in Europe. The holiday had communist roots, which is why it was moved to the first Monday in September in North America.
Not trying to start a troll-fest, just pointing out a cultural dimension to this.
It's almost a perfect example of the UK position on Europe.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Hahaha! Rubbish indeed. I guess you haven't heard of Parmalat, who now has every oneof its managers sitting in jail for the last three weeks for accounting fraud on the scale of $19bn - $23bn. The Italians themselves threw these folk heroes in jail before the proof has even been established. According to last night's Bloomberg, they are not even being charged yet, but sure enough they are sitting in jail, eating porridge...Microsoft should be glad they are not based in Europe.
[Please sign here]
People like Windows. If they didn't, they wouldn't buy it.
A couple of points:
* Few people buy windows. They buy a pre-built system, and it comes with windows.
* Because of some of the things Microsoft has done (like keeping the Office format secret to avoid compatible software), they have *produced* a situation where the easiest short term thing to do is to buy their products.
May we never see th
It's a no brainer, reduced support costs, and you get to dodge the viruses, too.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
How is the EU going to get around Microsoft's jurisdiction provision in its licensing agreements? Most users of MS agreed to the license, right? In Private International disputes, the EU and US have honored these choice of law provisions. I am not certain, but aren't any legal disputes regarding Microsoft's product to be decided according to the laws of the State of Washington? Eventhough the EU is claiming that MS violated their competition laws, doesn't the license have influence over which laws apply. Surely, MS is not in compliance with most countries' competition laws. There is a conference coming up called the Hague Conference on Private International Law Jurisdiction which is aiming to resolve jurisdictional issues among foreign private parties. Most contries involved support enforcement of jurisdictional clauses in licenses.
Jax
Blatantly wrong. iTunes is compatible with most MP3 players. You're probably referring to the fact that most other players don't support AAC or Fairplay protected AAC files (perhaps you meant to specify the iTunes Music Store?). Get it right, you make yourself sound like a dumbass Linux user rather than a hardcore Linux user.
The vast majority of Slashdot readers made up their minds about Microsoft years ago.
Maybe M$ will exchange a back door for a clean bill of stealth. https://www.politrix.org/foia/nsa/nsa-ms-spy.htm
... that's a robberbaronhood!
This is something I have been saying for ages yet nobody seems to listen. So I'll say it again. MOST ORGANISATIONS SHOULD/DO NOT ALLOW THEIR USERS TO PLAY WITH THE OPERATING SYSTEM.
Essentially, for most users, all the OS needs to provide is a pretty blue background and a few icons to click on. Everything else after that is so much window dressing - the user shouldn't be setting up printers/sharing resources over the network/figuring out how to play whatever file type. The system should be locked down such that the user can't do this in the first place. Because that way madness lies.
I have yet to see a corporate, school or college Windows box which wasn't in some way restricted, frequently to the point that the all-singing PC almost becomes a half-a-dozen task "kiosk". In which case Linux is not only ready, it's been ready for years.
Yes, it requires a total change of direction from a systems admin perspective. But the user? Feh.
And on that positive note, bye bye karma...
Not to mention I think this round of DRM won't end up any differently than it did for DAT/Minidisc/Dataplay -- eventual marginalization vs. products that actually want to work.
Oddly enough Minidisc is at least marginally popular in Europe. At least I have both a portable player and a deck on my component stereo, and I can find pre-recorded Minidisc in some music stores if I go looking for them.
Sad but true.
[Please sign here]
This happens every eighteen months or so. EU makes noises about "Microsoft" and "antitrust" or "monopoly", and then proceeds to do absolutely nothing about it, and it fades into the background again. If the EU is so serious about combatting the Microsoft abuses of monopoly power, then why don't they FUCKING ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING rather than waste air yammering away about it.
People don't know that there's anything apart from Windows.
If they didn't, they wouldn't buy it.
Their computer had windows preinstalled. I seriously doubt 99.9% of the regular people have seen a Windows CD, or, even less likely, *bought* a windows CD.
Indeed, some moderators think (?) that "Insightful" is the same as "Ignorant".
We're not anti-American here in Europe, we just want regime change, so that our friends in the US can breathe the sweet air of freedom.
They should have done the same thing in the U.S. too..
I'd LOVE to see Bill just say "yeah...ok, I'm pretty much set...sooooo..we're closing down..thanks..seeeeeeeeeeya!"
If these euro-leeches want to rob businesses just because they're successful...let them try and get by without the benefits of capitalism...say hello to the dark ages again europe
The problem is, the EU only does the "right thing" when it applies to foreign companies, foreign agriculture (especially 3rd world agriculture), etc.
Cows in the EU get a subsidy equivilent to $250 per year from the EU. There are a billion people in the world that subsist on less than $200 a year.
Pressure from the EU on Zimbabwe was the major reason why American GM corn was turned back at the ports in the midst of a famine. Can't feed the starving people in Zimbabwe franken food, because it might jeapoardize future EU contracts. This is exactly what was threatened.
Oh yeah, the EU, making a habit of doing the right thing.
If Bill Gates had said "Hey, this Netscape thing is pretty cool. Let's license it and bundle it with Windows 95 Release 2," he would have saved himself from the trial and the financial losses there entailed.
If Bill Gates had said "Hey, this Real Audio player is pretty cool. Let's license it and bundle it with Windows 98," he would have saved himself from the trial and the financial losses there entailed.
If Bill Gates had said "Hey, this GNU software is pretty cool. Let's bundle it with Windows 2000," he would have saved himself from the trial and the financial losses there entailed.
If you remember, the economic downturn started when Judge Pensfield Jackson announced the verdict of the anti-trust trial. Indirectly, Bill Gates' hubris plunged the world into a recession.
I say we hang him.
Giving away free copies of MS products to schools helps the monopoly, it doesn't help competition! It shuts down the possibility of competing products in those schools! Having M$ give part of that fine money to fund open source or to a sw foundation to help growing sw companies are the things that might help competition?
Because Media Player and IE themselves are just frontends. They are just wrappers that make calls to system services. In Media Player's case, it's DirectShow, in IE's it's the MSHTML engine. Well ripping these out of the OS is a bad idea since many things depend on them. To remove DirectShow is to break all pro A/V software, alternative media players that use it (such as Media Player Classic), many games, and so on.
Remember: Windows isn't Linux and 99.9% of users don't want it to be. Linux is defined as nothing but a kernel, what you put from there is up to you. So you can have Linux systems with totally different UI's libraries and so on. This is fine for geeks, but frustrating for normal users since you have no gaurentee that you have the dependencies you need (and have to go track them down and download).
Windows (and MacOS, and Solaris, and many others) are defined as not just the kernel, but other associated services and such. It is expected that Windows will have it's GUI, it's HTML rendering and such. It's all part of the OS. While this may be frustrating to geeks, it's precisely what normal users want. They don't want to have a program say "sorry, but I can't run until you download X and Y and Z libraries and get them running on your system". They just want it to run.
So who really wins?
Looks like another tax winfall for the government.
Now if they make them give back money to everyone who can produce a valid Windows license I would be all for it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Alright, let me try again. People like Windows. How do I know? Observation. I installed Linux on my brother's box for my family not too long ago. My whole family hated it and the next time I was there they made me uninstall it and put Windows on it. I go to school at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. For many of our computer science assignments we are required to code in a Unix environment; however when you walk into a Unix lab, you will see a lot of people using a Windows frontend. It's a lot slower, but a lot of people still do this. Why? Because they like Windows...And these are just the computer scientists. Sure there are a lot of people who like Linux, but there are a lot more people who like Windows. In addition, if they don't know about Linux, I am sure that if given the choice, they would still take the easier operating system. It's about convenience, and although Linux can be useful to a common user if you would like to take the time to make it useful, Windows is useful to common users right after installation.
You know what I would like to see ... is that Microsoft just pull all copies out of all of Europe and then let Europe experience the horror of trying to use Linux. Sure Linux is good for us nerds, but lets see how much of an uprise there is when the internet market in Europe takes a dive because the mom and pop shops can no longer use the ineternet to place orders and mom and dad can no longer buy their goods off line because they can't figure out how to launch the internet browser.
I think that would be the best thing for Europe. Many tech companies in Europe have more than enough Linux expertise to make that happen. The online retailers whose websites are braindead enough not to work in a proper browser would go bankrupt and those who know their business (i.e. HTML) would prosper. The computer companies who cannot preinstall Linux on a computer would die, and those who know how to do it would prosper. It would weed out the crap quasi-tech companies and leave us with the good ones.
You need to quite blowing smoke out your but. WM9 is a tremendously advanced and well designed codec.
You just have to know what your doing as the default encoding is 64kbps or 96kbps for music - you can always push it to 192k and get cd quality +.
WM9 is the only codec to reliably handle HDTV (1080P yes Progressive scan 1080 signal (thats 1920x1080 resolution). That is freely distributeable and easily licensed for commercial applications.
If you want proprietary get a Mac and Quicktime.
But rest assured, the EU is investigating Linux as well. Of course the question here is "can we switch to this?" instead of "should we ban this?"...
" No, because Microsoft insist that when you buy a new pre-assembled PC, you have to buy Windows also..."
...get help
Yeah, because you can't get them without windows..ever...(disregard any previous stories/links on slashdot about linux/lindows/etc on new machines)
And of course you could never BUILD A MACHINE YOURSELF!!!
There are no companies where you can buy parts on the net...no siree..
Why shoul Microsoft be forced to support a competitor if Apple doesn't even bother to port to linux quicktime support?
They ported to windows because there is money to be made and its a large market.
Maybe someone will port to linux whenever there is money to be made and a large market.
I get tired of coming off as pro-M$, because I'm not. In fact, I can't stand their lack of morality/ethics; however, I dislike even more the lack of an objective approach to everything M$ on slashdot. We're smarter than that. Just like every other company, M$ does things wrong and does things right. Look how the OP asserts machiavellian over-tones into the practice of M$ giving away discounted software to schools. Apple has been doing this since their inception (why do you think most of us grew up with the Apple IIe at school?) Nobody bashes Intel for doing it with hardware.
There are PLENTY of legitimate and objective beefs about M$ we can harp on, let's try to avoid sounding displaying the subjectivity that is a business Windows user's last resort...
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I guess you havn't purchased a car lately huh?
Thank god for the new GM on star that usually routes things through a proprietary stereo that you can't replace.
Don't bother using your diagnostic computer as well - your going to have to buy new codes.
Oh yeah, don't even think about replacing some of the electronics or upgrading the GPS system.
Your analogy of the car is pointless. The PC isn't changing and if your comparing apples ot apples a PC that can run Linux is no different then a PC that can run Windows. The choice is yours and microsoft isn't making that for you.
However, i you will never get anywhere if you try replacing the OS, the Guts and the controls of any car you buy today without as much work as it would take to do the same to windows.
Analogy disqualified. Thankyou DRIVE through.
People like Windows? Some do. But, and this is the important bit, MOST have never tried anything else. Make someone use Windows, BeOS, Linux, QNX and MacOS X for 3 months each and then see what the opinion is.
I don't think, in general, people LIKE Windows per se. They just assume it's all there is. The media always harps on about "desk rage", and viruses, security, crashes etc., as if they're just common day-to-day "computer things". So few people, apart from us geeks, consider that there are OSes out there which DON'T suffer from viruses and crashes and slowdowns. And because they don't know, they think Windows is OK.
Agree... except...
;)
<quote>could it not be possible that somewhere in the EU beaurocracy there are some people who are actually trying to do the right thing?</quote>
No.
This is where the serious fun begins.
Wait, I'm confused. Is Linux a viable alternative to Windows, or isn't it? Oh, and isn't Linux free?
And what about the Mac? What about Free/OpenBSD? What about the dozens of niche OS's and hardware vendors?
It's absolutely laughable to claim Microsoft has an OS monopoly. Truly, it's beyond laughable, it's insane and ridiculous.
Don't waste time with all the law suits, etc. Just buy a Mac or put Linux/*BSD on your x86 PC! None of my computers run WinXX - either Linux (Debian) or Mac OS X!
That is exactly what subsidies do: they contaminate the market with force (government) in order to benefit some group (special interests) at the expense of everyone else.
The free market is built on the principle of voluntary association -- nobody is forced to produce, and nobody is forced to consume, and nobody may forcibly prevent either from occurring. Subsidies are the exact opposite: the producers are forced to produce according to the demands of government, and the consumers are forced to fund the whole scheme. (Of course, like all redistribution of wealth, government keeps a profit for themselves.)
the soon-to-be former prime minister, is a huge Gates fanboy. The knighthood for Gates is undoubtedly one of his nominations.
--
E_NOSIG
How can the EU enforce either? Not FB or Trolling, just wondering how they can stop MS from doing business when they refuse to pay the fine. US can't enforce anything against MS and it had Federal Marshals that could have gone in with guns!
So honest answers to an honest question, lets not start a US-EU or a then/now shitfest.
Will the EU stop all retailers from handling MS if they refuse to pay? That would be a great prescedent, one I hope the US emulates.
Erm, why do you think this is just the "Linux vs Windows" argument all over again??
If anything, this issue *doesn't* affect us Linux users at all because we get plenty of *choice* for media players.
The issue is that as a Windows user, you are forced to used Windows Media Player because that's what's bundled with Windows - unless you have the ability to install / configure something else.
That may be fine for the moment and you may be happy using WMP. But what happens when DRM comes in and you find you can't listen to music or watch movies in the way you were previously able to? Oh, and I'm talking about music and movies you *legitimately* own so don't try to turn this into a piracy argument, please...
This issue affects the Windows community first until such time that MS get their way and *everybody* has to use proprietary media standards rather than more open ones.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Quote:
"Linux can be useful to a common user if you would like to take the time to make it useful, Windows is useful to common users right after installation."
Funny, my experience was exactly the opposite.
I installed RH9 a while ago (from a magazine cover disc) and it was useful immediately - web browser, CD burning, office suite, printer etc. etc. all working with no configuration etc. to do. I reinstalled windows and all these items need configuration/installation.
Also, the RH9 install took about 1-2 hours, mostly copying files from CD.
The windows install took 2 weeks worth of 2 hour daily attempts as the installer crashed repeatedly at different points until I worked out I had to remove the soundcard and disconnect the secondary hard drive before installing.
Cows in the EU get a subsidy equivilent to $250 per year from the EU. There are a billion people in the world that subsist on less than $200 a year.
Except the EU has been cutting farming subsidies, while the US has been raising them. And even more poignantly:
FARM SUBSIDY PER COW
EU: $803
USA: $1,057
JAPAN: $2,555
The EU's no angel, but then none of the post-industrial nations are.
Let's not forget Microsoft's settlement with Be Inc. over their antitrust suit. $23m is a paltry sum to the big MS, but effectively they were saying "we won't admit any wrong doing, but here's some money to help you forget about it anyway."
For those that missed it, Hitachi were going to ship a dual-boot machine with Windows and BeOS. The Windows desktop was to include an icon to allow the user to reboot into BeOS. Microsoft didn't like this, and sent two managers to Japan to enforce the Windows licence. The system ended up shipping with no indication that BeOS was even installed.
This put other major distributors off doing the same, even when Be offered the OS free.
Now, I'm not particularly anti-success or even anti-Windows. I believe it's done a lot for promoting standardised hardware development and easy-to-use GUIs if nothing else. But to draw on analogy, this behaviour reminds me of one big muscle-bound kid refusing to share his toys with the other children. When this kid gets told off by the teachers (US/EU), he's initially angry and defensive but *may* end up saying sorry and handing out some sweets to keep everyone quiet. This probably won't change his fundamental behaviour though - he'll just be more careful the next time. There is no obvious solution to this problem because the kid has been brought up this way, in the same way that Microsoft is used to being top dog and many people expect it. Things may well be different when the kids grow up - but don't expect any sudden changes just because the EU has spotted some misbehaviour.
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
Only in the same disingenuous way that outlawing slavery infringed upon the slaveowners' "god-given" right to profit from their "property". Should the catering for basic human needs (incl. the right to acquire and exchange information) be criminalized unless US corporations are allowed to bid for contracts on such "deals"? IT as part of the basic modern infrastructure is a resource, a tool, that should not be owned or controlled by non-public entities and neither should IT as an academic science. Entrepreneurs are still fully able (probably even more so than under the current monopolistic system) to innovate and build solutions upon such an open foundation. However abusing those resouces will become much more difficult when the ground rules have been established. US may be teetering on the edge, in the confusion of having religion and ultra-nationalism/ultra-patriotism misguidedly mixed with the increasingly "holy" notion of ultra-capitalism, but the vast majority of the world has adopted capitalism in a far more moderate form, with various levels of "social democracy" in the mix. Most people seem to agree that vital resources of the society such as education, health-care and basic transport, communication and information infrastructures need overseeing by the people's representatives (i.e. government). In the standard mixed economies like those in the EU private companies compete for contracts in many of these fields, but ultimately they must follow the rules set by the government and they must also be "compatible" with the rest of the infrastructure.
Most of the economies of the WTO member states are indeed of the mixed form and for the USA to try pushing the agenda of their home-grown monopolies (of global scale) will not only burn more bridges but it will also be futile in the end, unless the rest of the world magically decides to adopt US-style ultra-capitalism and all that it would entail.
WRT. Boeing vs Airbus and the issue of subsidies, some might argue that the massive, lucrative and seemingly never-ending contracts between Boeing and (ironically) the tax-payer funded US military bear certain resemblance to subsidies in wolf's clothing but I suppose it's alright as long as there are honest-to-god (military-)industrialists within that chain of transactions.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
He's right, Microsoft's codecs are no slouch; they're up there with the best of them(OGG, AAC, MPEG4, etc). No one is suffering quality issues because of the codec; although the operator on the other hand...
Simple; the US didn't enforce anything on MS because MS contributed a lot of money to Bush, and he instructed Ashcroft to ignore MS. See how US politics works now?
Two things:
The free market is not the answer to all economic issues. It is inherently unstable. Over time a free market will evolve into an oligopoly (a few large businesses that have so much combined market power they can set price) or a monopoly. This is because scale effects make it more profitable to be big, so there is (in most markets) a constant drive to merge. So, government HAS to regulate the market.
Also, the reason for subsidies serving special interests is obvious. Politicians respond to those who yell loudest. If you don't like it, form your own special interest, and start pushing back. Campaign finance reform might help in the US, but in most EU countries campaign financing law is pretty strict, and politicians respond to special interests there too.
All I see is the worlds richest woman knighting the worlds richest man.
As they say, Birds of a feather..
When will people realize that any government action only hurts the marketplace in the long run. The only way to make a real difference is to teach your children, neighbors, or friends about the alternatives. If they choose Linux, or a Mac, great. If they stay with Windows, fine. At least they made a reasonably informed decision.
The only thing Microsoft has done that smells of illegalities is its leveraging of OEM licenses to prevent OEMs from offering Linux, or no OS at all, as an option. By the way, did you notice that Dell is now selling PCs with some version of non-MS DOS?
Things may not be changing at the pace most people would like to see. But they are changing. There is no quick fix.
Microsoft didn't have anything to do with the creation of the internet or the GUI. But Microsoft is the one that made the internet popular and a home name that everybody knew. You guys are all trying to confuse the topic, granted Microsoft doesn't initially create much of what they sell or make popular, but it is because of their software THAT IT IS POPULAR. With out Windows you would still probably have only 10% of the world using it and none of this great technology we would see. Such as VOIP, MP3, Instant Messaging. We would all still be stuck in the world of Land Lines, Wave Files, and IRC. AOL put the internet to the masses back in 95 - 99, but with out Microsoft AOL wouldn't even have exisited.
So get off your high horse and come down and realize much of what you take granted for today is because of Microsoft. You wouldn't have your MP3 players, CD Burners, etc. Because no company wants to make these products for 10% of the population. And even if Mac did take over they had such a lock on their hardware that none of these products would have came along anyways.
Actually I've been trying to find a car these days, and you're absolutely correct. However, 90% of the market is controlled by one car company. If I don't want onstar, I'll leave GM. It's that simple.
Anyways, the analogy was flawed from the beginning. Your response should've have not been aimed at me.
Seems a dollar is worth less, so Microsoft could be paying much more that what it seems due to the exchange rate.
Why should Microsoft be fined billions of dollars because there are no entreprenuers taking up the task of building another OS? It's a choice and you can run whatever OS you'd like. It's a free market system. If you don't want bundled applications with the software you buy, then don't buy the software. It seems like a relatively simple concept. If there isn't any other software, then don't use a computer. No one is forcing anyone to use a PC at home. If any other software sector lacks choices but I need to do something I just buy the best option, even if I am paying for optional things I won't use. In the free market you look at the alternatives that the market is offering and you choose the alternative that is the best for your needs and that you can afford. If no options exists, then you just do without or decide to buy something that might not meet all of your needs but that will suffice for most of them until something else comes along or you become an entreprenuer and create that something else yourself becauase you see a need in the market. The answer is not to sue the market until it provides the product that you think it should provide.
"Clearly the best solution to an operating system monopoly is to give free copies of windows to school and eliminate the competition as early in the education process as possible"
its not like your beloved Apple hasnt been doing this from the start with hardware.
I've never used RH, but apparently it's a distro that is doing the exact same thing that people are admonishing Windows for in the article above. Also, I find it hard to believe you spent 28 hours installing Windows.
Of dealing with Europe, specifically, leaving. People forget that multi-nationals can do that. If the EU fines them for greater than the profit from the EU market they can, and probably will, leave.
Ok so lets take our thinking caps out and think one moment about what OS schools like elementary and middle schools would be running instead. Linux? Get real, you can't teach linux to a bunch of 9 year olds. OS X? Possible, Apple has had a good grip on the school system before when it offered good discounts to schools. And then you have windows. Lets face it people, as much as you would take anally to not admit it, MS is the best thing for this kids to learn at this point in their lives.
And the cash strapped Europeons will just roll over and take it up the ass for a few American greenbacks!
I'm still confused. A monopoly is defined as the theoretical clueless user being unable to go out and download a new media player?
Wait, wait. I'm really confused. If _no_ media player came with Windows, they would still have to go out and download/configure a media player. So they're actually better off without a player pre-installed? Hmm, that's...special thinking.
And DRM? What? You don't understand. DRM music would come from a third party. You couldn't play it unless your player supported DRM.
The whole DRM bugaboo is getting old. You can do what you want with content you _own_. Encode it without DRM, Microsoft will never prevent that. The whole thing is a bunch of FUD and I'm amazed that people keep repeating it.
No other DRM system actually lets you choose your player.
This is true right now, but it's important to distinguish technical realities and business realities. It's a current business reality that only iPods support AAC encoded music with the DRM (FairPlay?) used by Apple. But I don't think this format is less open as a technical standard than WinDRM, and the business reality could change if other music player vendors decide they want to be compatible with the iTunes music store.
If I'm wrong about this, please anyone correct me.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
XML Tools for Mac OS X
(Yes, telepathy is possible, just very expensive - read last year's news if you don't believe it.)
While it can be very entertaining to have the whole world revolve around you (including politicians and hollywood stars) the ultimate goal of this kind of game is to kill the player.
My interest is not purly academical: I'm trapped in a street game right now and you might see why I very much want to break out of this one.
If you're wondering what a street game is like: It's like being trapped in The Matrix and The Game, with a bit of The Truman Show and Being John Malkovich thrown in.
The game is wasting a lot of money around me to annoy me and surprise me, but it's more like a cat playing with a mouse it intends to kill sooner or later.
If you want to help me break ouf of this game you can make 25.000 Euro, which is my offer for anybody who explains to me what this matrix is, I'm trapped in.
I'm not sure I can be reached by internet or by phone and even if you reach somebody it might be somebody pretending to be me (so don't waste your time on that). The only way I recommend (without really knowing what's going on, of course) is to get close enough to me that the game has to pay your for your cooperation. Since my offer is 25.000 Euro you should be able to get this money from the game if they need you to cooperate.
Please make them pay this amount as I really would like to see them run out of money!
You can find me in the following places. (please have a look at my homepage and/or my journal for updates to this travel plan):
Addis Ababa: just getting thrown out by the police.
Berlin, Potsdamer Platz, 28-29 January 2004.
New York, Central Park, 01-03 February 2004.
Chicao, ?, 04-06 February 2004.
Los Angeles, 07-12 February 2004.
Sydney, 13-15 February 2004.
Tokyo, 16-18 Feburary 2004.
Bombay, 19-21 Feburary 2004.
THIS ACCOUNT IS NO LONGER IN USE, PLEASE DELETE.
What useful technology has come out of Europe in the last 100 years. Nothing. The telephone. No The internet. No The Unix OS. No The Windows OS. No TCP-IP. No The GUI. No The Aeroplane. No The lightbulb/Electrical Networks. No So where is the great Euro Innovation that everybody keeps talking about. All that Euro is gaining money off any more is selling their past, but charging people to come into Galleries.
Welcome to the dark ages Europe. If you think that your businesses can stand with out the Windows backbone, try it and see. You will find that your population hates having to have an expert setup their Linux Computers. And you will also find that people hate the over priced Mac OS.
Also many of you keep saying with out Microsoft there would be capitalism. Excuse me but did you miss a couple classes in your Macro-Econ classes. Because in the market, the consumer decides what they want, and the consumer has picked Microsoft. What you are proposing is as a qausi-Capitalism/Socialism and I guess that is the limited thinking that has kept Euro on the back burner all these years.
Wait, I'm confused. Is Linux a viable alternative to Windows, or isn't it?
-- It all depends. Other solutions (other than Linux) might be an alternative to Windows. it all depends on how smart your IT management is to understand the exact needs of the company and act upon it. Linux can make or brake your company, so can Windows, so can Unix.
Oh, and isn't Linux free?
-- as in *free speech* not *free beer*. Remember that.
And what about the Mac? What about Free/OpenBSD? What about the dozens of niche OS's and hardware vendors?
Like I said...yes and no.
It's absolutely laughable to claim Microsoft has an OS monopoly. Truly, it's beyond laughable, it's insane and ridiculous.
on the desktop market. YES. MS has an absolute monopoly. The problem is not Microsoft. The problem is the competition. We'll know when the competition is ready to compete and balance the monopoly.
The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid. Fcuknig amzanig eh!
Plus, in this extremely unlikely event (MS pulls out of EU), the EU nations could declare it an 'emergency situation' and pass laws allowing (for example) corporate versions of windows with no activation to be freely copied and distributed unless and until MS played ball... But MS won't pull out, because they know they would permanantly lose many customers in a fairly short time and would never get their trust back even if the EU backed down after a while.
The shear fact is that the EU is totaly anti-american
.02EUR
QUE?I'm glad I know so many cool and insightful americans, and that I - as most other europeans - really love America and what it's about. We just have a problem with their policy and certain corperations! And we also believe in fair justice: we want the big guys to play by the same rules as everyone else, be it MS or Bush Jr.
Apparently, there is a certain (strong) movement in America these days, that don't give a flying rat about these principles, be it anti-competitive laws or commiting "preventive" regime-changes.
(Heck, several European countries were amongst the socalled coalition of "willing" and these governments are ALSO getting beaten badly these days!)
I'm sorry, if this sound anti-anything. We simply refer to it as fairness and equality.
If you have a problem with the law, change it! That's just how the cilivized world is working...
Just my
you failding fucked it
In fact, the fine is capped at 10% of the undertaking's total worldwide turnover in the previous year. So, the fine could be a maximum of $3,500,000,000.
Is the cap for just one year? It would make far more sense for the fine to be capped at the illigitemate earnings over the period of the abuse. In this case, Microsoft's European earnings for the last several years (or a percentage thereof).
Of course, at the EU level the corporations write the law almost as much as the do in the United States, so 10% of one year's earnings is probably all the larger corporations would allow.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Errata... "However, 90% of the market is controlled by one car company." should read "However, 90% of the market is NOT controlled by one car company."
Sorry
This isn't the debate I was interested in at the moment, but I will point out that you have no proof for what you're saying. (It's all theory, because no purely free market exists.) You certainly can't cite the US market, which is smothered in regulations and taxes (force). Microsoft, for example, would never have been able to achieve the market dominance they did without exploiting the force of government. Your position is all theory, just like my position is all theory. (And there is no shortage of anarcho-capitalist theory showing exactly why free markets DO work.)
If you don't like it, form your own special interest, and start pushing back.
Everyone wants a piece of the pie: a handout, special provisions, penalties against the competition, etc. You are suggesting that instead of trying to achieve true justice, we should all keep trying to take a piece of the pie, feeding government with more power and more revenue?
No, the solution is not to bake more pie. The solution is to eliminate the pie (eliminate force in the market) and have everyone compete on fair terms: voluntary association.
I would be happy to use RealPlayer, except that a long time ago I equated Realplayer with Spyware and quit using it.
Media Player gives me the OPTION of having an autonomous system ID sent with my usage patterns, but I opt out of it. I have no such control with Realplayer. Any machine I own I make sure that Realplayer is removed and I will not use it.
Does Realplayer still include spyware with their distrobution? I don't know - and I really don't care to find out.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
You have to have some room to fix things. Well defined and documented APIs are as much as can reasonably be asked for, and MS provides them.
Now... file formats on the other hand...
It's OK to bash MS over issues like bundling and integration, but saying that WMP is crap only shows you to be biased. Windows Media Player is actually a very good app. Hate Microsoft all you want, but be honest about WMP.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I said it before and I'll say it again - they are no longer a monopoly - those who call them one are simply living in the past.
Oh yeah and can we stop asking for things to be removed like Media Player? It's a moot point now that EVERY OS comes with a gazillion tools built in.
>>I'm still confused. A monopoly is defined as the theoretical clueless user being unable to go out and download a new media player?
No. A monopoly is defined as an organisation that unfairly uses its influence in the marketplace to stamp out competition. WMP (media player) is being used by Microsoft (monopoly) to stamp out competition (open standards).
>>Wait, wait. I'm really confused. If _no_ media player came with Windows, they would still have to go out and download/configure a media player.
No, they would have to go out and *choose* a media player to download, based on the standards that media player supports. If you read my other posts, you'd see that the issue is *NOT* the bundling of WMP with Windows but the fact that it gets DRM (a technology that restricts your rights to use music and movies you own in any way you want to) in through the "back door". Microsoft give *NOTHING* away for free...
>>And DRM? What? You don't understand. DRM music would come from a third party. You couldn't play it unless your player supported DRM.
And??? Currently, I can buy a CD player by any manufacturer (because Philips released the CD standard to the world) and play my CDs in it. I can go buy those CDs from Amazon, a Virgin Megastore, wherever... I can then take the CD home, play it on my PC, rip MP3s for my MP3 player, burn compilation CDs, etc. etc.
In the DRM world, I need to buy a player that supports DRM technology and probably pay *more* (because the player manufacturer has had to pay a license fee to Microsoft) to do less with my music because I'll be restricted from burning/copying/etc.
>>The whole DRM bugaboo is getting old. You can do what you want with content you _own_.
Tell me now - could you easily convert DVD movies you own to play from a VCD or flashmem until a hacker broke the DVD encryption protection???
>>Encode it without DRM, Microsoft will never prevent that.
Of course they won't! That's because they'll be charging me for restricting my rights to what I can legitimately do with the music and movies I own! Plus they can keep charging me for upgrades also...
>>The whole thing is a bunch of FUD and I'm amazed that people keep repeating it.
Maybe people keep repeating it because it's a *legitimate* concern? Had that thought crossed your mind?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Despite the parent post is a troll, just couple of things: Linux, Nokia mobiles - I guess you own these things :)
MySQL Error 1040: Can't return sig, Too many connections!
When I was reading through these posts it appeared to me that most people would like to use better quality software, but don't know either how to install it, or do not want to go through the hassle of setting all this up (and go to tens of sites).
There is a simple solution!
Make one program, (Open Source ofcourse), which will list alternatives for stuff like IE, MS Media Player, Notepad, compression ultilities, office applications, etc. etc. Then allow software developers to register their application to it (similar to apt-get), and allow users to rate the different software packages provided and allow them to sort the results on popularity, vitality and rating (just like Freshmeat does). Then, to allow for ease of use, let maintainers make a good selection of the best media players, compression utilities, office applications and allow users to install these selections in a couple of clicks. When registration is necessary for certain programs, make a standard XML interface to these websites so people can do everything in one program.
Eventually, it is sort of a combination of Freshmeat and Debians apt-get system with the ease of use of a standard installer.
I'm certain that if users will get this ease of use and see the added benefit, they'll have a much more compelling reason to use these alternative programs. They'll start telling eachother about the software which will raise it's popularity.
This is a replacement signature.
"No. A monopoly is defined as an organisation that unfairly uses its influence in the marketplace to stamp out competition. WMP (media player) is being used by Microsoft (monopoly) to stamp out competition (open standards)."
You haven't been paying attention. It's not illegal to be a monopoly. OK let's say I'm selling left handed wingebangers. Oh look, I now have a monopoly. No-one else is selling left handed wingebangers. I had better stop now because I'm so evil. Riiight.
If the whole point of the legal actions against Microsoft is to break up its monopoly in some way then where is the money going to go to?
Consider if the money - which I would argue - will come close to $1 billion were spent to help fund open source projects: eg Mozilla, Open Office, Freedesktop.org, KDE and GNOME projects.
All are in legitimate need of funding and are crucial to giving consumers a choice for OS and application use. I'm not implying that funding will equate with better quality product, but I'm sure that some of these project could at the very least get some added resources: more computers, internet connections, etc.
Erm, please cut and paste the section in any of my posts where I have said being a monopoly was "illegal" will you? Because I can't find it anywhere...
I have been talking about "abuse of power as a monopoly" just like owning a knife isn't illegal but stabbing somebody with it is...
Stop dodging the core argument you know you've lost already...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
You can believe what you like about my windows reinstall. It happens to be true. It would get most of the way through the installation process (nearly 2hrs) and then crash with a totally meaningless error message just before you got a bootable system. I vaguely remembered reading somewhere about sometimes having to remove certain hardware to get the installer to run and it took me that many attempts to work out the right combination. OK, so if I have to reinstall again, I'll know what to disconnect/remove. But I shouldn't have to.
Your remarks about Red Hat apparently doing 'the same thing' as windows seem to indicate that you've missed the main points of the article.
Red hat and other Linux distros:
1/ Are not generally installed on new PCs whether you like it or not but are installed as a positive choice (unlike Windows).
2/ Do not incorporate applications into the O/S - all the functions I mentioned can be removed completely without any effect on the base operating system. (unlike some of the windows 'applications' which cannot be fully removed because they 'blur' into the OS).
3/ Come with a selection of different tools for each purpose including multiple browsers, office suites, cd burning packages etc. (unlike windows where your 'choice' is made for you).
4/ Ask you during the install process whether you actually want to install any, some or all of these tools (unlike windows, where certain applications must be installed since they form part of the OS).
5/ Gain no monopolistic benefit over their competitors by distributing the many applications it does since its competitors are generally free to distribute the same or equivalent applications at no cost, and the applications are generally not written by or controlled by RH (unlike windows, where MS can (and has been found to in court) severely damaged its competitors).
I could go on but I think I have made my point - the fact that RH or any other distro is supplied with lots of applications is irrelevant for the reasons above. Its behaviour can in no way be described as anti-competitive.
Go ahead.
Say our OS can't be sold in Europe.
Tell your citizens that their old software cannot be used on a new computer.
Tell them the geek community says that Linux is so much better.
Most people on slashdot detest MS but the politicians are the real pond scum.
Regardless of the fevered things that you tell each other, MS is not an evil monopoly! No one forces you to buy anything from MS. Countries that are trying to force MS out are trying to create a monopoly for something in their back yard.
Not in court but in the market place. Clearly the trail itself was more of a punishment than the imposed "penalty"
Maybe the same will happen in Europe. They will be forced to play nice for 5 years. Enough time for Linux on desktop to gain a significant market share, and for OpenOffice to be so significant that .doc documents is no longer accepted as an interchange vehichle.
If that happens the Mission would be accomplished regardless of outcome.
Help fight continental drift.
"Because in the market, the consumer decides what they want, and the consumer has picked Microsoft.
Nonsense. The consumer had no alternative when he wanted to use an Intel machine back in the 80s and early 90s. The only alternative available was DRDOS (NovellDOS) and we all know what happened when a user wanted to have a graphical workspace driven by DRDOS.
By the time there were alternatives, MS's market position already was that of a monopoly and locking in consumers with proprietary formats all over.
"What you are proposing is as a qausi-Capitalism/Socialism and I guess that is the limited thinking that has kept Euro on the back burner all these years."
What backburner do you mean? The one fueling the US's defense industry?
Not forcing someone to choose is not monopolistic. Microsoft doesn't force you to use their media player, nor does it force you to go out and choose another one, as would be the cases if they locked out other applications or didn't include one at all. They are simply offering a default application to get things done out of the box. This does not slow competition at all. User can still choose, they still have free will and the full extent of the free market's options to solving their audio/video problems. DRM or not, a user is not forced to use Media Player. They can go *choose* any media software they want. Simply offering a default application is not stamping out competition.
If it weren't for Microsoft and IE, Netscape would still be *selling* some POS based on Netscape 4.x instead of starting the Mozilla project. I don't want to use Apple's overpriced Mac hardware either. I also don't want to see the OSS brand of lockin where nobody can develop anything non-OSS anymore because they get accused of stealing from a competing product that has its source plastered all over. I'd like to see real competition without the "all or nothing" attitude of the OSS community where they believe that they must be the only thing on the block or just a niche OS for elitists.
As part of the settlement or reparations, the EU should force Microsoft to pay for extensive ad campaigns and re-education initiatives targeted at providing users alternatives to Microsoft's own products (Linux, Mozilla, Real, etc.) -- that way, you not only get them to hand over cash (short-term pain), you also actually start fixing the whole monopoly problem to begin with.
"the EU (therefore by extension the UK)"
/. posters refer to "England's Prime Minister", etc. How difficult can it be to understand one country comprising several states?
Looks to me like the OP saw the irony in the fact that the UK *is* part of the EU, yet is persuing a policy apparently at variance with the EU.
You missed a post there, mate. I was replying to a post that said in its entirity, and I quote: "Actually, the UK is not part of the EU."
It was modded +2 informative, it's now at -1. Which is why you're not seeing it. Try clicking on "parent" on my post and you'll see what I mean.
Mind you, it still grates when
Britain isn't one country comprising several states. It's several countries with a central government. England isn't a state, it's a country. As is Scotland and Wales, and I'm fairly sure Northern Ireland is too. If memory serves, Great Britain is made up of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the UK is Britain and Northern Ireland.
But yep, no such thing as England's prime minister.
I didn't say you said it was illegal. That was what I said. What I was doing was illustrating that your definition of "monopoly" was not the one in common use. BTW I'm not ProtonMotiveForce so I'm not trying to dodge any argument, I'm just correcting you on your use of terminology. k_thx_bye
MS could easily release an installation program to just install the WMA / WMV codecs and DirectShow and whatever, but they don't. They deliberly force you to install the latest Media player. There is no technical reason for this interdependancy.
And what will happen (hopefully) is the EU will simply force them to provide seperate installtion of the backend dlls, and the front end apps.
The Microsoft antitrust case in the USA also looked promising at the beginning.
The people of the USA had a real advocate in Thomas Penfield Jackson who also made up his mind that Microsoft was an illegal monopoly and something substantial needed to be done about it.
Microsoft bought some time with appeals and then bought the USDOJ with their secret cash/spyware deal. Note Microsoft has been one of the biggest cash contributors on Capitol Hill since the sweetheart zero-consequences deal they made. It's no surprise, no one in government has shown any interest in doing anything substantive about the Microsoft monopoly. Why give up your Microsoft Money monthly payment?
I would expect that the EU will get some cash and a better data feed from the Microsoft Spy Network.
And then Greedy Bill can get back to stealing IP from others and screwing the world.
Remember Microsoft's new slogan --
"Your ideas. Our profits."
If it weren't for Microsoft and IE, Netscape would still be *selling* some POS based on Netscape 4.x instead of starting the Mozilla project.
Soo... you're saying that if it weren't for Microsoft, there would be no competition at all for Netscape? Huh?
As I said; capitalism. If IE hadn't come along and created an artifical monopoly, then Netscape would have to compete fairly with other companies. The average home browser would probably be a hell of a lot better.
I don't want to use Apple's overpriced Mac hardware either.
And why is it overpriced? Supply and demand. If everyone started using Macs, for whatever reason, the price would drop.
I also don't want to see the OSS brand of lockin where nobody can develop anything non-OSS anymore because they get accused of stealing from a competing product that has its source plastered all over.
Ah yes, but all such accusations have been, more or less, entirely on the money. OSS developers don't go around accusing companies here there and everywhere that they've stolen their code. And when they do accuse, they usually have a lot of evidence for it, and show the evidence straight up. As opposed to, say, SCO.
I'd postulate here that you have no idea what you're talking about, or that you're a troll.
I'd like to see real competition without the "all or nothing" attitude of the OSS community where they believe that they must be the only thing on the block or just a niche OS for elitists.
Not everyone shares Stallman's aims, you know. There is a strong argument, however, about open sourcing the core OS. If your OS is open source, then it isn't controlled by any one company. If your OS isn't controlled by any one company, then you don't get companies like MS abusing their position.
I'm not sure that would fly. I think that would certainly go against international law.
Let's just hope that the EU can fine them cash and not accept Microsoft coupons like the US does.
I have about as much hope of that as I do of Slashdot admins participating in the meritocratic moderation system instead of adding their two cents directly to the stories they approve.
I know you're only on dialup and every extra page you have to load is a nuisance, CmdrTaco, but would it kill you to post the story, hit the reply button, and not type in your personal opinions until THEN?
I do so hope Her Majesty will continue on this vein and posthumously honour Alfonse Capone for his equally shrewd business acumen.
So, they can fine MS up to 10% of the precious year's earnings. That's a lot of money. Where does it go then?
Just curious.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, the reason that I think you'll see people doing that (if at all - I haven't seen much of it) is that the default config on the MFCF user accounts is stupid (the admins really should do something about it), and some people are too lazy to go to the trouble to change it on their own accounts. There's no good reason that MFCF couldn't create a decent user environment for people to use. I also go to UW, I'm in pure math, and I use the unix machines -- actually, I more commonly use the CSC's Linux machines, as they're better configured and generally faster than the machines in the labs. If you think that linux isn't useful out of the box, then you should try out a modern linux distribution -- these days they generally come with a nice GUI setup and lots of useful software.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Imagine what the life would be like today if printing presses, typewriters and even the lowly sheets of paper had been incredulously controlled by some mediaval robber baron!?
Yes, instead we should be looking towards the GOVERNMENT to establish standards that all printing presses, typewriters, and sheets of paper must conform to!
That type of governmental oversight may be popular in the nations of the European Union, but it's anathema to a long-standing tradition of United States laissez-faire industrial policy.
Goodnight, noble knight.
The lightbulb was originally invented by an Englishman Humphry Davy, and a Scotsman. Edison just improved on their design. And besides that was way over 100 years ago.
Oh and the telephone was a Scotsman too but again that was over 100 years ago.
In the last 100 years Europeans can be credited for some fairly small scale, mainly useless inventions such as the jet engine, penicillin, radar, Television (ok its debatable but Logie Baird did come up with the first televised pictures), world wide web, velcro, the ideas necessary to harness atomic power, the rocket... the list goes on.
I don't really see the point of your argument here anyway; science is a universal thing, and although individuals, countries, contintents can be accredited with an invention, its not a competitive thing. Everyone benefits in the end.
Oh and in a true capitalist market the consumer decides what they want, but when MS starts to use its dodgy tactics to push others out of the market, capitalism and the merits of free choice start to break down.
Consumers didn't pick Microsoft, Microsoft made sure consumers had little choice but to do otherwise.
Just because one thing survives over another doesn't mean its better - VHS/Betamax...
I have grown quite tired of American computer professionals bashing Microsoft. Just because you are an advocate of Linux, as I am, it makes no sense to cheer when our economic rivals undermine the viability of the single largest corporation in the United States. Whether or not you use Microsoft products or not, your job in no small part is dependant on its products. Countless industries and professionals have come into existance simple because of Microsofts immense marketing power and success. There is nothing more that France, Germany, China, and Russia would love more than to see Microsoft cease to exist. Please use your head before you side with those forces that wish to see Microsoft and your country come to harm. Slashdot readers tend to have big brains please use them instead of deferring to your childish emotions.
I think the main reason why people buy Windows is the same reason why the Apple Mac lost out to the IBM PC in the early days of the industry. It was software. The Mac had a better interface, was easier to use, but didn't have half as much software for it.
.doc and .xls file formats. They don't want Windows, they want all the stuff which runs on top of it.
People don't buy Windows because they like the interface. They buy Windows because it plays the games they want to play, because it has Microsoft Word and Excel that read the
Frankly, I'd imagine the average user couldn't care less about their OS, just so long as it runs their software.
The vast majority of Slashdot readers made up their minds about Microsoft years ago.
:-)
And rightly so!
Seriously, Microsoft's history of anti-competative practices, shoddy software, and stifling the growth and progress of the industry goes back at least fifteen years, so having made one's mind up about Microsoft's behavior long before now isn't at all unreasonable.
Indeed, as Microsoft displays absolutely no indication that they are changing their ways in the least, there really isn't a remote reason why one should be inclined to change one's mind, at least for the moment.
IBM changed, and technologists' attitudes toward the company changed as well. Microsoft has yet to change, so short of PR brainwashing and an intellect weak enough to succumb to it, it is unlikely that the better informed will change their negative opinions about Microsoft anytime soon. The European bureaucrats have simply, finally, begun to catch up.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Dunno if thats a rhetorical question or not, but I heard an interview with Matt Groening a few weeks ago. On the interview he said one of his biggest surprises with the Simpsons was that nobody really said anything about the similarity between Krusty and Homer. He said that Krusty really *is* just Homer with makeup on. He said that he was making a small joke about how Bart looked down on his dad and his dad's faults, but worshipped Krusty on TV even though they were one and the same.
A radio maverick jumps to internet only. The Future of Rock n Roll
It is less likely to be a requirement that they remove Media Player, and more likely to be a requirement that they contractually allow OEMs to install, without penalty, other media players.
The anti-competitive practices related to media players consisted in their forbidding OEMs to sell new computers with both Windows and a (Microsoft) competitor's media player installed.
I think this is an EU vs USA thing. the EU _hates_ depending on America. It's trying to pretend like that's not whats going on. The political top-down approach to getting MS software out of germany reeks of principle/idealism as opposed to a well thought out plan. The way it totally backfired is indicative of that.
The whole IRAQ showdown with a few of the more independantly minded EU nations really put a perspective on the EU's struggle for legitimacy as the next super power... the EU wanted solidarity in opposing the IRAQ war but many of the new member nations (uncoincidentally the ones that had suffered under butcherous regimes, some of which the US had a hand in liberating) would not speak out against the US.
As a result, the EU solidarity on the issue dissolved and some of the more vocal states felt the US was to blame.
The US pretty much told europe where to go on the IRAQ issue.
Look for the EU to start militarizing under the EU banner as opposed to its independant nation states. The collective memories of the french and german governments are apparently not quite 60 years long..
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Which distribution do you recommend?
i have Mandrake on my machine now but I was looking to try a ferw different distros. I was thinking of trying slackware next
What a joke. No libertarian believes in monopoly regulation.
I set my folks up with Linux for X-mas. It was actually at my mom's request. So far they love it. What they especially love is the fact that they didn't need to shell out big bucks for some simple day to day operations. The only reason your family hated it was probably because you didn't have the knowledge or the sense to actually customize the installation to their needs. There is no inherent difference between Windows and Linux at this point unless your family is an oddball set of users with oddball expectations (Digital Cameras that just work when you plug them in, Portable MP3 players or PDAs that automatically sync, etc...) If your family is like most families, then they just do web browsing, e-mail, word processing and that's about it.
Customize the installation to their needs and their hardware, and they won't know the difference. The only other things they might notice are that their boxes perform better than they did before and they have a ton more software than they had with their vanilla Windows install.
Un-news
> It means that people can't negate the impact of breaking the law just by being rich:
Exactly why this isn't more common. It requires a certain degree of civil enlightenment. Alas this is absolutely, a showstopper for anything similar happing in the US - ever.
What about the Russian and US space programs, which came out of Germany.
What about all the best cars.
What about the nuclear weapons of mass destruction, which the US loves to own and deny others.
There are a many every day items, a number of which still cannot be found in the US, although the US companies are eventually good at copying.
All the best kitchen appliances.
A huge number of electronics items (from Philips and many others).
How about an easy-to-use version of Linux, which Mandrake had long before Red Hat, in my opinion having used the major releases of both.
If you think Europeans are in need of overpriced American knock-offs, you are mistaken. Successful International companies use European designs when in Europe.
Credible alternative medicine.
The market is subject to incredible manipulation by corporate powers. Do you suppose that when you go into a German store that the things available on the shelf are the same things which captured the American market?
People need Windows because the Microsoft establishment tells them they need it. Where they are told something else is better, they use it. In Japan, they use cell phones to replace online services and clumsy PCs.
Isn't it revolting to taste the chocolate that is sold in America because it is considered good enough by many who live there, and even recent introductions of American alternatives leave a huge amount to be desired?
As long as Americans do not value their computing enough to care about the stagnating and prohibitive effects of the Microsoft stranglehold, they will continue to use Microsoft software, but that does not necessarily make it in anyone else's interest to do so.
Oddball expectations? Random guy: Hey my digital camera works without me having to do anything...that sucks! I am switching to Linux! I dont think it is too much to ask to have something work automatically, especially when it works automatically with Windows. My dad syncs his Palm everyday with his laptop at home, something he barely needed to setup at all on windows, but something he couldn't figure out on Linux. My sister loads her pictures on to her PC about once a week. I just bought her an MP3 player for her birthday, and I'm sure she'll be connecting that everyday. Those aren't strange things to do, digital cameras, MP3 players and PDAs are quite common right now, and making them easier to use isn't stupid, it's smart. I'm not saying that I set up their Linux machine perfectly, you're right, I probably didnt have the knowledge to do so (it was a lack of time more than anything, though). However, if you think that wanting an operating system to automatically sync with a PDA or wanting a webcam to automatically work when you plug it is "oddball" perhaps you should look the word up because I think your definition is a bit off.
Are these the same middle schoolers who play Counter Strike and Halo while growing up instead of Doom, Wolf3d, Super Mario Bros , or any of the 2-d videogames of yore? If anything, middle schoolers today are faaaar more technical than those of ten or twenty years ago. They can definately understand Linux; some of us grew up on MS-DOS, you know...kids don't need GUIs, only impatient, unlearning adults do.
=========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Personally, I use Debian unstable on my machine, which takes a slight bit of config at the start, but is incredibly easy to maintain, and you can get updates continuously through apt. Gentoo is also supposed to be quite good, and apparently has a nicer default setup than debian at the moment - the only downside being that you seem to actually have to compile everything (some people consider that a feature, though I don't really see the point). There are some people who swear by slackware - but they tend to be a slightly masochistic lot :) -- still, it might be what you're looking for. If you bring some blanks to the CSC sometime, someone should be able to burn some stuff for you.
Yet again someone modded "Insightful" has it ass-backwards. Windows is the original poster-child for making the user do things for their computer. Unix, Linux, MacOS, they all work and once running require no maintenance. Windows requires virus scanners, defragmentation, and constant reinstalls to clean out the accumulated cruft, both in the filesystem and the registry. Microsoft did not provide a way for people to use their computers. Apple provided a way for people to use their computers; BeOS provided a way for people to use their computers. Microsoft provided a way for people to be forced to work on their computers, and they did it illegally in back room deals.
dunno, it sounds like the EU may be wanting 3.5bil american greenbacks.
Imagine what it would be like without Microsoft products. True the software functionality isn't all that important, it can be replaced and with superior products and open source applications.
It's the lack of function and not functioning portions which drive IT in the US and I imagine worldwide. Do you have any idea how much artificial need problems in microsoft software have created? Those are artificial jobs. When the company adopts linux across their desktops, how long do you think the IT staff will number 200 strong for a mere 1000 desktops that NEVER have problems?
We need shit software, fixing that shit software is what gives us jobs.
MS will just raise their prices to pay for the fine so they still remain profitable.
They did this with MS Office during the first DOJ investigation in the 90's.
Every one of us and are employers will pay the fine instead of them as ussual.
http://saveie6.com/
Yeah, all those black American slaves must have really liked their situation. If they didn't, they'd have just gone somewhere else, wouldn't they?
The user experience with a well-integrated operating system and it's many layers of applications and services (think Macintosh) is a joy for most people -- and the lack of that polish is the real sticking point for the Linux world at present, IMO. What's really puzzling to me is that, for all the integration of the MS desktop, it's such a crappy experience. With MS you get the worst of both worlds: resistance to true interoperability and poorly executed integration.
The expectations you list are indeed oddball. They are things that require a certain amount of expertise beyond the average user. As it is, yes Windows IS better at that stuff than any distribution of Linux. But think about the number of people that have massive trouble doing this even on Windows. This is a case of the cart before the horse. While people might want to use this stuff right now, it's not yet ready for prime time. The people who can actually use this stuff today with *NO* problem are usually more technically proficient than the average user. When those devices and the OSes reach a point where anyone can truly use them, no one will be paying much attention to OSes anymore. Does anyone actually pay attention to what engine is in their car these days other than a car geek?
Un-news
I'm sorry to confuse you, but there are several (as in free) Linux distributions, thus Linux (in the generic) is *free* as in *free beer*.
1. WMP implements as many open standards as any other media player.
2. You don't have a "right" to use music and moves you "own" in any way you want to. This is simply true. Fair use grants you a legal defense in the case where a copyright holder sues you, assuming you've used it, well, fairly.
3. If you don't like DRM, don't buy it.
4. No, and you don't have any "right" to convert a DVD to anything. You own the disc, not the content.
You people don't understand. You don't own the content. You never will.
Actually you made a completely different point.
Originally you were complaining that MS had included a media player in with the OS, so people weren't trying other things. Had nothing to do with uninstalling, etc. If you want to insert something completely different, don't say I'm making your point.
My point was that everybody else includes their applications to make it "out of the box ready". MS does not prevent you from trying other products, they just have one like everybody else does. So if it's a problem that MS includes a media player, why isn't it a problem for everybody else?
MS was bad in that they prevented OEM's from changing the install on computers they were sending out. But I don't think including the things their customers were wanting on the distribution like everybody else, is really that evil.
The fine is irrelevant to MS. They have a big pile o cash and Ballmer is sensibly using it to buy his way out of legal problems. This is a major cultural shift at MS and should be applauded (at least by MS shareholders).
The opening of APIs and such is a pain for MS, but unlikely to actually do much short-term damage. It might even be good in the long-run because it will make them compete more on the basis of quality and value. Better MS products spawn better open source products and everyone is better off.
What is significant is the potential unbundling of Media Player. At the beginning of this process, MP was a fairly insignificant element of Windows. Now, however, it is central to MS DRM and NGSC (or whatever they are calling Palladium this week). With control over the media front-end, MS can deal directly with content owners and muscle themselves a new monopoly. Media Player is the critical component in a strategy to end-run the hardware companies. Fuck you Sony, HP, Apple, we Ownz u. Without that control they are just another computer company. And one Hollywood would rather do without because of security problems.
Without a shred of evidence, I believe the recent push on Xbox2 is related to the EU problems. If Media Player is hobbled, no hardware end-run is possible. The Japanese electronics firms won't play ball with an MS Windows DRM standard. Oh they'll do this and that, but they don't want another Sony to send cheques to every quarter. That makes the Xbox really important again. That IMO, is why Ed Fries left. He wanted to build a gaming box. Gates needs a media center. Forcing Gates' hand on this issue may be the real penalty the EU is effectively handing MS.
Ah yes, but all such accusations have been, more or less, entirely on the money. OSS developers don't go around accusing companies here there and everywhere that they've stolen their code. And when they do accuse, they usually have a lot of evidence for it, and show the evidence straight up. As opposed to, say, SCO.
See MPlayer vs. KISS.
Note, by the way, that the same Mplayer developers who complain that their IP is getting ripped off, also quite happily pirate other peoples' software and distribute it on their website in violation of the copyright, licensing and distribution agreements that come with that software.
Hypocrits.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
See you just listed a whole bunch of products but what about actually technology? Sure products come from all over the world, but where is the research comming from that has changed the world, it is not Europe.
I installed the latest LindowsOS on my PC last night. It did not work.
I then tried Fedora, It did not work.
Why? It is a new PC more than 1 year old with nforce2 ATI 9800, Nothing special for todays hardware.
If you have an old POS then use Linux else save yourself a lot of trouble and use Windows XP
So I bet you never have used anything that has come out of the US Defense Indsutry ... huh? What about GPS? Also did I forget the mention all the products that now use Oil. American Industries when over to the middle east and setup all the oil fields and showed them how to harness that black gold. Which was the begining of all the rockets, cars, plastics, oils, and all other petrolemum based products. Europe may have better cars but with out the American influence BMW wouldn't even have started making rockets and then cars after WWII.
So MSDOS was the better alternative back then, should you fault Microsoft for putting in the capital to make it better than all the rest? I think not but that is what you want to do right now.
The backburner that I am talking about is the attitude that Europeans have that their civilization is so much better because it is older.
See the comment below I made about how Americans went over to the Middle East to setup the oil fields. Because with out those oil fields you wouldn't have your German engineered Cars or your German engineered Rockets. Sure they were able to take that oil and put it to applications, but with out the Americans stepping in and seeing the potential of this black liquid, the Germans wouldn't have anything.
Just think about that next time you are on a plane, driving your car, or even just using a peice of plastic.
I'm sorry to confuse you, but there are several (as in free) Linux distributions, thus Linux (in the generic) is *free* as in *free beer*
There's nothing free these days my son. Look deeper, and you shall see what I mean. Mind you I never asked for anything to be free, and I do like to pay for my stuff regardless, but do not get lost in illusions. I've always been comfortable paying for what I think is worth the money. I shall continue to do so. The day I believe that some of the most important things in my life are free, that day I will need to go and have my head examined by a shrink. Screw whoever said that the best things in life are free. I don't know what he was referring to.
The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid. Fcuknig amzanig eh!
So what if MS just doesn't pay? They are a US corperation. Country X says you owe us 1 billion dollars. MS says "let me think about that...nope, sorry not going to pay."
Then what? They ban MS from selling in their country? Would / could they even do this? How many European corperations rely on MS products / updates / support?
Just a thought. After all, this seems more like a political thing than anything else. They want don't care about MS being a 'monopoly', they are just pissed it isn't one of their companies that isn't the monopoly or whatever.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
I won't even bother to take your posting apart, but let this be said:
Your knowledge of the Middle East and its history in oil exploration is a good indicator for the quality of the rest of the reply.
It was an anti-monopoly argument, not a pro-government one. Renaissance allowed Europe to take a huge leap forward because "IT" of that era became far less artificially controlled (by the church mainly). Business and innovation boomed. Of course in the confucian China controlled by a single control-freak (emperor) and his proteges the mandarin-class (the government) these tools of information (insemination and distribution) were intentionally kept out of ordinary people's reach and subsequently their previously thriving culture and society stagnated.
However I believe we can agree that the needs of the modern societies, and the forms of exchange of information, are vastly more complex and that modern democracies have mature mechanisms for organizing the ground rules for the exchange of data both nationally and internationally. Anybody is welcome to build a better printer or a complex software system for massaging data as long as the data remains under the control of the users themselves and not under some profit-thirsty corporation's whims.
It appears to be a commonly believed myth among US citizens that their government is genuinely "laissez-faire" and it has become some kind of a liturgy, especially among the more conservative people. However the main difference between the US and European (industrial) policies is that the former is far more geared towards protecting the industrialists from the people while the latter is geared towards protecting the people from the industrialists. When you really think about it you'll realize that the latter does indeed require greater resources (which the US conservatives like to call a "big" government, implying it's "bad"). In the US the massively bloated "lawyer class" tends to be the second biggest beneficiary of the "laissez-faire", after the industrialists themselves. US politicians supporting the "industrial laissez faire" are also much better remunerated (or "buttered") than their European counterparts.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
You're a few years out of date. Not only is the U.S. leading the E.U. in GDP, but the gap is currently widening.
Those optimistic predictions about the EU surpassing the US were just that, optimistic.
Because everything else you wrote was garbage.
Improving products is merely the last resort of a company trying to retain/extend its monopoly. Microsoft didn't even provide a viable operating system until 2000.
Okay tell me how you think it happened? American comapanies went over there to help them setup and use many of their resources. Either way it was first found in Pennsylvania.
That would buy Microsoft a heck of a lot of mercenaries.
---
and I want games to work without having to download 130000 dependancies, and sit with a halved fps rate.
There are 10 types of people: those that understand binary, and those that dont.
To prevent monolopies abusing power in the future, EU software patents must be squashed now.
All Microsoft stuffs are all linked together. Arguing that a link between two components needs to be broken has no real effect in practice (be it windows and the media player or IE). The first point is that legal decision like such are so slow that by the time it occurs, Microsoft would have the time to build 10 other links Second, trying to convince people the media player (or IE) is so bad (assuming it is true) does not hurt in the long run. Because, as soon as people really start switching, a (small; relatively to Microsoft scale) effort to improve their (bad) product. And the improvement will last untill people will get back to "normal" and wonder why the hell they were willing to change. "Microsoft is not that bad after all, they are improving their stuff". The real issue is the whole network effect which they master for a long time now. For those who missed it years ago, have a look (or second look with perspective) at From Microsoft Word to Microsoft World
This is like the Microsoft's Internet Explorer case. They never removed it and/or gave you the option to uninstall it. Sadly, Netscape lose market share. However, there are two strong players such as Apple's Quicktime and RealOne Player (both of them are better than Windows Media Player IMHO).
Many engines are designed to run only with the AC pully there. Try finding the right serpentine belt for the car if you pull out the AC unit.
The parent to the above article to me is talking more about the reality of what consumers might want where the above article is talking about the reality of the car market. These two things do NOT always mesh.
Providing beter gas mileage and handling is a gradual evolution of technology which I can truly find no complaint with. Also, changing the environmental controls from a little knob with points to turn the fan up and down, to a digital system with precise temperature control is also a nifty feature.
Requiring you to buy an air conditioning unit for your car because the design requires it may sound like common sense, but that common sense is thrown out the window when you sell to someone in alaska, the Yukon, Iceland, or Norway. Requiring your car to have a heating system makes no sense in Mexico or Hawaii.
In general, the analogy only fails because the car maker is trying to reach a wide range of consumers, not because the car technically does require an AC to run. The AC unit is more akin to the mouse. Some people really won't need it, but most will, and its cheap enough that it doesn't matter that every computer has a mouse and you probably aren't going to save much money because its so cheap.
However, if I could save $500 by not having an AC system and I lived in Alaska, I'd damn well be pissed to have to buy one. I'd like the option to save money and live without it.
In reality, the analogy should be geared towards things like a GPS system being required on all new cars which increased the cost by $1000 per car. Thanks, I'll keep my $1000, I want choice. Microsoft has the ability to bundle and require everything you install and make it hard for you not to install or even uninstall. They effectively increase the cost of the car by forcing options on you.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
>Clearly the best solution to an operating system monopoly is to give free copies of windows to school
Say WHAT?
All government entities, including government-run schools, must be 100% open source. (And that goes double for voting systems.)
Even if Windows costs $0, Microsoft will still enjoy a brisk business in upsells. And who the hell knows what's actually in proprietary software anyway? Reducing its price down to $0 still doesn't eliminate that security risk.
"Security risk", you say? Consider this: Microsoft currently makes its software "phone home" to get updates. The next step is to "phone home" for license enforcement. After that, it will "phone home" for general copyright enforcement (a la Palladium). This isn't paranoia -- this is the actual Microsoft roadmap.
Even free is too expensive, when you consider all our schools and government offices infiltrated with computers that all phone home to Redmond every day.
" Okay tell me how you think it happened? "
Why should I?
I presume you have a working internet connection and a basic understanding of how to use a search engine. Getting the facts about the history of oil exploration in the Middle East should be a trivial task and you will be rewarded with some factual knowledge that may surprise you not little.
Me too! There would be an initial but after would follow the first time of real competition and an environment where vendors (there are alternatives to windows *and* linux) would have to compete with quality and price.
Sure Linux is good for us nerds, but lets see how much of an uprise there is when the internet market in Europe takes a dive because the mom and pop shops can no longer use the ineternet to place orders and mom and dad can no longer buy their goods off line because they can't figure out how to launch the internet browser.Seems it is a long time since you have tried linux (or have you ever)?
You guys all have Microsoft to thanks for the advancement of the internet on the masses and if you think anything else you are crazy and blind. The internet would still be something that is used in the back of corporations down in the basement if it wasn't for Microsoft giving everybody a PC that they could easily use.I think we have Mosaic (former) and Netscape (later) to thank, when everything started on Windows, OS/2 and Solaris. IE wasn't an usable product until version 4. Likewise, when the competition to MS from Netscape was won, so did the development of IE also slow down.
Btw - I never ever heard that MS gave anything away for free (unless it strengthen their lockin).
>>1. WMP implements as many open standards as any other media player.
Yes, but it also implements DRM that will, over a period of time, become more and more prominent to the point where any open standards are no longer supported. Do you *REALLY* believe Microsoft does anything that will not make it money? It's a ruthless business, it wants to roll out it's DRM technology through the back door to make money from it.
>>2. You don't have a "right" to use music and moves you "own" in any way you want to.
Rubbish! If I have legally bought a CD then it is perfectly legal for me to make a backup copy, convert it to MP3 for my own use or bury the CD in peat for 3 months. Sure, there are probably restrictions on my not broadcasting a CD I own, fair enough.
>>3. If you don't like DRM, don't buy it.
I don't and I won't. But that's because I currently have a choice not to. What I don't want is everyone else ruining it for me and allowing big monopolies to take away my rights purely to swell their profits.
>>4. No, and you don't have any "right" to convert a DVD to anything. You own the disc, not the content.
I own the content from the point of view of being able to do with it what I like with regard to my own personal pleasure. I have to respect the "copyright" of the content, sure, but that's the same with a book, newspaper, whatever...
Why don't you go take a look at a site called GameCopyWorld, for example, that has existed for several years now allowing access to software cracks. On their first page is a Disclaimer stating that you can only use the cracks to make backups of games software you legitimately own.
Look at "DVD John" also. The case against him cracking DVD encryption went nowhere because he proved legally that he was not using DeCSS for piracy - he just gave himself the option of playing his DVDs on Linux.
It is a basic right to make personal backups of any media, end of story.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
There would be an initial bump .... was what I meant, sorry.
Yes, because at this moment in time, the media standards are fairly open. But that will not be the case in future...
Answer me this... what *other* reason could MS have in making DRM technology other than to license it to the film and CD companies to make money from it?
I'm not criticising WMP as a piece of software that currently plays MP3s, MPGs, AVIs, etc. But I *am* criticising it as a mechanism to inflict DRM on the world to turn what you currently buy into a rentable commodity.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Somehow I think the EU has 3.5bil for it's own mercenaries, not mention the already standing armies , artillery, navy, airforce, lots of damn tanks, biological weapons, NUKES, etc.
When you come down to it, no matter how idealistic your society, the truth is that those who are in power, are in power because they have the biggest guns.
>>Look deeper, and you shall see what I mean.
...and one of the best things in life :-)
Okay, let's be pedantic...
Yes, my PC cost me money, I pay a monthly subscription to my ISP and I have to pay the electricity company to power my PC and my cable modem. I also have to pay for blank CDs but after that...
LINUX IS FREE!!!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
See MPlayer vs. KISS.
The difference there is that MPlayer has produced very very strong evidence that KISS is in the wrong. To date, SCO has produced nothing.
Note, by the way, that the same Mplayer developers who complain that their IP is getting ripped off, also quite happily pirate other peoples' software and distribute it on their website in violation of the copyright, licensing and distribution agreements that come with that software.
This is said often, but I've yet to find a source demonstrating the evidence this. Perhaps you could show me where you learnt this from? If you're going to argue further, I'd appreciate a source.
In any case, the MPlayer group distibute copyrighted material (separate from MPlayer itself, I might add), but all such material is freely downloadable elsewhere. Without knowing the licenses for all the codecs it uses, I can't comment whether it is illegal or not.
Furthermore, why haven't the copyright holders done anything about it? Surely they must know by now. In any case, because all the codecs are freely downloadable on the web, it wouldn't be too hard to create a script to grab all the packages for the user, and then to take out the dlls needed. The effect would be the same, and once you've downloaded all the packages, you can put the dlls upon your machine however you like. I guess it's just easier to package them in a zip.
In addition, to my knowledge, none of the authors of the copyrighted Win32 codecs have released their libraries for Linux, so Mplayer is not reducing their profits, nor benefitting unfairly from their efforts. Mplayer is taking freely released codecs that can be downloaded for no charge, and placing them in a zip. KISS is benefitting unfairly from Mplayer's efforts. It's using their code to profit without giving the maintainers anything in return.
Doubtless if any of the copyright holders actually asked MPlayer about it, they'd comply, and instead create a script which would jump through the required legal hoops for the user. But since the codecs are released free on purpose, I couldn't see the point of any party doing this. Surely it's in their interests to see that their codecs are used by the widest range of people possible.
Revoke their licenses.
Let them eat Windows 95b.
I used to thik that punishing Microsoft would be a good idea. After seeing the behavior of many Non-MS players like Rambus, SCO, GPL zealots and so on, they make MS look like nice guys.
I'm glad to see Europe try to do something about MS... unfortunately, I think a lot less money will change hands and the problem will go away just like here in the US
-- $G
bitbucket@baldwinmail.org
best news I've read since that DDOS targeted SCO!!! Power to the people, right on!
So if it's a problem that MS includes a media player, why isn't it a problem for everybody else?
Because when MS "includes" something, they weld it in to the point that it can't be removed PERIOD, without bringing the whole OS to it's knees. When Linux includes Mozilla, you can completely remove it, install your favorite browser, and the OS still runs. AMAZING!
How anyone cannot understand the difference here is beyond me.
Everyone has read this before, but just in case you haven't here's a link.
There is a difference between a standard and software. Even if you write the standard down, the most often used application which does things slightly differently creates the real standard. If you mimick the IE web browser's call sign, and don't mimick the way it renders, then the fault is your own when people claim it's not as good as IE. Being compliant to a standard is different than being useful. If you want it to be better, you need to extend Firebird to do everything the same way AND THEN do more. Until it is on par with the basic rendering, and that means bug-for-bug, you won't get my download.
...by writing their name down and giving them a lift home. If their name had already been written down, they were taken out behind the station and shot instead.
The savings in lives were pretty incredible in the first year, and in the second year they shot hardly anyone (something like 8 people). It had the added advantage of hurting the perpetrators more than their victims.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You mean you Brits can't agree among yourselves how many a billion is? That's it! You're not allowed to lecture us about adopting the metric system *any more*. We may still measure things in medieval units, but at least we can all agree on how to count!
0 1 - just my two bits
On one hand we've got an anti-American climate in Europe which has reached fever pitch.
And on the other hand we have the ultimate symbol of American innovation, technology, and success. (A symbol which happens to have absurdly deep pockets.)
(I know, I know, "Micro$oft Suxxx dude!", but hear me out)
Across the pond, we have countries like France who were so late to the software/internet table that its really something of a national embarassment. Remember it was only two years ago that France was angry that the web was perdominantly written in English. The EU has frequently voiced frustration that the Internet's governing bodies are located in America. And of course, let's not forget the ICANN fiasco of only a few weeks back.
Of course, anyone with half a brain can see that Microsoft is a monopoly. (And that our definition of monopoly must change to incorporate "bundling" as a fundamentally anti-competitive practice.) It also doesn't take a genius to see that Microsoft has played hardball and used its muscle in a way that's reminiscent of the days of the robber barons.
But, my point is, it also doesn't take much to see that there is a nationalist political agenda at work here too.
What's the answer?
Encourage competition. Promote free software. And fer crying out loud stop teaching kids to use Windows. (Whoever keeps suggesting that MS "give free copies of Windows to schools" needs to get their head checked).
All I'm saying is that this penalty smells a bit like a witch trial.
Ok... flame away.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
AND HERES THE PROOF
Furthermore, why haven't the copyright holders done anything about it? Surely they must know by now. In any case, because all the codecs are freely downloadable on the web, it wouldn't be too hard to create a script to grab all the packages for the user, and then to take out the dlls needed. The effect would be the same, and once you've downloaded all the packages, you can put the dlls upon your machine however you like. I guess it's just easier to package them in a zip.
In addition, to my knowledge, none of the authors of the copyrighted Win32 codecs have released their libraries for Linux, so Mplayer is not reducing their profits, nor benefitting unfairly from their efforts. Mplayer is taking freely released codecs that can be downloaded for no charge, and placing them in a zip. KISS is benefitting unfairly from Mplayer's efforts. It's using their code to profit without giving the maintainers anything in return
MPlayer is benefitting unfairly from others' efforts too. It doesn't matter if the codecs aren't available for a given platform; that's the choice of the legal owner of the copyrighted code which has been illegally redistributed
Here's some choice bits and pieces from the license that comes with Quicktime; where one of the sets of codecs that they redistribute comes from.
Which means, in case you're wondering, that no, they couldn't create a script to circumvent it.
You should also read this:
Apple's Quicktime redistribution agreement
Note: You have to apply for a license to redistribute it - and you can only redistribute it in its entirety.
So no, Mplayer is completely in the wrong, legally and otherwise. That's just one example. Feel free to track down the license agreements for their other codecs to check for yourself.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
AC--
The point of iTunes -- yes, iTunes, not DRM -- is to make it so convenient to buy music, that it's no longer worth using alternative methods of acquiring non-DRM'd (and increasingly illegal) music.
At that point, iTunes is iTunes Music Store. And Apple's made it pretty clear to other MP3 vendors -- they're not interested in letting anyone else play with their format. Compare to MS, which has bent over backwards, to the point of fabbing chips.
People play too many games with semantics; it's like a shell game. You don't get out of the fact that Apple is making an extremely closed music architecture by saying I'm bitching about the wrong product. It's Apple -- they're _famous_ for tying together everything so wonderfully! "It Just Works!" has a dark side.
--Dan
Ah you couldn't restrain your little Nazi ass from commenting about US defense industry, could you?
And yeah, you are Nazis , for sooner or later German pigs will embark on another "50-million dead people" European integration.
"However the main difference between the US and European (industrial) policies is that the former is far more geared towards protecting the industrialists from the people while the latter is geared towards protecting the people from the industrialists."
.. and this is why Americans on average have 30% higher GDP.
Uh
And , yeah, it does translate into individual income as this former European can readily attest to.
You can whine and moan but whatever they are doing results in much higher standard of living not to mention fueling engine of progress ( Europe lost that title long time ago.)
Every wondered why Linus moved to US ?
This may sound funny at first, but let me explain. Most males I know surf for pr0n. Most of those also use IE to surf for pr0n. They don't have filters in place. They get hundreds of popups. They get spyware loaded onto their computers thanks to crappy ActiveX controls and hundreds of IE bugs. They have to browse one page at a time. In short, browsing for pr0n with IE sucks.
So here's the hook - you tell all your male friends (and any females you know who surf for it as well) that there's this cool new browser that makes surfing for pr0n more efficient. You don't have to elaborate until they ask why (and they will, trust me!). Then you explain to them that they won't get those nasty popups anymore, they won't get dodgy pr0n spyware installed, they can block out all those crappy flashing penis enlargement ads, and they can use cool extensions (such as Magpie and X to name two) to mass download a whole gallery in a few mouse clicks and erase their tracks afterwards.
Result - you'll have 90% browser domination in about one month.
You read it here first.
Visceral Psyche Films
Just as I thought you were just making a blanket statement because you can't handle the facts. I did do a search engine search and they came up with just the results that I told you they would.
Even if what you said was true, which it isn't, Oil was still discovered and made into useful products in Pennsylvania, with out that discovery nobody would have ever went to the Middle East in search for oil. And thus, we wouldn't have any of the products I mentioned before. Remember that when you are typing on your PLASTIC keyborad, and looking at your monitor that has a PLASTIC casing.
But you are now boaring me. So peace.
Have you ever been to the Middle East?
Thought so.
So the crux of your argument is that "I can't uninstall it". I understand that difference, but I still fail to understand why that is an issue? Does having it installed in anyway prevent the user from using anything else, does having it installed in anyway force the user to ever even using it, does having it installed do anything other than make it convenient for the user out of the box?
If it's only about "I can't uninstall it" then I'd say it's the about biggest whine about nothing I've ever heard.
I can't see how that has to do with anything, there is probably 5 billion people that haven't been to the middle east.
A few points:
1/ Invoking 'National security/emergency' (which this could easily become) allows countries to do pretty much what they please *within their own borders*.
2/ A lot of international law is pretty woolly and countries tend to ignore it when it suits them.
3/ Sovereign states (as far as I know) always reserve the right to pull out of any treaties/international agreements which make up international law.
If you're saying that the US (as the home of MS and the only country with the means to do it in practical terms) would invade the EU and forcibly install a compliant government in order to protect MS's intellectual property/enforce its concept of international law then I'd concede this is a theoretical possibility (with probability <0.1%).
Appeals to the WTO are also possible, but in the end the EU could leave the WTO enbloc in this sort of extreme situation. Then presumably you would get an all out trade war - but this would likely damage both sides roughly equally.
I think the EU could sustain this because I believe when it comes to a showdown between 20 elected governments versus one multi-national coporation, the EU citizens would be overwhelmingly behind the governments that *they* had elected.
Which means, in case you're wondering, that no, they couldn't create a script to circumvent it.
Why not? I can't see anything in that license which forbids having script download the file, open it, and then create a symbolic link from the dll to the MPlayer codec directory. After all, if a human can do those things, why not an automated script? And even if they forbid automation (which would be pointless for them), MPlayer could still put up a script on its site; there's no DMCA in Hungary.
In any case, I don't particularly believe that it's advantageous for Apple's Quicktime, or any other companies, to forbid MPlayer to supply the dlls. After all, Apple wants users to have its codec. The more the better. That's why it's giving it away, so that people will use Quicktime to actually encode movies because lots of people have the codec to decode the thing. It wouldn't be in Apple's interests to ask MPlayer to stop.
If they did ask MPlayer to stop, I'd imagine they would, straight away. Then Maplyer would put a link to the Quicktime codec up, so that users could download it themselves. Then the users could either put the dll in the MPlayer codec directory, or symbolic link it. The effect would be the same, just more difficult for the user. So this is illegal such that it removes the step of going to a load of difference websites.
As for a script, well, the installer could be tricky, I suppose. I guess someone would have to come up with something using WINE, or just figure out how to unzip the data without touching the install (done in a country where reverse engineering is legal). Or just not use Quicktime.
So Apple benefits from this. It wants people to have its codec. MPlayer provides that. It could ask them to take it down, in which case MPlayer would certainly do so, but that would only harm Apple.
So no, Mplayer is completely in the wrong, legally and otherwise. That's just one example. Feel free to track down the license agreements for their other codecs to check for yourself.
"Legally and otherwise"? I can see it legally being in the wrong, assuming that Hungarian law doesn't trump the right parts of Apple's license, but otherwise? What's morally wrong about it? Apple benefits by having more people having the Quicktime codec. The users benefit, as they can see Quicktime movies. I suppose the lawyers don't benefit, but then unless MPlayer refused to take down the copyrighted material, they wouldn't benefit much anyway. So although this may, and I stress the may, be legally wrong, it benefits all parties involved.
On the other hand, MPlayer, the actual program, contains no known copyright violations. KISS does, and this copyright violation does not benefit the original authors in any way.
To call the space programs, automotive innovations, etc. not evidence of non-American technology that the American's borrow, is complete detatchment from reality. And it is clearly not Microsoft that is producing any technology, back to the ludicrous assertions that started the thread.
You might not have them in their current polluting terrorist-funding form. What does that have to do with the ability of Europeans to produce technology?
(-1.1, offtopic)
You should recall that a majority of Americans who voted in the last presidential election voted AGAINST Bush. It's just a quirk of our system that the supreme court was able to install him directly. God help us if we don't get rid of him next time.
Then you also must not understand the power of "bundling", why it is bad for competition, and why it was a key reason MS was convicted of abusing their monopoly power to gain advantages in other areas of the market.
does having it installed in anyway force the user to ever even using it, does having it installed do anything other than make it convenient for the user out of the box?
Have you installed Windows XP and seen Windows Messenger forced on you at every boot? With no easy way to remove? This is called abusing your monopoly. Just google on the phrase "remove windows messenger xp" and see how convenient people consider this bundling.
I sure as hell would like to be able to use an IE-free windows (as in: unembedded, gone, zip) but I can't, so I have to deal with all the security issues that it exposes. I'm sure some businesses would like to uninstall it as well.
It's not only about "I can't uninstall it." It's about MS using their market dominance to slowly force their products on the world. It doesn't matter if ONE PERSON chooses not to use IE. Since they forced it on every Windows user, a big percentage just use it because it's there, and now look at the result of awful IE-only broken code. Web programmers that choose not to use it THEMSELVES, still have to deal with the result of the public using it. You're telling me that wasn't caused by bundling? Give me a break.
hehe, nice, good points. but if the anti americanism you mentioned is caused in part by such things as the actions of microsoft then im prone to not feel sorry for them. you cant expect to conduct business the same way in a completely different business climate.
and aboot giving out free copieso of windows. would you just have microsoft pressuring schools into licensing agreements and whatnot as they are now?
Why not? I can't see anything in that license which forbids having script download the file, open it, and then create a symbolic link from the dll to the MPlayer codec directory. After all, if a human can do those things, why not an automated script?
Read this:
"you may not copy, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, or create derivative works of the Apple Software or any part thereof."
Now do you understand?
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Again you are going in two different directions. First it was about including it, then it was about how you can't uninstall it, now it's both. Pick one and stay on topic.
/bin/bash onto us (try and uninstall it on any mainstream dist and see what happens).
I've installed XP only once, but just like when I have a telnet/ftp/etc service on a Linux box I turned the message service off, It's not rocket science.
I believe every single IE security issue has been for actually *USING* it on the internet. If you don't use it you won't have a single exploit *period*.
Again they did not "force it" onto every user, no more than distro's forced
I use most things because "it's there" but it's completely unrealistic to expect anybody producing an end-user OS to not include the things other OS's are already putting out, and expect them to go download them. What you are complaining about is unrealistic in the world today, maybe in happy butterfly/unicorn world but not here. There is a reason why I am using Mozilla instead of Netscape on my Linux workstation, it's because it came bundled. If you are going to apply those rules to one OS you've got to apply it to all OS's. So what you are proposing is that no Linux distro can include any webbrowser of anykind because it's bundling.
Quite simple. They block the importation of all Microsoft products. Sure there would be illegal smuggling of Microsoft products into the EU, but it is quite easy for a government agency (especially one as powerful as the EU) to block a company from doing business.
To answer your second question, yes, the EU by blocking the importation of Microsoft products would stop all EU retailers from purchasing Microsoft products. And even those large companies that deal directly with Microsoft, would be subject to criminal penalties if they tried to ignore the EU's ruling.
In short, it is very easy for a government, once they have the legal backing, to block a large company from doing business in the region/country.
Okay troll, I'll bite.
I've placed so many non-techies in front of a mandrake box and if they've had any experience with any gui OS, they have no trouble finding the icon I labelled "Browse the Web" or "Word Processor".
Sure, I had to rename the icons from "Mozilla" & "OpenOffice.org", but if shops were selling linux pre-installed, which is what would happen in your scenario, then this would all be taken care of.
Do you really think, if MS pulled out of Europe, that EU computer retailers would sell PCs with a linux install disk and say "Here, install it yourself"?
IHBT
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
I've installed XP only once, but just like when I have a telnet/ftp/etc service on a Linux box I turned the message service off, It's not rocket science.
.Net messenger, aka MSN Messenger). It starts all the time and there is no easy way to remove it.
No, not the Messenger Service, but Windows Messenger (aka
If you are going to apply those rules to one OS you've got to apply it to all OS's. So what you are proposing is that no Linux distro can include any webbrowser of anykind because it's bundling.
If Linux was declared a monopoly by the Supreme Court and was actually a corporation that would benefit from using it's monopoly power to push it's own product, then yes. Monopolies are, by law, held to a different set of rules than the underdog. And it's for good reason--Or should I bring up the AT&T case again?
But since Linux is neither a monopoly or even a company at all, it really doesn't matter. (Of course you can always remove a browser from Linux, but you don't like it when I talk about uninstalling...)
"you may not copy, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, or create derivative works of the Apple Software or any part thereof."
Um, how is that at all, in any way, relevant? I'm talking about a script that would do the same thing as a human in downloading and installing it. Unless there's a specific clause saying "no automation", then if a human can download it, a script can download it.
A download script created from scratch and sharing no common code with Quicktime, would obviously not be a derivitive work of the separate video codec. I rather fail to see your point.
Sure, great. Now can it execute on face of monopolistic pressure from the US, specially in the highly patented and copyrighted environment fostered by WIPO? Even worse, can its ageing native population, and disgruntled immigrants, pull themselves to execution in the face of a highly regulated environment with lower living standards?
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin