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MS May Be Forced To Sell Stripped-Down OS In EU
An anonymous reader submits "According to this article at Infoworld, Microsoft may be forced to sell a stripped-down version of Windows in the EU as a result of antitrust rulings, unless a settlement is reached during the next month to six weeks." (See this post from last week for more background on the EU's antitrust proceedings.)
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Would this be the 99 cent Diet Coke I've heard so much about?
True story.
Does this mean apple may have to start shipping OS X without Quicktime? Seriously though, as much as a despise MS, have a default media player is nice, whats going to happen next, no notepad allowed as it competes with XXXXX wordprocessor? Make it like it used to be, an option when installing Windows, so if you dont want it, deselect it...
drunk chemists
Microsoft may be forced to sell a stripped-down version of Windows in the EU
Why just the EU? Why can't we all have access to the stripped down version?
Windows in EU won't have Built in virus detector? You mean users may have to use Norton, McAfe, or whatever else? Oh my.
And what prevents them from shipping a broken version again?
"sell two versions of its ubiquitous operating system, Windows, in Europe: one with Media Player inside as it does at present, and another with the music and video playing software stripped out and sold separately, people close to the case said on Tuesday."
For the main part, the average user gets the choice: "Should I get an operating system that plays music and video" or one without. I know which one I would choose.
Not much of a choice.
This is NOT the best sig in the world, but this IS a tribute to the best sig in the world.
I wonder if Americans would be able to purchase the EU "light" version. I'm positive we'll be able to pirate it anyways though.
//Blessed are they that run around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels.
Of course, once this settlement is reached, they can start a new lawsuit over them putting Antivirus into XP SP2...
Though yes, the AV does serve a much better purpose than RealPlayer and WMP and such...
This would signify an interesting trend with MS; there is a slimmed version of XP in the works for 3rd-world countries. I wonder if these new stripped out versions would find use elsewhere such as in embedded machines.
If MS is forced to exclude media player from windows, what is stopping them to put it up on the windowsupdate.com. So the next time a unknowing user goes to windowsupdate to get patches, he/she might get (automatically) Media Player as well. After all MS can term the Media Player a update (eventhough it is not).
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
M$ can strip this out, that out and have a million different versions.
But in the end windows 2000 + XP nowadays really only differ by a few registry keys. Some programs can do the magic for you. Cough.... NTswitcher.... Cough.
You'll have to try harder than that next time.
//Blessed are they that run around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels.
Bill said it's *impossible* to do that, since extra crap like web browsers are an *integral* part of the operating system (I wonder how they made operating systems before web browsers were invented). If they do this, does it mean it suddenly and miraculously became possible?
Will they sell it in other countries, or to customers who want it? Back during the Netscape/IE fiasco, I read one of Microsoft's supporters say "customers must buy what is sold to them, not what they want". Uh huh. Right now Linux has exactly what I want, and I don't even have to pay for it. Beat that, MS!
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Microsoft has argued that unbundling Media Player from Windows would prevent the operating system from working properly.
really? didn't know an operating system needed a media player to work correctly.
unless for some reason other applications integrated wmp, in which case offering wmp as a seperate download is just as good. it annoys me when they make such dubious claims.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
OK, but even if they strip it out it's still Windows undearneath.
Bottom line: # Windows kernels > # Linux kernels
Thus, Microsoft remains the Top Dog Dominant Company of 21st century (especially since their recent merger with NBC).
Some guys stripped out all the crap that was loaded onto Windows 98 and all of a sudden, it because a pretty damn good OS.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
Back in the day when Netscrape was making noise about Internet Exploder being bundled with windows, Microsoft just integrated Exploder into the interface so that at one point it became "neccesary". So now windows users basicly use a web browser to navigate their files on their own hard drives.
I predict that a future version of windows will integrate sound and video into the interface. Making Media Player the new file-navigator, with animated talking program icons or some such.
Probably will call it WindowsMediaExplorer.
There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
It's true -- Europe will HOPEFULLY get the brunt of this.
Windows media player on the other hand is a true app in that it has a bundle of features, uses, etc., IMO windows should come with a default media player that can do generic stuff (like play normal mp3's , wavs and videos out of the box, but not a full blown version (they should also decrease the price of windows because of this - I can dream right??)
Problem is, we are getting into a very grey area...what is/isn't a 'true' app that takes advantage of and bolsters ILLEGAL monopoly powers
I imagine it will be very hard to define what should/shouldn't be part of an OS, and to determine how long an app should remain an app, and then fall into a public domain of sorts and become available as an 'OS feature'
What if Microsoft simply stopped selling their software in Europe instead? All of a sudden. I tihnk that might make Europe change their minds. Not that I want to see MS win. But that would be kinda funny to see the fallout from that.
So, what do you bet that there isn't someone in the MS lab - if you're reading this then post an anon reply to this ;) - who already has a little map and schema of the new stripped down product. Maybe there is even a software copy sitting ready to be tested and shipped (well shipped anyway).
I reckon this developer should post it in Slashdot so we can check if it works.
Maybe its better than Linux!
Sell full version of Windows at normal price, and sell stripped version at DOUBLE, via mail order.
That should do an end run on the EU.
The EU will require MS to price the WMP-free version cheaper. After all, you *are* paying for WMP's development when you buy Windows.
Of course, you're also paying for MS's *other* unprofitable divisions, such as the XBox. In a perfect world, the EU could somehow get MS to sell a version of Windows where, when you buy it, money doesn't go to subsidize the XBox. But I don't see that happening.
finally
now maybe we'll be able to buy a copy of windows that comes with Firebird, Thunderbird, AIM, Norton, Winamp, and Earthlink. Instead of being forced to pay for Internet Explorer, Outlook, MSN Messenger, MS Anti-virus, MS Media Player, and MSN. I'm currently being forced to pay for all of those latter MS products even though I use all of the former products, and find them to be both cheaper and better programs.
at least not with known methods
It's too bad that it takes the EC in order to bring about the possibility of these changes. I know it's not the same system [insert pro-America comment here], but aren't these the type of things that the United States should be fighting for?
;>
Monti may also demand that Microsoft itself should propose "within a few months of a ruling" what Windows computer code it should reveal in order to make the operating system fully interoperable with rival software makers' programs for servers
Long overdue in my opinion, Microsoft is bundling way too much s&*^ together these days. They've built their entire market strategy around this idea; Just try to ask your Microsoft rep about any one product. The conversation may start with InfoPath, Sharepoint, Office, whatever, but will undoubtedly end up with discussions on Server 2003, MS SQL, Exchange, Commerce Server, ad infinitum until you have seen every single, poorly designed intertwined product they own. The truth is, Microsoft is right - their products only work well with each other.
I already have the source code anyway
Last August the Commission told Microsoft that its practice of bundling Media Player into Windows amounted to an abuse of the operating system's dominant position because it placed rival music and video players at a disadvantage.
Since I have never opened Media Player on my Windows box, I have no idea what sense Microsoft's position makes... Although their crowd control, err DRM, may not work properly.
Why just the EU? Why can't we all have access to the stripped down version?
Because if you can't handle a one second shot of a bare nipple during the Super Bowl halftime show then I don't think you're ready for a stripped down anything.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Seriously. No one will buy this.
It won't hurt MS one bit. They will jump at the first chance to get rid of this product. The question then becomes, how long can the courts force MS to make a product available, when no one is buying it? More importantly, why? Will it really address the issues?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
... MS pulls Media player out of a version of the OS but charges exactly the same amount for it, and prominently marks it 'no media player edition'. Consumer sees they're both the same price and opts for the 'integrated' version anyway.
I don't see how this helps anyone, apart from costing MS some cash to implement. Unless there's a provision which I didn't glean from the article.
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
Then Lindows can sue Microsoft for trademark infringment.
"It's the smell! If there is such a thing." Agent Smith - The Matrix
If the EU mandates it, you won't be able to sell the "integrated" media version within the confines thereof.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
That is of course if I still want Windows. Why would I buy some crippled stripped down version while consumers who pay somewhat similar get a better working version elsewhere?
I am worried how EU will enforce that the stripped down version work the same way as the other one.
All of these antitrust "remedies" miss the mark completely. Bundling software into Windows is only one anticompetitive tactic and it isn't even the most important one. It is amusing in a watch-a-train-wreck way to watch them kill categories of software. AV vendors are about to feel the pinch. But then, we've been bitching at MS forever to beef up their security.
Besides as given categories of software become ubiqitous people start expecting more things to come with the OS. MS would probably have to bundle a browser and a media player even if destroying Netscape and Real weren't on their minds at all. Now they need to bundle a firewall and an AV scanner to protect the rest of the net from their own customers.
The true factors that give their monopoly power are secret OEM agreements and undocumented protocols and file formats. Breaking them up won't necessarily fix those and neither will dictating what MS can and can't ship with their OS. Take away the gun away from vendor's heads and document the formats and protocols. Their source code is not needed, wanted, or even particularly useful. It would have to be reverse engineered for those specs anyway.
do they have to change the title of this stripped down version? or can they still call it xp embeded?
Maybe they can just strip the security out and repackage.
a) giving a clear choice... instead of the 'only for advanced users' install time configuration allowing you to explicitly choose installables with an easy to use interface.
:( (are there others ?) ....and MS always seems to like shutting the door on the competition instead of providing a better product than it.
b) and keeping open-interfaces(even if not open src), so that other players can easily integrate their products into windows.
now how tough (or harmful) can that be ? (both a question and statement)
additions/mods to the list welcome...
It seems nothing short of total domination will satisfy microsoft... yet somehow that seems to be the only way to make money
[all generalizations are untrue except this one]
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Hey, every article is an opportunity to bash Microsoft!
The truely smart ones will wait until the warez version comes out.
Paying for MS crap is for the birds.
I always thought that the Plus! packs were pretty cool concepts. Why doesn't Microsoft just do a barebones OS then a cheapy Plus! product with all the extra crap nobody needs?
Theres nothing WRONG with Microsoft bundling in it's Media Player or Web Browser or whatever. Doing that is no different than them including Notepad.
The problem is when they use their monopoly of the operating system to pretty much require you to use their version of the software or when they use the monopoly to make their product inheirently better.
For example in windows if you go into the control panel and open up internet options will it configure your Mozilla browser? Can you setup your help file system to use a different default renderer for it's html files? Or my favorite your pretty much required to keep IE installed so you can use Windows Update to get the almost daily CRITICAL updates for their buggy software.
The media player isn't going to be quite the versatile system component that an HTML renderer is but there are still going to be a lot of applications that end up using it and they won't have much choice thanks to tie-ins like properitary windows media formats.
The sad thing is that Gates isn't lying when he says he's making this stuff a central part of the operating system. Clearly linux is following suit with it's own html renderers. The problem is that with Microsoft they never give the user any options to say "hey thanks for making html such an intergal part of my computing expierence now let me use X product instead of your sucky component please".
I am not pro-MS or pro-*nix pro-Apple (or pro-anything for that matter), but I think forcing MS to take out 'features' from its OS seems kinda trivial.
If I buy an OS and it happens to come with a web browser, media player, firewall, virus scanner, etc... then good for me. Its not like anyone's gonna go out and buy an OS based on 'standard' applications bundled with it, "Oohhh... I'm gonna by Windows XP cuz it comes with IE6 and WMP8!!".
Seriously, if any of those apps that came with the OS happen to suck, I'll go out and replace it with something else. To the average Joe, if an OS didnt come with something, (1) he'd probably be annoyed why the OS didnt come with a media player (cuz every other OS does), and (2) if he had to go out and buy one now, he'd probably sell one made by MS anyways cuz you know, "it'd go together better" or something like that...
In any case, forcing MS to take out features results in an inconvience to people who don't know better anyways, but saves anti-MS geeks a few (hundred) MB so that they can make space to install their smaller, faster, free, open-source apps...
Yeah, I'd trust anything written by a site which says this in its other articles:
"Microsoft - Get the facts on Microsoft(R) Windows(R) and Linux. Click here. Why pay more for Linux than Microsoft(R) Windows(R)? Through a variety of tests and comparisons, major third-party research and analysis firms found Windows to be less expensive than Linux in the long run. Read all the studies and see for yourself. Click here to get the facts."
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
They call it "msdos"
Microsoft - Get the facts on Microsoft(R) Windows(R) and Linux. Click here. Why pay more for Linux than Microsoft(R) Windows(R)? Through a variety of tests and comparisons, major third-party research and analysis firms found Windows to be less expensive than Linux in the long run. Read all the studies and see for yourself. Click here to get the facts.
Quite a paradox when one compares it with what the article talks about.. Is someone who's reading the article (typical ./er) really going to believe this ad? lol!
If you made mistakes, I dodn't notice them, your message was clear. Kudos.
So clear your message was, I have to inform you on your hypocrisy on allowing a business to allow it to attempt to sell it's product. What is it you hate, the fact that Windows is sold, or that MS sells an OS? You mention Linux as something you like to see overtake Windows? If this happened, would you be pleased to see a MS-Linux being sold? You should, otherwise you simply are showing a ridiculous hatred for an entity who's sole desire is to try to engage in commerce. Remember, it's businesses who employ people, your employer didn't hire you just because it want to write a check to you.
Even if they aren't much smaller than two meters...
So do redhat users.
So do Apple users.
the problem is not that people use the web browser to navigate their hard drives. The problem is that every goddamn desktop widget has hooks right into the innermost parts of the OS and has full priviledges to use them. So you end up with great "features" like being able to install backdoors on anyone's system just by getting them to click on the WMA file you renamed as an MP3, or infecting their entire system by getting them to look at the folder where you planted your virus with the hidden filename.
XP came with all kinds of great security features out of the box. Too bad they all come disabled out of the box and MS doesn't have the guts to put a "user security wizard" right on the default desktop for fear of creating some sort of mass exodus. Better for all those users to go on believing windows is a brittle piece of shit that they "break" by pressing the wrong key than to have them learn the reason their systems become senile over time is because it's so full of security holes it's available resources are being swamped by one browser exploit after another...
Unlike the US who just gives M$ a slap on the wrist.
Yes, I'm from the US.
I would certainly hope that these two OSes must be sold in versions that do not have media players bundled as well. To not do so would be hypocritical, and anti-competitive.
Suppose Microsoft actually allowed people to unbundle WMP. Answer this: With the desktop market being what it is, would WMP still not be the dominant media player around?
All MS needs to do is ensure that all those pre-installed laptops and desktops ship with the default configuration (which has WMP bundled). Most home users wouldnt care trying any other player.
I think the simple fact is that MS has a monopoly on the OS, and there are pretty few people out there who care to distinguish between the OS and the applications. So as long as this continues, you can blame MS for all it cares, nothing's gonna change.
This sig is empty.
The word CONVICTED here rings a particular bell. MS has been CONVICTED of ILLEGALLY maintaining a MONOPOLY. This is yet another remedy to restore order by punishing the CONVICTED.
Got Code?
And even if it isn't it WILL be brought up. I will make sure of it!
What I want stripped are the security vulnerabilities in Windows.
That's a bit of a loaded term in my opinion. We can take it the other direction and say a "Less bloated OS".
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It's too bad that you're not bright enough to realize that there isn't any error in the post that you flamed that a spell-checker would catch.
Mod Parent Up!
this " MS will have to do something, sometime, somewhere " headline is old... and I never see something really happening...
it's just stupid...
Not to mention how "Search... on the Internet" doesn't launch my default browser, and doesn't recognize Mozilla's search sidebar, nor my Search Engine selection, nor... etc. With Windows, it's never about the user's decisions, it's about Microsoft's decisions. Just looking through my start menu I can see a wealth of things I never checked when I installed XP... such wonderfully useful and undoubtably well-designed programs as: Windows Movie Maker MSN Passport Service MSN Messenger Outlook Express Address Book Few people realize this, but Windows isn't really an operating system. It doesn't allow software to communicate efficiently with hardware - it simply replaces software! It should be called a Computer Substitute.
Microsoft has argued that unbundling Media Player from Windows would prevent the operating system from working properly. It doesn't work properly WITH it.
According to Microsoft, Iterix is the interim solution to porting your *nix apps to Windows.
In reality, Iterix is a set of Unix shells and apps that run atop a WinNT kernel.
Ahh, the irony.
Ok, way to many anti-MS people are getting way to happy about MS showing source code for Media Player. Think about it. Other companies will have the source, leads to other companies being able to take advantage of media Player, leads to more companies relying on Media Player.
The idea here is to allow Quicktime, Real (ugh), etc to compete fairly.
I think the only real solution here is to make Media Player an optional install (it's not yet required by the OS, even if it is tied in firmly) and to not allow MS to force OEMs to install it/not install others. At this point other companies will be able to get their media players installed at the OEM level, ensuring them the same level of competition.
Although, for the record, my new Dell laptop came with MediaPlayer, Real, Quicktime, and some Dell Media thing. So I don't see the issue here, other than being unable to remove MediaPlayer. If I could remove MediaPlayer I don't think there would be an issue.
And I would like to thank everyone who made it possible for me to have a bunch of additional media player software packages to block on my firewall. grr.
Whee signature.
Notice how the consumers never entered this equation at all? Isn't it feasible that Joe User LIKES having an operating system that doesn't require him to go hunting all over the internet for simple things like media players and Instant messaging? My God, if they took out the browser the average computer illiterate wouldn't know what to do. Use an FTP client to get one? This is just a government mandate to protect competetitors that can't compete for various number of reasons.
You can argue all you want that it's because they have a monopoly but you'd be conveniently ignoring facts. Why do people use Windows XP? It's not relatively stable, but its stable enough for the average user and more importantly: It's user friendly. No Linux distro can compete with that level ease, and Apple is too expensive.
If you take out these components you're not only just pissing off Microsoft (which may be a laudable goal) but the millions of users who LOVE having everything in one nice package. But hey, at least that tiny minority of competetitors will get make some nice profit, right?
Make a significantly better product and communicate this to your target market. Do this, and you'll win. It happened with A & P Grocers (80% of the market was theirs, and they eventually went bankrupt for not responding to market trends) and it can happen with Microsoft. Don't hide behind litigation
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
The biggest problem in implementation is that you make life more difficult for the consumer by removing Media Player from Windows. Whether it's anti completive or not, I think it's safe to say that consumers prefer products with more features. Neither Media Player nor IE have stalled innovation in their respective markets, and overall, consumers have benefited from their stability/standardization.
There are two ways they could go with this... strip out the offending material, strip out the os and just leave the security holes, or strip out the security holes and leave a secure OS... Ok so that was three ways but who other than Bill is counting?
To get a ton of bored nerds to waste their time trying to put together something that's almost a picture... or is it ACTUALLY a picture?
The "DirectShow" component of DirectX provides access to the audio and video codecs - and includes full playback functionality.
Applications that play movies (typically games and movie players - although you'll note that even the "copy file" dialog box animation is actually a resource-embedded AVI) need DirectX and DirectShow installed. The "Windows Media Player" GUI is basicly a tiny app that sits in front of all this other stuff that's an essential operating system service.
The Windows Media Player executable is 70k (plus about 1MB of DLL files that include the DRM libraries). All the codecs and the actual decoding engine are part of the system.
Sure, so the Windows Media 9 codecs come with the player, but there's nothing stopping anyone from writing their own codecs that use the same mechanism. See: Real Alternative and QuickTime Alternative, plugins that let you play RealVideo and QuickTime movies using the standard playback functions. So if, for example, Apple complains about Windows Media Player not supporting Quicktime - this is only Apple's fault for insisting on only supporting their own player and for not following Windows standards.
Exactly. People seem to have forgotten the fact that many applications will have problems without a media player. A media player is basic functionality that has been included since Windows 3.1 days for heavens sake. How will the various applications that issue an audible alert using the PlaySound API work for example if you remove the media player and all its drivers? What you are going to force every application that does anything with sound to ship with a media player of some sort? Heaven help people with the 15 different media players you'll end up with in that case. This is absolute nuts I tell you. Next people will have Microsoft remove access to the builtin in WordPad since that is competition to OpenOffice.org? If no one could convince the courts to remove IE from the OS then why is the bar lower this time to remove MediaPlayer from the OS? Only because the other so called free players like the pathetic intrusiveware called RealPlayer cannot stand real competition.
Consider a rather odd but apt example that illustrates why. Suppose one company, Microcar, manufactured 90% of the cars in the world. Suppose that they were trying to dominate radio broadcasting by including in each of their cars a free radio that would only receive broadcasts that used their technology. Would it make any difference if the EU required them to sell cars with and without this free radio?
Of course it wouldn't. The radio is free, so customers would say, "Well, I might as well get the version with it." And Microcar would help that process along by hinting, using their usual FUD tactics, that the radio-free car wouldn't be quite as reliable. It could leave you stranded on some lonely mountain road.
There's only one solution that makes sense. Require Microsoft to work with competing technologies (Real and QuickTime) and ship with Windows versions of those technologies that are as stable and well-integrated as WMA.
If the EU isn't willing to do that, justifying it by Microsoft's monopoly position, then they should drop this issue and look the other way when Microsoft uses its OS dominance to crush their competition in this and other areas.
--Mike Perry
http://www.InklingBooks.com/
What? No Clippey? Damn!
Table-ized A.I.
at least in Europe. Economies of scale and all. By all rights, the stripped down version should be more expensive since it costs more to produce, and has a much smaller market to recoup the additional cost from.
Now is this likely? No. But I'm betting microsoft shareholders will end up eating a portion of the costs and the rest to be paid by Europeans. Thank your government for increasing costs by demanding options almost no one wants. Heh. (Yes I'm well aware that tomorrow you'll be pointing over the atlantic when my government does the same thing in another industry.)
I for one look forward to seeing if Microsoft is forced to sell the "stripped down OS" that Bill Gates and other "expert witnesses" in Microsoft swore blind could not be produced/delivered without fatally destroying the entire OS.
If you have such a short memory that you don't remember what I'm referring to, google for articles describing the shennanigans at the most Microsoft AntiTrust hearings.
EU to Microsoft: We hereby require you to prove once and for all that you undeniably committed perjury when you claimed in court at the recent US anti-trust hearings that a stripped down Microsoft OS could not be produced.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
A "punter" is someone who punts, a punt being either:
1. A type of lat-bottomed boat pushed along the water by pushing off on the river/canal/sea bed with a long pole; or
2. A bet.
The term "punter" can also refer to a customer, which is derived from the betting usage. Bookmakers (the people that are licenced to take bets) naturally refer to their customers as punters, and the term has spread to become a colloquial term for a customer in general.
Of course, the American Football definitions of punters and punts are derived from sporting usage elsewhere, in this case football (soccer if you must), where a punt is a kick upfield, and the term is normally used when a player kicks a ball with the express intention of just getting it away from the part of the field that he was in.
Basically, it describes a semi-desperate precautionary defensive manouvre, which, I suppose, is not too dissimilar to how a punt works in American Football. However, rarely (if ever) have I heard the term punter used in this context, so it's doubtful that any Englishman that you hear use the word is referring to this meaning.
Hope that helps.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
This is SO fucking BS. I'm not a huge Windows fan, but a decision like that by the EU is so freakin' sad it's pathetic. MS has the right to itegrate any feature they damn well want to into their own OS. If you don't like it, BUY ANOTHER DAMN OS. There is no rule that says an OS has to be limited to running the computer basics. It's like telling a car maker not to include A/C or power windows because they're too competitive. Now how assnine is that? About just as assnine as the EU enforcing a stripped down version of windows. Anti-trust is one thing. that's their business practices. The features they include within windows entirely another, which they have every right to add as they see fit. Punish them for anti-trust. Fine, but this is the saddest, laziest way i can think of to do it.
Fucking lightweights.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Perhaps you would prefer to approach this from a different angle - Could you explain to me how giving away a browser benefitted Microsoft?
It allowed MS to control the defacto internet standards for a long time.. we're still in the process of getting away from that. How many sites do you see that still say "Best viewed with IE", and browsers that are actually adhering to W3C standards are being blocked?
That kind of lock-in means any possible competition is always playing catch-up. Not to mention gives MS huge leverage (which they used) against other standards, such as Java (hence why Sun sued), or in the market for selling server software ("IE works best with our software.. and everybody uses IE, so you should really get ours.")
But beyond this, it doesn't even matter. If IE was offered for free, but *not included* with the OS, Netscape wouldn't even have had arguing rights, because at that point MS would not have been leveraging monopoly status in one market (OS) to affect the business of another (Browser). However, they did, and that's where they crossed the line.
As for baseless generalizations, you also make one when you suggest that without MS we'd have a far worse mess. There's no proof of that, as the computing industry was already starting to realize the benefits of standardization, at least for interoperability, when MS came along.
From where I sit, MS's overwhelming monopoly actually hurt interoperability.. why? Because people didn't need to think about designing their programs for multiple systems.. they could just design for Windows and that was good enough.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
how many other monopoly standards are there....
I personally have paid at least $5 to sony for all of those 3.5 inch floppy drives containing their patent all of these years...
I like having a workable and tested Media Player in my OS as a back up that plays a big percentage of popular files off the bat. Same goes for Internet Explorer.
As for WMP 8/9, it has been the beast all around player I have used for MANY years. Very pleased mainly with the extra jukebox features of 9.
It is in the operating system manufacturers (or OSS project) users BEST INTERESTS for the manufacturer (managing group) to ship all of the necessary tools to make their OS the most productive and useable out of the box and with out spending more money.
In this day and age of multimedia content, word processing, e-mail, and the Internet, all Desktop Operating Systems now come with some for of:
Browser, E-Mail Client, Media Player, and Word Processor
Why? becuase they have to.
It's a litte crazy to say that since M$ has such a large share of the market that they are no longer allowed to ship the essential components of a modern day operating system. In many ways this could be analogus to dominant car manufactureres being prohibited from selling their cars with certain "features" and forcing the car buyer to get the parts after purchase, from the manufacturer or a third party.
Do you REALLY want to download a media player simply to play a video/music file? Are you still going to download the player you want?
Do most players now support almost all music and video formats? Yes.
Monopoly aside, stripping core, arguably essential features out of an end user's desktop operating system is not the correct response to this sort of thing.
Any manufacturer should be able to differentiate their products by providing whatever add-ons and user experience they like on top of the Windows operating system... Meaning they can add or remove whatever programs they like, whether from microsoft or others.
There needs to be pricing protection, (Unusual, and illegal unless you have been found to be a monopoly), for the competitors so there needs to be some fee for the microsoft add-on pack. And there cannot be discounting below some floor, and no tie-ins to any sort of percentage of sales for shared marketing dollars.
The retail pack (upgrade and new) can include whatever microsoft wants to include.
Just removing it is penalizing the customer by insisting he go through extra steps what he needs. And where does it stop? Browser? IM client? FTP client? File Explorer? Notepad? Calculator? GDI???? Direct X?
Let the manufacturers create demand for competitive software, by allowing them to customize the user experience. This will be good for the consumer, and create competition for all parts of the system. Including keeping Microsoft on its toes. Instead of a worse experience for the consumer, create a better one the old fashioned way, competition. Make Dell compete with IBM and HP and Gateway not mearly over distribution and manufacturing, but on the actual experience the user gets. Each trying to outdo the other. Some incredibly simple systems for kids, some business oriented models, the media model, the scientific model, etc... There may be the microsoft branded stuff, a sony suite, The IBM suite, the cow machine... This is what was broken by the microsoft monopoly, it seems this is the way to fix it.
I thought the above post was informative and only stating a fact. That is, if you actually got to see what was blurred in the pictures
See for yourself
So no nipples there, move along...
- 4r0g
Why not, instead of making MS strip everything out of it's operatings system, things we've all come to expect and demand. Imagine buying an operating system, in todays day and age, without a web browser. In order to get online, you would need to go to a retailer, buy some softaware package, bring it home, install it, then update it to the most recent version. Next you have to find a decent media player, but you don't know much about computers so you're not sure where to look. There 'computer machines' are also supposed to be good for email, but that's not bundled either. It's not practical to suggest stripping anything from any OS. But rather, to stop the monopoly, legislate that it must distribute with 2 or 3 alternatives to each program in question, all equally as visible as the next. Then, the consumer can chose which default browser, media player and other free products they would like to use as their defaults. This seems a much more practical solution, that would even give much more exposure to the smaller companies in competition with Microsoft.
(Futurama) Fry: "My folks were always on me to groom myself and wear underpants. What am I, the pope?"
Your search - NTswitcher - did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing "ntswitcher".
Suggestions:
- Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
- Try different keywords.
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Also, you can try Google Answers for expert help with your search.
The thing is, i'm using a very slow dialup right now, and this page loaded within like a second of me clicking search. Methinks that maybe this is filtered out by google before it actually "searches" any insite folks?
While I am not a fan of Microsoft, you have to be fair. Computers get more powerful, and it's only natural the services that the operating system provides
In the 80's people bought or used shareware stuff like programmer's editors, macro tools, norton utilities, backup software that made backups to floppy, etc. If you wanted TCP/IP you'd buy something like Trumpet winsock for windows 3.11. Then 95 just integrated it into the OS, where it should be. I cannot imagine such things being unbundled. Can you imagine Linux with TCP/IP on the user level ?
Stuff like media player isn't in Windows without a reason. 90% of it are libraries, directshow filters etc. The player is just a token app that calls a few API functions. Any beginner with C# can write a simple mediaplayer in 30 minutes.
The idea that a browser is a separate application that can be sold for profit died together with Netscape. The whole idea is so 90's. Nowadays every damn application does html, help files are chm (compress html), etc.
Seems to me most comments I read are missing the point. I'm pretty sure the EU doesn't give a rats ass about Mediaplayer as a product, but as a platfrom to milk the video on demand market that will emerge over the next decades. Because that's what is all about, why do you think you can download *all* players for free?
The parent post may have tried to be funny, but he/she has come up with a VERY good point.
MS woudl "sell" the stripped down version at a higher price, as it is a smaller market version. It is NOT the first time they have done this.
Have a nice day!
Much as generally I'm fairly pro-Microsoft, IMHO this doesn't make sense at all.
.doc files, a browser for .html files and so on. The file manager does _not_ need any intrinsic knowledge about how to handle all those files. It just needs to know what application to launch for each of them. That's all.)
"Why shouldn't a desktop management system utilize an 128 MB graphics card?" Let's see:
1. Because it's a straw man argument. You can use all the fancy graphics you want to, even without being a web-browser tied into the very operating system. You can write the exact same Windows file- and/or desktop-manager in user space, _without_ making it a web browser, and it will work just as well. In fact, heck, you can even make your full 3D real-time manager, one that even _needs_ a DirectX 10 graphics card, and it still won't need to be a web browser, nor to be intimately tied into the OS itself.
Noone says that need to go back to a command line prompt. You can have your relations, memories and information, or whatever else, and you can have them presented with as much fancy graphics as you want to. All I'm saying is: there is _no_ real reason why the drawing program _has_ to be a web browser, and there is _no_ real reason why it can't be replaceable with other programs that do the same thing.
2. Because it doesn't need to. All that a file/desktop manager like Windows uses is some 2D and font acceleration. That's all. There is no real need to use 3D texture-mapped environment-bump-mapped pixel-shaded full-screen-antialiased anisotropic-filtered graphics just to display a list of files, nor to paint a border around a window. We're talking a relatively primitive 2D app, not a FPS game.
3. That goes double for the codecs and media playing capabilities. There is no way in heck to say you need streaming video codec hooks into the very OS itself... to make a file or desktop manager. How and where the heck would that file or desktop manager even use those codecs? For what? Unless it's going to have DivX movies instead of icons, there is exactly _zero_ need for it to even know what a codec is.
(Just in case someone wants to jump in with a stupidity like "it needs codecs to play the media files when you double-click them": *bzzzt* Wrong answer. What happens when you double-click a file is launching an external application which knows what to do with the file. A media player app for WMA files, Word for
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
With MicroSoft facing all these legal difficulties (although it remains to be seen how much any decission will be enforced), I can't help but wonder about other OS vendors.
Take Apple. If there ever was a company that practiced aggressive bundling, it had to be Apple. They sell the OS together with the hardware (and prohibit you from running the OS on non-Apple hardware), and bundle the whole iApps suite with that, plus IDE and dog knows what else. If bundling is MicroSoft's crime, then it's certainly Apple's, too.
And what about Linux distro's, and the BSDs? Most of the default installs give you not only the core OS, but also the distributers choice of window system (typically XFree86), window manager (typically few of many ones out there), browser (typically one or two, leaving out alternatives), mail client (few out of many excellent alternatives), etc. Not to mention how the more polished distros set up default applications for certain actions, just pushing those over the competition.
I don't think bundling should be a crime. From the end user's perspective, it's more a convenience than anything else. It happens in hardware, too. Computer suppliers will typically sell systems with components from certain vendors only. How many Dell's come with AMD CPUs? It's not like it's impossible to get a system with all the components the way _you_ want, just the vendors select certain standard configurations, which is convenient (and cost-effective) for them _and_ consumers.
Of course, these predefined setups do favor selected components over others. That's a problem in a system where your profits, chances og survival, and ability to innovate and improve depend on margins and quantities. You have to deliver a significantly more advantageous product to get people to use it over the default, but without the income stream that being the default generates, this is a lost battle.
The solution? I don't know. There are a few ideas, though. Split up every system in components. In the PC, the video card can be exchanged for another one, and the old one doesn't have to be paid for anymore. The same could be applied to software. However, where to draw the line? Do we allow a company to ship a text editor with their OS? A GUI? A standard library? Anything beyond the kernel? What about kernel modules? Bootloader? I don't think it's possible to come to a reasonable compromise here.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Why does this only apply to media player?? I want to be able to decide not to install IE and Outlook as well as MP when I install windows.. Why would I want an email client on my gateway? Even worse I cant remove Outlook.. yeah I can uninstall it but the exe pervades no matter what! I say force them to strip outlook and IE as well so I am free to use a browser and email client of my choice safe in the knowledge that I will never have to see the nonstandard browser and plague like mail client aver again!
Without Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Media Player &tc.
Only how does a beginner then GET firefox?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Of course, having seen how most of the Americans react to everyday Scandinavian public sauna culture, I'm not really that surprised.
______________
OTTERS RULE.
1.Remove any references to MSN (so they cant push their MSN internet service or e.g. MSN search .NET binaries etc etc). Ditto for all their "secret" APIs (such as apis in MSHTML.DLL, SHELL32.DLL, SHLWAPI.DLL, SHDOCVW.DLL, SHFOLDER.DLL, WININET.DLL, COMCTL32.DLL, ADVAPI32.DLL, JSCRIPT.DLL, VBSCRIPT.DLL, .NET runtime, .NET libraries, DirectX, Media Player libs and whatever else) .NET to attack mono)
2.Make MSN messenger something that you can choose to install or choose not to install (i.e. if you dont want it, you can choose not to install it and install another messenger or no messenger at all)
3.Completly open up the Windows Media Player codec layer such that anyone can write WMP codecs and anyone can use those codecs in their app (making it so that e.g. games can use the codecs for displaying full-screen video clips or playing game audio would be a nice thing also, I dont know if its already possible or not)
4.Detatch the Windows Media Player UI from windows and from the codecs and make it an optional install.
5.Force microsoft to have one OEM price and one OEM contract. Anyone that wants windows OEM can buy at the same price (as long as they are bundling with a PC, they qualify for OEM price).
6.MS not able to dictate what OEMs can/cant do.
For example, let OEMs install whatever they want alongside windows (i.e. Linux, Mozilla or whatever else)
7.Publish all the communications protocols used by anything that comes on the windows CD under a clear "anyone can use this with no restrictions" licence. Also, publish all of their various data storage formats under the same sort of licence (e.g. NTFS filesystem specs, MS office document formats, MS media files, regular and HTML help document files,
That way, anyone can talk to/use their HTML renderer, internet DLLs and whatever else.
Also, it would (presumably) allow one to write a new HTML renderer (e.g. based on gecko) that could replace the MS one.
8.Force MS to unbundle Outlook Express, publish all the data formats that OE uses to store stuff, etc etc etc. (so that other mail programs can be used instead if you want to)
8.Force MS to completly implement the current W3C standards for HTML, XML and such. This includes complete support for ALL parts of formats like PNG
9.MS not allowed to use patents to protect their monopoly in the OS space (for example, cant use patents on
and 10.MS not allowed to use influence to try and spread products inside EU (e.g. applying pressure to governments/corps who are trying to decide between windows and linux)
These are all important but the most important IMO is point 7 (i.e. the "open all their secrets" thing) since that will level the playingfield as far as competitors go.
For example, Mozilla will be able to talk MS server authentication on all platforms, with no licence conditions or strings attatched.
And things like Linux and ReactOS will have full information to be able to read NTFS file systems.
And so on.
How many times do we have to repeat that monopolies are bound by different rules?
What do we need to do for that simple idea to sink in the tired cerebral organ of multitudes of people that can't grasp such a simple concept?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The question what gets bundled with what. M$ has already found the solution for the EU. They will only sell Windows Media Player (for 450 euros). Those who want Windows bundled with the Player will have to pay 400 extra...
Same sex marriage? Since when? And although not everywhere in the EU gay marriage is recognized only people in the fringes of political ideology even suggest that gay unions are somehow immoral.
Cheerleaders? Give me a brake, you should go to Amsterdam, Hamburg if you want to see scantly dressed women.
Naked cowboys? Pass frankly, but there are multitude of naturist associations in Europe and in most places to be naked in public is not even illegal and in most situations will be looked at with amusement.
Playboy mansion? Marquis Sade.
So I think the US has little to teach others on this field of human endeavour as well.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There was an overriding technical need to put everything and the kitchen sink in one integrated mass of bloat.
In the other hand other options do the same functions giving choice to people and keeping design simpler.
In Windows if one thing does not work it affects many other aspects in unintended ways.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Beta was not technologically superior to VHS. This has become an urban myth. Just like many people think the Dvorak keyboard is better than the QWERTY keyboard.
If you are interested in this topic, I would strongly recommend the following book:
Winners, Losers and Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology. By Stan J. Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis. ISBN 094599980-1.
Both authors are highly regarded economic professors and take a look at the VHS vs. Beta history. An excerpt from the book:
"Although many held the perception that the Beta VCR produced a better picture than VHS, technical experts such as Weinstein and Prentis have concluded that is was, in fact, not the case; periodic reviews in Consumer Reports found VHS picture quality superior twice, found Beta superior once, and found no difference in a fourth review."
However, VHS did have notable benefits over Beta, such as longer recording times.
I think we should force M$ to sell stripped down versions of windows, without any GUI...
... uuuuuuuuuh.... not sure...
I'd like to replace windows UI with KDE.
While I'm waiting I use a stripped down version of windows without KERNEL.EXE which I replaced by *nix. Everythink works fine.
At least I had the choice of another OS.
Sh**, there are no games on *nix... Do you mean I'll have to replace my gaming pc with a gaming console ? Xbox
Does IE comes with the Xbox ???
the replies to this post are old world and utilitarian. they heed from a time when one needs to be concerned about things like processor power, memory, etc. Its the year two fucking thousand four. Think about and embrace moores law a bit and stop whining every time an ioda of processessing power is "wasted" on the user experience.
If the general public was not interested in thier user experience, no one would be using a GUI... but we all are. Ignoring the specific intricacies of these GUIs and looking at shaps -- we all are using pretty much the same gui. Its flat. Usable to a certain extent, and relies on aging metafors that are boring and damn pedestrian. You "open" your "files" --- Ill explore concepts.
If I were MS, I'd revoke all the EU licenses, give everyone a certain amount of time to comply, then start suing the bejeezus out of everyone for infringement...
That'll teach the morons.
Almost eveyone i know, even non-techies, use Winamp for music at least, those of them who've gotten around to downloading 5 use it for video too.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
In the interests of providing a quality experience for our lurkers, you are required to confirm that the following obligatory jokes have been included.
You cannot uninstall these jibes from a Slashdot Microsoft story.
a) The stripped down version just alternates between the startup screen and the blue screen.
b) In Soviet Russia, WMP uninstalls the OS.
c)
Step 1: Violate anti-monolopy law.
Step 2: Vest stock options. Increase market share to monopoly + 20%
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit.
d) The stripped down version limits outbound bandwidth to 5Mbps, when 0wn3d and used as a zombie in a DDOS.
e) Aren't Microsoft cool now that they have open sourced their best ever operating system? Like the way IBM aren't evil anymore...
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
I find this disucssion ridiculous. The /. community, as a whole, tends to be very libertarian, except where MS is involved, then you have 15 year old kids spouting legal decisions. Kids: It's called hypocricy. It's the same thing that the Bush administration is doing right now. Using the law when it suits you, and ignoring it otherwise. Personally, I'm wary of all laws and court decisions that come dwon from ON HIGH because so many of them are shit. So, unless you're in favor of the Patriot Act, the DMCA, all of this anti-gay shit that's going on, stupid patents, bad copyright laws, please, please, shut the fuck up with this "convicted monopolist" shit. It's just stupid.
Did I say anything about CPU power or RAM? Nope. Did I say anything about users not needing a good GUI? Nope. Etc. But you didn't actually read any of that, did you? Just jumped directly back to building straw men in your little phantasy world, eh? Sad.
.DLL which sits behind it all, and tells the browser _what_ to display. (Just like when you browse slashdot, the magic isn't in your browser, it's in the server-side program that tells your browser what to display.)
So let's try again, in less words. Maybe this time you can actually be arsed to read first:
A. You can have your metaphors and intricate GUI. But does it have to be a _web_browser_? Exactly what the heck is so intricate and metaphor-rich about using a web browser to display the exact same flat list of files? I would have thought that if you want something intricate and advanced, Internet Explorer is the last place you'd look for that.
B. Why does the file manager have to be joined at the hip and unreplaceable? No, seriously. Precisely _because_ maybe someone wants to explore more rich metaphors, instead of being stuck with the 1990's HTML technology as the mandatory interface to the computer. How about letting me replace it with something that fits my needs better? How about letting people, yes, explore new concepts? Who knows? Maybe one of them will come with a better metaphor than that "boring and damn pedestrian" flat list.
C. Exactly how's using Windows Media Player as the new mandatory interface going to help? Exactly what advantages does that bring to the table? It's just a stupid program that plays movies.
Do you even understand any of the programming details that would go behind it? Or are you one of those whose tech knowledge of it all goes only as far as "ooh, pretty pictures and movies" and "Internet=Netscape"?
Let me enlighten you: the browser or media player is just a rendering program. It does nothing else than paint some stuff you sent it as a HTML or DivX file. That's all. No more, no less.
Most importantly: it doesn't add _anything_ that you couldn't have directly painted on the screen yourself.
If there's going to be any magic behind it all, any advanced metaphors in manipulating the files, it's _not_ the browser or media player facade. The magic will happen in some
Whether or not you get your metaphor-rich GUI, and a better structured view than today's "boring and pedestrian" flat list, will depend on this little module that sits behind it all. _Not_ on whether Microsoft forces it to go through IE or WMP to paint the result, or just allows it direct access to the screen.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Losedows
Why would anyone in their right mind want to use IE? Maybe because they care about getting to the content, not about fighting some stupid war against Microsoft.
/. geek. The geek loves doing things in the most uncomfortable and unnatural way just for bragging rights. (And, of course, for that fuzzy lemming feeling of being a part of the Anti-MS herd.) Joe Average, on the other hand, just wants to get to the sites he needs.
;)
Let's take some imaginary TV manufacturers.
1. MicroTV. Their TV does have some technical issues, and maybe it's a little light on the featuritis list, but -- for whatever reason -- works flawlessly with every single TV sender ever made.
2. MozillaTV. A bloated piece of crap which took some half a decade to even have a usable product at all. In fact, instead of even designing a TV, they first went into fantasy land and spent years reinventing the CRT (rendering engine) from scratch, making a designer remote control (the interface widgets) and their very own personalized bug tracking system. Still has even more technical problems than MicroTV. Works _well_ with maybe 10% of the TV stations, and with some 25% of them it doesn't even work at all. In fact, some stations might make your TV crash. On the plus sides, it has some extra features... that 99% of the people don't even want.
3. OperaTV. Decent TV, and definitely more stable than MicroTV. Nice piece of engineering, really. But... it only works with some 80% of the TV stations. And with about half the rest, the image doesn't quite look right. They have an even bigger list of useless features, most of which 99% of the people end up explicitly turning off. (E.g., those retarded gestures.)
Which of those 3 TV's do you think Joe Average will pick? Let me assure you that he'll pick MicroTV every time. Why? Because it works with all stations. That's all.
Now apply that knowledge to browsers. Which browser will Joe Average pick? MSIE every time.
There's no laziness, no cluelessness, etc, involved. It's just that Joe is nothing like the standard
He's not going to give up on playing Backgammon on MS's site, just for the privilege of taking part in a stupid browser war. He's not going to move his account to another bank, just because his old bank only supported IE. He's not going to stop uploading his digital photos and commenting on that camera manufacturer's forum site just because they don't show right in Mozilla. Etc.
So if you really were wondering why Joe Average stays with that "inferior" IE, now you know. Consider yourself enlightened
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You are joking aren't you?
Netscape wasn't free. It became free when they couldn't compete with free from MS. Check the history. Don't distort it.
Now the shoe is on the other foot. MS is going to have to figure out how to compete with free Open Office. Unfortunately Open Office doesn't come bundles in Windows by default like IE was. However I expect it to be bundles in most major distributions of Linux. As Linux picks up market share on the desktop, MS is going to face stronger competion from Open Office just as Netscape had to compete with the free Microsoft browser.
The truth shall set you free!
Let's not forget that this also opens them up to ENTER markets as well. Would MS have been able to enter the search engine market without having IE in place the way it is? No way. I am sure there are other markets they have ventured into based entirely on their ability to leverage their OS monopoly. Microsoft is not stupid - they know that competing businesses may come and go, but as long as they have that OS market share they can leverage it to their advantage in other areas. That is why Linux *IS* a real concern to them. After the OS, Office Applications are their bread and butter. But even if something else comes along to replace it, they can "work it out" in the OS to make it more difficult. But if they lose that OS marketshare - the game changes entirely. Conversely, their strengths in the application land keep people tied to their OS. It is the sweetest business out there.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
...but it's not very nice if you weld it into the system so it can't be removed or replaced (at least not without an awful lot of hacking). That is: open interfaces for system-plugins would be good. A multimedia-gui-monolith glued to the system is abusive.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
To say Microsoft cannot put Internent (sic)Explorer and Windows Media player on the operating system they created, on the cd they produced is totally absurd.
You haven't been keeping up have you. Microsoft are selling you the operating system. It's not free. How many add-ons are Microsoft allowed to charge you for as part of the price of Windows, that should be free. And don't give me that "part of the operating system" cack - if everyone else writes a standalone browser, it's obvious that a browser is NOT part of the OS.
You are correct about the C&E problem - but that is a case of providing an application bundle. If Microsoft provided a separate application bundle, that could be replaced at will by the OEMs, then no one would complain. But that's not how it goes down. Microsoft will not let the OEMs remove any of their stuff, and will even force the OEMs in contract not to have pre-installed "competing-but-free" software. See the Findings of Fact in the DOJ case.
In short, Microsoft are definitely tying the purchase of one product to the purchase of another, and that is illegal.
I don't quite get why. If I want to, I can just not use WMP. I find it useful to have lurking on the system if necessary for the occasional WMV file, but I try to avoid the file formats when I can, sticking with what I can play in Winamp (when in Windows), or XMMS, MPlayer or xine when in Linux.
My point is (basically), if you don't want Windows Media Player, don't use it!
Well, this isn't the way history played out. Netscape Navigator was indeed given out free. Netscape changed the way software distribution and evaluation was done. They revolutionized the desktop software industry which expanded also into the realm of server software. Prior to NS, the only s/w you could download was freeware/shareware/nagware.
MS IE was initially not free. You had to buy MS-Plus! to get it. It only became free as the browser war began to heat up...and once MS realized that noone was truly going to purchase a bunch of desktop themes and a browser that was not as rich as a "free" one from NS. They also realized that by giving IE away for free that the royalties owed to Mosaic Corp would equal exactly $0.00.
NS showed that you could let people download fully-functional software for free. But their licensing on those downloads was an evaluation license. For commercial use (or for rebundling), you were required to purchase a proper license. Many (many!) corporations licensed NS.
It was actually quite clever. Let people download the software at home (or rogue users in the corporate environment) and let them learn to use the software (and show it off). When it can be shown to solve certain business problems, then the corporation(s) would have/want to purchase it outright.
MS will just have to offer a version of Windows that doesn't include security features. That should slim it down considera...oh, wait a minute.
Well, in relation to just their machines, yes they do. As our MS shills have repeated ad nauseam. And they are correct. The WMP vs Quicktime is similar.
...
But hey, that's the "They haven't arrested Jack the Ripper yet, so I should be allowed to commit murder" defense.
As far as I'm concerned, they can go after Apple, once they've sorted out Microsoft. Or are you suggesting we need to hire more government lawyers to prosecute both at the same time
You know as much as I hate to admit it. Windows XP might not be that bad of an operating system once you eliminated certain annoying components from it.
:), but I'm just saying if you strip down Microsoft's OS it starts to look a lot less annoying.
For example, if you got rid of Internet Explorer there goes over half your security vulnerabilites. I for one wouldn't mind a stripped down Windows box that I can install whatever Browser, Media Player, etc.. on. This ruling might actually make Microsoft think about opening up some controls to better associate third party programs with the Operating System. Don't get me wrong I still love my Linux
It should come on the same CD as QT, Real -spit- player, DivX player, Media Player, ThunderBird, Outlook, IE, Galleon etc.
;)
This should be bundled with Windows for the users convenience.
My new car came with a media player. It was a Honda car with a Honda media player. I don't think I had the option to unbundle them.
Let's make a quick mental exercise and try to think what's actually needed to really modify the very way a GUI works. I.e., to actually provide a better metaphor than those "boring and pedestrian" files.
Let's think in terms of the MVC (Model-View-Controller) paradigm. Even if the actual implementation might make a monolythic screw-up of it, the conceptual difference between the three is still useful.
1. The Model: it's where your data sits. In the case of the aging pedestrian Explorer interface, the "model" is the filesystem.
And here's the scoop: since the old pedestrian paradigm of files and opening them is built into the very structure of the filesystem, this is where some fundamental changes will have to happen.
And once you change that, you're in for one helluva lot more coding work, to actually make an API and all for other applications to be able to use that whole new information hierarchy too. And you'll also need to write a whole new layer of software to enable old "legacy" applications to still function as before, by thinking they're using the old file-based system.
2. The Controller: this is what processes all those mouse-clicks. As the case may be, it may tell the model to change (e.g., delete or move a file), or tell the view to change (e.g., show the contents of a different directory), or both, or something else (e.g., launch an application.)
Again, the current controllers are very much _based_ on that old metaphor of files and opening them. If you're to offer the users a more metaphor-rich experience (whatever that may be), the controller must get one hell of an overhaul. In fact, someone will have to pretty much throw the old one away, and write a new one from scratch.
3. The View: this is the part which not only draws stuff on the screen, but actually decides _what_ should be drawn, and _how_.
Just shoving a browser or a media player here isn't going to magically make your metaphors happen. The actual HTML or DivX rendering is but the very last step of it all.
But you've done nothing to address the "how" and the "what" to draw. Having a media player here does jack squat to address that question.
Even worse, it might not help you that much with the final rendering part either. A media player is a dumb application. It has to receive a media file to play. So what are you going to do? Force the rest of the file manager to encode everything as a movie, which then the media player can finally render? What's the advantage there over just painting your advanced metaphors directly on the screen?
But either way: any way you want to look at it, out of the 3 conceptual components, the media player would be just a tiny part of 1 of them. And even there its contribution is highly debatable if it's worth the programming effort.
So as I've said, if any magic is going to happen, it's going to happen in some DLL's deep behind it all, not in the media player and not in the browser. The browser or media player are going to be not the corner-stone of some conceptual revolution, they're going to be at best 1% of the effort. At which point you can't help noticing that it all could happen just as well _without_ making it mandatory to use something as stupid as a browser or media player as your user interface.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
M$ providing IE with Windows is very useful, I think it would be fine with a new name. I propose "GUI for downloading Mozilla/Opera".
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
Nice try. Let's try again:
Once, there were black and white TVs. There was MosaicTV, and NetscapeTV. They worked well with all stations of that time, but, well, they were only black and white. One of the movie theatre chains, MicroMovie, didn't even think TVs would ever catch on.
But they did.
And MicroMovie decided they wanted a piece of the pie, and made a TV as well, MicroTV. They changed the frequencies ever so slightly, so their TV worked with the current channels, but also with channels on slightly different frequency bands.
Note that channels were not supposed to broadcast on those bands, but because of MicroMovie's monopoly, people started using MicroTV's weird nonstandard frequencies, which effectively killed NetscapeTV.
Now, fast forward to the colour era, along comes MozillaTV and OperaTV. They work really well with the standard TV frequencies, still used by most everyone, and they can automatically skip commercials. However, there are still some sites, such as banks, which insist on using the nonstandard MicroMovie frequencies, and so look noisy on non-MicroTVs.
Of course, channels are filled with commercials these days, and MicroTVs have a tendency to allow strangers access to your living room right through the TV screen, so by all rights people should use MozillaTV or OperaTV, but most people still don't do this because of MicroMovies' lockin.
Moral: if you're an embracing-and-extending monopolist, you can get away with virtually everything, and people will still use your product.
Nutscrape was free for personal, non-commercial use. Most ISP's bundled Netscape with their Sign-up package.
Nutscrape Navigator was a loss-leader to get sites to purchase their server software.
IE was originally a purchase as part of the Microsoft Plus! Pack for Windows 95.
I can count the number of WMV movie trailers I've seen on one hand. Almost without exception they're released in Quicktime format, on Flash enabled websites.
Most streaming video and audio I find on the internet is Real Audio/Video, second is ASF/ASX.
The vast, vast majority of video content is released in MPEG2 format on DVD's.
I'd really be curious to know where they're getting these stats if they're saying that most media companies are releasing movies and audio in Windows Media formats only.
Can I get a UK company to sell me a copy or do I have to download a warez version of this one.
I would be thrilled if I can get XP Pro without Media Player, MS-Firewall, IE and the Outlook Express hooks into everything.
If that happens I'm totally down. Hopefully Windows EU won't have product activation. That is the main part of Windows that needs to be stripped out. Who wants an OS that is going to expire? I mean come on, if you think they'll activate Windows forever then I want what your smoking cause it's got to be some good shit!
the most appealing thing for all of you about this headline is "forced", "stripped", and "MS" in the same sentence.
:)
take your rape fantasies elsewhere please
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
OS X uses your lovely 128 meg video card to render the GUI, with "Quartz extreme". Read on it here. It doesn't mean that you need some 3d paperclip annoying the hell out of you though ("It looks like you're looking for a file, would you like to..."). It does mean productive tools like Expose can be pretty without slowing the system down, and the CPU gets some of its load removed.
There is already a stripped-down version of Windows out there. Its called XP Embedded.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
"According to this article at Infoworld, Microsoft may be forced to sell a stripped-down version of Windows in the EU as a result of antitrust rulings, unless a settlement is reached during the next month to six weeks."
Fascists pretty much says it all
No one seems to realize here that the EU is doing this "mainly" for the OEM's. I highly doubt you will ever see a stripped down version in a shrink wrapped box. This gives alternate vendors a chance to make deals with OEMS to include their products with windows. Imagine getting windows with firefox installed instead of IE and having ff fully integrated into the OS the same way IE is. Pretty sweet if you ask me. Look at Kodak for example. Setting aside the fact that they got into digital too late, they developed a really nice photo editing package that was getting installed by OEMs, it looked like Kodak was going to succesfully get into the digital photo biz on the PC side. Well MS thought that sounded like a good idea so they included their own image editing software fully integrated into the OS (that all to familiar problem of their software changing the file associations back to their product randomly), kodak never had a chance and it looks like Kodak is on their way out. This is what monopolistic practices get you. This decision will at least give other manufacturers a chance to let people see their products, which will increase the number of players in the industry, more businesses means more jobs, more jobs allow for greater cash flow through the industry, greater cash flow through the industry strengthens the economy. This is only a good thing. And hey! if everyone uninstalls FireFox and reinstalls IE then I guess IE really is the better product. The point of all of this is MS is NOT going to allow this to happen unless they are forced, thank god we have the EU.
Quite simple - retailers should be free to include any browser of their (or their customer's) choice. This can either be preloaded, or put on one of those shiny round things called CDs.
Its called /mnt/dos