Slashdot Mirror
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.)
Would this be the 99 cent Diet Coke I've heard so much about?
True story.
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?
apple is not a convicted monopolist.
when you are a convicted monopolist. the rules suddenly change.
so dont bother with those comparisons, they just dont work
The stripped down version will suck but will be available. Unless the EU wants to force them to not ship a full version in the EU at all, OEMs in the EU will just *elect* to use the full version. They probably won't want to ship an OS that lacks basic functionality that users have come to expect.
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.
No, the difference is that having a monopoly means you control a significant share of the market...which apple does not :)
--Thei Antispamist A useless endevor that will cer
I highly doubt this is a slippery slope, and the analogy with Apple is misleading.
In the article it states that many media content companies are making files and movies available only in Windows Media Formats, because its the only Media player they know thats going to be on the system. Since a overwhelming of desktops use Windows, this is amounting to the fact that the market tends towards using Windows Media, and thus whats the point of getting other formats/players?
The commission is hoping to open up the media player market a little, only to allow more competition and "a fair go" for other media players/formats. People still have the choice of getting Windows Media with the OS, so this isn't really hurting anyone, just allowing for a free market.
On the issue of interoperability, there was this little gem-
Bolkestein warned that ordering Microsoft to reveal code, which is protected by copyright, and to a lesser extent by patents, could make the Commission vulnerable to a legal challenge by the company at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
Im quite unclear on Bolkestein's motivation for that comment. Opening up the code to allow interoperability will not take away the fact that the code is Microsoft's, so Copyright is preserved. The commission isn't (as far as I can tell) letting competitor's simply copy MS's code so they can interoperate, but rather allow the code to be shown so they can code their own products to allow cleaner interoperability with MS's code. Any since patents are required to be published anyway, and need to be licenced, the patent comments is a non sequitur.
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
This is really what it's all about. An OS provides an interface between the hardware and the software and other low level functions (i/o, permissioning etc)
Windows is not just (even?) an operating system - it's a monopolized distribution method for all the associated media and proprietary file formats.
Case in point, even though Internet Explorer is so lacking in security and features compared to any modern browser(tabs?), it is used by the massive majority of Windows users because they don't realise that a browser is NOT a part of the O/S and so don't seek an alternative.
The european governments don't have cosy relationships with Redmond. Et voila!
while sco {
wget -O
}
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
Without defending the MS design decisions, they elected to provide certain audio and video playback capabilities by incorporating WMP code "into the OS." Some of the design decisions were driven by the choice to give application developers services at the level of "play the audio stream in this file and notify me when it's done." The OS service makes all the choices about codecs and drivers and moving data in a timely manner. Given that choice (and some of the known problems with scheduling and such on some Windows variants), it seems inevitable that there would be OS code that looked like a media player. A simple media player "app" then becomes little more than a frame and a few buttons -- all the hard parts are done by the OS services.
Linux and other UNIX-like OSs made a different set of design decisions. Low-level audio support tends to live in the OS, video support tends to live in user space (although that might not be true if X didn't live there). At this point in time, it seems more reasonable to assume that a consumer-oriented OS would have audio and video services available for the app developers, than to assume not.
Let us just imagine that the EU forces MS to sell a stripped down version of Windows. When the normal user gets home, plugs it in and fires it up, they are going to want applications to help them along.
First, IE has to come with the OS just so they can utilise the standard web browsing capability. To download new software they need to be able to get to the web sites, why would they download another browser if they already have one? If IE is not included, where are these people going to go to get their software? It will be like going back to the trumpet Winsock days.
Secondly, a fairly sizable number of web sites offering sound and video clips use WMP format files to deliver their content, the user will download WMP to be able to watch/listen.
The stripped down version of Windows has now become the full version through the wants of the user.
The only people who will buy the stripped down version of windows are probably the same people who use Linux/Mozilla/Thunderbird/OpenOffice, the only reason for them to change is to play games.
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
You seem to be missing the point that MS is a monopoly. When you are a monopoly you cannot use your OS monopoly to make your other products a monopoly.
For example. A media company wants to release some videos for download. What format do they pick? Windows Media. Why? Because they know that it will be on 90%+ of all user desktops. This gives MS an instant monopoly on a video format by just putting it in their OS. They didn't earn that monopoly, they leveraged one monopoly to get it. Now if MS were to include a competing format say, Quicktime or RealVideo in their OS, OR, make the wma format open, then no one would be able to complian since now people can choose the format they want based on merit and not the fact that it is what is included in the OS. When you are a monopoly, all your actions are watched closely to see if you are trying to tip the level of competition in your favor by leveraging your monopoly.
This does not apply to Apple since they have less then 3% of the desktop market, 0.1% less then Linux on the desktop infact. Apple's format is picked because of the quality, not because Apple is leveraging a monopoly.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
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".
More to the point, you can get Quicktime for Windows but you can't get WMP for Mac.
Yes, you can...
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
This brings up an interesting question... just what is an operating system?
Linux, in a pure techical state, is nothing but a kernel. A kernel alone is pretty useless, so that's why there's there's shells to provide an interface. There are multiple choices for windowing systems, multiple choices for basic word processors, multiple choices for just about everything...
Now, replacement shells for the WinNT kernel are possible... but Microsoft doesn't sell a release of Windows that doesn't contain a shell, which is why most everybody is using Explorer and there aren't too many other shells in circulation. So, most people think that Explorer is an intrinsic part of Windows, but in reality, you can live without it if you had another.
Isn't that the atomic level of an operating system? Wouldn't that be the true level Windows should be required to strip down to if it's going to be unbundled from all other software?
You can't? So what's this then?
Now to be really unpopular (and get modded as a troll, happens every time I state this opinion). In my opinion, as someone who spent 2 years working with DRM (yea yea, hiss boo, burn the heretic), Microsoft's DRM was more "open". They give their SDK away, no licensing fees. I spent the last year trying to get Apple to provide the iTunes DRM code. Doesn't happen. As a third party the only way to produce Apple DRM music is to give control over distribution, pricing, bitrate, marketing and everything else to Apple. Microsoft just give you the SDK and you run with it however you like.
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.
This is so true it hurts.
Anecdote begin
Back when Windows 2000 was about to be released, I had a big problem with a NT server. I was in a newspaper - a multi-platform shop that happens to have a daily deadline. Besides the PCs running Windows for business functions, there were lots of Macs in the creative and news rooms, along with various other servers on other OSes in the data centre. Anyway, the NT machines (fully patched and updated) kept on corrupting the Servies For Mac file index - and I kept on trying to rebuild it. I called MS support for $200 (or whatever it was) and complained about this problem, and even had an idea for them to pursue in order to possibly get a quick solution. After the "Let me ask my colleague" response from the MS techie, he forgot to turn off the mic. I overheard his colleague snidely remark "Tell him to ditch the Macs. Haha". I knew then that I wasn't about to get any help, since my company had the unmittigated gaul to use Macs instead of Windows.
I bought a server operating system from them for tidy sum, and they were making a joke about wanting to use something else besides thier OS for the clients of that server. Never mind the millions invested in Apple hardware, software, training and methods - they made a joke about thier OS holding up a deadline. To boot, I got the "Upgrade to 2000 when it comes out, SFM is 10X better" line. Nice, since all of the NT boxes were DEC Alphas, for which Windows 2000 support had just been pulled. They wanted me to spend millions in "upgrades", in order to fix a bug in their code. And I paid for the privilege of having them tell me that.
Microsoft earned my eternal scorn that day.
Rant^WAnecdote end.
Microsoft has gotten very, very arrogant - to the point that they believe that no one else on the planet is capable of a good idea. They make some good products to be sure, but whenever and wherever I can, I push OSS solutions ahead of Microsoft solutions, so I can still pick and choose what tools I deploy with a minimum of fuss about whose product that tool is. RedHat 7.2 is still a nice OS on an old AlphaServer 3305, and it doesn't discriminate as to what OS it provides services for. It just does exactly what you ask it to, and asks for precious little in return.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
But MSIE is not free, in either the libre or gratis sense. MS is on record the IE costs them over USD100M per year and the cost of that is built into the cost of the OS. Win XP should be $40 per pc cheaper, and then the user can be be free (libre) to choose whether they want MS media player or not.
Indeed, I'm typ
:20
ing this on my
microwave ove
n's browser rig
ht now, and th
ere's not a bund
led Microsoft app
anywhere BEEEEP
in the box. END
START
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
Yeah, I don't really see what Slashdot finds so hard to understand about this. Unintegrating IE now is, quite simply, impossible. Microsoft didn't lie when they said that was the case
Do you guys have any idea at all of how many apps expect Internet Explorer and related DLLs to be installed? Working on Wine brings this point home in a really fundamental way.
Oh sure. You could remove iexplore.exe. That would remove like 0.1% of IE from your system. It'd be a pretty hollow gesture.
I'm not just talking about things like the MSHTML component. I'm talking about things like the SHLWAPI DLL - a utility library which wraps the Win32 API to some extent developed by the IE team partly to make portability between Win31, Win2K and Win98 simpler. It's only half documented, a lot of the functions are exported only by ordinal, yet a surprising number of programs expect it to be there.
What about the URL monikers implementation? What about all the installers that assume the presence of Favourites? What about all the programs that embed the Trident engine to render parts of their UI, their online help - in the case of one game that shall remain nameless even the games main menu!
Windows shipped without Internet Explorer would effectively break so many apps nobody would buy it, even if they could. Quite a lot of apps don't even complain, they just crash. Win95 not supported.
Now, this stuff is mostly academic. Shipping Windows without IE on the desktop would have made a difference - 5 years ago. Nowadays many (most?) people have never heard of Netscape, think that the Internet is the blue E icon, and so on.
The only way IE will ever disappear in other words is when Linux starts kicking Windows' ass on the desktop, which last I checked was still a year or two away just on the corporate desktop let alone the home user desktop.
A) Linux is not a monopoly
B) All Linux-distros have more than one media-player to choose from
C) All the media-players that come with Linux are in fact made by third-parties
D) You are not forced to install a media-player if you do not want one
E) If you do install a media-player, uninstalling it is easy
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.