Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Facing European Sanctions
Shakrai writes "CNN and Money Magazine are reporting that a draft decision by the EU committee overseeing the Microsoft investigation appears to recommend fairly severe sanctions against our favorite software company. The article states that the ruling will likely force Microsoft to offer a second version of Windows without 'built-in audiovisual software' (Windows Media Player) for EU customers. While this sounds like a good thing, the article also mentions that Microsoft has an appeals process and will likely get an injunction against enforcement while they pursue said appeal, which may take years."
I'm sure the average windows user wouldn't want to have to play around with selecting/installing video playback software when all they want to do is playback a clip they've downloaded.
My poor Mum!!!
...found within bundled software like IE, OE, Media Player and Movie Maker. M$ would voluntarily unbundle these components or run out of cash quite soon.
"The European Commission draft requires Microsoft to share proprietary information with rival server makers"
That's always my sticking point. I'm not as much bothered that they support video playback in their default system (they also support image playback and text playback, after all) as to their generally incompatible and excessively proprietary methods.
I personally don't like Microsoft... but you have to ask yourself if Media Player is removed who is affected by this in a negative way?
I think the 'normal users' will be hit hardest, a lot of them just want their media to play and in my opinion it is the place of the Operating System to provide the functionality. We might install something better, but it doesn't hurt us to have it there even if we don't use it. I think the same is true with IE.. it has helped the new users a great deal even if it is bug ridden and crappy.
Who are they trying to fool? When they said this about Internet Explorer I could imagine how this could be true, but what parts of Media player might be essential for other applications???
*EVERY* OS has had/comes with/includes a media player. It is a functional part of the OS to support the playback of audio/video sounds in everything from user-interface, alters, notifications and theme support.
Heck, its even part of the mandated accessibility/disability acts for people who require audio/visual/tactile feedback.
I for one preferr the free stuff then Real or even Quicktime.. atleast i don't have things popping up telling me useless facts (even after being disabled) or having mime type wars on my pc.
I bought windows because it was easy.
I bought linux and still do because it was powerfull.
Each has there own use, but this has got to be the most retarded lawsuit i've EVER heard of.
The difference is that neither Mandrake, SuSE, Debian are using a monopoly in one area (OS) to create a monopoly in another area (media), that is what is illegal even in the US. Don't you recall the AT&T situation?
After all, lots of people seem to use it and if there are better (commercial or OSS) alternatives, then it's up to Windows users themselves to go find them and decide.
However, this is good from a perspective of slowing down DRM. No matter what anyone says, DRM is creeping "in through the back door" and WMP is one of those "Trojan Horses" transporting DRM to the desktop. By the time Longhorn comes out, DRM'ed codecs will be the norm (if MS has their way) and we can say goodbye to MP3s on our portable players and PCs.
I would hope the EU goes a stage further and makes MS publish clear disclaimers and warnings that on downloading WMP, you will be subject to DRM restrictions on all the media that you play with it.
In the meantime, it's a good opportunity for makers of "free" (="non-DRM") players to get ready to push their software in the hope that this sanction goes through.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Many distributions ship with software such as XMMS, mplayer and the gimp. Should Mandrake, SuSE, Debian and the like be fined for carrying this software?
First: no one of those distributions has a de facto monopoly in the OS market and it's trying to abuse that position to get the monopoly in other markets, such as the media players one.
Second: on the average Linux distro, you have twenty different text editors, a dozen media players, and another dozen graphic manipulation programs.
So, your is, indeed, a non sequitur.
You can save space. Or you can save time. Don't ever count on saving both at once. -- First Law of Algorithmic Analisys
... because Apple is not a monopoly, period.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Why doesn't Apple get any heat for including iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, QuickTime, Safari, etc?
Because Apple doesn't control 90+ percent of the desktop. Because Apple isn't trying to leverage an OS monopoly into other market segments. Because Apple doesn't have a history of trying to "cut off the oxygen supply" to their competitors through use of monopoly.
[Insert pithy quote here]
It is a good idea. It happened with IE and should happen with any other Windows endorsed products. There is no reason to ship them pre-installed. The argument that Linux do that is false because XMMS and The Gimp are seperate entities from the distribtuion.
" So can't OEM people install real, etc before selling at the moment? Guess not."
Of course they can do but why would they ? They can't buy a cheaper version of Windows without a media player so there's no point in them shopping around for a cheaper alternative.
Stripping out Media Player from Windows will allow the OEM's to judge Media Player vs it's rivals on a fair footing, e.g. knowing the cost of each application.
In theory anyway, I hope there is some provision that the two versions of windows will need to maintain some kind of sensible price differentiation.
Not exactly difficult. The so called "sanctions" taken against MS in the U.S. were meaningless to the extent that most observers believe there was a secret backroom deal. Frankly, I cannot see what the Europeans propose having much effect on MS's monopolistic practices either.
Of course it's convenient to get all of that stuff included with your operating system. But if you remember, there used to be a market for things like browsers and video playback software. That market is all but gone, thanks to Microsoft including these products with their OS. I know, there is something called Mozilla for us staunch MS-haters. But good luck trying to sell (or even give) your alternative browser to the public at large.
I don't feel too bad about MS including such things with their OS, even though I am sure producers of, say, video editing software are having nightmares about MS including that functionality with Windows in a few years time. it's hard to draw the line: sure, no one would argue against operating systems needing a decent file manager, for example. Yet people used to make a living developing and selling separate file managers, a long time ago.
What I do have a problem with, is that MS sometimes not just includes browsers and video software with the OS, but made sure that it was rather hard to install an alternative product as well. That is what they should be punished for... but this ruling doesn't really accomplish that. As far as browsers and video playback software is concerned, it's all water under the bridge, and you correctly note that it will be consumers who will be hurt by removing these from the OS. MS probably doesn't care a great deal.
I would have preferred a big fine for MS, to make it clear what is unacceptable behaviour. It has to hurt if it's to heal.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
WMA becomes widely installed, and is the default.
People start recording their music as WMA.
Companies sell in WMA (for the wide user base).
Stations start broadcasting in WMA (ditto).
People buy WMA devices.
People are locked into WMA forever now their media is all in WMA form and they own WMA devices.
WMA works best in Windows (and DRM WMA only works in Windows), and is a barrier to changing platforms.
Profit. Monopoly extended and locked in, and entrenched in a totally new area. Desktop monopoly (and all the other monopolies that perpetuate it and are perpetuated by it) made more secure.
THIS is why a bit of user convenience has to be sacrificed. Made media player (and all the other integrated stuff) come uninstalled on a second CD so that at least the user has to think if they want to use it.
Otherwise they will expand their monopoly one niche at a time - desktop, office, server, media, handhelds, music players, gaming consoles, televisions, cars, watches, the whole world... untill it is too late to back out.
Beep beep.
And I'm not sure why anyone would post that this isn't fair, if you can't see MS is once leveraging it's desktop monopoly to control yet another market, you are blind or at least obtuse. Do we really want another Netscape on our hands, it's taken 5 years for the likes of Mozilla, FireFox and Safari to revive browser innovation while IE 6 has remained a stagnant, insecure and non-compliant piece of junk. Killing competition in browsers hurt the web, although it will be years before the useless business analyst get around to acknowledging this. We don't want the same thing to happen in media players/codecs, instant messaging or a raft of other technologies. Time to stop MS now. And vote with your damn wallets, if you don't like what MS does then switch to Mac OS X or Linux and put your money where your mouth is!
Looking back at history I'm thinking about Rockefeller and Standard oil. How is that situation any different from Gates and Microsoft? Standard oil was broken up by the government why shouldn't we do the same now to Microsoft? Its irrefutable that Microsoft controls software for the personal computer from the operating system, office applications to now digital media/rights. Even before the SCO/Microsoft fiasco it was obvious that Microsoft devoured its competitors to preserve its stranglehold on the industry.
Yes, the freedom to choose what software is most suitable for the job it needs to do and maintaining that choice. If it's a commercial piece of software or even an MS package, so be it as long as the end-user had chosen to use it.
If this were the case, they would only attack Microsoft on those terms.
Oh, so we have no right to attack Microsoft on issues of security, instability and price then?
The WMP is not a freedom issue.
It's a transport for DRM which means you get to do less with the stuff you rightfully own than you did before. It also means you get to pay an MS "tax" to keep using your stuff. Of course it's about freedom.
If a customer doesn't like Windows prepackaged with WMP, there's nothing stopping that person from acquiring another OS.
What about somebody that uses Windows but doesn't like WMP? Are you saying that not liking a single package on an OS justifies reformatting your hard disk and putting a new OS on? What about simply having the choice of slotting in the player you want to use without the fact the concern that WMP is still installed somewhere doing its stuff in the background? If WMP is not that easy to remove then just what is it doing in the background then?
I see no hypocrisy here...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
This example was written about Office, but it's relevant to this argument:
Say that Office was a seperate company to Windows.
Office the company would see that making their product available on every platform would make them more money. Thus it would be so. Windows the company would have no incentive to build in special APIs for Office. Office would compete on it's merits and so would Windows, and competition COULD and WOULD exist effectivly in the marketplace.
Now, say that Office and Windows are made by the same company.
Office would by and large see that by making their product only available for Windows they would make less money but it would be worth more because every copy sold would also sell a Windows license. Windows wants to make sure that everyone who buys Windows chooses office so they do what they can to make it seem to run faster, better etc. Consumers get screwed by lack of choice.
(Obviously Office is also available for Mac, but this is due to historic pre-monopoly reasons. The same decision might be made today, but only to dodge having the AntiTrust people looking at them too sharply. If Office had been split off from Windows it would likley be available on IRIX, HPUX, AIX, Linux, BSD etc today as well as Windows and OS X.)
Beep beep.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
Microsoft should not be allowed to sell Windows with any additional apps whatsoever.
With Linux you have different distributions, why can't Windows work on the same principle?
You don't get Mandrake saying "Oh, we're not going to put into our distro, why should we put other people's apps in our distro's?"
The whole point of distributions is that you get loads of apps from loads of developers, and you get to select exactly what you want from the best available apps.
Having Windows distributions is the only way I see of overcoming Microsoft's anti-competitive monopoly.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Given that Microsoft is a large American company, this European anti-trust process could certainly be seen as partly political. Just think of the new era of non-cooperation, tit-for-tat, economic retaliation, etc. in the wake of the split over the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Unfortunately, this means the Bush administration is likely to line up squarely behind Microsoft on this issue ("we can prosecute them for anti-trust, but I'll be damned if those French bastards are gonna get away with it"). Even if the goal of the European action is entirely admirable, say, they want to improve competition and open up standards, the administration will for political reasons end up opposing it.
This will result in them doing spiteful things that tend to favor proprietary software and disfavor Free software.
I guess it's not surprising that powerful people will oppose anything that lessens the control they have over others.
Whenever you visit the Microsoft webpage (windows update), they will have a video of how to install patches. This video will be only available in media player format. A few other pages on the web like this (through partnership) and it will not dent the "market share" one bit.
If I were the dictator, MS would be forced to document the file formats it is using (including all WMV formats, of course), all network protocols, and to provide sufficient NTFS documentation so that I can finally can mount /dev/hda2 with read-write soonish.
An open letter to antitrust, competition, consumer and trade practice monitoring agency officials worldwide.
The role of trade practice and antitrust legislation is to provide the consumer with protection from abusive business practices and monopolies. In one of the most serous cases of monopolization in the information technology industry, the agencies charged with protecting the competitive process and the consumer have utterly failed to stem the offending corporation's anti-competitive practices.
The Microsoft corporation has been under continuous investigation by antitrust policing agencies since 1989. Despite this scrutiny, the Microsoft corporation, using covert and overt anti-competitive business tactics, has maintained an unabated campaign against alternatives to Microsoft Windows operating system platforms and Microsoft applications.
For years the Microsoft corporation has earned around 70% to 80% net profit from sales of its operating systems and application software. Only in areas like Thailand where Linux on the desktop has just begun to gain a foothold has Microsoft stated that it will release versions of its operating system platform and application software at a lower price to Original Equipment Manufactures (OEMs) and retail consumers than is available in the rest of the modern world. Consumers benefit where real competition exists.
The world desktop operating system market remains predominantly monopolized by Microsoft. Over the last decade, Microsoft continued to lever its desktop platform monopoly to the point where it now holds a dominant position worldwide in the application office suite and web browser software markets. On its own, the current USA Department Of Justice (DOJ) settlement with the Microsoft corporation has failed to bring about any restoration of serous competition to the desktop operating system market. Microsoft continues to use similar anti-competitive business tactics in an attempt to monopolize the digital media player and the desktop services server markets. Competing vendors increasingly find that they can no longer compete with Microsoft if they limit themselves to only the traditional closed source model of software development.
In the last six years information technology vendors have adopted techniques and resources from two existing movements geared toward the construction of software. The newer open source movement, represented by the non-profit Open Source Initiative (OSI) corporation, emphasizes the licensing of software in a manner which encourages its collaborative development in an open environment. The older free software movement, represented by the non-profit Free Software Foundation (FSF), focuses on the ethical issues surrounding the licensing of software. The free software movement emphasizes freedoms which are often taken for granted outside of the field of software: the freedom to use, study how something works, improve or adapt it and redistribute.
The Free Software Foundation offers two software license schemes which are compatible with their own goals and those of the Open Source Initiative: The GNU General Public License (GPL) and the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL). Essentially, the GPL and LGPL licenses grant the recipient extra rights than that granted by copyright law. Both licenses insure that a contributer or distributer of a GPL or LGPL licensed work may not further impede downstream recipients the rights granted by the same license. Many developing software in an open source manner have realized that this benefit offered by the GPL and LGPL licenses outweigh any potential losses. The licensing also insures that no contributing or distributing vendor or group of vendors could potentially monopolize the market, insuring that real market competition dictates price. Just as the automotive industry can commonize on standards for the production
I see alot of fellow slashdot posters slamming on "Why only WMP?". Well, the outcome of this sanction is wider than WMP alone, much wider. It will leverage future sanctions on other software bundled with Windows in speed and decision power. By taking this case as an example, it will become much easier to make sanctions against other monopoly misuse. That is what the real power of this decision is all about.
This is a replacement signature.
MOZILLA IS NOT SLOWER THAN IE!!!
Mozilla startup takes more time than IE, IF and only if you don't consider the time it takes to start IE at system startup. Other than that, Mozilla, and Firefox especially, literally kick the pants off of IE. There was a wonderful page I found that simply drew images and removed them repeatedly that demonstrated this, IIRC IE took about 10 times as long as Mozilla.
There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
So for now just speculate and pretend MS will have to abide by the sanctions. By the time the ruling does take place users will be familiar enough (if they are not already) with WMP that it would be hard for anything to take its place. If a user has purchased any addins for WMP it is unlikely for them to prefer another player. Personally I think this is more of a burden for the users because they will have to find the newest WMP to download then its 4-5 patches.
I think its great that Microsoft includes basic functionality like a media player, word processor, calculator, internet browser, etc.
I hope that we all realize that the PROBLEM lies in preventing the uninstallation of said items without "crippling" the OS.
I think MS should be allowed to include whatever they want, as long as the no-install/uninstall option is there and its real (as in really uninstalls the files, not just "hiding" them).
Why can't Microsoft see how easy it would be to fix this? But then again, that sort of tunnel vision is what has gotten them into the hot water they are in.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
Cheaper version of Windows? I think it will be funny if MS sells the new version for the same price and just tells them the player was a freebie.
The advisory committee is expected to approve a remedy requiring the U.S. firm to share more of its protocols with rivals, charging a reasonable royalty. It will be left to Microsoft to work out the precise solution, with close oversight by the Commission, the sources said.
If Microsoft is still allowed to demand royalties for sharing API's and protocols (no matter how 'reasonable'), the sanctions will still be useless to Open Source and Free Software developers. What good is this to the SAMBA team? And you can forget about Red Hat finally adding NTFS-compatibility to its distributions! >:(
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
What exactly is the purpose of a fine for a monopoly such as Microsoft? Does the EU think that the money is going to come out of the pay of top MS executives?
Of course not. Any financial penalties will just be passed along to the customer, as usual, who in this case does not have a choice due to the monopoly situation.
More interesting is what the EU will plan to do with the penalty money? Invest it in open source, require open file formats and standards?
Option 1: Windows XP with Media Player, 99 Euros.
Option 2: Windows XP without Media Player, 99 Euros.
Retail purchasers and OEM licensees will be completely free to choose either version.
No, this is not a joke. If the EUC think this is too obvious to mention and prohibit, they are in for a rude awakening.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I would call this new news. Your post is informative? Please.
If only more people actually did this! If even 10% of the people who complained about M$ actually did something about it, the software world would be a very different place. It's amazing the number of people who feel that they are a special case, that they have a particular special reason for not switching to something else. (Yes, in some cases those reasons are genuine, but I suspect laziness plays a large part in many.)
I try to act on principle. I've only ever owned two pieces of M$ software, for example: one was the Psion Series 3 version of AutoRoute (which doesn't really count as it was written by a separate company that got bought out shortly before release; M$ dropped it soon after), and the Mac OS X version of IE (pre-installed; I keep it as a last-resort browser and use it every few months). It's not hard, really -- it's a pain when people keep sending me Word documents, but there are various workarounds even if people won't take the hint -- and I don't feel I'm making any great sacrifices. I just don't put following the crowd as my top priority.
So, to all you people who use M$ software and complain about it: don't complain, STOP USING IT!
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
> Microsoft is a convicted monopolist
How about apache? It dominates the web server market. BIND for the DNS market? Or even BSD code in the MS Windows distribution? Of course, they are not monopolists, but AFAIK being a monopolist doesn't mean one has to make sure everything works perfect, while smaller entities could get away with distributing inferior products. So it's not really about being a monopolist rather than marketshare. If you're talking about marketshare, a lot of free software dominates niche markets (like in the above examples), should they be fined too?
Suppose one day Linux achieves world domination, are free software developers obligated to ensure their software is 100% bug-free?
> and has steadfastly refeused to unbundle these bug-infested products
If people use them, they use them. Unbundling it doesn't really make the situation better. Of course, those who do not use the bundled software will be less likely to be hit by these bugs, but for essential software like web browsers, media players, people will install them anyway. Of course, they might install products from other companies, but in general, it doesn't guarantee a more secure system.
> If they really believe that integrated media/internet/mail is part of the OS of the future, then they should ensure that said OS is secure
Nothing is 100% secure. Even OpenBSD has had a few holes in the past (*Only* one remote hole in the default install, in more than 7 years!). How should one draw a line between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" risks of a security exploit?
All in all, it all boils down to how to draw a line between "bad" Microsoft that needs to be fined, and "good" Open source software that is exempt from these charges.
Besides, once a ruling is made that software companies are liable for bugs, then more will follow.
Don't quote me on this.
They'd have to release the formats/protocols at least six months or so before releasing the software, to prevent other developers playing continual catch-up. (Without changing them in the interim, of course.) And they'd have to be prevented somehow from hiding details that might allow subtle incompatibilities, later lock-in, or other preferential treatment. Ideally, they'd be made to release an open-source reference implementation, too.
And they'd have to show that implementing the protocol or using the format didn't infringe any patents -- not just that a patent-free method was available, but that M$ couldn't use a better, patent-encumbered method unavailable to their competitors. And that they couldn't file such patents in the future.
And so on. Time and time again, companies have learned that you can't play M$ on their own terms and break even, let alone win. They've learned a whole battery of techniques to steal an unfair advantage. And blocking them all is no easy task.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
I'm a typical geek who builds custom computers for people preinstalled and preconfigured with their choice of software, and most of my clients opt for Media Player Classic rather than WMP as their default video playback thing, as far as video goes. I'm not an OEM by any means (I've only built about a dozen computers), but I'd love if customisable installs would filter down to the end users.
For those of you who don't know, Media Player Classic is an open source clone of Media Player 6.4 (the default media player shipped with Win2k), and (with the right codec libs installed) will play DVD's, avi's, wmv's, ogm's, Real and QT streams. Very nice clean and easy to use interface, and hooks into standard DirectShow codecs, none of the irritations of WMP/Real/QT, and completely free (thanks Gabest!), although donations are always welcom I imagine.
Being able to completely replace WMP with MPC would be a dream come true for me, and my clients. The only thing that worried me is that MS would take their ball home, and if made to remove Media Player they would probably cripple DirectShow to such an extent that I'd have to install WMP in order to get my codec libraries to work.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
seriously what is the real issue here? Closed, proprietary formats. None of the unbundling will change the fact that people with Windows will have a system hostile to interoperability.
Make it illegal for a company that sells it's own sotfware, from including clauses in the vein of "we aren't responsible if it breaks, and costs you money"
That immediately puts every commercial software "company", from microsoft down to the lowliest shareware author, out of business. Is that a good thing?
If they want to bundle other applications, they should charge for those apps, and include the invoice of all the apps that the consumer is paying for. All this with the option of NOT buying certain apps for the consumer. This, I think would force MS to drop the price Windows. Figure, the total bundles price is, oh say $100, with all the bundled stuff included. Start peling off the bits you don't want, what's the price then?
Your goal here is not fairness to the consumer. Don't pretend it is. You want microsoft to be forced to create a product that is so much of a pain in the ass people don't want to install it or one that won't have enough of a feature set for people to give a damn about. Honestly, if microsoft had "played nice" and stuck to selling just the base operating system I'd be typing this on a Mac and the icon next to the story would be Steve Jobs photoshopped to look like a borg. And if not them, then who? No one? Well in that world we're all using Linux and all the downtrodden microfucked software companies who you pretend to champion are STILL out of business because instead of WMP bundled, it's MPlayer or whatever the decent FREE player for Linux happens to be this week. Net gain to said companies who are getting this protection? None. They are still irrevelent.
I can imagine some base install and then a web activation (yeah I know, we all love those) where a customer picks all the apps he wants to install, have the installer say something to the effect of "all those extra apps are gonna cost $xxx enter credit card info here:"
More crap solely aimed at pissing off customers. If Microsoft did not want business they would have adopted the "RealNetworks" model of customer irritation long ago. They do, so they didn't. Sorry it pisses you off. Sorry commercial vendors do not port to your OS. But hey, even if you do manage to put MS out of business they are still not going to write for your OS. They're going to go out of business right next to MS because the fact of the matter is that you people don't like to pay for software and have proven that you'll do nearly anything to avoid doing so.
For the case of F/OSS, tack on a clause that apps where the client can obtain source, and fix it himself (or audit it before using), is not requred to be warrantied by the author.
Well it's good to see that there will still be paying jobs for software engineers. Pity they'll all be maintenance. Also a shame for joe business owner when he needs to have something fixed or added and finally realizes that even though he's been using 'free' software that the 40 hours of development work he's about to fund would have covered a years worth of closed source that most likely would have done what he wanted out of the box.
How about this as an alternative: Govenment stays the hell out of it. Seems to me that the windows monopoly is either a myth or the people who swear that unix already won the internet (bind? apache? inn? sendmail?) or the database market (oracle? db2?) are full of shit. Which is it? Does MS own the world or do they not? Methinks they don't. And with the goverment out of it if a company wants to sell a media player they had better make one worth paying the money for.
Yes, it can. Unlike Windows, everything in Mac OS X can be removed with very little fuss. There are no programs which latch onto others, or system files, save for the system files themselves (of which Quicktime is not).
The reason it was sarcasim was because the everyday consumer doesn't really care what notepad he has, or what calculator he uses, or even what media player they have. They just want it to play whatever media files are on the internet that they might come across. I think this is one of the reasons why linux isn't more popular, because the everyday person doesn't want to research and find what media player is best and then have to install it. Or what textpad to use, or calculator, or even internet browser. The majority of people want all they can get wrapped up into one package, makes their life easier, and I agree to a point. It takes time to learn and research and find other programs, time I don't allways have, and time 95% of the world doesn't have either. I think MS should have a baseline windows, for like 50% off retail price maybe, that a user can pick if they want. Unless the user asks for it, I think most people will be willing to pay extra to have everything preinstalled and ready to go. Its all about ease of use, If you know how to use it on your computer you can go just about anywhere else and use it on another, thats what MS provides.