Slashdot Mirror
US Government Keeping Close Eye on Longhorn
skrysakj writes "CNN/Money has a new article describing the close eye the Feds have on Longhorn and its compliance with the anti-trust settlement. I wonder how discerning their eye will be considering past decisions and lax enforcement. Also, this prompts the question, what is the EU doing to examine Longhorn?" The longer Washington Post piece has more information.
I wonder how discerning their eye will be considering past decisions and lax enforcement.
Well, if the Republicans win the house/senate/whitehouse again, you can bet this won't go anywhere.
However if the Democrats win at least some of those (esp. the Whitehous) you might see at least a bit more attention from the Justice dept.
You'll recall that after the Bush admin took over the settlement between the govmt and M$ was pretty much turned into a slap on the wrist.
Microsoft, which has delayed Longhorn's rollout, has not said when it will be released as the successor to Windows XP, the current version of the personal-computer operating system. Several industry analysts have predicted introduction of Longhorn in 2006 or possibly 2007, which is when the antitrust settlement is scheduled to expire. - Washington Post Since Longhorn will be distributed after the terms of the antitrust agreement expire they can do whatever the hell they want. They can show one thing when in reality they mean to implement another. I am not saying thats what they are going to do, its just a possibility.
I'd think that a governmental agency such as the DOHS wouldn't react fast enough to either counter security threats, or to allow MS to keep Windows up to date. If the DOHS got involved, it's be another 10 years before MS would be allowed to release their next OS. Please don't get them involved where there might exist a more efficient solution.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
Maybe I'm too old and cynical, but this just seems like political hijinx, which the "news" organizations will pick up and report, will keep the people happy who have neither the time nor the inclination to dig deeper into the details of this enforcement, but will ultimately hurt us all in the long run. I can't see the government caring beyond it making a nice sound-bite in tonight's news.
I'm just waiting for the revolution.
Longhorn will be expected to deliver phenomenally in terms of 1. Security 2. UI 3. "Seamless" integration of internet/multimedia tool. It is, however, this precise policy of "integration", or rather, forcing users to go with MS software, which is the bee in Microsoft's bonnet. Recent technology previews of mozilla firefox and thunderbird, along with other web content software (shareware as well as open source) are much better in terms of performance than the existing stuff from the MS stable. LongHorn will have to outperform in more ways than one to battle Linux as well as opensource
It's to meet the daily bash-Microsoft quota. Along with the pointless Shared Source article earlier intended to generate endless OSS vs. Shared Source comparisons, the entire point of this article is to have endless antitrust discussion that has already been had countless times before, mixed in with the occasional vaporware jokes and basless government insults (like yours...they'd get liquored up and discuss golf? Get real).
But hey, this is Slashdot. I've already gotten modded down just for making a joke in the Doom 3 article. Facts, objectivity, and a real sense of humor have no place here.
When the fox gaurds the henhouse, there isn't much need to count the chickens. Whatever happened to anti-trust with balls? A paper tiger is meaningless, and there is nothing that microsoft and company could possibly do that would actually result in real action. Once there was at least enough of a threat to have them work hard at keep Apple afloat, but now with Linux they can act with impunity. If my government won't stop Microsoft, who will?
So they're keeping a close eye on Longhorn, eh? The problem with any of these "enforcement" deals is that usually they're reactive. The product will come out, people will cry foul, then Microsoft spends a few years dancing with the justice department all the while the product has already done its corporate damage.
The only real way to keep an eye on them is to have someone actually be involved from the groundwork. Will such and such feature be anti-competition? If so, scrap it before anyone works on it. Otherwise it'll just be IE'ed into the OS and a teary-eyed Ballmer will have to explain to us that taking it out will kill Windows.
Things to watch out for: DRM and the integration of Media Player, the bundled firewall, an MS Anti-virus, and the Dancing Ballmer doing the "Welcome To Windows" tour.
Microsoft will just invent more layers of "Set program access and defaults" interfaces to "accomodate" the government.
The end result to sysadmins and programmers will be more landmines in the code, more virus entry points, and more failure points in general.
Between these and the new security provisions that will break some(?) current software, Longhorn will be a very "interesting" software release.
I think Microsoft is really betting the farm on this one, in more ways than one.
Either that or they will finally find OS utopia and we will all be happy (pause bursts of laughter).
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
I read the shorter article (many words = enemy), and I can't help but wonder how the gov't actually intends on enforcing this issue. Are they really hiring programmers of thier own to look at the code? If not, would the average gov't employee know what he/she is looking at? Even if they were given some sort of a design document (hehhe) would they even be able to determine the true intent or implementation?
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
Input:
US Government Keeping Close Eye on Longhorn
Output:
Bush Administration Seeking Campaign Contributions from Microsoft
Someone shoot me.
You expect sympathy? Appears you like the money. Why not go to an all *nix shop. I doubt Uncle Bill cares where you work.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
You might want to check out some of Kerry's Top Donors.
Also, if you're a fan of the DMCA you'll be pleased to see how high up Time Warner is on the list! But then the kowtowing Democrats do to Hollywood is legendary.
Bush is only slightly better in terms of dollars accepted by Microsoft (at least he's mostly free of media companies). Basically you're going to have to vode Nader - or Perot!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
on April 15 2004, Sun's James Gosling, in response to this article and some "slashdot flamage" from the same author, blogged in More on Sun & Microsoft
This ablity to selectively pick and choose and other "flexabilities" was a detail left out of Sun's press release, and more interestingly, the recent joint status report on Microsoft's complicance with the US DOJ final antitrust judgement.Sorry if you missed my joke, but Dogbert states that if you want something to be a certain way, be sure to enforce the opposite. Therefore by the DOJ enforcing Longhorn to be quick for MS to change, they will get, in result, a system that is impossible to change. It's the law.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
But hey, this is Slashdot. Looks like you got your mod points back, surprisingly.
Anyway, I feel that you picked the wrong article to bash Slashdot on. While I agree that Slashdot occasionally posts articles on unimportant, redundant, or just plain stupid material, this time the article referenced actually has some interesting information.
"'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."
That a trick question, isn't it? 11SEP2001 falls into that range. I suspect some folks would answer "no" regardless of who was in office.
I believe the Iraq War was ill-advised. But I also believe that if Bush were not in office, the Taliban would still own Afganistan.
Besides, if Kerry is elected, what will change (as far as Iraq is concerned)? Kerry only has two choices:
(a) continue the war until Iraqi internal forces can handle the country, or
(b) order immediate troop withdrawal (either total or partial, makes no difference in the long run)
If Kerry chooses (a), then he's just doing what Bush will do if re-elected. If Kerry chooses (b), then Iraq really will become the Official Terrorist Homeland. And while the Democrats will point out that it's Bush's fault, that won't comfort many people when the next round of 9/11 style attacks occur.
Kerry is playing both sides. Last week on NPR, there was some clip with an 8-year-old asking Kerry what he would do about the war in Iraq. What struck me about the exchange was that after Kerry insulted Bush, he refused to answer the question. He spent all the time asking the kid what he would do!
Why should I vote for Kerry if he doesn't even have a plan?
Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997
(Finally got a dang account in 2004)
Hilarious. What will those diligent Longhorn watchers do if they find one a violation? Give Microsoft a slap on the other wrist?
The only result of the entire Microsoft antitrust case was to show just how insignificant the antitrust laws really are.