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MS To Offer Windows Sans WMP, If EU So Orders
PSwim writes "Microsoft has said it will remove Media Player from Window, if ordered by the EU this week. The 'Windows-Lite'
version will only be available in Europe. Best quote from the article involves its refusal to release networking documentation: '"The Commission says Linux would disappear" if Microsoft did not grant access to its documentation, Smith claimed. "But Linux is alive and well and I don't know any person at Linux or any Linux programmers who share the Commission's view."'"
The term crippleware usually applies for software which has voluntarily been cut-off in order to force the buyers to upgrade for more functionalities.
This is, of course, only if Microsoft actually intends to offer an upgrade scheme (they could just force the Windows Lite purchasers to acquire a full XP license at full cost)...
Now, after this annoucement, it becomes obvious that Microsoft is entering a new era in which they will be forced to lighten their products under the hostile eyes of the trade police...
What willfollow ?
Well, they'll have to cut costs in order to remain competitive in this regard.
I guess, something just broke in Microsoft and it's time for the new Norton-likes to come back and propose better add-ons than the ones that were forcibly integrated into Windows...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Remove WMP from Windows...
Wow.
I don't suppose anyone will be surprised to find the link to the WMP download presented in bold, flashing red letters among the list of "High Priority" updates (formerly merely "optional software updates") each and every time a European user runs "Windows Update."
Legislative micromanagement of Microsoft's stack of software is futile. Gate's and crew are quietly snickering as they squeak past another round of legal nonsense with another pointless concession.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Secondly, if Microsoft can fuss, whine, cry, etc, over how taking some component out is "too hard" and would cripple Windows (mind you, switching the machine on seems to do that just fine) then how are they capable of removing the media player just like that? That, in itself, should send up huge bright red warning flags that Microsoft is, and quite probably always has been, lying to the courts about how "difficult" the process of removing something is.
Third, by putting some psychological pressure on Windows developers to use the Microsoft in-house format anyway, it seems clear Microsoft is attempting to cripple any efforts to switch to other formats. Pointing to things like Apple's iTunes doesn't help the argument, as that is a very carefully-crafted niche market that nobody can step into or out of. It's not in competition with anything, and as such, cannot be listed as a competing format. DUH!
Last, but by no means least, server docs would be nice. Claiming that nobody would be interested in them and nobody has asked for them is at best disingeneous (Microsoft doesn't tend to release anything it doesn't absolutely need to, and even then it's a struggle) and at worst an outright lie (I'm willing to bet at least one WINE developer has asked to see networking and media low-level documentation, and I'm willing to bet they got refused, too).
Sorry, it's hard to feel much pity for Microsoft over this. Their entire case is built up out of mistruths, scams, shams and ignorance. (Some of the ignorance is even their own.) Until they learn to "play nice", they really should accept that it is only by the generosity of the EU and other Governments that they are allowed to play at all.
Marketing is not a right, it is a privilige. That is why, for example, in the US you have business licenses. Despite abusing that privilege, Microsoft is being told that they can carry on. With some relatively minor restrictions. IMHO, that is exceedingly generous. And given their past record, quite likely too generous.
Sooner or later, someone is going to get tough. Unless a volcano in Washington State erupts first and buries Microsoft HQ in ash*. I'd feel sorry for the innocents inside (assuming any were innocent) but it would save the world, which could be quite nice.
*Volcanos are generally compliant with UNIX98 standards, starting up into ash. However, they are known to have a buggy IPC implementation. On failing to negotiate a handshake with the surrounding geography, volcanos are apt to core-dump.
I don't see any problem with allowing MS to bundle Windows Media Player. I'm sure aspects of it are used all over the place, e.g. Thumbnail previews of videos, descriptions and summaries in the properties tags. If they want to provide all this functionality they are either going to have to allow:
A) 3rd party providers to provide this information for the OS
B) To have a cut down version of media player which cannot play movies by itself but serves this info.
I'd rather have neither and I'm sure Microsoft don't want 3rd party applications providing information for their summary boxes as they might be buggy etc and cause exceptions...
Airbus don't want people to use other peoples Engines in their aircraft because Airbus don't think it is safe to do so. Is that a monopoly???
why and how should a media player damage the os, if decently programmed?
It depends on what you call Media Player. Most people would consider it to be just the executable, and possibly DLLs and data files that are used only by the application.
On the other hand, the MS legal department considers it to also include any system libraries that it may use, including windowing and disk access libraries, audio drivers, and any line of code that gets called when it is being run. At least that seemed to be the thrust of their argument when complainign that IE was part oft he OS.
Uh, why should you be able to sell a computer with whatever crap you want on it? Windows is not yours to change.
And let's face it. When vendors have tried to 'customize' Windows or add their own tools to it, it has always sucked. Ever tried using a brand new Packard Bell or Dell? You always end up with a ton of crap installed that takes up about twenty icons in the tray. In the worst scenario, you end up with some horrendously lame media player or no-name virus scanner written by a drunk Chinese five year old embedded into your computer. Vendor customizations suck!
"But Linux is alive and well and I don't know any person at Linux or any Linux programmers who share the Commission's view."'"
;-) or a programmer, but I AM responsible for switching our companies main old crappy (SCO) machines to Redhat. I use Linux since uhm, the Minix days.
.net and JAVA software is lacking (Mono is not nearly complete, and is exactly fighting this catch-up game, JAVA is a nifty SUN Trap) and MS file formats could potentially be 100% closed in a single update (Yes MS DOES hold your DATA ransom) Managers will always take the save route. Or at the very best, change will happen very very slowly.
Well, I do. Granted, Im no "person at Linux" (WTF? does FSF member count?
-Without- access to documented API's, compatibility battles are always going to be a "catch-up" game.
Meaning MS can leveradge its closed fileformats and closed API's to keep a lock on its customers.
Even the much applauded SAMBA (Love it, love it) is mostly reversed engeneered, and often has to deal with changed Windows OS behaviour between releases and SP's.
To get out of this deadlock, people can either massively switch away from MS (unlikely, but possible) or have MS open up its secrets, and level the playing ground. Only THEN can Linux and MS compete on the one level that mnatters: "innovation".
No matter how good Gnome and KDE have gotten, if the
"/Dread"
"I'd like to see Internet Explorer gone, but it's too well embedded."
Uh, no, it's not. Take a look here: http://www.litepc.com/
Many people seem to be saying, "Gosh! Removing WMP from Windows seems so harsh! This is silly!", or words to that effect.
If Microsoft wants everybody to stream using its media formats, it will want to ensure that Windows Media Player is installed on as many computers as possible. Obviously.
The point here is that Microsoft owns Windows. Microsoft adds to Windows what it desires, and what is most beneficial to Microsoft itself. People usually use what comes installed with the operating system (IE, WMP), and once you're used to one thing you're less likely to switch (as we've seen with Internet Explorer).
Microsoft gains an unfair advantage by doing this, and there is very little competition at this level.
Microsoft finds it attrocious that people have suggested adding Real Player (and other competing apps) to Windows. Microsoft knows that doing this would take away its advantage - if it didn't, why would there be such a big issue? Ok, Microsoft may say that it would cause users more hassle by having to download WMP; but, Microsoft has also said that it doesn't understand the fuss about bundling WMP, people can still download and install Real Player easily enough. Well, in that case, why not remove WMP and let people choose what they want to install?
I expect that if WMP was removed, Microsoft would add a pop-up window as soon as you run Windows for the first time, asking you to download and install it.
The same cannot be said of Open Source apps on a Linux DISTRIBUTION. Linux is not manufactured by one company, other companies create distributions that contain various competing apps.
If Microsoft open-sourced its file formats, and ensured that it would not use any patents surrounding them to limit their use in any way, this would certainly help things.
If Microsoft got other companies to create Windows distributions in the same way as with Linux, this would also help.
Software choice?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Linux might not disappear like that, but the proliferation of Linux (especially in the desktop arena) does depend a great deal on interoperability (Samba for instance) and compatibility of popular Linux-based applications with those in use by the 'rest of the world' (MS Office OpenOffice).
:)) who does think that to judge a fully separate and stand-alone OS by the ability to be compatible with Microsoft's siblings is a bit peculiar.
:D so Linux needs to be highly compatible to convince the crowd they can live their Microsoft-lives without Microsoft's operating systems.
:) was why does Linux need to keep telling and repeating its being compatible with crap when it does have its own fortes. Maybe the weight should be placed to letting people know what Linux has besides Windows siblings compatibility. I totally believe that Linux would very well do without any of Microsoft's achievements in the field of networking.
:)
Ok, of course you have a point here and I agree with it to a point. Unfortunately (?) I've always been that type of techie (then nerd, then IT, then IT-nerd, hey some form of evolution does exist
Of course I've taken my pills and now I know this is the real world
And so we need to be highly friendly on both the lowest and highest levels e.g. with AD in Samba or with formats in OpenOffice.org. But what has always sticked me from the inside
It may happen that Linux is one of the best OS's only in my world, but then I'd like to stay in it.
Then again, give credit where it's due, Windows has managed to make fully computer-illiterate masses of people to think they are all-knowing computer geeks. For them Linux needs to be learned, and they more easily say it's crap and under-developed than to learn anything new regarding Linux. I just think I'm getting pretty offtopic so I'll just cut it here
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
No, what I really would like to see, is Windows coming with a selection of browsers (perhaps a "Welcome to your brand new Microsoft (R) Windows (R) [TM] installation - which browser(s) do you want to install?" and it automatically grabs the latest version of that browser) , and be able to choose which of them to embed in explorer. Now *THAT* would be cool...
Too bad Windows isn't an open-source project :)
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
This will harm what I'm doing. I would like very much to rely on WMP being installed. If I can't do this, it means I'll have to tell people to install it, and that means fewer people will use my products. Ironically they involve making your own media player using the media technologies in WMP as a base, so it's actually stifling competition. :-)
no, they should document their codecs and release the specs for free (speech & beer)
AFAIR, this issue of WMP was brought up by other, competing companies. IE does not really make money, in the sense that there's little in the way of commercial content that could be locked into an IE standard.
For digital media, however, it's a whole different game, as everyone who's followed the fights over dominant DRM-standards can see.
WMP as a standard media player (and Microsoft's own DRM as a standard for digital "protection") would mean that they would be the only company that digital media providers could make business with. This would eventually mean that all digital media (which is, of course, supposed to be the next big thing) could be controlled by a single company, a company which already has a virtual (I said virtual, people, don't flame me!) monopoly on desktops, and that would, if allowed, take over all of the end-consumer market in technology and software.
So it is no wonder the EU commission is a little apprehensive about this prospect, especially considering Microsoft is a corporation from a nation (lovely rhyme) that is already giving the Europeans some troubles in market access.
Gnome: A never ending quest to make unix friendly to people who don't want unix and excruciating for those that do.
"The first thing we do," said the character in Shakespeare's Henry VI, is "kill all the lawyers." Contrary to popular belief, the proposal was not designed to restore sanity to commercial life. Rather, it was intended to eliminate those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution -- thus underscoring the important role that lawyers can play in society.
As the famous remark by the plotter of treachery in Shakespeare's King Henry VI shows - "The first thing we must do is kill all the lawyers," - the surest way to chaos and tyranny even then was to remove the guardians of independent thinking.
http://www.spectacle.org/797/finkel.html
Really. Aside from the usual paranoia and slashdot typical conspiracy ranting, what makes you say that many of commission members are 'buddies' with MS (in the corrupt sense of the word)
Do you actually have any facts to back your assertion, or are you just another of those people who defaults to assuming that this is the case as part of some baseless accusation?
Please cite examples of when the commission has specifically made life easier for Microsoft. I am always willing to learn more.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
Kinda like MSN-messenger. Trying to remove that crap is hell-on-earth(tm) as well.
I more or less did all that stuff you mentioned + thourough registry disection. In addition I replaced all the executables with dummy-files (rundll32.exe), just for the sake of apperance.
Didn't help one bit. A quick visit to www.hotmail.com with MSIE, and wow, magically MSN-messenger is up and running again.
I bet the Windows-core has all these "services", including fronends, embedded, and any attempt to remove the executables will be overridden by with LOCAL-SYSTEM authority, unless Windows is fooled to believe the genuine files are still there.
Someone please inform me how this is done...
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
There is one flaw with your arguement. Windows has ALWAYS shipped with a media player in one form or another (since the windows 3.x days). If their media player didn't obtain a monopoly during the period that Windows obtained a monopoly, shipping a media player with the OS is obviously not sufficient to monopolize the media player market. Therefore, the act of bundling a media player with an operating system cannot be construed as an attempt to monopolize the media player market.
I remeber a few years ago in Microsoft's Antitrust lawsuit they stated that they could not remove Internet Explorer and other things as it would make the OS unstable as they were built-in.
Now they are offereing XP Embedded and stripped down versions to other countries.
This sounds like perjury to me. They lied to the courts becasue they are doing exactly what they said was impossable. I just don't get it.
I am a IE to Firefox convert (back in the day I was a Netscape to IE convert) but I wish I could remove or totally disable IE. I would love to type in a URL in a window and have it launch Firefox instead of becoming IE and viewing the page that way.