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MS To Offer Windows Sans WMP, If EU So Orders

Posted by timothy on from the bullying-begets-bullying dept.

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."'"

2 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. Silly Vendors by Peter+Cooper · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!

  2. The commision is right by SlashDread · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "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."'"

    Well, I do. Granted, Im no "person at Linux" (WTF? does FSF member count? ;-) 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.

    -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 .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.

    "/Dread"