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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."'"
Internet Explorer gone, but it's too well embedded. However, with all its vulnerabilities I wonder if Microsoft will try to change this. Oh wait... *reality strikes* How long before the next version of WMP is too well embedded to be removed?
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Given the other option is to stop selling Windows in the EU, this is not very surprising.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Microsoft has protested in the past that unbundling elements of Windows would be difficult and could even damage its operating system.
hm... i do not mean to flame against microsoft (yet another time), but wtf? why and how should a media player damage the os, if decently programmed? to me, it sounds sensible to separate the operating-system from the applications built upon it, not coupling them to an absurde degree. well, from the point of view "it will be easier to distribute both products that way", it is understandable, of course, but shouldn't a clear design weigh more than marketing advantage? mark the should, which is - sorrowfully - the keyword here.
ah, and by the way... what will microsoft do? if i was them, i'd offer a network-based installation of wmp, which is (semi)automatically triggered after the installation of windows. thus, they do not ship wmp with the os, but effectively bundle it in 90% of all installations.
The rest of the world would continue to use the full version of Windows, and it encouraged content developers to continue to encode music and other digital products in its Windows media format.
simply cute. encouraging developers to use a proprietary codec (i hope i am correct) to create content, when you need to additionally install software for that codec. *hm* a different approach than the one i outlined above, but an effective one, too.
though i have to say, if i was content provider, i'd see absolutely no advantage in using wmp if the player is not bundled with the os, only the drawback of lock-in by microsoft.
just my 2cent
If you don't learn from history,
then you are an idiot by definition.
--- Vadim Yasinovsky
I'm having a press conference tomorrow where I will announce that I will pay the speeding ticket if the court so orders. I just want to make sure they understand that going into the appeal hearing.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
the point is that microsoft claims that it would be difficult and possibly damaging to remove wmp from the os.
now talk about tight coupling between software and os. bad thing in my opinion, plus, it remove the freedom of choice from the user.
furthermore, it implies that un-installing wmp properly is hardly possible, so when you think you've gotten rid of it, it has probably just removed some superficial links or such.
If you don't learn from history,
then you are an idiot by definition.
--- Vadim Yasinovsky
Often, an appealing party has to pay costs if they lose. In the U.S. in federal court, a lawyer can be forced to pay his opponent's legal fees if he submits any frivolous articles to the court. Relax a bit on the whole condemnation of the legal system thing
- Linux had >90% market share,
- there were only one vendor of Linux,
- there were a reason why other vendors could not release Linux as well,
- that version of Linux came with mplayer as mandatory and only preinstalled player,
- that version of mplayer supported a proprietary media format owned by that only Linux distributor,
- while media formats from competitors were not supported out-of-the-box,
then it would be an abuse of monopoly.The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
What does he think Linux is - a company?!
no its a mythical place where cats chase dogs, water flows up stream and software is free and open and yet consumers, companies and the economy all benifit from it.
hmm after reading what i just read i don't even know what side i am taking
stendec@gmail.com
The company had "spent millions" so that it could meet the court's judgment, he added, suggesting that development work has already been done to offer a version of Windows in Europe without the WMP software.
Removing a media player from an OS costs MILLIONS! I feel like making a joke but this is just too ridiculous. The sad thing is probably many non-techies believe these blatant lies. And I don't care what expenses they dream up (testing, lawyers, still more lawyers, cost of diminished monopoly power), this is pure BS.
Well, we all know better than that of course; why, just yesterday a Harvard professor jumped on the bandwagon warning that the current patent system inhibits, rather than encourages, innovation. How is Microsoft any different? When everyone knows M$ will come out on top in any battle it chooses to fight, the incentive to try to create something Redmond might want to compete against drops to zero. But if the EU succeeds in putting Microsoft in its place, that will tell a lot of software companies (and VCs!) that their products might finally have a chance of competing on their own merits.
Oh, and "privilege some special interests"? It's funny how one company can be so bad if it gets some help from the government (the criterion for "special interest"), but another company is beyond reproach if it has an advantage that everyone is already dependent on its products.
one hundred twenty
is just enough characters
to write a haiku
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!
The proposed EU remedy is foolish because it does not address the heart of the problem, namely, that Microsoft is using their Windows monopoly to enter related markets (in this case media distribution via WMP software and the WMV format). Dropping WMP from Windows in Europe won't hinder Microsoft from entering those markets worldwide. And most people in Europe will download WMP anyway since it will be free and most video content will require its use due to the prevalance of the WMV format. The only effective remedy is to require Microsoft to open source the WMV format (and possibly the WMV player as well) so that the user's choice of operating system is completely independent of their choice of media player/format.
I've never understood what's wrong with Microsoft having [Product] in Windows. Any operating system should come with a decent [Functionality], and [Product] is one.
Understand these basic facts:
1. It is legal to acquire a monopoly.
2. It is legal to bundle non-monopoly products.
3. It is not legal to use your monopoly in one market to gain a monopoly in another market.
To completely distance ourselves from the tech issues, I'll give you a bread and butter example (literally).
1. It is not illegal to gain a monopoly on producing bread (maybe you're just that much better)
2. As long as there is competition on both bread and butter, it is legal to bundle your bread with your butter.
3. If you have a monopoly on bread, you can't bundle your butter with your bread to drive the other butter companies out of business.
It has nothing to do with bread and butter belonging together or not, it has nothing to do with the quality of either product. It is a means to ensure that competition happens on equal terms.
Without anti-trust protection, anything dependent on bread would fall like dominos in a row. Next up, bread knives bundled with bread. Butter knives bundled with butter. Next up, filet knives bundled with bread and butter knives. Markets would crumble and turn to monopolies ruled by gigantic megacorporations spreading like a cancer throughout the economy.
To return to your Linux analogy, it is not only once, but twice fatally flawed. One, neither Linux nor Mplayer have a monopoly. Second, you misinterpret corrolation with causation. Mplayer and Linux appear often together because they are both popular products. There is no causation, one isn't being used to promote the other.
If Linux demanded that with each distribution of it you would be forced to include Mplayer, then there would be causation. They don't, but if they did (which they can't because of the GPL), and they were a monopoly, which they aren't, then it would be illegal. But Windows is a monopoly, Windows is used to monopolize the media player market, and thus it is illegal. IMNSHO.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"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"
Don't even think that the US legal system is like Sweeden's.
In Europe the loser-pays system is the default. In the US, it is an option that you basically have to countersue for.
A better description might be that in the US if you sue somebody and lose you MIGHT have to pay their legal costs.
As a result, defence lawyers always charge heavy fees up front, and then try to get some of it back from the plaintiff later. Most people settle even if they're likely to win on defece since it is likely they'd still pay more in legal fees even if the plaintiff helps them out a little.
The US could seriously use a loser-pays system like Europe...
But Linux is alive and well and I don't know any person at Linux
I'm sure they imagine a giant L-shaped building somewhere in Helsinki, where foreign-speaking communists plot to find new ways to pirate MP3s.