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Microsoft Won't Appeal EU Ruling
Ec|ipse writes "Microsoft has decided not to appeal the European court order to implement antitrust sanctions, Instead, Microsoft hopes to win their main appeal that they (Microsoft) had abused their software dominance."
Probably realised the lawyers would cost more than the fines.
I guess today is a passable day to die.
So they couldnt get internet explorer, they targeted media player. Microsoft sure has been playing it smart, I want a stripped down version without WMP!
Microsoft are criminals. Nobody should be doing business with them.
But.... Longhorn will fix all this, we promise.
...They are afraid that some of the people in court might be reading slashdot, and saw yesterday's Ballmer ad, so they decided to abandon the case until this is forgotten. After all nobody wants to be laughed by a federal judge.
Microsoft will accept the penalty incurred under the anti-trust ruling, but will still appeal the foundation ruling in general?
I'm glad IANAL.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Damn, good sportsmanship, of all the low-down-sneaky tactics. Without Microsoft's Euro antics what are we supposed to discuss!!! Gotta dig for more dirt on other things, maybe run that article about Will Eisner dying or something, man, this really cuts into /. material...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Shouldn't it read: Microsoft hopes to win their main appeal that they (Microsoft) had *not* abused their software dominance.
Either that or: Microsoft hopes to win their main appeal against the ruling that they (Microsoft) had abused their software dominance.
I guess today is a passable day to die.
I'm no expert in the EU legal system, so I could be out to lunch here, but I don't think an appeal is just another chance to duke it out. Usually there have to be specific issues preserved and reopened on appeal, and I can't think of what those issues would be in such a decision. Does anyone know what their grounds for appeal would have been? The law student in me is deathly curious.
adam b.
... don't you mean their appeal that they hadn't abused the services? Are they appealing the decision that they had, or is their appeal actually that they had abused the services?
stuff |
I was kind of hoping they would release the API's to the 'public' rather than just those willing to pay the extortion fee.
Nice to see they are doing something, it's better than dragging it through the courts for years on end.
Seems like they might have something up their sleeve.
It would be nice to see them have to strip WMP and IE out of Windows, or at least preload Firefox and Opera on Windows along with IE. My friend just recently was ranting about "WHY in GODS NAME do I need to have Windows Media Player EMBEDDED into my server??"*
*Disclaimer: I've never used any Windows based servers, and I haven't used Windows period since 1999, so I don't know if you can pull WMP out or anything.
Slashdot sucks
I'm currious here, who get the 497 million euro fine? The EU or charities or who?
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
It's not hard for them to put out another release without WMP. They release newer OS CDs all the time, the latest boxes of XP on the shelves have SP2 integrated.
It will be interesting to see how many people choose to install WMP.
Their "dominance" will wither away, and quickly, if they don't start doing something about security issues.
Then what will they do? Sue customers for running away?
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
So now when a link to a media file is clicked instead of opening Windows Media Player, Windows will probably open a Web Browser to download Windows Medial Player.
From TFA: "...but it [MS] is continuing with a separate, main appeal against the Commission's decision that it abused the near monopoly of its Windows operating system..."
So if it wins here, will sanctions eventually be dropped? It's just manoeuvring by MS surely.
Did he inhale?
You Lose! Now everyone selling this bastardized copy will be calling tech support asking "why can't I play this movie file like on my friends (with WMP) computer?
I am in no way condoning or approving MS business tactics. I am only judging the merits of the effectiveness of such strategies.
My own perspective is that a music/video utility should be bundled with all OS's but that WMP is evil because it is being used to promote Microsoft's proprietary sound and video formats. MS is again relying on thier tried and true tactics of "embrace and extend".
But since the EU "picked up" on this theme it is bettor for MS to be a little more "low key" with this strategy than be arogant about it. It seems MS is grown a little wiser since the AntiTrust trial in the USA (despite winning it).
I miss the Karma Whores.
To write and document those APIs. So can you give me one reason why they should give them away for free?
In the long run, it'll be the entire planetary economy that loses if American companies are the only ones that prosper. Competition is good for everyone, even if that competition sometimes needs a little help from government.
You know what sucks? When a machine is used to visit a site that installs a trojan via ActiveX controls, and your virus software can't remove it, so you clean it up as best you can by hand and you install FireFox to prevent it from happening again, and make it the default web browser so all your other applications won't use IE, then you figure you should make sure you have the latest security updates for Windows and you click on the "Windows Update" link and -- it launches IE to connect! Freshly hosing this stupid machine you just spent over an hour cleaning!
</RANT>
Yes, Nurse, I know I'm not supposed to be...Yes I remember what the doctor...no, I haven't taken them yet, but...yes, right away.
* Doctor Memory is away (meds)
Just junk food for thought...
To European customers they should sell a stripped down version for the same price that includes almost nothing. Not even notepad, IE, screensavers, windows update access, or minesweeper. Then they could sell an add-on CD for $29 that includes all the typically imbedded programs.
I can't still understand, what politics think or know about such macro corporation, which has more power than some countries together.
MS doesn't stop to abuse dominance in software. It always makes new invesment in type of wild capitalism - closed patents, lets consumers to addict to it's products at the beginning for free(not trial, but tricky control...)
MS started invasion into space and medicine, oth.
IT doesn't deal with common standarts or negotiate for better deal for all. Just for them, because they control..
On that software is built eGovernments, super data centers, cars eletronics, warships and even nuclear submarines.. Closed source code(or mean of unreproducable compilation), standarts again. Nobody can really say how much MS can control all that MS software controlled systems. And seems users doesn't think much about that or investigation somewhere goes blind.
It is bad sign for all humanity, when there still is abuyss in ethics, objectivity and life philosofphy in general. Monopoly/dominance and silent dictate is as bad as totalitarism.
http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/http://www.positivenews.co.uk/
http://www.aynrand.org/
How is this case going to benefit anybody but Real Networks or Apple?
By opening competition in the media player market. Most users would be too lazy to search for and install the superior media player if one is already bundled (integrated?) into Windows. I think that it would be pretty cool if Microsoft sold Windows, and users could choose to insall any "distro" they want, or a custom one, rather than just IE + WMP + MSOffice.
I thought the point of breaking up the "Microsoft Monopoly" was so that people wouldn't be "forced" into using Microsoft's unstable and unsecure operation system
No, it was to prevent them from forcing people who already do use Windows to use stuff like internet explorer, allowing them to take over the browser market, etc.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
You can not remove IE. There is an option to remove it in components, but give it a try sometime, and then open up My Computer and type in a URL into the address bar.
I haven't tried the same with Windows Media Player, but I doubt it can be fully removed either.
It's more or less the same story as Internet Explorer. In the case of IE, Microsoft's goal was to pervert the HTML standard to the point where HTML written for IE wouldn't render in other browsers. This way they could hijack the standard, and the browser marketshare at the same time. This failed, but they came close and there are still some annoying sites that are tested to IE's broken rendering engine, and give the other browsers trouble.
With WMP, they aren't screwing with open formats, just pushing their own proprietary format. Ideally they want all websites using their format, streaming to their client. It pisses me off because this is exactly what other media companies do (RealNetworks etc), and as a result I have a handful of movie players when I really only want ONE. "It's just like MPEG but it's owned by us" isn't a valid reason for me to use these formats...
someone sent me a deb of lazarus (which is not yet packaged in debian sarge or sid)
dpkg said it couldn't install it because of dependency issues
on the next run of apt it said theier was a package not completely installed and told me to run apt-get -f install
on doing so apt happilly installed the original lazarus package and all the dependencies it needed!
To the average user, this IS dependency hell. Sure, perhaps not as bad as it used to be, but that doesn't mean it's easy. And it's still something more an intranet admin has to worry about. C'mon, Slashdotters. It won't kill you to admit that Microsoft's way of doing things may have some advantages.
--LordPixie
If Devs are unwilling to work for free, corp will be unwilling to give their stuff away. They've paid for it, after all.
Gravitation is a theory, not a fact.
Yes, I know this is Slashdot. Yes I know.
Yet, the article states very clearly: "Microsoft said it would continue to appeal the Commission's landmark ruling".
The only thing they won't appeal is the court order to "immediately implement antitrust sanctions".
This only means they will not appeal the ruling that says "you need to implement this NOW", which is in fact a ruling to the appeal they made to the main sanctions (sorry for getting complicated).
Appealing this "NOW!" ruling would not make any difference for the "NOW!" part, and it will not make any difference for the damages Microsoft will claim for the main case. And as there are no extra damages to the NOW! part, there's nothing to do here - which is exactly what Yahoo says.
my other sig is a 500 page novel
How are users being forced to use either IE or WMP, besides their own laziness? How are they "new markets" when GUIs, network stacks, file/printer sharing, defraggers, A/V, and other bits are not?
No, this whole line of thought is completely misguided. It is nothing more than sabotage by sore losers, and doesn't correct the true problem.
If MS are abusing their position to lock out competitors and control their current market, then it's their contracts with OEMs that should be in question.
If MS are using their position to enter and control new markets, then it's their adherence to existing standards (eg. HTML) and the openness of their own formats (Windows Media) that should be in question.
Having the government design Microsoft's software is just stupid.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
Microsoft is not appealing the ruling because Windows media format is one of (if not the) dominate formats used by content providers. I would wager that the number of adopters of the stripped down version of Windows will be zero, especially since M$ has made it abundantly clear that it will cost the same as windows with the media player. If you are a computer manufacturer, imagine how desirable your machine will be that does not play a common media format supported by over 90% of the other PCs out there. (Yes that was sarcastic).
Are you sure that "Open Source" has the resources to file patents for everything?
These patents, owned by Open Source would then restrict Microsoft's development.
Wasting resources by filing bullshit patents and defending bullshit patents in court would restrict Open Source development.
Can you imagine if HTML, the browser would have been patented and MS would not have the ability to include these web-related technologies into their products?
Can you imagine that open source projects have the money to defend just a single patent against MS?
A patent isn't worth shit if you don't have BIG TIME $$$ to defend it in court. Open source projects won't go far in this game.
okay.
so does anyone know _how_ i can ask for specification documents and IDL files for the Exchange network interfaces?
Most of the mini-apps aren't applicable in the enterprise. If you need a cluster DB setup, why do you need the Windows Media API let alone the client bits installed on the machine? It simply isn't applicable and worse it is unremovable.
But that is an extreme case. In a more practical setup, why does Microsoft get the say on installing any software like WMP on my grandmother's machine? As you noted, because the way Microsoft has developed the technology installing one piece of technology to solve a problem often means you install many more pieces of software none of which solve the problem (let alone you maybe interested in). Why? Because they want to sell server technology solutions to some other unrelated vendor? Something is fishy about that.
I guess the grand question is how fair or legal is this? I don't know if the EU is doing the right or wrong things for the right reasons but I can tell you it sure stinks from an IT perspective. Being forced to solved problems on software you didn't want installed in the first place but because of some dependance you have to stinks.
i think you are assuming that people do not search for WMP replacements because they are too lazy - i know plenty of people that purposely use WMP because they LIKE it... even if people WERE too lazy to find a replacement - it's silly to blame microsoft for that! windows also comes with Paint - which is a total piece of junk as far as paint programs go - but has anybody ever heard of Adobe complaining that microsoft is using the windows monopoly to drive photoshop out of the market? no! because people who need more functionality than Paint provides will naturally look for that in other programs... same with WMP - if someone needs features that WMP doesn't provide, they will naturally look for another program... but if WMP satisfies a need, why should microsoft not be allowed to include it in their operating system just becasue other people also make similar products that are in competition? i don't use windows much myself and i'm no microsoft fan by any means, but i think that this whole argument is stupid... nobody is forcing you to use WMP - if you don't want to use it, you don't have to... if you want to use something else, you can, with no ill effects on the system... maybe if realplayer and quicktime didn't suck so bad people would use them more... i haven't heard nullsoft complaining about this, because they recognize that people will still use winamp because it's a good product, and microsoft's proported "media player monopoly" doesn't seem to have affected nullsoft's success with winamp... what i really hate is when companies like realnetworks can't make a good product so they try to make money via litigation instead....
Well, it would allow me to install MS Windows (when I have to) without *any* media player. I don't want one. I don't need one.
Depends on what you define as WMP. Presumably the GUI front end is easy to remove and they aren't talking about the WMA codecs.
OE isn't a MAPI application.
That'd be Outlook you're thinking of, and it's a bit more than just a wrapper around some MAPI functionality.
Peter
So, it's not clear at all what Microsoft intends to do or not do here. I doubt what they will do will give media player competitors anything like equal footing on the Windows platform.
So, i imagine a scenario like this:
Europe: Give us a version of windows without WMP!
Microsoft: OK. [takes a copy of windows, rips out WMP and hands the remains, bleeding and dripping entrails of unimplemented APIs to Europe]
Europe: But, this is a piece of shit!
Microsoft: Yep. Told you it would be.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Software markets develop quickly compared to the time scales that govern the legal system.
Consequently, a Windows XP without an embedded Microsoft media player practically becomes an inconvenience to users accustomed to it being there.
While intended to provide a level playing field for all competitors that can provide media player technology, all the EU ruling does is to level a playing field too late, with only one player left on the field, after the near-vertical playing field has caused all lesser competitors to fall off the cliff because they have no desktop to leverage.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Every music CD I own has a bunch of files on it that can be played with WMP. My computer has a DVD player that can -- get this -- play the DVD's that I own!
iTunes, KaZaa and BitTorrent are not the only ways to obtain media...
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
Hmmn, I reserve that for posts whih have high scores, but contain factual errors credibly corrected in subsequent posts.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
They might add a few more "security" warnings, internet zones, even more craptastic cookie management informing you with a big, undisableable "Ok" that a cookie has been blocked. Oh, with a "don't show me this warning again" for a per cookie basis just for the kicks of it.
All useless features that does make the browser appear safer, better and whatever, but still doesn't adress any of the many fundamental flaws or exploits.
And whatever it does, it will regularly inform you that you are surfing "safer". I swear, that will be written in the Longhorn installer.
Oh, and as a final touch, the MSIE6.00000001 executable will be named explorer.exe or taskman.exe, just definetly not iexplore.exe. Anything that implies that it can't be removed from the system, really.
Btw I'm unemployed. Does this rant qualify me to work at Microsoft's strategic planning department?
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Like what ?
- On my desktop machine I mostly use SuSE.
Multimedia userinterface / multimedia handling libraries / rest of system are completly independent.
You're not forced to install Xine's userinterface, you can only install Xine's libraries if you like (and if fact the default "Desktop"-profile installation does it, and use another UI : Kaffeine).
- You can even install only base system without any multimedia handling libraries
my debian headless file server / download machine has no multimedia handling at all.
- Most of Unix way of doing thing revolve around building small specialised apps that do 1 thing but do it well.
See Cdr-tools / cddao / lame / k3b
There's no huge crapastically over-loaded and bug-ridden big iron software, that you are forced to install just because a single function provided by the monster, is fundementally necessary for your kernel.
- You don't like Konqueror on your desktop Linux installation ? Fine, there are other desktop environnements and, thanks to freedesktop.org they all allow you to run the same application in a compatible way.
And if you want a headless server with no Desktop environnment, just don't install any, and use wget & links to download updates if you really need access to the web.
- You don't want to have Internet Explorer installed on your windows machine ? Sorry too bad, all the file / control pannel / what-ever else management tools depend on a couple of functions provided by IE's dlls. You cannot remove it !
What ? You say you don't need graphical file management at all, because you intend to do is a headless CLI-controlled server ? Sorry !
No way ! This is a graphically oriented OS, which depends heavily on graphical managers, which in turns depends on internet explorer and windows media player. Sorry, you'll have to install the whole monolith.
But don't be sad ! You can still choose not to install WordPad !!! or Minesweeper !!! See ? we give you options too !
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
By playing ball with the EU and paying their
fine, Microsoft improves their image in Europe,
making way for the REAL END-RUN around F/OSS.
MSFT will spread enough "love" around the EU MPs
to make EU software patents happen, at which
point they can tie all F/OSS development up
in lawsuits. MSFT is just spending their "love"
wisely.
if it happens globally (not likely),
media (cds dvd's) will come with AOL style
WMP cds.
it's the next logical step (if they unsuccessful in hijacking the media it self)
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
Perhaps congress/senate should take a trip over here to see how things should be done.
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
I remember trying to download netscape with an early mac version of IE which took direct aim at netscape's website. They actually ghosted the second page so you couldn't complete your personal info and thus could not download netscape with IE. This was the first time I saw what others have seen, Microsoft for what it is. I am sure that they are guilty.
Apple bundles Quicktime with OS X, and has even integrated QT with the Finder (so you can play videos in Column view). Delete Quicktime from the OS and you can still play movies in Column view. So if Microsoft is doing wrong by the consumer, isn't Apple? Don't mind me, I'm just thinking differently. ;-)
Because MSFT has grown beyond our control. We'd really be fucked if the rest of the world fell under our jurisdiction.
Yes, sanctions will be dropped if MS wins that appeal.
Yes, MS is being shifty, because they claim they have "already provided data to competitors" regarding their API's and so on (part of the immediate remedy), but I'm not sure if the samba guys are getting any benefit, and assuredly they are the ones who stand to gain the most. The full disclosure of windows APIs would be incredibly useful for someone writing interoperability code. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, please!
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
You can hide the full application and make Firefox the only "visible" browser, but yes. IE stays forever. It's unfortunate because I'm very happy with Firefox. It's probably one of the best articles of software I have ever seen. Can't say the same for MSIE, though. Sorry Bill.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
That's what my physics professor told us, back in the days when we were learning the basics of patent law at the university. I don't think that he was just spreading FUD...
European Union is whining because it can't
compete in a market for which its not well equipped to compete.. In the same breath they discouraging open source development by patenting software.. Are they confused or something?
How you kill Microsoft is not with legal suits,
you compete with open source..
They should really just sit back and let things go.
Just say no to license servers!!
every CD I own can be played without WMP, too. No thanks to microsoft for including unnecesary software.
Changa hates change.