Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Sues EU
mormop writes "News.com is reporting that Microsoft is hauling the European Commission into court." The case is in response to "imposed sanctions against the software giant, including a record fine of about $621 million (497 million euro) in March 2004, in a case that also covered the bundling of Microsoft's Media Player with Windows, but the company has not entirely carried them out."
So now you can Sue People who don't buy and use your products. Because they didn't buy and use their products. That sounds rather monopolistic to me.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Slashbot story submitter forsakes sensationalist rhetoric and accurately represents story with headline and summary.
I won't be holding my breath.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
...yet Microsoft seems to have a very tight leash on their communication protocols.
...or are they more concerned about the general public seeing how flawed and inefficient their communication protocols are?
It's just business. Microsoft aren't alone in this sort of thing. Do you think IBM open everything of theirs to their competitors?
Geez, where'd you pull that one from? What has this got to do with anything?
I also know that my Linux server can handle way more connections and traffic then a Windows server ever could imagine...
Really? Have you done any comparisons with your setup and data load, or are you just spouting what you think the Linux zealots want to hear?
It is only a matter of time, before Linux totally takes over the server market, making such legal battles a thing of the past...
I think that highly unlikely. Even if it were to happen, I can't see how it would be a good thing. Replacing one monopoly with another is hardly sensible is it, regardless of how that new monopoly behaves?
In comparison to most of the governments in the world. I'd rather be a Briton in Europe than say a Christian in Pakistan or a black man in the USA.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
I actually don't see that as very likely. The bigger issue is that Microsoft *depends* on secrecy and lock-in to hold onto their market in the face of less expensive competition. So yes, opening up the protocols will cause them irreparable harm.
Personally I think that this is a red herring. Projects like Samba are becomming increasingly adept at reverse engineering Microsoft's proprietary protocols. And although I think that Microsoft is trying to dampen these resources with NDA's etc. I think that it will only slow things down slightly. In short, it is too little too late.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It's just business. Microsoft aren't alone in this sort of thing. Do you think IBM open everything of theirs to their competitors?
For the most part actually, yes they do. IBM has been pretty good about working with open standards for quite a while.
What has this got to do with anything?
It seems like a valid point to me. If MS does not want people to be able to see their protocols they must have a reason. Maybe that reason is to stop interoperability or maybe it is because they are full of security holes or even stolen code. It is perfectly reasonable to speculate as to their motives.
I can't see how it would be a good thing. Replacing one monopoly with another is hardly sensible is it, regardless of how that new monopoly behaves?
You can't have a monopoly on Linux. Thats is most of the point. As open source it will never be locked to one vendor. With an MS monopoly customers are subject to the whims of MS. They pay what MS wants or go without and they are restricted to the features MS is willing to allow. With Linux if one vendor charges too much, you can go with a different vendor and prices reflect the fact that there is competition. If you want functionality added/fixed you can do it yourself or hire anyone you want to do it. You seem to have a very skewed idea of what a monopoly is.
Has anyone considered that perhaps they simply don't have docs which are complete and accurate enough to allow a reliable reimplementation? I mean, how old is SMB/CIFS? How many kludges has it got tacked on? Where do you get the idea that, at this point, anyone could write a spec for that protocol that accurately and completely describes how it behaves short of just forking over the code?
From a PR standpoint, having this come out would be bad. But with an NDA, no one will ever be able to tell the story.
That isn't irreprable harm, though; that's just having to face the market. Being forced to compete in an actual market is supposed to be the whole point of anti-trust law. It would be ridiculous to find that Microsoft was engaged in anticompetitive behavior but not actually force them to compete as part of the judgment.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
For the most part actually, yes they do. IBM has been pretty good about working with open standards for quite a while.
Okay, maybe I picked a poor example. My point was, there are countless software vendors out there that don't open their specs/protocols. Whether you think this is good or bad is another discussion, but picking on Microsoft alone is hardly fair.
It seems like a valid point to me. If MS does not want people to be able to see their protocols they must have a reason. Maybe that reason is to stop interoperability or maybe it is because they are full of security holes or even stolen code. It is perfectly reasonable to speculate as to their motives.
And speculation is all it is, so it's irrelavant as far as I'm concerned.
You can't have a monopoly on Linux. Thats is most of the point. As open source it will never be locked to one vendor. With an MS monopoly customers are subject to the whims of MS. They pay what MS wants or go without and they are restricted to the features MS is willing to allow. With Linux if one vendor charges too much, you can go with a different vendor and prices reflect the fact that there is competition. If you want functionality added/fixed you can do it yourself or hire anyone you want to do it. You seem to have a very skewed idea of what a monopoly is.
Maybe monopoly was too strong a word. It also depends on what you're using the label Linux to refer too, a distribution or the kernel alone. I was assuming the former. Now there are certianly a lot of choices out there for distributions, but lets be honest, they all contain pretty much the same software. My point was really focusing on the technical side, rather than cost. If Linux were to take over the server market entirely, everyone would be using much the same technologies and software. Yes, if you wanted something different you could write it yourself, but theres nothing stopping you doing that on Windows either. Given that Microsoft's approach to technologies is somewhat different to the Linux one, I can only see their complete demise as a bad thing.
Their code and design has been a secret for a very long time
Actually, they have not - the groups that are writing exploits have long ago dissasembled the code for these things and know exactly how they work. That's where the exploits come from.
So by continuing to keep these protocols secret the only people they are preventing from obtaining this data are the ones that need it for ligimate needs, and thus would be less included to want to have to reverse engineer the whole system. The people writing exploits will probably find it a little more convienient knowing the specs, but it will not tell them much they don't already know.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> ...broad licenses for the source code of
> communications protocols...
That's a lie. Publication of protocols does not require the publication of any source code whatsoever. Same goes for file formats.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
There's an "argument" that says an operating system should only be a kernel, some hardware drivers & a few tools that allow you to communicate with the hardware. Everything else you install above that should be selectable by the user of the OS, not bundled in so tightly that it cannot be removed easily for an alternative third-party solution.
Should MS not be allowed to run their own dialup service?
That isn't the question. The real question is "Should Microsoft be allowed to leverage it's own dial-up service freely with it's OS when other dial-up services would need to pay a heavy fee to do the same."
Considering that Mosaic and Navigator were being given away for free to all but business users why must MS be berated for giving out a free IE with Windows?
Because IE was bundled into Windows far too tightly & was used as a mechanism to enforce Microsoft's own HTML extensions onto the users - this made other browsers deliberately incompatible.
Should MS be punished for bundling TCP/IP when this is a service that could be provided by third party applications?
No but then they are not being punished for this. TCP/IP is an entirely open suite of protocols into which MS can contribute as freely as anyone else as long as the protocols remain open. Microsoft was essentially *forced* to adopt TCP/IP because it's own NetBEUI protocols (and the IPX/SPX protocols it stole from Novell) were not suitable for Internet operation. The fact that they did adopt it is a good thing because it makes interoperation with other systems that much easier.
Then they have their insidious sub-licensed version of the Norton drive defragmenter.
It could be argued that MS provided this within Windows because their file systems are prone to suffering from fragmentation. But it is still an inferior tool to other 3rd-party defragmenting solutions.
Should we even allow MS to sell products that use NTFS since it "unfairly" obsoletes the defregmentation market?
It's better than FAT but NTFS still suffers from bad fragmentation over a period of time.
Shouldn't we force MS to sell an OS with just the kernel and drivers and no GUI so we can have fair competition in this important marketspace.
No, not at all. Without going into arguments about whether a GUI is good or bad, Windows has always meant "GUI". Windows 3.1, 95, 98 and ME were essentially GUIs running over MS-DOS anyway. Plus the fact that the desktop environment of a taskbar, icons and menus is essentially all provided by a single application, Explorer, which can be changed for third party alternatives (like Directory Opus or Lightstep) relatively simply.
Why isn't MS accused of unfairly dominating the plain text editor market by bundling notepad?
You could argue that it is unfair of them to bundle notepad with Windows on the same basis. Whilst it is simply a text editor, it does change the "accepted" format of text files by including an additional linefeed after every carriage return (UNIX and most other systems just use carriage return). However, apps like IE and WMP are more insidious because they respecively enforce MS'es proprietary HTML extensions and codecs on the user.
You need to remember that Microsoft's own marketing machine portrays Windows as an easy operating system to use for even the least computer-literate user. As such, it could be argued that the ability to choose and install alternative applications to those provided by Microsoft should also be made much easier.
I'm sure people are going to make comparisons here to Linux distributions including certain applications also. However, I would argue here that there are enough distros around for anyone to choose one that includes most of the apps they want to use - besides, RedHat and SuSE (and I suspect other distros) do include complex installation programs that allow you to specify individual apps that you do or don't want installed if you drill down deep enough.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
It looks like I'm not going to win this argument, but just before I go to bed I'll respond to this last one.
There are multiple implementations of just about anything you'd want to run on a Linux server. Unlike Microsoft, Free Software encourages choice.
Yes, absolutely, and for the most part they all interoperate fine, but they're all fundamentally using the same technology - they're all using the same protocols etc. Microsoft approaches it all entirely differently. Whats the equivalent of AD domains in Linux? Group Policies? See, the technology and approach is very different in many ways, and that's what we shouldn't lose. Would it be better if this stuff was more open? Sure, why not. But to lose that alternative approach entirely would just be a bad thing.
Okay, that's all I'm going to say on it.
Microsoft is dealing with something they've not come across before. Not only have they not got the protection of a government who does everything it can to look after it's own but the officials can't be bought off like Washington and the EU has enough power to stand up to US pressure - it's not like we're depending on US financial aid.
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
The only thing needing to be opened is the protocol specs, and not the code itself behind it. I'd highly doubt that there are really that many holes in the protocol itself, as it's fairly basic I imagine (some sort of unique ID that needs to be valid on both systems, various info, and a data packet- maybe some encoding methods).
I know M$ has a really bad history, but lets give them some credit to putting more than 10 minutes of thought into something as crucial to their software as the file&print sharing protocol.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
If you make washing machines, you can design them so the bearings will wear out eventually and so your customers will have to buy a new one. If you make VCRs, you can design them so the heat rising from the electronics causes the rubber tyre on the idler wheel to perish eventually and so your customers will have to buy a new one. If you make cars, you can design them so they rust in certain places and so your customers will have to buy a new one. If you make gas boilers, you can design them so the heat exchanger eventually clogs up with limescale, or corrodes through and begins leaking, or the power supply circuit on the motherboard overheats, and so your customers will have to buy a new one.
..... or is there?
And if you time it right, the customer probably won't even suspect that it was deliberate. They'll just come back to you and buy another one, again carefully designed to break down in future, and believe this one will last forever; just like those women who keep going back to husbands that beat them up, because this time he really has changed, he really means it.
But with software, there are no moving part or other bits to wear out: once a user has a copy of a piece of software, it's as good as the day they first got it, forever, and there is no chance to build in obsolescence
By changing the file format, so that files created with newer versions of the software cannot be loaded into older versions, Microsoft can create something akin to a built-in time bomb. You can stick with Word 97, say; it might serve your needs more than adequately, but sooner or later someone you know is going to get a new PC and that will have a newer version of Word on it. And while it can deal with your old Word 97 files, getting it to save files that Word 97 can read is deliberately made a royal PITA: the option is hard to find in the first place, and you get discouraging requesters with dire warnings of data loss &c. All of a sudden, the Word 97 with which you've been quite happily chugging along since the days of dot matrix printers, Britpop on LPs, movies on VHS cassettes and skinning up under a table upstairs in the Havana club is no good, just because it can't read your friend's documents which were created in a newer version of Word. A version which was deliberately designed to be incompatible with your copy, which in turn was deliberately designed to be incompatible with previous versions.
And the only thing allowing Microsoft to get away with this is the fact that their file formats are locked up. Otherwise you could write a few lines of perl {or whatever language they use on windows} just to strip out the bits Word 97 really can't handle, and not have to pay for a new copy of Microsoft Office. Or if the file formats were designed from the outset with graceful degradation in mind, you probably wouldn't need even to do that.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!