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Microsoft Set To Be Fined $2.4M a Day
Nexum writes "The BBC is reporting on a European Union threat to fine Microsoft up to $2.4m a day for their non-compliance with the European Commission's demand that Windows be opened up. Back in March 2004 Microsoft was ordered to open up its Windows operating system by way of making documentation available that would assist work on interoperability with other systems, specifically: 'non-Microsoft work group servers [should be able to] achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers'. According to the article, Brussels has found MS to have not complied with the ruling, and, sounding somewhat exasperated, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes has given MS a 5 week deadline before the $2.4m/a day fines begin."
Bet you wish it was just another pie now, dontcha' Gates!
Would MS even feel a $2.4M/day pinch?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
Imo a fixed number for fines is all wrong. large companies can afford to pay it because actually playing by the rules is more expensive for them :/
it should be % based on their global income, that way it would "hurt" both large and small companies equally in terms of how badly they are affected by it.
still, should provide a bit of insentive for ms to hurry up and comply
Just how can the EU make Microsoft pay this?
Is today pro-Microsoft or anti-Microsoft?
I left my cheat-sheet at home...
"Microsoft Set To Be Fined $2.4M a Day"
That's what those bastards get for shutting down New York with that transit strike.... Oh, wait...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
And M$ will predictably wait until the last minute to provide documentation. I'm sure the documents that M$ provides will be bare minimum in scope just to get off the hook. Nothing to see here. Move along...
My humor is probably your flamebait
If Microsoft wants to operate in a particular market, they have to respect the laws and governments of that market, no matter what those laws may be.
and they could 'recalculate' the fine to be 2.4 dollars a day.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
Microsoft has been repeatedly proven to be an antitrust violator, in numerous jurisdictions. Once you're found to be abusing a monopoly position, you're pretty well fscked. Just because the USA wussed out of actually punishing them after the conviction doesn't mean that other countries have to.
Basically, the statement was "you won't avoid abusing your position yourself, so now we have to tell you how".
So when do they force car makers to open up their onboard computers?
Can they by law do that?
They are the law. (to paraphrase Judge Dredd)
Oh no... it's the future.
I agree completely. Then again, 2.4 million per day comes out to $876 million for the year. Even MS would feel that and it wouldn't do much for the stock price either. Even then, I'd like to see the EU collect. That would REALLY be interesting!
How long before we see the 'Microsoft disclosure documentation of non-Microsoft work group servers for dummies' book?
This is about as asinine as suing an open source company for making their code public...
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
I'm not sure Microsoft's shareholders would share your sentiment. I'd like to see the market reaction to that announcement: "Our customer base is now halved."
London's finest organic fairtrade coffee
You're just not getting it. The EU never said that Microsoft is required to sell Windows in Europe. If MS don't like the rules, they are perfectly free to take their ball and go home. In fact, I hope they do.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Is it file formats? Kernel interfaces? Network protocols? Or are we looking a lot more low level?
If they don't like the fact that they don't provide the documentation that they want, they should not buy their software in the first place.
Irrelevant - this is about competition, not past purchasing decisions. Microsoft either do what the EU says, or they pay the fines, OR they stop trading the EU. Simple.
Go ahead, mod me flamebait or overrated. But keep in mind that I administrate and work with both Linux and Windows for a living, and I actually have much more Windows experience and education under my belt. That being said, if I had a choice in the matter the servers I work with would be 100% *nix.
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
Microsoft never said (that I know of) that they were required to use Windows.
:)
No, they just illegally maintained an effective monopoly on PC operating systems for many years. If they don't like the repercussions of their extended and deliberate illegal (and some would say immoral) actions, perhaps they should have complied with the court's verdict earlier. Or maybe just not done it in the first place...
Game dev and music blog
>"ok...well see you later Europe."
Of course you would. This would be following:
Security... well see you later!
Interoperability... well see you later!
Open standards... well see you later!
Competitive prices... well see you later!
Eventually all this will (if it hasnt already) bite them serverly in the ass. Losing the Europe market isn't an option. Its huge. The stockholders would get management replaced if they pulled a stunt like that. Not to mention the EU is right and is doing what America is unable or unwilling to do herself.
Monkeys yes, users not a chance!
Before the Treaty of Rome, 25 March 1957... um, no.
They can't leave Europe. Not selling Windows to Europe could lead to two possible scenario's, and both are bad for MS.
The first scenario is that the EU decides that it's computers are so important that it will just use unauthorized copies.
The second, even worse scenario is that Europe would adopt Linux as it's primary OS. Once the EU starts using Linux the market for third-party Linux software will explode. This in turn will lead to the removal of the last show-stopper problems for Linux (whatever they might be).
Suddenly most of the reasons _not_ to use Linux in the USA would vaporize, and then MS would be in real trouble.
Thus, leaving the EU market would create just the kind of opportunity that Linux (and other OS'es) would need to become dominating.
It's called consumer protection, maybe you've heard of it?
On this side of the pond we're very big on trying to protect consumers from extorsionist behaviour by companies in monopoly positions, busting cartels, punishing companies that lie to their customers, avoiding overuse of shared resources (for example the environment), that kind of thing.
No worries though - i believe we are moving in the direction of the american model of "voluntary" industry regulations and corporate buying of legislation.
This isn't stupid. When you do business in some foreign country, then you have to respect that countries laws. Earlier this week ABN AMRO, a large Dutch bank, was fined (in the USA) 80 M$ for violating USA banking laws.
If European businesses have to obey US law when doing business in the USA, then American businesses have to obey Europen law when doing business in Europe. And MS violated European laws repeatedly, so now they have to pay - just like any other compagny violating European laws.
After all, MS doesn't have to do business in Europe. If they don't like Europe and it's laws, then they are free to leave.
This is actually a capitalistic policy: Compatition is good, so if someone is preventing compition from happening you give them an incentive to change their minds. In this case, a punishment incentive.
Capitalism does not like monopolies. It is the government's job to make sure they don't get out of hand.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
All of you morons who advise MS above to simply stop trading in the EU are simply insane.
Aside from the US (im assuming you idiots are Americans)the next major service industries full stop are in EU and yes the EU is actually a very very big place for both people and business numbers.
wake the hell up and get your American head out of your American Ass.
why the EU has this kind of power over Microsoft? I thought that Microsoft is a U.S. based company that must obey U.S. laws. Anyway, not that I'm a Microsoft fanboi or anything, but while I do see a tremendous upside to Microsoft providing documentation to enable (better) interoperbility with other Operating Systems, I also see a huge downside. A downside where it's even easier to create viruses and worms that cripple Windows, given an intimate knowledge of it's propritary inner workings. I am just playing devil's advocate here. I would be all for Microsoft to share some knowledge with us, as it could make the computing world that much nicer, but I don't think it will ever happen.
While I agree with your sentiment, having lived in Europe for over a year, I think things are a little too regulated in most countries. This has now extended to international business, and it will come back to bite you in the butt. Already, sentiment in the US against EU regulators is growing. It has been since the GE/Honeywell deal fell through due to EU interference (read - protecting Airbus and their other golden boys). Now you have the whole "lipstick debacle". MS doesn't have to look far when they want to find anti-EU sentiment, and they'll use everything they can to their advantage. Down the line I see the EU using regulation to hurt US businesses, and the US doing the same in retaliation. This is only going to lead to a pissing contest where everyone loses. While MS isn't without fault here, I can only wonder if there is a better solution.
Lighten up. Its only a post.
The market does want that, but when there's an 800lbs gorilla in the market, the market no longer works as intended. That's what being a monopoly is all about - shutting down the forces that makes a free market work. Something needs to negate that influence to jump-start an active and free market again. In this case, the European Commission is doing that.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Why? Grandparent post should be marked as flamebait, if anything... I'll bite.
>but keeping this information to themselves is something that has been done in the computer industry since the beginning.
"Something's right because we've always done it this way" is never a valid argument.
>I can't believe the EU would be so fascist as to compel Microsoft to release this information... and with a fine post-dated to Dec 15!!
Better believe it...
>Microsoft should suspend all sales of Windows and Office until this is resolved.
Sure, and lose hundreds of millions of revenue, instead of a few million due to fines. It's not like they're stopping development - they would stop selling software for which most of the costs have already been incurred... that'd just be dumb.
> Europe is much more heavily dependent on windows than the US... they would most definitely feel the pinch.
What are you basing that on? Seems I see a lot more Linux headlines about Germany/Norway/Sweden/whereever than about the States...
> Hell they might be able to talk Apple into joining the boycott...
Yeah, sure. Maybe they'll even convince Apple to curl up and die.
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
Microsoft didn't abuse their monopoly with Windows Server systems. Period. The abuse was when the bundled Internet Explorer and Media Player. This is absurd as saying they abused their monopoly to get Office at the top, they did not.
This is equal to a habitual speeder getting pulled over for the 10th time in a month, and the penalty is his wife can no longer work. The justification; she makes allot of money and bought him the car. Should we tell MS that they can no longer sell Office unless they give Open Office their source code too?
MS server api/code being required to be exposed is border line criminal in my opinion. This is MS IP (good or bad it's theirs), and forcing an Open Source model on the world is a dangerous road... regardless of your opinion on OSS.
This is an attempt to throw a bone at competitors of Microsoft (e.g. Novell, various Linux distros, UNIX, etc.), but it doesn't help the companies that were hurt by the monopoly abuse (e.g. Netscape and Real, of course they settled out of court). The fact that the foes of Microsoft resort to beating them on the server front like this just goes to show you that MS really has made a good product with Windows 2003. This decision may help the Linux community play ball in a windows world, but that punishment has nothing to do with the crime.
The cold hard truth is that this has very little to do with MS or monopolies. The EU is just trying to hurt the US economy by hurting the largest American company. They fined them about a billion dollars already, XP N, and various other penalties.
Again, Microsoft did not abuse their monopoly with any version of the server systems (not to mention they charge allot for it). They got big market share quickly because the small to medium sized companies were ignored by Novell and Sun (major players at the time). NT 3.51 and NT 4 gave MS a large market share because they targeted a group that needed the systems, but had been ignored until then. Small companies get big, and when they did they already were using MS... so they stuck with it. It was a good strategy, and not illegal. Novell's bad business moves aren't Microsoft's fault.
Flame me if you want, but this is a bad ruling.
You, just as plenty of other posters in this thread, seem to be forgetting a couple of facts:
- They are convicted of abusing their monopoly in one market to force their way into other markets, and thus are subject to stricter rules than companies that are not monopolies.
- The terms of 'opening up' cover API documentation and guaranteeing interoperability with other proprietary vendors as well as Free Software. NOT opening the source code.
Ergo: this doesn't impact proprietary software at all. Non-monopolists are perfectly allowed not to document their APIs. Microsoft can keep their sacred source code closed.
What they are asked to do is pay up until they open their specs.
~phil
Odd thing, for some reason a lot more people then a few percent seemed to be able to work with Linux long before Windows ever made an appearance. Of course they called it unix in those days but what's in a name?
Earlier computer systems were even more primitive and being operated NOT by MIT graduates but by a girl promoted from the typing pool. For that matter how do you think the earliest word processors and such worked? Point and click? Nor were they being used by harvard graduates. Just girls with barely a diploma in home economics.
Nah, linux is easy. It is just called hard by the amazingly lazy who do not want to be bothered having to relearn their leet button clicking skills.
In the real world, people have used all kinds of systems and continue to do so. You would be suprised how many companies still run their essential software via ancient telnet terminals that make you wish you were running DOS (oh okay maybe not DOS).
Here is a tip for succesfull management of your employees. Do not hire people with skills if office package X (and that includes oOO). Hire people with an average intelligence and tell them I pay your wages, I choose the software, here is a manual. Any person with a IQ above room temperature will get the hint.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
if you were ms, i would tell you
"oh, please, please do not, our economies will crush, we will beg you to come back and have govt agreements with you later - please don't leave us !"
Rich
"read - protecting Airbus and their other golden boys"
Unlike in the US , where Boeing and other american aerospace
contractors are never given preferential treatment over foreign
ones in government contracts. Oh no. And er , oh , what about Iraq
where EU corperations were squeezed out of the bidding for the
rebuilding contracts , which , (and this is a complete surprise),
are almost all american! Well what next? US trade import tarifs?
US steel market protectionism? Nah , would never happen.
"You're right, I did lose 2.4 million dollars yesterday. I expect to lose 2.4 million dollars today. I expect to lose 2.4 million dollars tomorrow. You know Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of 2.4 million dollars a day, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years"
</citizen_kane>
Shades of Grayden
i don't think it's that simple ... besides, in this 'war of proprietary vs open' ...
Proprietary versus open is not part of this debate.
It is that simple - we're talking about punishment for anti-competitive behaviour. PUNISHMENT FOR A CRIME. For the reasons you outlined it is in Microsoft's interests (the EU is a huge and lucrative market to Microsoft) to acquiesce to the EU's demands.
How is this modded flamebait? It so very true.
You'd have to be a moron to think MS has the option of "going home." If they were to declare their products no longer for sale in the EU and pull all their employees out and try to sell all their holdings there, the EU would order the company split up immediately and MS-USA would have to compete with MS-Europe which would hold all the intellectual property rights there. They are a convicted, abusive monopoly. Trying to avoid a punishment by the courts does not work, because the courts have all the power in their jurisdiction.
And for the > 130 iq comment, he has a point too, put a linux livecd in a room with 1 computer and 10 monkeys and they'll probably succeed eventually, but it'll take a while
Actually, the secret to their success is mostly the consistant interface - I mean any give Linux desktop is as easy to LEARN to use as a Windows desktop (for people starting out cold with no preconceptions of how it should be), but the Windows 95 gui is consistant everywhere you go. Go into any office and sit down at any machine and things will be where you learned they will be. Try that with any given Linux box and odds are each one will be customized differently, or each corporation will have a 'standard' desktop different from other corporations so it is more difficult for an accountant to take his templates from one to another and be instantly productive with a spreadsheet and a printer.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Down the line I see the EU using regulation to hurt US businesses, and the US doing the same in retaliation. This is only going to lead to a pissing contest where everyone loses.
Down the line? What bubble are you living in? The EU and the US have these sort of pissing contests all the time. It rarely makes the front page, but it's the single most defining trait of the transatlantic relationship. Pick up any copy of the Economist to see what the latest one is. Typing "EU US trade disputes" into Google returns 4.2 million hits.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
I often get the impression that the yanks on this site think they outnumber the limeys by a huge factor. In fact there's only about five times as many (300 million to to 60 million).
Now add in Germany, Turkey, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, The Netherlands, Greece, Portugal, Belgium, Hungary and a few more to get the EU, and you're up to about half a billion. That's half as big again as the US, and could easily scale to be more than half the licensed users of MS products.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
1) People don't like to "dabble" very much. They want to just be able to use it. Some may argue that our history/education with Windows is what gives that OS the edge when it comes to usability (compared to Linux), but I would argue that it's just plain easier to use than Linux. Linux is not even in the same league as Windows or OSX when it comes to regular users doing normal things on their computers.
2) People don't want to learn an OS or customize it to make it work for them. They don't mind (too much) learning the *application* (Photoshop, Word, whatever) because that's what that is considered productive - "I made a picture", "I typed an email". Learning an OS doesn't give regular users any satisfaction at all.
I look forward to the day when geeks like us all finally figure out that learning an OS isn't fun/rewarding/useful for 99% of the population. Telling regular people to read the HOWTO or "RTFM" or whatever is not productive.
I think you should accept that Linux *is* hard compared to the alternatives available today. Once you accept that, you can move forward and help the Linux community make it less hard by getting involved...
IQ does not correlate perfectly with IQ performance, specially at the high end of the curve.
And you're kidding right? The only time early UNIX machines were approached by people with IQs bellow 140 was when they were being transported from one place to another, and that's only when those people were idly standing near the truck - other than that even the truck drivers and the janitors who cleaned the rooms they were stored in held at least one PHD.
If Internet Explorer was locked-out, or it was made extremely difficult to operate with Apache, there would be an outcry.
If Apache was closed-source and used a proprietary protocol, Firefox was closed-source, and Apache and Firefox were developed by the same company - providing seamless integration between the two - and if Microsoft was given no help to allow its browser to operate with Apache, I'm sure that Bill Gates wouldn't just sit down and say "Ah well, fair's fair."
Microsoft has had plenty of time to address similar issues that it has brought about, and the company knew of the consequences.
What's to complain about?
What other option does the EU have?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
The EU wants MS to open up their protocols and fileformats to allow fair competition. Aren't open standards what everyone here wants in the end? This 2.4M/day fine is just because MS isn't listening, the EU has fined MS before. This is the EU's way of saying: open up your protocols, your fileformats and your system or we'll force you to. Fines and legislation are the only way the EU can slowly force MS into accepting this fact.
I can't wait for the day that MS publishes actual complete documentation on implementing NTFS or communicating with an Exchange server. That is the day that we, the people, say that we won't stand for closed standards anymore.
This sig is intentionally left blank
Three words:
Follow. The. Money.
In the medium term it doesn't matter to the commercial software market how many Indians and Chinese there are, but how many individuals in any given region can afford to license which software.
There aren't enough Chinese or Indians who can afford Microsoft Office or Windows for MS to make up for leaving the EU, so they will stay.
Incidentally, there are plenty of opportunities in those 2 markets for localised Linux distros due to lower costs and long-standing governmental distrust of the US, which reflects back on MS.
In fact, this is a turn point. Linux might be harder to install, and in some cases use, but Europe and Asia has a bunch of cheap talent that could get a set of tools into shape very quickly. Asia is already doing this. The only reason mainstream Europe is not is that it is still easier to use MS. There is little loyalty to MS outside the US. Again, look at game sales.
The bottom line is that MS, just like any other corporation, must give the customer valuable products. Part of that value can be created by advertising, but some of the value must be innate. MS is pretty good about creating value, but sometimes markets toward the lowest common denominator instead of finding specific solutions. For instance, why would I want an MP3 player on the factory floor? Why would I want to use IE as an application interface, when I could use something else that would be less distracting to my minimum wage employees? We see this in vista, where many of the underlying useful technologies have been scrapped and replaced with eye candy. Why is that useful to the bussiness with 1000 computers? Did IBM obsess about the color of thier typewriters? No, they created typewriters that would last forever under trying circumstances.
So, MS better start becoming customer focused, or they will end up being an outside player. These fines are not about punishment. They are about trying to redirect a major player so we do not end up with a disruption to the world economy. If MS were more responsible, they would not be neccesary. The fact is that most are happy with MS products, and want to contiinue to use them. This does not mena that most people would not go to alternatives if forced. It is this movement that the fines seek to prevent.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
why the EU has this kind of power over Microsoft? I thought that Microsoft is a U.S. based company that must obey U.S. laws.
Of course you have to obey the laws of the country you do business in. Let's say a hypothetical company in Fuckmenistan is allowed to kidnap and murder their competitors at will, according to Fuckmenistan's laws. Now are you saying that they should be able to do this in the U.S. too, because they are a "Fuckmenistan based company"?
A downside where it's even easier to create viruses and worms that cripple Windows, given an intimate knowledge of it's propritary inner workings.
Well, intimate knowledge of inner workings of Linux is available freely, but not many viruses and worms seem to be roaming around. Maybe more openness could be a good thing, if MS is willing to improve their products based on criticism? Also, this is probably not about the inner working of the OS, but communication protocols.
No. I'm not. I'm opposed to Y! and Google operating in China at all. Because when they do, they have to follow the laws of China.
Linux is hard for most people. I was able to pick it up fairly fast because I had a few years of DOS experience (3.0 and later 6.22) along with using computers before mice or joysticks were common. Many of my peers didn't start using computers until Windows 95 was out. To me it was switching from DOS commands to Unix commands (which was easy since I'd forgotten most my DOS commands). For the average user it is ALL completely new, many times even the concepts involved. Now an average user may be able to use Ubuntu or Lindows fine, but I highly doubt they would be able to install them, install programs, or set up a printer without some help or a week of lessons.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Would you like to:
-Lod
Europe is much more heavily dependent on windows than the US
Many people are heavily dependent on Windows.
It's not because Windows is so superior, it's due to the lock-in situation proprietary file formats, protocols and APIs have brought about.
That's why the EU wants to put a stop to it.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
If they don't and they simply treat this penalty payment as an additional tax, the EU, will start doing more painful things.
Would Microsoft like:
1) Their assets (IP rights, buildings, stock they own, etc.) being put on sale, or (worse) frozen? (you might want to add bank accounts to the list if this happens).
2) Crimminal prossecution for upper management?
3) Trade in Microsoft shares being frozen?
The shareholders won't like any of these.
Trust me, if Microsoft doesn't change its behavior after getting this pennalty payment, they're in for a world of hurt... and the damage from that may very well be irreversible.
Consider this:
:)
Microsoft with its illegal monopoly abuse practices seems to think it can ignore the problem away like a bad dream. The EU has its own monopoly over who can do business in the EU. They have every right to do what they are doing as they were voted (I assume) into office by the people. And let's face it -- with Microsoft refusing to comply, it is going to have to come to a head where one side or the other will have to push their hand. If you ask me, this is what I'd do (not that they will):
I would accept that Microsoft is not going to pay. So I would grant the EU citizens and businesses a carte blanche to use any and all Microsoft software without paying licenses for a period deemed long enough to migrate to something else... whatever it may be. Moving away from Microsoft should not hurt the people that Microsoft has been hurting. This should be a measure to ease migration rather than to encourage illegitimate use. (It could backfire and a bunch of unpaid copies of software go flying about everywhere until no one wants to bother with alternatives... who knows) Would Microsoft allow or attempt to prevent it? I'm pretty sure they would, but the contempt Microsoft is showing the EU courts is pretty bad at this point. Eventually, I foresee very few if any EU folk siding with Microsoft unless they were in some way employed or benefitting from sales of Microsoft products and services. But giving people free, non-prosecutorial access to Microsoft software would certainly get more notice than mere UNPAID monetary fines.
EU: "So go ahead people! Get your free Microsoft software! Here's the torrents! You can use this for the next three years until you migrate to something better." Doesn't that idea just bring tingles?
More and more TRUST is becoming a factor with government and business. The people are increasingly losing trust in businesses like Microsoft just as the US people are losing trust in their own government. It's getting messy out there...
And the people of France can download pirated versions of Windows via P2P!
Microsoft, no matter how many people hate them, should not be penalised for being a sucessful business.
Agreed. They should be punished for breaking the law, which, coincidentally, is what they are being punished for.
There are plenty of alternatives to their product.
And here you make a incredibly common mistake. Monopolies are defined by markets, not products. No one else sells a significant number of desktop OS's and makes a profit doing so. All companies that have tried have gone out of business. IBM and many others sell services and include an OS. Apple and many others sell hardware and include an OS. Who, aside from MS, sells OS's and makes a profit?
Lets fine apple for making people with ipods (a monopoly) download itunes, which now comes with quicktime.
One, ipods have about 70% of the market. That is not a monopoly. Two, Apple's quicktime competes against MS Media player, which is bundled with a monopolized product.
Lets fine sony (or X,Y,Z) for not playing songs downloaded by itunes.
...because Sony has a monopoly on what, that they have abused how?
Lets fine apple for not allowing other mp3 player play songs downloaded by itunes.
If Apple were to gain a monopoly on music downloads, and use that to gain a monopoly on players, then yes lets fine them. Last I heard, however, they were nowhere near having a monopoly and dozens of other companies, including MS, Walmart, and Sony offered similar services.
Lets fine KFC for not telling us the secret ingredient in the batter for the fried chicken, as some little take-away next door is suffering.
First, KFC does not have a monopoly on anything. Second, having a monopoly is not illegal. Having a monopoly and using it to get another monopoly is illegal. So as soon as KFC is the only company making money selling fried chicken and they start giving away free whatever with that chicken, the courts should step in on behalf of whatever sellers.
How can someone come up with opinions like yours without understanding the basics of monopolies, bundling, anti-trust law, or this particular case? How can you have not even tried to use Google to research this at all, or read any opposing opinions on it that might inform you? Do you just randomly spout uninformed opinions about everything?
>> There are some regulations in place,
>> I don't know when they were put there. MS has
>> been around longer than most Software laws.
Uh, it's not software laws, it's anti-trust laws. They've been around for a while...
I work for a company that sells hardware and software, and the demand for more Linux support has gone up dramatically from overseas - and we're responding with success.
I personally think that their Linux requests are a bit out of spite (they have MS contracts, the project managers involved are just sick of Microsoft) -- but whichever way you cut it, Microsoft should probably begin playing nice because that's where they're going to lose customers. And Korea.
Berto
"Apple comes pre-installed with Safari, media and contact management. Linux comes installed with countless gnu sharware, whether you want them or not."
Yes, but are they bundled into the OS's core? can you quickly and easily remove tem without crippling your system?
On a Mac OS X, you simply delete the app.folder, on a Linux box you "apt-get remove" (or similar). On Windows, however, if you try to remove Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer, they're still there! And removing them by hand is not particularly wise.
This is an antitrust issue. Your whole EXACT SAME issues thing is a non-sequitor because:
- Apple is not a convicted monopolist
- RedHat is not a convicted monopolist
- SuSE is not a convicted monopolist
Microsoft *is* a convicted monopolist, that is why they are being fined. They are being fined because they are using their desktop monopoly to force out competitors in other markets, such as the server market. Additionally, they are using their desktop monopoly to cross subsidise their entries into other markets and sell things like the XBox below cost price, which will eventually force other competitors without the luxury of using a monopoly to subsidise their games market to exit the market.
Linux distros, on the other hand, use open and documented protocols. It is no problem using a Sun Solaris NIS and NFS server with a Linux desktop client, or a Linux server with a Sun Solaris desktop client. RedHat and SuSE do not have desktop monopolies which they use to lock out competitors from the server market (and vice versa).
Additionally, MSDN doesn't exactly document the proprietary and non-standard extensions to Kerberos that prevent anyone other than Microsoft from creating a server that can provide Active Directory to Windows clients.
Microsoft would not be being fined if their business conduct did not include using their Windows monopoly to subsidise their entry into other markets. It is not fair game for MS to counter sue for bias and prejudice because there is no bias and prejudice - all the other people you cite do not use Microsoft business practises.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Obligatory Simpsons ref: Mr. Burns is hauled into court for dumping nuclear waste in the city park. He's fined $3 million. He whips out his checkbook and says, "I'll take that statue of justice too!"
IF they were made by the same company, as you propose, nothing would be wrong
Two different companies teaming up and not allowing a third vendor in is wrong
So, basically, you're pointing out a flaw in the legal system.
Look at the following situations:
1) Different companies work together and lock everybody else out: illegal
2) One company has different products working together and locks everybody else out: legal
What's the best thing to do if you're faced with situation #1?
Answer: Both companies join together and everything is OK; the competition is screwed, and another monopoly rules the roost.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
And so it was that half the EU was wiped off the map with the hidden thermite that comes standard as part of Windows TCP/IP - Terrorist Controlled Protection for Intellectual Property.
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
They were *also* convicted in the European Union. The EU isn't fining Microsoft because they violated US law; they are fining Microsoft because they were violating *European* law.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I don't read Slashdot to hear people admitting their own faults, and getting along. Stop it! Get back to misunderastanding, and calling each other names!
Is this the same EU that's been pushing so hard for software patents? Isn't it the purpose of software patents to create/enforce monopolies? Wouldn't it make more sense to heavly restrict software patents, or simplt strip M$ of and patents pertaining to the protocols in question. There are already companies that have figured many MS protocols out, but they still have to pay M$ licensing. A judgement restricting or assigning MicroSoft's protocol specific patents to public domain would probablly do more to open or level the playing field. Especially if thos restrictions / assignments applied to patents files for the next 5 years. my $0.02 2.4 Mil/day seems steep so I'm assuming the kind of arrogance and lying that M$ applied to the US courts did not impress the EU judges at all.
Gone to my happy place.
It's my opinion tha they could do the *very best they possibly could* to release the specifications for their APIs, and while it would help, it still wouldn't give anyone much more ability to interoperate than they currently have, because the documentation will be wrong.
Microsoft has a huge incentive to get their developer's documentation correct, and yet MSDN is rife with errors and omissions.
The EU ruling was absolute utter bullshit. Microsoft "violated" EU law by including a media player -- a standard feature in Windows since Windows 3.1. The argument was that this was strongarming Real out of the market.
Yes, the EU posterchild victim is Real. The company who produces tries to make it as hard as possible to find the free version of the player on their website. The company bundling masses of spyware in their free product. The company whos product takes over playing all of your file extensions without asking. The company whos product puts itself in your start folder without asking. The company whos product puts a dumbass real icon in your system tray without asking (which takes 15 minutes to find the right option to turn off). The company whos video quality is craptastic. The company who produces a player so buggy it is difficult to watch a movie in. The company who's products user interface is ugly that the XP playschool theme looks like a piece of art.
Do I really need to go on?
Yes, according to the EU, the reason Real "failed" is because Microsoft included a media player that wasn't a steaming pile of shit, and not because Real's player was a steaming pile of shit.
This whole thing is a sham. The EU doesn't give a shit about media players or Real. It was just a convenient excuse.
"your assets will be seized if you decide to operate outside the law" doesn't sound like rocket science - why would this put off other [presumably more law-abiding than microsoft] companies?
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.