Microsoft's 12-Step Program

NevarMore writes to tell us eWeek is reporting that Microsoft, after almost 30 years of Windows, now has 12 philosophical tenets outlining Windows development. From the article: "Smith said the principles largely come from things Microsoft picked up in the consent decree the software giant signed in settling its landmark antitrust battle with the federal government, but that more recent developments led to the crafting of some of the other principles. The 12 principles are based on three main areas: choice for computer manufacturers and customers, opportunities for developers, and interoperability for users, Smith said."

Comments

Actions Speak Louder Than Words...

[the.metric]

...need I say more?

OK, nice philosophy. When's the release date?

[Godwin O'Hitler]

When do these 12 principles take effect?
Surely they're not implying they're already in operation.

They sound like a reform plan

[DeadSea]

The list could be titled: Twelve ways to avoid being a monopoly or Twelve ways to avoid pissing off customers and third party developers.

If Microsoft really takes these twelve items to heart, it could be a big shift for them. It would certainly go a long way to change my perception of the company. I might even consider using Windows again at some point.

The cynic in me says that something is forcing them to say this and that they possibly don't really mean it. The options seem like:

1. The anti-trust litigation is finally changing them
2. Competition from Apple and Linux has them over a barrel
3. They want good publicity and they don't really mean it.

Re:They sound like a reform plan

[Rakshasa Taisab]

As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Re:They sound like a reform plan

[ozmanjusri]

no one ever considers the idea that maybe Microsoft is trying to actually change it's old business practices.

Maybe they are, but you wouldn't know it from these "commandments".

Numbers 1-4 are already a fait accompli from a technical point of view. There's been nothing to stop OEMs or customers from adding their own software as defaults to any version of Windows, apart from Microsoft's shady business practices. Maybe Vista will make the process simpler, but complexity was never what stopped the Dell/Gateway/Toshiba etc of the world from changing defaults.

Numbers five and six are significant, if they happen and are not bypassed in practice, but it's really just Microsoft saying "We're not going to keep breaking the law."

Number seven and eight are non-sequiturs. Were they ever planning to incorporate Windows Live into their OS? Given the security implications, it would be an insane thing to do - so maybe they were... And what about not blocking access to non-MS websites? Gee, thanks guys. I'm glad you've decided to let us keep our Slashdot. Seriously, what the hell were they planning to do that would make it necessary to make that a core tenet?

Nine, they're saying they'll stop breaking the law again.

Ten and eleven are sneaky. They'll license communications protocols and patents "on commercially reasonable terms". Given the extremely flexible nature to the term "reasonable" you can pretty much bet they'll use the licensing terms to block all real competitors, particularly FOSS.

Number twelve, well we've seen from their behavior with ODF that Microsoft is committed to standards, as long as they're their own, and as long as they can retract the compliance if it gets in the way of their format lockin in the future.

All in all, there's a lot implied by the tenets, but the only ones which actually commit Microsoft to any changes are the ones required by law. The rest are carefully phrased to allow plausible deniability. Note also that they've said nothing about their key lockin tool - file formats. If Microsoft were serious about fair play they'd commit, in a legally binding way, to maintain fully open protocols, formats and APIs. They have not done so, so these "tenets" are nothing more than yet more spin and misdirection.

That's eleven more than I knew about

[Archtech]

Hmm, having followed Microsoft's activities closely for the past 20 years, I had come to the conclusion that the Windows operation was guided by one principle. In its entirety, it reads as follows:

MAXIMIZE REVENUE

Analysis of Microsoft's behavior and the characteristics of Windows shows them to be fully and satisfactorily explained by this one hypothetical mandate.

Re:Let me guess

[Doug Merritt]

They are twelve ways to deny all of those?

Pathetic, isn't it? I had expected to see a list of issues like, perhaps

• Huge and bloated is beautiful
• Ship a prototype as soon as possible
• Embrace captive user interfaces
• Write programs that do thousands of unrelated things
• Write programs that don't particularly work together
• Write programs that handle lots of proprietary data formats, but not text streams
• (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy)

Instead their list of "philosophies" is more like

• Don't poison the customer
• Don't shoot the customer
• Don't bomb the distributor
• Don't ignore direct orders from the court

etc. Unbelievable.

Microsoft just wants to make money

[MarkByers]

Microsoft just wants to make money and they have to try their hardest to get people to trust them. Wouldn't you expect them to say that they are a nice company? Do you think it would be better if they said 'We hate consumers having choice and we are trying to prevent competition'? There is no point bashing them for using good PR. Any other company would do the same. Perhaps Linux companies could learn something about marketing from them if they would take the time to study how Microsoft does what it does best - marketing.

It does not bode well

[denoir]

It does not bode well when a company calls "computer manufacturers may add shortcuts to the start menu" a philosophical principle. It is such a sad statement of no core beliefs or belief in the future. Compare it to Google's naive, but uplifting "Do no evil".

Microsoft badly needs a reboot with people in charge who can give this company a real vision.

obligatory Prestowitz reference

[Amphiaurus]

In his book "Trading Places" Clyde Prestowitz noted that the Japanese frustrated the US trade delegations (during the Reagan/Bush Sr era) by openly agreeing to everything asked or demanded of them, then turning away and doing exactly what they planned to do in the first place. The US guys thought the Japanese were lying, but they missed (then) the significance of the ploy. I'm sure that Microsoft's managers and spin-surgeons are savvy to the method now, so quite frankly I don't believe anything that comes out of their PR department. If they're talking you can be sure they're lying. I just watched the original "Clerks" again. I'm thinking now that working for Microsoft is like doing contract labor on the Death Star. I'm sure it pays well, but it's ignoble work, contributing to an evil empire. :)

Re:Their choice of principles eh?

[knipknap]

Of course, the documentation is pointless by now. In the future they will simply make sure to add some patented mechanisms into each API instead, and/or license the documentation in a way that shuts out developers of free software.

I'm tempted to believe it

[Opportunist]

No, not because MS suddenly turned "good" and they want to repent their "evil" ways. Quite simply: When you're under constant surveillance for problems and legal breaches, you can't do them.

Take Google. It's the "not evil" company. Now, I might be mistaken, but doesn't Google have a similar position in areas like web search and to some extent web mail that MS has in the areas of OS and office? But where's the outcry?

MS has a huge image problem. It's become the "evil" company, it has the status that IBM held in the 70s and 80s, the monopolist who forces his solutions down your throat because you have no choice. Now, we all know what happened to IBM when the "IBM-compatible" PCs hit the market: They lost that market completely. Not because their machines were inferior or (too) expensive (yes, they were expensive but many companies care more for TCO than cost of the machine alone), they lost it with their image as the one who strangleholds you, and the customer fearing the lock-in.

MS is in the same position today. Using an MS client product almost forces you to purchase an MS server, which in turn forces you to buy MS client licenses for the server, which in turn almost forces you to use MSSQL (if for nothing else then for convenience's sake), you have an MS domain controller (because you fear that they just MIGHT change the protocol and your Linux DC won't be able to work it out) and so on.

A lot of companies, and also a lot of governments in Europe, are migrating to Linux because of this. And MS certainly does not enjoy this trend.

So it's not a move to be "less evil". It's simply a move to avoid losing more market share than absolutely necessary.

Re:Let me guess

[Dolda2000]

They are twelve ways to deny all of those?

Not too far from it, from what I can see:

10. Communications protocols. Microsoft will make available, on commercially reasonable terms, all of the communications protocols that it has built into Windows and that are used to facilitate communication with server versions of Windows. To facilitate this, Microsoft will document protocols supported in Windows as part of the product design process. We will also work closely with firms with particular needs to address interoperability scenarios that may require licensing of other protocols.

11. Availability of Microsoft patents. Microsoft will generally license patents on its operating system inventions (other than those that differentiate the appearance of Microsoft's products) on fair and reasonable terms so long as licensees respect Microsoft's intellectual property rights.

(From Microsoft's site)
So in other words, it's a no-go for free software.

I also found the 12th point interesting:

12. Standards. Microsoft is committed to supporting a wide range of industry standards in Windows that developers can use to build interoperable products. Microsoft is committed to contributing to industry standard bodies as well as working to establish standards via ad hoc relationships with others in the industry.

What a commitment! I think I can pretty much count all the open standards that Microsoft can be said to be committed to support on one hand: the IP stack, DNS and HTTP. Even their FTP implementation is half-assed, to say the least (considering how one cannot get out of the initial cwd), and I doubt anyone would argue that Microsoft actually "supports" any of the web standards (that is, if one isn't viewing support of the version of 10 years ago as a "commitment").

The second sentence is interesting in its own right. I, for one, cannot interpret it to mean anything but inventing their own, new standard instead of the ones that already exist and work. "[W]orking to establish standards via ad hoc relationships with others in the industry" doesn't even need a comment...

All the other tenets were pretty well summed up by another poster as "don't poison the customer", "don't shoot the customer", "don't bomb the distributor" and "don't ignore direct orders from a court of law". They are probably reserving the rights to boiling the customer, burying the distributor alive and following order from a court of law at their own pace, however.

Re:Let me guess

[hey!]

Well, remember this guy is not an engineer or PR flack. He's Microsoft's lawyer. He's basically saying that Microsoft will obey the law as the court has established applies in their case. Which of course is his job -- not only from a public standpoint, but from what his role in the company is. "IP" companies aside, the reason you have lawyers is to tell you what you need to do to stay out of trouble.

I expect this is his sincere viewpoint. And I would not be so dismissive of this viewpoint. All the technical ills of Microsoft's products are not unrelated to their illegal behavior as regards to their monopolistic power.

This relationship is the reason for the core philosophy of the laws that restrain monpolist power: promote competition. The holder of a legally obtained monopoly can enjoy the fruits of that monopoly, but he cannot use that monopoly to evade competition. He can't use it to prevent new competition from emerging in his monopoly areas, he can't use it to prevent structural changes in the market which may reorganize his monopoly out of existence, he can't use it to undermine competition in other market areas which are competitive.

Companies, even countries, can't really do more than one non-routine thing at once. They cannot put their energies into innovation and improvements, and at the same time turn their products into an interlocking mechnism to keep out and to undermine competition. As long as Microsoft's products are a vehicle for exercising, maintaining and extending Microsoft's monopoly power, they'll never be very good.

So, with respect to Microsoft's products and their future quality, the decision to abide by the law is much more significant than any technological or architectural strategy. It means they are agreeing to be subjected to competition.