Microsoft May Be Investigated By Attorneys General

Null Nihils writes "Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has announced that a group of state attorneys general will decide later this week whether to pursue legal action against Microsoft over allegations of anticompetitive conduct that were brought on by Google. From the article: 'Google has complained that Microsoft's new operating system puts it, and other rivals, at a disadvantage. Google said that Vista makes it harder for consumers to use non-Microsoft versions of a desktop search function, which enables users to search the contents of their hard drives. A group of state attorneys general including Connecticut and California is now determining how to react to the claims made by Google.'"

Comments

what's the bet that

[oliverthered]

If this manages to get through google will be dead in the water by the time anything's done about it.

Re:what's the bet that

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless, Google have misrepresented this entire issue.

1) They complained to the DoJ/AG without informing Microsoft of the issue and attempting to have it solved,

2) Windows Search is designed to only operate during idle cycles specifically so it will not interfere with any other running program including Google Desktop Search,

4) Windows Search can be disabled from the Control Panel, the command line, and if Google could be bothered they can disable it using the Services API during an install of their software, and

5) Google have even coded Vista Sidebar widgets that are designed to interact with GDS on Vista, which makes their complaint make even less sense.

I'm sorry to hijack your comment but if anybody else could manage to be a little more informed on the issue rather than immediately jump to the standard "anti-competitive monopoly blah-blah" response then maybe a more intellectual debate could ensue.

Re:what's the bet that

[AKAImBatman]

The last paragraph of the article is extremely telling, I think:

The issue is the latest in an escalation between two of the heaviest hitters in the tech world.

In April, Microsoft urged the federal competition authorities to thoroughly investigate Google's acquisition of online advertising brokerage DoubleClick, after being beaten by Google in closing a deal for the company. The Federal Trade Commission has since confirmed it is investigating the matter.

It seems to me that Google is trying to beat Microsoft at its own game. Unfortunately, I have my doubts about Google being able to pull it off. Especially since it would require quite a bit of Evil(TM).

Re:what's the bet that

[c_forq]

Your step three is missing...

Re:what's the bet that

[Anonymous Coward]

Your step three is missing...

3. PROFIT!

Re:what's the bet that

[xtracto]

It seems to me that Google is trying to beat Microsoft at its own game. Unfortunately, I have my doubts about Google being able to pull it off. Especially since it would require quite a bit of Evil(TM).

In Mexico we have a saying that goes:
"El enemigo de mi enemigo es mi amigo" and means something like "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". I guess that if Google is "Evil(TM)" against Microsoft I would not cry a bit or be sad for that matter. The problem I see is that once Google is evil against MS and the shareholders see what can be achieved by being evil, then Google wont be able to stop being evil to continue its stock prices growing (which is what shareholders only care about).

Something similar to what happened to Slashdot after they removed the comments of Scientology, once you do it one time, you can not put a straight face saying "we do not remove any comment"... because any company willingly enough will come and tell you that you already did it once and hence you can do it again.

I believe this issues are one of the few which have a Black or White stand.

Re:what's the bet that

[Anonymous Coward]

"The problem I see is that once Google is evil against MS and the shareholders see what can be achieved by being evil, then Google wont be able to stop being evil..."

But Earth, Fire, Water and Wind will stop Evil for another 10K years. Bigbadaboom.

Re:what's the bet that

[AKAImBatman]

In Mexico we have a saying that goes [...] "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

We have the same saying here in the states. The only problem is that there is no guarantee that the enemy of your enemy is truly your friend. Sometimes, the enemy of your enemy is also your enemy. (Frighteningly, this can occasionally make your enemy a temporary ally.)

In any case, we also have the term "collateral damage". It refers to all the things that may be unintentionally damaged or destroyed by extreme measures. I can guarantee you that the moment Google compromises their "Do No Evil" policy, they will begin to harm their customers. Whether it will be on purpose or by accident is irrelevant. We'll still be just as harmed.

And in case you think that can't happen, just consider how much personal data Google is sitting on. Now imagine that Google escalates their legal war with Microsoft to a point where a judge orders some or all of that data seized. Google's veil of secrecy won't help them when FBI agents knock down their doors and walk away with their servers.

Re:what's the bet that

[GTMoogle]

"continue its stock prices growing (which is what shareholders only care about)."

Google has 2 kinds of stock - voting and non-voting. The voting stock is owned almost entirely by the founders. The majority voting shareholders have long since told the traditional traders to take a long walk - every buyer of google's non voting stock is welcome to sell if they don't like that.

So the biggest fear is that Larry and Sergey find that having a big stock price club is too useful and fun. I hardly think they have to worry about *trying* to inflate it, either.

Re:what's the bet that

[gkhan1]

I think you've summed up the issue pretty well. I like Google a hell of a lot more than Microsoft, but this complaint is utterly ridiculous. It shouldn't be brought to the courts. If it does, Microsoft will win. As they should.

Re:what's the bet that

[hunterkll]

Indeed, all of this is true, and when I read it it seemed like
google wants to swap their engine with windows's transparently,
and I thought 'Why don't they make the same complaint about OS X?'

So I poked around a bit with spotlight, and, from what it seems,
it's a simple matter of swaping the executables spotlight toolbars
make calls to to put your own engine in there, for whatever purpose
you want... don't know how well it'd survive updates, but there it is.
Perhaps a watchdog daemon?

Re:what's the bet that

[Pseudonym]

In Mexico we have a saying that goes: "El enemigo de mi enemigo es mi amigo" and means something like "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".

Just so you know, the proverb is Arabic, although I was surprised to learn in Wikipedia that there's an identical Chinese proverb.

And if I may digress for a moment, double negative elimination is not a theorem of intuitionistic logic. (It's related to the law of the excluded middle; the proverb can be thought of as an example of false dichotomy.) However, double negative introduction is. So in intuitionistic logic, the enemy of my enemy may not be my friend, but the enemy of the enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

Re:what's the bet that

[bdjacobson]

Your step three is missing...

3. PROFIT! No no no that comes afterwords. Here's how it reads:

3. ???

This is implied in the OP's post because, obviously, it is missing.

Re:what's the bet that

[UbuntuDupe]

Weird, I had always assumed that that phrasing was some wag's caricature of Machiavelli's ideas. (German's would probably be "Der Feind meines Feindes ist mein Freund.")

Anyway, if you're going to categorize it with intuitionist logic, you could give it a little more credit. Think of it as saying, "If someone shares an enemy with me, that relationship can be exploited to my advantage."

Unfair standard?

[elrous0]

I hate to be a MS defender here (Linux Gods please forgive me) but isn't it a little unfair to ride MS's ass for security problems all the time and then also expect them to open up their kernal, file system, security, etc. to every damn third party developer out there? Should a third party developer have just as much access to Vista as MS themselves?

Re:Unfair standard?

[babbling]

It's not unfair because it is entirely possible to write libraries that are not riddled with security flaws. You are trying to relate two things that are almost completely unrelated.

Re:Unfair standard?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

If MSFT is not competing in the applications arena and sells only the OS then it can say "I am locking up the kernel and you guys play by this rule". But MSFT is competing in the office, gaming, database, search, and email arenas. And it is using its monopoly in the OS arena to unfairly benefit its own application products.

What gives complaints against MSFT legitimacy is that it has 1. monopoly in the OS marke. 2. It has used its monopoly to unfairly undermine its competitors in other markers. MSFT can easily get out of all these restrictions and actions by breaking the company into two pieces. One is the OS company and the other is the applications company. And the OS company will give equal access to all vendors in the applications arena.

Please understand the issue is not the quantum of access given to the OS. It is the unequal access given to other vendors.

Re:Unfair standard?

[kernelpanicked]

Well, I dunno. How hard is it for a 3rd party developer to get access to the Linux or BSD kernels? I'd imagine if these systems had the same shitty security record Windows enjoys, you'd here a lot of bitching at them too.

Re:Unfair standard?

[WombatDeath]

My understanding is that Google want MS to provide a way for the average user to turn off the MS indexing, to avoid unnecessarily consuming resources by running search engines from both Google and MS side by side. By 'average user' they mean someone who isn't familiar with tinkering around in the services widget.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Security by obscurity doesn't work.

Re:Unfair standard?

[cortana]

NOTABUG.

Users can use sc, net, or the services console to disable a service.

If Google thinks that's too difficult then they are free to make their desktop search program offer to disable Microsoft's service at installation time.

Re:Unfair standard?

[jt2377]

How about Mac? it bundle with all the apps that come free. why don't you cry about it?

Re:Unfair standard?

[petermgreen]

couldn't google just put an option to do it in thier software (i'm pretty sure service control is documented in the winapi docs).

Re:Unfair standard?

[UnknowingFool]

That would be unfair but that is not the specific complaint of Google. From what I read (not the linked article), Google is finding issues with Vista's built-in search. From a AP article in USA Today:

The Vista operating system, which became widely available in January, includes a desktop search function that competes with a free program Google introduced in 2004. Several other companies also offer desktop search applications.

Besides bogging down competing programs, Google alleged Microsoft had made it too complicated to turn off the desktop search feature built into Vista.

With its allegations, Google hopes to show that Microsoft isn't complying with a 2002 settlement of an antitrust case that concluded the world's largest software maker had leveraged the Windows operating system to throttle competition.

The consent decree requires Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft to ensure its rivals can build products that run smoothly on Windows -- something that Google says isn't happening.

"The search boxes built throughout Vista are hard-wired to Microsoft's own desktop search product, with no way for users to choose an alternate provider," Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes said in a statement issued Monday.

In a way, Google's complaint mirrors that of Netscape but instead of browsers, it's search applications.

Re:Unfair standard?

[elrous0]

Linux is open source. MS is a for-profit company. Opening up their code would be suicide for MS (and would also likely fragment the OS market into a hopeless mishmash of competing forks). Do you really expect Bill Gates to just call a employee meeting one day and tell all the MS employees "We've decided to make all our stuff open source and just give it away. So we can't pay you anymore, but you're all free to stay on as volunteers." Come on man, get real.

Re:Unfair standard?

[roseanne]

Disabling the service is not a good option for Windows Vista because the OS uses the Indexing Service for the search function built into the shell.

However, it's hard to argue that Windows shouldn't provide an indexing service when OSX etc do. It's pretty well documented too, API-wise -- its only problem is that it consumes more resources than Google's indexer.

Google's complaint does seem to be a case of sour grapes here. Perhaps they're simply retaliating for the time when Microsoft raised antitrust complaints about its DoubleClick acquisition?

Re:Unfair standard?

[CastrTroy]

MS doesn't have to open up their code. Just their protocols and APIs. If you don't know how that's different from opening up the code, then you aren't qualified to comment on the subject.

Re:Unfair standard?

[elrous0]

The idea of breaking the company into two pieces has been suggested before, and is an interesting one. The problem with this is that Windows has incorporated so many little applications into itself over the years, I don't think it's practical to separate out the two (not anymore, for sure). Is Wordpad an application? Is mediaplayer an application? How would you sell Windows to the consumer market if all it included was just the kernal? Hell, no one is even interested in JUST the plain Linux kernal without a distro of some kind--and that's FREE.

So, practically speaking, how is MS supposed to give third party developers "equal access" with so many possible combinations of applications? When a consumer buys Windows, should they be given a detailed list of thousands of possible applications to choose to be included?

Re:Unfair standard?

[saleenS281]

How is the access *unequal*? Google can sign an NDA and get just as much access to that kernel as MSFT. What google is whining about is that it's now *HARDER* for them to search. It's also *HARDER* for msft folks to search because they have to go through the same permission schema as everyone else. I'm sure you really really hate MSFT, and really really love google, but google is being the whiny bitch this time.

Re:Unfair standard?

[WombatDeath]

Perhaps they could, I've no idea. Perhaps disabling the service screws with something else, as a poster above me suggests, in which case this sounds reminiscent of Win9x supposedly being designed around Internet Explorer.

It raises a vaguely interesting question of how modular an OS should be. I don't suppose many people would argue that the Windows file system should be replaceable with GoogleFS, but indexing sounds less integral than that.

Basically, I have food poisoning, no sleep and no real clue what my own point is, so if anyone can squeeze any meaning of my comments please let me know what it is. Ta.

Re:Unfair standard?

[will_die]

Microsoft desktop search is used by other microsoft products for its searching. For example if you want to do email searching in outlook 2007 you have to go and download microsoft desktop search, this is on windows XP.
So if you want to do searches in your email and also use google desktop search you are in trouble since both search engine now have to be running and scanning everything.

Re:Unfair standard?

[giorgiofr]

Yeah right I must be dreaming then because I distinctly remember Norton and McAfee screaming bloody murder over a totally legit kernel lockdown, while everybody else seemed to keep working on their AV products just fine.

Re:Unfair standard?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It is true no one would buy a car without tires. Or even a radio. Would you let auto makers off the hook so easily if they tried to make it impossible to install a thirdparty tire or radio? Infact the auto makers did that and it took lots of legislative action in the 70s to open up the "connectors and specs" to level the playing field, (or so I understand from a slashdot post.)

Now how far should the automaker go? Should you be able to install a thirdparty glove box? A steering wheel? or a gear box and transmission? The automobile is quite tangible and most consumers are well informed and they vote with their dollars in these questions. If they make a car that will accept only Ford tires, the marketplace will shun it. It is possible the glove box (and possibly the windshield) was thirdparty add-on way back in 1910s. And eventually it got incorporated into the automobile.

But in the computer arena, the public is not well informed. It would take a generation of kids who grew up with computers all their life to distinguish between what is the "glove box" and what is a "tire" in a computer. At that point we might not need any legislative action. But right now, to preseve the endangered species of independent software developers and application developers we need some basic action from the courts/legislation.

Re:Unfair standard?

[EraserMouseMan]

Can a Mac user weigh in on this? I wonder, does OS X allow a user to easily replace Finder with Google Desktop?

Re:Unfair standard?

[CmdrGravy]

I'm not so sure I entirely agree with you, the Windows Platform consists of a lot of Microsoft products working together but you can definitely say that Word is a seperate application, Mediaplayer is a seperate application etc.

When you buy a PC you have to buy things like Word seperately, they're not included in the price of Windows the operating system. It's the PC retailers who bundle useful software onto their PC's or it's businesses who deploy the necessary applications for their business on their servers.

Were applications and operating system to be divided then both the operating system and the applications would need to use open, published standards to communicate and interoperate with one another. Other software companies could be involved in developing these standards and use them to design their own applications. This would increase competition and encourage better quality software and cheaper prices for the rest of us.

Whoops, just noticed you said Wordpad and not Word. Technically yes it is an application and things like Text Pad compete in the same sort of arena so I suppose it should be seperated too.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which are also compatible with surely 10's or 100's of billions of lines of legacy code? Starting from scratch still has tremendous advantages, too bad it's the one thing Microsoft can't do.

Re:Unfair standard?

[cadeon]

This is what sucks about being a monopoly.

Re:Unfair standard?

[FudRucker]

the source code to GNU/Linux is completely open and available for free download and GNU/Linux still has much better security than microsoft windows, that does prove that closed source does not make for better security...

this comment is probably redundant...

Re:Unfair standard?

[Winckle]

Apple is not a convicted monopolist, the rules of business change when you are.

Re:Unfair standard?

[ozmanjusri]

So, practically speaking, how is MS supposed to give third party developers "equal access" with so many possible combinations of applications?

Fully documeneted and open APIs. Documented and open protocols. Documented and open file formats. They're required by the terms of their prosecution in the European Union to provide this documentation and keep refusing. The US department of Justice has asked them to provide the protocols to potential competitors.

Microsoft has repeatedly refused to comply properly with these legal requirements. The answer to your question is simple. Microsoft should do what lawmakers have been telling them to do for years. Provide potential competitors with enough information to interoperate with the OS as effectively as MS themselves.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Retric]

No Windows can stay the same. The idea is they can sell windows with anything in it that helps them sell more copies of windows aka Note Pad but they can't add anything that helps them sell other products like Office, IIS etc.

So you have a windows company A that can only sell windows and windows server edition.

And you have windows company B that can sell IIS, XBOX, MS Word, MS Office, MS mouse, Visual Studio... but not windows.

The idea is that windows could include IE but if Microsoft is not selling IIS then they don't have any reason to care if some is using other tools. So Microsoft can include anything to sell more copies of windows but they have no reason to include things to crush the competition because they can't compete with other non OS companies.

PS: The problem with this is that they would go the Red Hat route and start including basic apps for most things like SSH, FTP, and over time they become the same company but force you to buy Note Pad XL their new crappy word processor.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Alchemar]

Vista is an operating system. The job of an operating system is to allow software to run on the hardware. If Microsoft wishes to sell embedded systems that are more secure because no one else may install software on it they are free to do so. If however they wish to market an operating system, I expect the operating system to do what it is advertised to do an operate my computer. If they wish to throw in extras, they need to be that extra! If I decide that I don't want an extra, it should be removable.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You are trying to relate two things that are almost completely unrelated." ... a sure sign of asstroturf! See also: CMYK and why students shouldn't be taught to draw desktop graphics in Gimp, Linux security and desktop share, Linux desktop usability and how tough it was to install Slackware 1.0 from floppies, free software and communism, and TCO for shelf price of Windows vs free Linux plus ((salary of IT department) + (computer hardware budget) + (rent for office space) + (the coffee budget) + (the cost of the pony the CEO bought for his daughter)).

Re:Unfair standard?

[tshak]

If MSFT is not competing in the applications arena and sells only the OS...

An OS is simply a type of application. Also, from a consumer product point of view, the definition of what an OS includes is very subjective.

Re:Unfair standard?

[TheRaven64]

A user? No. A developer? Yes. The Finder is just another app, launched at login. It requires some hacking of property lists to replace it, but it is possible. It's hard, because the finder is responsible for a lot of things, and you'd have to replace them all. You'd also break a load of AppleScripts that contain 'tell application "Finder"' (i.e. 90% of all AppleScripts), so it's pretty much a bad idea.

You can even boot OS X without Quartz at all and run xorg, but, once again, it's a pretty bad idea.

Re:Unfair standard?

[edumacator]

Being a monopoly isn't the issue. Leveraging your monopoly status to unfairly mitigate your competition is. If Apple were to do that, then they would have to play by the harsher rules MSFT has to play by.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Score Whore]

There's no such thing as a "convicted monopolist". Microsoft was found to be in breach of anti-competitive business practices. Given that this is slashdot and we can't use piracy (for copyright violations) or theft (for copyright violations) or Linux (for the name of the OS), you're not going to be allowed to use stupid assed phrases like "convicted monopolists".

Until there is an explicit definition of what an OS is and what exactly is included and that definition becomes the rule of what OS vendors can include and 100% of OS vendors are under the gun to match that definition exactly, then Microsoft can do whatever the fuck they want with their OS. Google has billions of dollars, if they don't like Microsoft's OS then they can damn well make their own and stop trying to force MS to provide support for Google's business model and profit margin.

Re:Unfair standard?

[metlin]

It's not unfair because it is entirely possible to write libraries that are not riddled with security flaws. You are trying to relate two things that are almost completely unrelated.

Please. If you think that writing a complex system (especially one requiring some serious backwards compatibility, such as Windows) of libraries is accomplished without any security flaws, you probably haven't written or worked with very many real-world applications.

Writing 100% bulletproof applications in the real-world (especially given customer and consumer expectations) is next to impossible, not unless you were doing small and simple things and you've enormous amount of time and money at your disposal. No matter how much you test and secure your system or how bulletproof you make it, there is almost always a point where usability versus security becomes an issue, or compatibility versus security becomes an issue.

There was a time when Microsoft's products were riddled with security flaws, but over the years, their platforms and offerings have stabilized considerably. If anything, for the amount of complex stuff that they write, their security flaws are hardly a surprise.

I mean, sure, you can have something like OpenBSD, but just how usable do you think such a system would be? Consider the kernel, the UI, the file system, assorted applications (browser, office applications) etc. and you'd begin to see how hard it becomes to keep the system locked tight with that level of complexity (not to mention scalability).

I know that it's all fun to bash Microsoft on Slashdot and all that, but sometimes I just wish that people would just get a grip on reality, not their ideal, tiny little world.

Re:Unfair standard?

[molarmass192]

I think you mean Spotlight, Finder is just the file browser, not the content search. The short answer is yes, the long answer is it's not easy. The OS X file "database" uses SQLite3 which is an open source database and format. There's no "secrets" there and in fact Google Desktop uses SQLite itself so the backing store is compatible. The catch is that the database layout would need to be identical or all the apps that expect to find a predefined SQLite data store are in for a nasty surprise. The solution is create a bunch of views to mimic the OS X SQLite schema. All that to say, it's possible, but easy ... no.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Macthorpe]

Disabling the service is not a good option for Windows Vista because the OS uses the Indexing Service for the search function built into the shell. If you disable it, it merely changes the default behaviour of that search function to file-by-file search. It's slower but the search still works.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Score Whore]

Lawmakers tell people to do a lot of things. The executive branch doesn't have the authority to order arbitrary actions on a company and the legislative branch hasn't reached the required number of votes to make a difference. People bitch and cry about civil rights eroding, but you'll know they are gone when some unelected political appointee US attorney is allowed to arbitrarily dictate to private entities what they can and can't do.

Besides this complaint comes from Google. A company that disregards other people's copyrights and is as anticompetitive as any legit business on the planet. Cry me a river.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Red Flayer]

If they make a car that will accept only Ford tires, the marketplace will shun it.

Unless, of course, the marketplace is doiminated by Ford. That's the whole gist of the problem.

It has nothing to do with public education, it has to do with the inability of a market to operate more-or-less freely, due to domination of one sector by one firm (Microsoft, in this case).

I understand what you're getting at -- defining what is peripheral (like the tires) and defining what is intrinsic to the product (like the glovebox). This is not so cloudy for computers as you make it seem -- operating systems do not need to include a web browser (MS's ridiculous assertions aside), and thus they are peripheral to the OS. They also do not need to include search capabilities -- MS could easily release their search agent as an accessory, instead of bundled.

At any rate, discussing what is extrinsic/intrinsic to a Ford automobile has *zero* relevance to what we are discussing, since Ford does not have a de facto monopoly on cars sold in the US, which means that the market's ability to opt for a competitor's product does not translate to the computer issue.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Score Whore]

I think you misunderstood the question. It wasn't whether it was technically possibly, but whether it was supported by Apple. The fact that someone can kluge a finder semi-replacement into running or can boot the Mac OSX kernel and get it to load X11 isn't what Google is crying about. Google wants to force MS to give Google a soapbox to launch their lame search application and make it easy to brand Microsoft's product with Google's logos.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Thaelon]

The did this with Office.

The office division was forcibly split from the OS division years ago.

The result? Office is a piece of shit. It doesn't even use the common dialogs that other third party apps do.

I know because I've changed my "favorites" for those common dialogs to use things that I ACTUALLY USE rather than "recent documents", "my documents" and other such bullshit. But office still opens up a dialog with "recent documents", "my documents" and other such bullshit. People using the defaults would never notice, but I'm not one to use defaults for much of anything.

Excel pretends to let you use multiple spreadsheets at once. It even displays multiple entries in the task bar, but you cannot display more than one spreadsheet at a time. Outlook's settings seem to have been organized by a neurotic, schizophrenic, autistic spider monkey. It's virtually impossible to send an email with some formatting that doesn't try and use Word as an editor. And 90% of the time I spend trying to format a Word document is spent FIGHTING it to get it to do what I want.

I think Microsoft is punishing us all for forcibly splitting up their business divisions.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Score Whore]

Linux's security record is worse than Microsoft's, just nobody talks about it. Everybody is going to dump on me, but anytime someone finds a way to crash MS's OS or an application it is called a security vulnerability (ie. DOS, remote execution, etc.) If you count every possible OOPS in the linux kernel or every way to crash an app included as an option out of the box in your average linux distro, the numbers are huge.

And thousands of third parties think the Linux kernel dev team's approach to APIs is fucking lame. They have stated that interfaces are specifically not stable and to Torvalds it almost seems as if it's a game to see how much he can fucking annoy the people who made him rich.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Score Whore]

This is a good point. Google should lead the way by allowing third parties to replace Google's advertisements via a simple browser setting. So if someone thinks Microsoft's ads are better, Google should provide a simple, stable, robust mechanism for MS to easily replace all adwords placed advertisements for a particular user.

Until then, boo hoo.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Penguinisto]

How about Mac? it bundle with all the apps that come free. why don't you cry about it?

...perhaps because Apple keeps all of its apps and all of everyone else's apps locked into userland... equally. MSFT apparently makes exceptions for its own stuff, to the detriment of its competitors.

Help any?

/P

Re:Unfair standard?

[jZnat]

Please explain how there are thousands (rough but probably too small of an estimate) of paid open source developers out there.

Re:Unfair standard?

[secPM_MS]

Microsoft does not prevent Google from installing its search tool. What Google is complaining about is that Microsoft does not allow Google to replace Microsoft's search tool with Google's, which is much different. Google is complaining that the system performance is worse with both search indexers running at the same time. Suprise -- those indexers do take up process power. While I do use search enough to justify keeping it running, in the past when I was using lower powered systems I would reduce the priority of the search indexer to low (use task manager) to get it out of the way. Google could do the same. I am not sympathetic to Google's argument in this case.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Corwn of Amber]

Or they could grab the WINE code, fork it, make it Just Work, publish the source, and then include it in the next closed-source, proprietary, non-Windows platform they'll market. Apple could have done that for the Carbon framework, except that there was no MacOS9 emulator on Linux to begin with

Re:Unfair standard?

[TheNetAvenger]

So if you want to do searches in your email and also use google desktop search you are in trouble since both search engine now have to be running and scanning everything.


And people are STILL believing this bullshit?

Google can install, and set itself as the default search engine that works inside Outlook, the Desktop, OneNote, etc. There are clear APIs that Google can use on both sides to hook into the application. Google can also TURN OFF THE MS SEARCH ENGINE COMPLETELY.

Google is pissing on the intelligence of SlashDot users that don't spend enough time 'developing' Windows solutions that deal with these issues. i.e. They are lying to the AGs and the public, and YET it seems people here are STUPID enough to flat out believe Google, when everything they are stating is either inaccurate or a lie.

The ONLY other explaination is Google's developers are TOO FREAKING stupid to live and shouldn't be developing Desktop Search software, as this is EASY stuff and there is NO REASON to EVER have both Search engines running at the same time, whether the users are using Office 2007, XP, or even Vista.

All MS Search products can BE REPLACED and turned off by Google's product. PERIOD.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Crimsonjade]

It depends on where your focus is. OpenBSD has its focus on security first and foremost. Could Microsoft had done the same? Probably, but I think it is too late now. Should we forgive Microsoft for all their past security flaws because they are making (somewhat) of an effort? I would say yes and lets move forward, except for the fact that we have recently seem some pretty ridiculous security holes. So no, it is not really an unfair standard.

Re:Unfair standard?

[nstlgc]

Wow, that was madly irrelevant. What your parent is trying to say is that giving 3rd party apps hookins to the OS opens the way for malware to hook into your OS. This has nothing to do with vulnerabilities because malware doesn't necessarely behave different that regular 3rd party apps.

Re:Unfair standard?

[malkavian]

Just one phrase. Formal Methods.

Re:Unfair standard?

[aichpvee]

especially given customer and consumer expectations

If the customer expectations weren't so low they might be forced to fix some of underlying problems that put so many bugs in their software.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Corwn of Amber]

In April, Microsoft urged the federal competition authorities to thoroughly investigate Google's acquisition of online advertising brokerage DoubleClick, after being beaten by Google in closing a deal for the company. The Federal Trade Commission has since confirmed it is investigating the matter.

Emphasis mine.
They don't want support for their products and profit margins. They retaliate against Microsoft, using their weak spot that they've been convicted for unfair practice and such.

Re:Unfair standard?

[drinkypoo]

Please. If you think that writing a complex system (especially one requiring some serious backwards compatibility, such as Windows) of libraries is accomplished without any security flaws, you probably haven't written or worked with very many real-world applications.

This is true. So Microsoft should stop lying and claiming to always use proper bounds-checking string routines when they clearly do not, as they create so very many buffer overflows, and they should stop claiming that they have the most secure OS, et cetera.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Corwn of Amber]

If civil rights will be gone when unelected, politically-appointed attorneys arbitrarily dictate to corporate entities what they can or can't do, then what exactly do you call the system by which corporate entities openly buy out elected government officials to pass laws favoring them?

Re:Unfair standard?

[daskinil]

If you pay any attention to the GPL, I don't think you can steal open source code and include it in your closed source product. Thats probably the most limiting feature of open source,... you can only use it with more open source.

Re:Unfair standard?

[cyphercell]

If anything, for the amount of complex stuff that they write, their security flaws are hardly a surprise.

The anti-competitive cases are usually about getting Microsoft to focus on their core functionality, like the security of the operating system, rather than write up stupid little weather bug clones for the desktop. Get M$ out of browser space, out of desktop search, get them to quit trying to own everything the user touches and quit using their monopoly status to ship this crap that snuffs out any market emerging on the desktop.

/car analogy/ If Microsoft was a car company, not only would you have only one choice of make, model and year, they would also pitch a fit when someone went about designing new nuts and bolts, car stereos, gps units, windshield wipers, all the while ignoring complaints of exploding cars, because they already have that segment covered. \car analogy\

No Microsoft does not deserve any kind of forgiveness for shipping crap, no business does. Yes programming is hard, but that doesn't mean it will never approach something secure. Seriously, complaining that security bugs are just something to live with because it's "too hard" is some of the whiniest crap I've ever heard. Doctors don't say that can't cure cancer, they say they are working on it, it's a matter of professionalism and pride in your trade. You don't leave dirty dishes in the sink because it is too hard to wash them, grow up, demand more, have some damn standards.

I know this is a bit trollish, for that I apologize, but letting this kind of crap slide is ridiculous if the bug is known work on it, if it's a security bug then it takes precedence over others. Don't whine and say it's too hard, it only floats because noobs think computers are magic.

Re:Unfair standard?

[UbuntuDupe]

I've always wondered: what would happen, both legally and in terms of public outrage, if MS crudely deleted its competitors from being accessible (through normal means) on its OS? That is, it makes it so explorer can't load "itunes.com*" or "google.com", it refuses to run any executable from mozilla.com, etc.

It can't exclude every loophole, but just imagine if it did the conventional ones. What then? I mean, when you have to give new addresses for all the popular stuff people want to go to? Would they all rise up when they can't access itunes, or would they shrug and move on?

Re:Unfair standard?

[einhverfr]

Well, I do think it is unfair to Microsoft but for a couple of different reasons.

First, I am not sure there is really a "desktop search market." I am not sure how this is really interfering with Google's business. Even if it was, however, the APIs are all there to disable this service when Google Search is installed. Hence I don't think Microsoft is out of line in this limited case (IANAL, of course).

I have said before that regardless of this, I see no way this is not going to end up in court, however. The Consent Decree has basically painted a big red bullseye on Microsoft. Every case which one could reasonably argue to have merit is going to end up in court. Microsoft would have been better off to be broken up.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Hubbell]

Windows belongs to Microsoft. They should have no requirement to make their product easily modified/used by other companies programs.

Re:Unfair standard?

[ChrisA90278]

Yes, Windows Vista is a big system and it is hard to make it secure and correct but. Compare it to other big systems and see if it is better or worse. So we can ask "How does Windows compare to Solaris?" or "How does Windows compare to Mac OS X?". You have to rate the quality relative to other state of the art modern systems.

If you do compare them Windows look rather poor. What's
s worse is that thaey spent five billion dollars to create Vista. That's a huge abount of money compared to what the others spent and what does Microsoft have to show for it? The Vista delvelopment must stand as one of the historic examples of mismanagment and waste. Makeing any government look good by comparison.

So you are right. One should not expect absolute "bulit proof" but one might expect "almost as good as something that cost less to make" but they didn't even do that.

Re:Unfair standard?

[mdielmann]

IIRC, Office 97 and VS6 used their own controls rather than the OS controls. Having developed for both, I can agree it's a pain in the ass. But I think that predates the monopoly issues. Also, the current version of VS, and all versions of VS.Net use their own custom controls. This is not a requirement! In fact, REALbasic claims to use the standard controls of 3 OSes! I can't imagine it would be harder for MS to use the standard controls they already make...unless they're too crappy to commonly use. In which case, I have to wonder why they haven't improved their quality. It makes me wonder if this is yet another example of them giving lower-quality products to the masses while keeping better tools for those who buy their products. A good argument against that is that VS.Net and Office use different controls from each other, too! And that has me just shaking my head.

Re:Unfair standard?

[elrous0]

I have no idea what the business model is of these individual companies. Maybe they offer customized installations, maybe they charge businesses for the software, maybe they're just coasting on venture capital or donations. Whatever the case, it's pretty simple economics that if you're paying money without making any--you don't have a sustainable business model.

But, even if some of these OSS developers are paying salaries, I seriously doubt that any comes CLOSE to the scale of an MS. If MS turned around tomorrow and laid off half of their workforce, it would have a very real effect on the American economy and a LOT of lives. And no OSS model would allow them to sustain themselves at anywhere near the size they are now.

Personally, I would love to live in a world where the one dominate OS had been open source from the get-go. But now we're stuck in a situation where that's not the case. And, practically speaking, you can't just expect MS to pack it in and say "Okay Linus, you win!" and walk away.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source developers will work for free because they're basement virgins looking for their time in the sun. Real people won't.

Re:Unfair standard?

[elrous0]

MS biggest problem is that they're saddled with a HUGE number of legacy applications and customers who still expect to use them. I'm sure MS would love nothing better than to say "We're locking this OS down with no default admin access, only certified applications and drivers, etc., like Linux or BSD." But then they would have to deal with 10 million phone calls from irate consumers and businesses complaining that they can't run some ancient 16-bit application that needlessly requires admin access to even run.

Re:Unfair standard?

[peipas]

You do not need to install Windows Desktop Search to search in Outlook 2007 in XP. In fact, I opted against it and unticked the checkbox for it to stop asking me.

You can still use the traditional Advanced Find by visiting the Tools Menu -> Instant Search -> Advanced Find, or CTRL-SHIFT-F, or probably a whole pile of context menus.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Corwn of Amber]

I was talking of doing just what the GPL allows :

1. Take WINE source
2. Make it Just Work
3. Publish source to Wine That Works
4. Include Binary In Next Platform ... so that they can pull an OSX and start over, leaving no one dead in the water when it comes to running legacy Win32/win64 code.

Oh, and I have to inform you that Apple happily distributes GCC (it is GPL software, right?) in MacOSX.

Re:Unfair standard?

[elrous0]

Actually, the EU has been coming down on Apple for exactly that reason lately--using their iPod/iTunes monopoly to strong-arm the market. If Apple doesn't watch its step, they're going to become "convicted monopolists" very soon too.

Re:Unfair standard?

[AKAImBatman]

Or they could grab the WINE code, fork it, make it Just Work, publish the source, and then include it in the next closed-source, proprietary, non-Windows platform they'll market.

Why would Microsoft do that? They already have the Win32 library, and they're quite experienced at porting it between platforms. (It has previously been ported between 9x, NT, and Win3.1. Parts of it were even ported to Unix systems before Microsoft put a stop to their Unix software.)

The problem doesn't seem to be providing Win32 support. The problem is getting Microsoft to build a better API, then convincing the market to move to the new APIs. Given that Win32 gives Microsoft a lock-in monopoly on the market, why would they want to deprecate it?

Re:Unfair standard?

[DNeoMatrix]

Yes, This is true, but there is also the fact that we don't RESTRICT the automobile manufacturers from putting in whatever radio, glovebox or tires on standard that they want - we only ensure that we can add to them later. Microsoft's software allows for those additions to be made, but still has it's own "standard equiptment" in place. And I'm sorry, no matter how much I love google, this is kinda ridiculous. It makes perfect sense to use Microsoft's built in search rather than any add-on. This is because if microsoft is making the operating system, they can integrate the search into the O.S. so much better than any other company that it actually becomes more of an OS process rather than an application process running on top of and interacting with the OS. It seems like google is getting to the point where they want to replace inherint system libraries, at a core level - that would require one of two things: Either Windows becoming open source....yeah, okay.... or google writing their own os.... And no offense, but they say microsoft is "prohibiting competition" or whatever words they use...? As long as you're running your program on their operating system, you're supporting microsoft, not competing against it - regardless of your application. Yes, you can take some of their profits in the office products, or browsers, or anything like that, but you're really not in a position to make microsoft worry, because it still has it's key - the os. Now, if you really want to compete, google has to do the one thing that would make microsoft cry...an OS. So I get to my favorite idea, a google OS. I would love to see google put it's time and energy into an operating system. I think they could kill microsoft in this area if they really gave it a go. They need to drop this shinanigangs with antitrust, and really show microsoft they mean business. With the support of the many computer people who love google and hate microsoft, Google would have an amazing customer base to start out with. Then, if they made it linux based - they would have the entire linux community at their disposal. But I would like to see another non-linux based os (at least at kernel level.. and still preferably open source). This is because it would allow for a more widespread market. While linux is great, the entire world under one kernel/os would not be good - we need diversity - but friendly diversity. A little dreaming mixed with a little anger, but it would be nice.

Re:Unfair standard?

[fritsd]

References?

Otherwise, let me point you to secunia: Compare side-by-side Microsoft Windows XP (from october 2001) with Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (sarge) (from june 2005).

This version of Debian had many more bugs than MS Windows, but it runs on 11 architectures, and it includes not just the core system but also more than 15000 packages (whose bugs are included in the count), totalling 229 million SLOC. And that was the previous stable version, not the current one from april 2007.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Tired and Emotional]

If third parties had just as much access to Vista as the Application Layer programmers at MS themselves, things would be a lot more secure, not less.

The reason being that there would be a set of well defined interfaces that no software would be able to circumvent and the security of which could be reasoned about.

The provision of back-doors for internal use represents a major security hole. Even if no-one is actually reasoning about the defined interfaces from a security point of view, back-doors tend to be ad-hoc and therefore less secure.

Whether there are back doors I don't know - MS has certainly failed to fully document interfaces in the past, but the ones I have cared about were more in the nature of doc omissions. But, given that MS interfaces tend to be ad-hoc themselves, it could be hard to tell.

Re:Unfair standard?

[MightyMartian]

That's right. Monopolies are all about market share and about the ability to undermine the marketplace. Apple, no matter how they behave, simply do not have the capacity to effect the market like the company that has operating systems installed on 90% of all desktop computers. It's not zealotry, it's reality.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe you should find out what this case is about. Google's search installs fine on Vista, just like it did on XP.

Google is angry that Vista has its own indexing (exactly like Ubuntu and OSX), and when they both run at the same time it puts substantial strain on the computer.

Google's lawsuit is basically saying that it is too difficult for the end-user to disable Vista search, which is done by visiting a control panel and unchecking a check-box. (Or disabling the service).

Google is also angry that there is not an easy way for them to hijack all the search boxes around the O/S. Is there an easy way for them to do that on OSX? Ubuntu? Why should Microsoft build in functionality for Google to try to get more customers?

Before Vista all of you were slamming Microsoft for not having the nice search functionality that all the other O/S's have. Now that they did it, exactly the same as everyone else, your saying they are fucking the consumers? Jesus christ, get over yourselves you fucking miserable cocksuckers.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it amusing that you thing that you think that all buffer overflows are caused by a failure to use "proper bounds-checking string routines"...

Re:Unfair standard?

[Keeper]

unless they're too crappy to commonly use

It is more of a case that one size doesn't fit all. The common control libraries are useful for a lot of "common" cases, but useless if your case isn't common.

For example, if you support some font attribute beyond the "common" set of attributes supported by the OS, the common control font selection dialog is inadequate. Tell me, how many applications on Windows render fonts in a manner not supported by the operating system? You can probably count them on your fingers...

Re:Unfair standard?

[drinkypoo]

I find it amusing that you thing that you think that all buffer overflows are caused by a failure to use "proper bounds-checking string routines"...

The vast majority of buffer overflows, including Microsoft's, are specifically due to using non-bounds-checking string-or-stream-handling routines. And Microsoft has publicly stated that they should never be doing that.

Re:Unfair standard?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"It makes me wonder if this is yet another example of them giving lower-quality products to the masses while keeping better tools for those who buy their products."

There's nothing preventing other developers from rolling their own UI widgets just like Microsoft's VS and Office teams did. Good grief, why does Microsoft have to hold developers hands for those devs to get anything done? Microsoft's VS and Office teams felt that the OS standard widgets didn't meet their needs, so they rolled their own just like any other competent developer could do. Incidentally, the VS team makes its widgets available to developers, so you don't know what you're talking about anyway.

Re:Unfair standard?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"Google is also angry that there is not an easy way for them to hijack all the search boxes around the O/S. Is there an easy way for them to do that on OSX? Ubuntu?"

There's no easy way to hijack OSX's search boxes, but that's ok because Google and Apple colluded to lock Safari into allowing only Google in its search box, to hell with competing search engines. That's what Google considers to be "fair" competition.

Re:Unfair standard?

[lordSaurontheGreat]

Now how far should the automaker go? Should you be able to install a thirdparty glove box? A steering wheel? or a gear box and transmission? The automobile is quite tangible and most consumers are well informed and they vote with their dollars in these questions. If they make a car that will accept only Ford tires, the marketplace will shun it. It is possible the glove box (and possibly the windshield) was thirdparty add-on way back in 1910s. And eventually it got incorporated into the automobile.

You can! I can rip out the transmission on my '94 Corolla and put in a different one. It might not work as well, however, that's a function of whether the replacement is better than the original.

I can't rip out the Windows Desktop Search on Vista. Too many other parts of the OS won't work without it. What many people really want is to totally and completely remove WDS and use GDS. Having both installed at the same time is wasteful and annoying.

You should listen more to those people that complain about the MSFT monopoly being abused to force inferior bullshit into adoption, despite that there are vastly superior things out there. Do you remember something called Netscape? Perhaps not. Let me refresh your memory, or perhaps I'll be totally educating you.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Windows 95 had just been released, and Apple was still in its historic "800 Days of Beige" program. The best web browser out there previously was a cool little thing called Netscape, which later imparted its codebase to Mozilla in its dying breath, just before the axe of MSFT came down. What happened?

Microsoft wanted Win95 to be Internet capable right out of the install. To do that, they needed a web browser. Enter, Internet Explorer. IE 1.0 was buggy, slow, and generally a total piece of crud. However, it was easier to use that than to shut IE up and use Netscape. Netscape retreated to its Apple fortress. MSFT besieged that by releasing IE for OS 8. Netscape died, however, right before they snuffed it, they gave their codebase to a new generation of these new "Open Source" people, and thus Mozilla was born (which later reincarnated itself as Firefox to combat the IE 6.0 demon).

Because IE was the default, and it was prohibitively difficult to deactivate it due to its high level of integration into the OS, Netscape was unable to compete with IE in the Windows 95 battlespace. Then, when most of the internet sites were rewritten for IE, MSFT sent IE to Mac. Webmasters, in the spirit of laziness, removed Netscape support from their sites, and IE won. That would never have happened if IE hadn't shipped with Win95.

What if MSFT had made Netscape the default browser, opening up the OS libraries and promoting a higher level of cohesion between third party applications and Windows? We may never know.

What if MSFT had made Google Desktop Search the default DSE, opening up the OS libraries and promoting a higher level of cohesion between third party applications and Windows? We may never know.

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. IF YOU FAIL TO RECOGNIZE THE SIGNS, YOU ARE DAMNED TO REPEAT IT! SOME OF YOU PEOPLE ARE NOT DOING SO GOOD!

End of history lesson.

Re:Unfair standard?

[The_Quinn]

If they make a car that will accept only Ford tires, the marketplace will shun it. Unless, of course, the marketplace is doiminated by Ford. That's the whole gist of the problem. Antitrust law props up power-hungry politicians and squashes innovation by putting fear into corporations that need to innovate in an ever-changing landscape of business and technology.

Nobody can keep competitors from entering the marketplace, except the government. The government frequently does this by virtue of special legislation, grants, franchises and zoning.

Microsoft dominates because so many people choose it. Other OS vendors like Apple, Sun, HP, IBM, various Linux vendors all compete with Microsoft. In certain market segments, those companies dominate Microsoft, because people choose them over Microsoft. But in overall gross terms, Microsoft dominates - by the vote of people's dollars.

Maybe Company X wants to make money by being able to subsume Function Y from Microsoft's OS, but so what? There is nothing in life that tells you that just because you want something means someone else must accommodate you.

Microsoft has had a good run for awhile, but with converging technologies and changing lifestyles, they will have to change as well, and if they don't, people will change their dollar votes.

In the meantime, those of you who don't like something about Microsoft and want to impose your will on the rest of us through political force - I think you need to go get a life. When I decide I don't like Microsoft, I will stop buying Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't force me, and I know what I am getting. The transaction was between me and Microsoft.

If you have something relevant to discuss, I will listen.

But those of you who wish to substitute your opinion for my own by virtue of political force can go take a flying leap. Nobody puts guns to people's heads and forces them to buy Microsoft products.

Re:Unfair standard?

[KevReedUK]

So, let me get this straight... You're saying applications and executables as basic and intrinsic as notepad/textpad should be separated out from the OS and sold orprovided as free downloads as being the only way in which you would consider MSFT to be acting ethically? If this is the case, how far do you take it? Are you suggesting MSFT remove the ability to extract filed from .cab files due to the fact Winzip et al offer an alternative and it is anti-competetive to bundle this?

Granted this is a poor analogy, as Winzip and it's compatriots do more than just .cab files, but then you've got Zip-file support built into Windows as well, are you saying that should be withdrawn?

I can see arguments of this type going even further, but I'll stop here for fear of appearing a troll/flamebait (and if you think that was my intention when i started this... sorry to disappoint you!).

Another point I have yet to see mentioned in this discussion, if MSFT removed from Windows everything that could be provided on top of the basic windows kernel by competitors and marketed/offered these removed components separately, joe average (and let's face it, this makes up probably 80+% of their userbase) would have to spend 2-3 months trying to understand all of the possible combinations available to him before even venturing into the store to buy a PC, as a pared down OS without all the current bangs and whistles would be effectively useless to them. Not to mentio the fact that if each bolt-on that is currently provided as part of the core-OS were marketed as a paid-for bolt-on, a usable PC would cost considerably more than it does at present.

The status quo also makes support easier. If someone calls a helpdesk and says they have a WinXP PC and they are having a problem doing X, pointing them in the direction of a fix is made (generally) easier as you know what is bundled and where the files for each sub-element are installed (short of hacks, tweaks and general buggering about that a basic user wouldn't have the faintest idea it was POSSIBLE to do, let-alone how!).

As a side-note, MSFT are now producing a scaled down version of Vista (although IIRC it is only available in what they refer to as the "Developing countries", as if there isn't anyone in the allegedly developed world who would benefit from such!) without Media Player (and, I think, a couple of other things too), so at least MS have a product with it unbundled that they can mass-produce and ship if a competing media player provider were to take them to court, win and actually have the decision enforced (yes, like the rest of you, I too can see SATAN lacing up his ice skates and getting ready for a quick game of hockey in the formerly fiery pits!).

Re:Unfair standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

OSS = MORE SECURE. MORE eyes. MORE bug fixes. Haven't you learned anything about software development? Open code means it's that much tougher to slip in a micky.

I smell a troll or an astroturfer here. This is modded Insighful??

MOD PARENT DOWN, sheesh.

Re:Unfair standard?

[drsmithy]

If you do compare them Windows look rather poor.

By what metric ? How are you normalising that metric to account for different market shares, user demographics and system capabilities ?

Re:Unfair standard?

[vuffi_raa]

OSX has been proven time and time again to have a ton of security flaws- it is not hacked often because it is not widespread in the business world

Re:Unfair standard?

[CmdrGravy]

Your argument seems to boil down to things being more complicated if other companies were allowed to compete by providing applications for Windows on the same playing field as Microsoft does.

This is exactly how Linux distributions work, there are usually at least 2 or 3 similar products in each category and it's down to the distributor to choose which ones they supply with the kernel which simplifies things for the end user. They would just choose a windows distribution which suited their needs, e.g. Windows for artists, Windows for media etc.

If the formats used by applications were open and interoperable you would be able to make choices on how well each application suits your needs which seems to me to be a good way of doing things.

With more competition the price of applications should go down not up so joe average will be paying less for his system overall.

I agree it's tricky to know exactly where to draw the line but it wouldn't be impossible. One solution would be to refer any borderline cases to an independant technical committee. You must remember the reason these things are being suggested for Microsoft is because they are a convicted monopolist who have been shown to abuse their position by using the interactions between their OS and their applications illegally.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtualization is answering this challenge. Watch the next few years.

Re:Unfair standard?

[mdielmann]

Assuming that everything you say is true, this still doesn't negate the fact that, for instance, the controls shipped with VS.Net 2003 do not follow common Windows guidelines. So unless you have your installation of Windows XP in the default configuration for themes, etc., it is painfully clear that you aren't using default controls.

And why should I have to roll my own? Windows contains a perfectly adequate set of controls (in most cases). What you suggest sounds uncomfortably like reinventing the wheel. The reason for using a tool like VS.Net is to bypass all the tedious steps required to get a program started and get the real work done (in a highly functional environment). Why would they want to penalize their users by making executables that can't look like regular Windows apps out of the box?

Re:Unfair standard?

[Corwn of Amber]

Because it would make their programs better?

And because it seems that, as Photoshop will never run in WINE, people would be forced to use the Win32/64 emulator on the nextWindows. That being open source would kill off a few bugs, and so it will be the Best Way to run software written for the older API.

All this while MS is developing their next API, which they can have included in Vista already... Hey, it could be a C# VM, for example, running on top of an NT kernel, and a GUI using widgets all based on DirectX primitives for display. Such a system could even be very, very sweet ...

Re:Unfair standard?

[drsmithy]

The anti-competitive cases are usually about getting Microsoft to focus on their core functionality, like the security of the operating system, rather than write up stupid little weather bug clones for the desktop. Get M$ out of browser space, out of desktop search, get them to quit trying to own everything the user touches and quit using their monopoly status to ship this crap that snuffs out any market emerging on the desktop.

In the market Microsoft are selling to, browsers, desktop search, email, file managers, etc *are* core functionality.

/car analogy/ If Microsoft was a car company, [...]

Here's a better one. Years ago, Microsoft used to sell basic cars. They had an engine, wheels, brakes, seats, etc, but not much in the way of steroes, ABS brakes, anti-theft devices, performance modifications, etc. But then their customers started asking them to include things like airbags, GPSes, 18" rims, spoilers, leather seats, air conditioning, cruise control and the like. Partly this was because their competitors were already offering these features, but the other reason was because some of those features had become so commonly added as aftermarket modifications, that most people had come to consider them standard.

So now when you buy a Microsoft car, you get all the basics, plus a GPS, fancy stereo, ABS, airbags, 18" rims, spoiler, fart pipe, air conditioning, leather seats and dozens of other little optional extras that you used to have to go out and buy yourself after you'd picked the car up - just like when you buy an Apple car or an Ubuntu car. Why ? Because that's what y'all have told them you want.

No Microsoft does not deserve any kind of forgiveness for shipping crap, no business does.

They don't ship "crap", by objective, rational and sane measurements (unless you genuinely think most software is "crap").

Re:Unfair standard?

[cyphercell]

you're just so completely right, that i'm going to uninstall Debian and go out and purchase Vista for $700 f*cking dollars so I can browse the web, edit office documents, run a web server, and write my code with a decent IDE, oh wait, that'll cost a bit more than $700.

vista copyright holders = 1
debian copyright holders = ???
Mac OSX copyright holders = "more than you think"

Re:Unfair standard?

[drsmithy]

I've read that three times now, and I'm prepared to admit defeat. What the hell are you raving about ?

Re:Unfair standard?

[cyphercell]

Hah! Point is when you get something from Microsoft they wrote or purchased every scrap of software that goes with it. When you use Mac or Linux developers are competing to get their software in the system. Remember Mac uses quite a bit of OSS too. Essentially, Mac and Linux operate in a free market while everything installed on Windows is affected by some board of directors in Redmond and their decisions are not based on what is best for the user, it is based on what is best for the bottom line, even if it means shipping IE6 for years after it's a dead horse.

Re:Unfair standard?

[will_die]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Works great I can search my email and delete that horrid microsoft search.

Re:Unfair standard?

[drsmithy]

Hah! Point is when you get something from Microsoft they wrote or purchased every scrap of software that goes with it.

So they didn't write all of it, is what you're saying ?

When you use Mac or Linux developers are competing to get their software in the system.

You mean like the various programmers and departments at Microsoft - not to mention the third party code they have bought - do ?

Remember Mac uses quite a bit of OSS too. Essentially, Mac and Linux operate in a free market while everything installed on Windows is affected by some board of directors in Redmond and their decisions are not based on what is best for the user, it is based on what is best for the bottom line, even if it means shipping IE6 for years after it's a dead horse.

Well, that's one of the more... interesting takes on the "free market" I've heard for a while.

If you don't think Apple dictate what goes into OS X in exactly the same way Microsoft to, and Linus and co. do the same for Linux, I have some excellent real estate to sell you.

Re:Unfair standard?

[Thaelon]

Microsoft's VS and Office teams felt that the OS standard widgets didn't meet their needs, so they rolled their own just like any other competent developer could do.

I believe it's called "reinventing the square wheel".

ok

[froggero1]

I predict the lawyers will be the only winners here.

Also, FTA:

"In April, Microsoft urged the federal competition authorities to thoroughly investigate Google's acquisition of online advertising brokerage DoubleClick, after being beaten by Google in closing a deal for the company. The Federal Trade Commission has since confirmed it is investigating the matter."

Wouldn't that case be dropped now that Microsoft bought that other ad company for an obsene amount of money?

Dupe & Duplicity

[Macthorpe]

Not only is this a dupe, but Google's argument was already shown in the comments to that article to be a complete sham.

Have Google actually deigned to comment on the issue yet? Last time I checked they were shunning any reasonable debate on the matter.

Which means...

[Billosaur]

Sunday's New York Times reported that the federal government had weighed in on the matter, urging state attorneys general who had received Google's complaint not to investigate Microsoft further. According to the article, a memo from Thomas O. Barnett, assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice, had been circulated to some state-level competition authorities.

This can only mean:

1. Microsoft is adhering to its deal with the DOJ and they have investigated the matter and find Google's complaint without merit
   - or -
2. The DOJ is trying to keep the state Attorneys General from getting involved in what they regard as a Federal matter

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Re:Which means...

[nomadic]

This can only mean: Microsoft is adhering to its deal with the DOJ and they have investigated the matter and find Google's complaint without merit - or - The DOJ is trying to keep the state Attorneys General from getting involved in what they regard as a Federal matter It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

-or more likely-
The anti-trust division of the DOJ is run by libertarian free-market zealots who have no problem disregarding the law to further their own ideology.

Details?

[svendsen]

"It emerged over the weekend that Google Inc. (GOOG) had complained to both state and federal officials that Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating software was disadvantaging rivals"

How was it "disadvantaging rivals"? Doesn't say in the article what the actual issue is (unless I completely missed it but I did RTFA a few times). So are they saying because Vista comes with a search program bundled that its not fair or are they saying all the APIs are hidden or are they saying we want the lowest level kernel access possible?

To me this is just MS and Google going to mom and dad screaming they aren't playing fair.

Re:Details?

[UnknowingFool]

The article was not specific enough. There is an AP article that has more details.

Re:Details?

[architimmy]

Google is saying that desktop search today should be treated as a 3rd party application which is no longer part of the OS. Because Microsoft themselves have a desktop search application it's hard to argue against this. I believe Google's complaint centers around the fact that Microsoft has tied their desktop search appliance in directly to Vista in a way that makes it difficult to run Google's desktop search app. In a sense, I think Google is suggesting that you should be able to select your "desktop search provider." In other words, "search" like Internet Explorer is nearly impossible to remove from any copy of Windows so consumers simply use it because using a competitor is unreasonably difficult. Google is saying that Microsoft is leveraging their monopoly in the OS market to gain undue influence in a different market segment; a behavior that has commonly been perceived to be grounds for antitrust regulation in the past.

One is tempted to draw analogies here between this situation and that with Internet Explorer which has already been covered both in the US and the EU (whether those analogies be appropriate is the legal question at hand).

It's MS OS

[WED Fan]

If Chrysler decided to design a car that worked better with specific parts, who would complain. If MS designs their OS so their desktop search works better, great. If Google really wants to be a competitor let them spend all that evil filthy lucre they've amassed and build thier own stinking OS that they can lock MS out of.

Re:It's MS OS

[Anonymous Coward]

But that is the whole point...it doesn't work better...it works WORSE! :-)

Re:It's MS OS

[rapidweather]

Could be that Google, who's stock is now selling for about $500 a share, is trying to come up with their own OS.
But, how will they get it on the PC's?
The consumers are going to be confused if they tried to get it on PC's in the stores. "Google OS" you say? The average consumer knows nothing about any OS but Microsoft's, and a boxed PC with "Google OS" on it would be intrepreted as just being a "Google Toolbar" or something like that.
Impossible hurdle, all the Linux people have been trying to hop over that for a long time now.
Check out my blog post entitled "Assisting Windows Vista".
That's a true story, just proving that Vista is not "all powerful", and can leave it's users in the lurch just like earlier versions of Windows did. Sure, the same sort of thing can happen to a linux OS, but in this particular case, a livecd linux came to the rescue of a PC with Vista Home Premium on it, and quickly accomplished what this PC could not do. Not to say that all PC's with Vista have this same problem, but this one did.

Devil's Advocate

[packetmon]

Google said that Vista makes it harder for consumers to use non-Microsoft versions of a desktop search function, which enables users to search the contents of their hard drives So Vista is making it hard for others to supplant Vista's OWN installed file explorer to search its OWN hard drive. Everything I learned I learned in kindergarten... If a kid didn't play fair with you, did you run and bitch to your parents every minute of the day, or did you eventually learn not to play with the kid. Let's be realistic here, and I'm far from a Windows zealot (I used Open|Dragon|FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris mainly), It's MS' own system. They wrote it to their specifications. If they wrote it in such fashion for themselves, why complain about it. These laws, complaints are so out of hand everytime I see a new one I envision two billionaire brats racing Enzo Ferarris down a highway... Then both calling the same Ferrari dealer crying "I need it faster..." Onto re-racing and re-moaning "I need it faster". Software makers need to grow up.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[will_die]

If what you were describing was the whole case I would aggree. However microsoft is also requiring that you have installed and running microsoft desktop search so that you can perform searches in other microsoft products. With them tieing in thier Operating system search with other products they are requiring that you use that product if you want to use the functionality of non-OS products.
Since I want to beable to search while inside Office 2007 I have to have microsoft desktop search installed and running. Now if I want to use another product for desktop searching I still have to have microsoft's operating system product running just to use the functionality of a non-OS product.
With that being the case it now becomes a factor because microsoft has a monopoly, good for them, but as part of having the monopoly they cannot use that monopoly to get a monopoly in another area. With the way they are handeling the search from a layman perspective it looks like they are tring to do that.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[illumin8]

If a kid didn't play fair with you, did you run and bitch to your parents every minute of the day, or did you eventually learn not to play with the kid.

What if the kid owned over 90% of all the toys in the playground and only let you play with the crappy blocks unless you were his friend?

Re:Devil's Advocate

[Bob512]

How can Office 2007 using someone else's indexer to search through your email be anything but a good thing? If every single application had its own indexer, every time your file system changed there would be a flurry of indexers jumping to see what's new, and your machine will come to a crawl.

Granted, they *could* have made it easy to drop in support for other search engines, but that adds a whole level of complexity because now you need to make sure these search engines are reliable (or people will blame Microsoft when it breaks). This involves a complicated test suite, signing (so people don't release trojan indexers that send them all your financial information), and in general is a ridiculous amount of work for them to do just to support someone else's product. Does GDS allow you to change the search engine used underneath? Sure, Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, but forcing them to implement a feature like this questionable.

Does it have merit? Sure, and perhaps it will get implemented someday. I think there are tons of applications that would prefer to have some system-provided indexer rather than having to build indices themselves. But you can't just build a system like this out of thin air, it takes time, and I think what Vista has is great for a V1.0.

In any case, you can disable the indexer fairly easily just by adding filters that turn it off for all the files you'd rather have GDS index (and Outlook should still use the indexer it wants to). This means shell-invoked searches will go slowly, since it will have to search the file system, but presumably GDS can hook that feature and provide its own results.

Re:Devil's Advocate

[oh_my_080980980]

What kind of a moron are you?

I bought the freakin piece of software I should be able to install whatever piece of software I want!!!

Jesus Christ, next you 'll be saying I have to use MS Office over Corel or Open Office because MS makes Vista and Office!!!!

Ass wipe.

Re:Boo f***ing hoo

[geoffrobinson]

You don't have to. But if you wanted the choice it would be unfeasible for you. You are missing the overreaching concern. It isn't about what you in particular want but about choices for everyone in the context of a monopoly.

Wrong issue

[rlp]

I'd rather see the AG's go after Microsoft for their anti-Linux patent FUD. The DOJ is completely asleep at the wheel (or bought off) on this issue. Maybe the EU will do something about it.

Re:Wrong issue

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing about it is it is a SERVICE that can be disabled. Googles installer can be made to turn the service off as well. It is pure FUD designed to get the Microsoft haters in a huff and calling foul.

Re:Wrong issue

[Anonymous Coward]

> The DOJ is completely asleep at the wheel (or bought off) on this issue.

So, do you know anyone who would have the $$$ it would take to buy them off? ;)

Re:Wrong issue

[Anonymous Coward]

The DOJ is completely asleep at the wheel (or bought off) on this issue.

We are talking about a department which has Alberto Gonzalez as the Attorney General. So bought off? No answer. Asleep? Don't think so. Staying out of it, as Gonzalez believes he does not have to do anything if it does not include taking away the freedoms of The People? I give this one the most weight.

Re:Boo f***ing hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

That's Right! If I want to use Microsoft's ad-loaded, phone home bloatware instead, that's my right!

Difference: monopoly

[Mr. Underbridge]

If Chrysler decided to design a car that worked better with specific parts, who would complain. If MS designs their OS so their desktop search works better, great. If Google really wants to be a competitor let them spend all that evil filthy lucre they've amassed and build thier own stinking OS that they can lock MS out of.

Did Chrysler increase their market share by 90% last night? If not, the difference between Chrysler and MS is that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist with a very high marketshare of desktop computers while Chrysler is a small player in the US auto market. This means that MS is subject to laws and rules that, in general, Chrysler is not. One of them is leveraging their market share in one market (operating systems) into others (search tools, browsers, etc). If MS is using anticompetitive tactics to render Google's products less capable of working with MS's operating system, to MS's advantage, that could be illegal.

Note that if Chrysler made 95% of the cars on the road, and Chrysler intentionally restricted their cars so that they would only work with Chrysler-blessed stereos, that would be illegal as well.

Re:Difference: monopoly

[WED Fan]

If MS has such a crappy OS, and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE on Slashdot can see it? Why don't they come up with a viable, commercial solution to take down the giant? It can be done. You just have to come up with something the consumers, your target market, wants... WANTS to buy.

Instead of alienating them with geek-boy-speak and socio-economic masturbatory fantasies by RMS, P R O D U C E something the buying public will want to use, can use, out of the box, and that other software makers will support by providing other software titles that people will actually buy.

Now, some of you may not want to hear that, but its the only way to really put a dent in the MS market. Are you up for it, or are you going to sit back with your copies of an RMS jack-off rag, GNU/BOY, and fantasize of an encounter you're never really going to have?

Re:Difference: monopoly

[daeg]

But in this case there is nothing illegal about it. It's a file search! There are numerous ways to turn it off, both user-imitated and automated. Google Desktop's installer could simply disable it and replace it.

I like Google tools as much as the next guy, and generally distrust MS... but.. it's a file search. Searching files is something an operating system does.

I can only imagine Google's crying if MS had left their new queryable file system in place.

Re:Difference: monopoly

[tomstdenis]

If drugs are so bad, and eventually lead your life to ruin, why do so many people take them?

I think for many it's because they don't realize what a rotten deal they have [if they ever do] until they're so helplessly tied to MS owned file formats and way of doing things [cuz finding the print command in another office suite is ACTUALLY beyond the capabilities of some].

Tom

Re:Difference: monopoly

[ninjafirepants]

Oh, so like Apple's thriving iPod market and the amazing interoperability it's known for, right? Fairplay is the biggest misnomer I've ever seen in my life!

I'd hesitate to call myself a "free market zealot," but I think the antitrust stuff against Microsoft have gone too far, generally. Not being able to include Media Player in Europe seems just stupid, when MS has made no effort to stop third-party media programs from working. By simply including it in the base install (from which it is removable anyway), they're apparently creating unfair competition? Since when should a company be liable for the laziness of its users to find viable alternatives? Is it anticompetitive to include Windows on a freshly-purchased PC?

What this boils down to is that MS bundled a search application with Vista and it directly competes with Google Desktop. Google wants a XP-N style victory from the courts that says MS can't make their products available in the base install.

Maybe it's just me, but I find that pretty stupid, and an abuse of the law. For all the talk about differing product realms and using one market monopoly to create another, people seem to be forgetting that applications and operating systems are both software. I could draw parallel analogies all over the place. Take, for instance, music. Bach has what could reasonably considered a monopoly on the trumpet market. It's not complete, but a very high percentage. Should they then be disallowed from making mouthpieces, mutes, valve oil, polishing cloths, or distributing music?

Since when is it a federal matter to ensure that Company Foo, which has a monopoly on Product Bar, cannot be successful in any other product? In fighting for the rule of law, you have to consider whether the spirit or letter of the law is more important. So long as they publish the APIs they use to create applications (which they don't, but that's not why Google's bitching, really), let them bundle whatever the hell they want. The federal government should not be their marketing board.

Re:Difference: monopoly

[Rakshasa Taisab]

You should apply for a position at Google, since it seems you obviously know so much more than they do about this.

Re:Difference: monopoly

[Mr. Underbridge]

If MS has such a crappy OS, and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE on Slashdot can see it? Why don't they come up with a viable, commercial solution to take down the giant? It can be done. You just have to come up with something the consumers, your target market, wants... WANTS to buy.

All of which assumes a free market, which doesn't exist when monopolistic, predatory practices kills competition. However, if my product needs to work with another product that is sold by a monopolist, that company can crush me by making by product non-functional. That's the illegal bit. Note that there are many, many examples of companies that have been crushed by illegal monopolistic practices, both within the software world and without.

Another point is, you shouldn't have to completely take down the giant to compete with it.

A capatilistic market without anti-trust regulation is like a basketball game without referees. It's fine until you get some jackass who wants to throw elbows to the crotch. If it also happens that he's 300 pounds and trained in martial arts, there's not much you can do to compete.

Given your previous post, I'd imagine these subtler points of logic will miss the mark.

Re:Difference: monopoly

[nstlgc]

How anyone can say Microsoft still has a monopoly AND claim that 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and probably 2008 was and/or will be the year of Linux on the desktop strikes me as funny.

Nothing to do with you btw, you just reminded me. Also, not saying Microsoft DOESNT have one, just making a funny! Ha, ha!

Re:Difference: monopoly

[BlackCobra43]

You should apply for a conservative think tank because you obvuiously know so much more than us about the proper usage of fallacious thinking.

Re:Difference: monopoly

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Oh, so like Apple's thriving iPod market and the amazing interoperability it's known for, right?

It is very much like that. The difference is MS is still a monopoly as determined by the courts and has illegally abused that monopoly many times and been convicted and still has not stopped. Apple has a lot less of the portable digital music player market than MS has of the desktop OS market. Apple is currently being investigating because their market share is right about at the borderline level where some localities begin investigating antirust issues. And in my mind, that is a good thing. Apple should not be able to force iTunes or the iTunes store or Fairplay onto people just because they happen to have won the portable music player market.

I'd hesitate to call myself a "free market zealot," but I think the antitrust stuff against Microsoft have gone too far, generally. Not being able to include Media Player in Europe seems just stupid, when MS has made no effort to stop third-party media programs from working.

You've just demonstrated that you don't understand the economics of monopolies or how that pertains to MS's actions. Why do we have a free market instead of a socialist one? What is the advantage? I'll tell you. The free market uses competition and greed to motivate innovation and good decision making. The free market is inefficient, but the end result for the people is a lot better.

Monopolies break the free market. Normally, in a given market the best product wins (often after much back and forth). Whatever product is most suited to consumers needs at the time, gets the most money. Simple. With a monopoly in one market, you can create artificial problems with competitors offerings in other markets. That means in that second market, the best product does not win. The end result is higher prices and worse products because innovation is not motivated. If not for MS's monopoly we would have had a great deal more innovation in numerous markets and all the offerings would be better than what you can get today.

The second problem with monopolies is that they spread. A monopoly in the desktop OS market can be leveraged into a monopoly in the server OS market and the web browser market and the media player market and the game console market and every other market until you don't have a free market anymore, you just have feudalism between a dozen or so surviving monopolies. Monopolies unchecked break the free market then destroy it. That is why every country makes leveraging monopolies into new markets illegal.

By simply including it in the base install (from which it is removable anyway), they're apparently creating unfair competition?

Yes. Can real media include their player with every copy of Windows sold? No?Don't you think that unfairly advantages MS? Even if Real's player was better in may way (I'm not saying it is) most people would still use the inferior one. Further, Real has to fund their player. When bundled you force everyone buying Windows to pay for the development of WMP by bundling the costs as well. That is illegal.

Is it anticompetitive to include Windows on a freshly-purchased PC?

No, the sellers of the PCs don't have a monopoly. They can bundle whatever they want. It is illegal to leverage a monopoly via bundling. They aren't leveraging anything. You can still buy a PC from Apple, or Dell, or someone else.

What this boils down to is that MS bundled a search application with Vista and it directly competes with Google Desktop.

Yep. And now, instead of the best desktop search winning, the bundled one will. Consumers may or may not get the better one right now, but now there is no motivation for MS to improve that search in the future. They don't have to compete in the free market and it doesn't make them any more money, so innovation in that market dies, or at best is reduced to a slow crawl.

Re:Difference: monopoly

[Mr. Underbridge]

How anyone can say Microsoft still has a monopoly AND claim that 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and probably 2008 was and/or will be the year of Linux on the desktop strikes me as funny.

I think that question answers itself - the fact that Linux is the desktop of the future (and always will be, in a GaAs kind of way) suggests how tough it is to break the monopolistic hegemony.

Political Tactic:nothing more.

[iknownuttin]

I predict the lawyers will be the only winners here.

Blumenthal is using a tactic that another famous Connecticut Attorney General used to create a political career from a position (AG) that's not usually very visible. He went after the insurance companies, cut some half-assed deals that looked like they helped the consumer, made himself look like a hero to the little guy and then ran for Democratic Senator of CT and has never left - one close call last year. Yes, it's Joe Lieberman.

Blumenthal is just using the same tactic on a different industry (ies) 30 years later. I guarantee you, Blumenthal will be running for Governor, Senator, or something in the near future and these investigations are nothing but ways to raise his name recognition among the public.

Re:Political Tactic:nothing more.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto for Eliot Spitzer. John Edwards did the same as a private attorney and then got into politics off it once he was loaded. It's a common practice in politics.

In other news . . .

[surferelf]

. . . dog bites man.

Download a Search Program?

[Silentknyght]

I have never needed this functionality, so I'm not sure it even exists. Anyone know if it's possible to download a stand-alone program (i.e. not made by MS, and not part of the OS) that will search for files on your HDD. If so, does it actually do anything better/faster than the built-in one, for the extra space and (possibly) bloat?

I don't know what Google could be complaining about. If it's possible to search files on your hard drive via an installed program, all they have to do is advertise to people (easy, given their brand recognition) and create a better/faster file search engine than the one built into Vista.

Re:Download a Search Program?

[Drive42]

slocate?

Re:Download a Search Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap dude... the entire point of the story is that Google makes a desktop search and has complained that the way the built in search provided by Microsoft is implemented gives them an unfair advantage.

Do you read?

Re:Download a Search Program?

[str7der]

Google has already done that (created a better/faster file search engine) and microsoft intentionally restricts it from its full potentionals. Thats what this fuss is all about.

Re:Download a Search Program?

[Anonymous Coward]

uhm... grep?

Re:Download a Search Program?

[wwahammy]

No that's not at all what Microsoft does. Google is claiming because its hard to disable the built-in search (I can't see how anyone could imagine a consumer OS without a built-in search nowadays) that it's taking resources away from Google indexer. What Google ignores is that if you deselect all indexing locations, the indexer will almost never run and when it does it will take a minimal amount of resources. In addition the Windows search indexer runs as a low-priority application, in regards to memory, processor usage and I/O usage... In other words if there is another application doing anything, the indexer will wait until memory, processor or I/O usage decreases.

Google is making up an issue that never existed. A built-in search is fundamental to any modern desktop operating system (which is why OS X, KDE and Gnome all come with them).

Re:Download a Search Program?

[Corwn of Amber]

No.

One of the problems is that there are Windows Search textboxes all over the desktop, and Google can't replace those with its own. (Read : they don't want to clunk-skin the Windows "search" button by overlaying with one that says GOOGLE. As the button is hardwired in Explorer, you can't replace it short of recompiling the shell and maybe some libs too.)

The other problem is that they can't or won't use the Microsoft Search APIs (which are supposed to be used in MS products), I suppose that those APIs really are an interface to a whole mess of spaghetti code that somehow manages to return search results, from a quite low level. Google wants a lower-level access to "search" code, because theirs is much more efficient. But since MS Search is a tangled mess of spaghetti, there IS no lower-level access, it just somehow manages to return results.
Google seems not to want to reinvent several shapes of wheels - they just want a nice lib that will read the NTFS and compress the metadata in a separate file. Which is all a search program has to do, and frankly, this whole discussion is moot.

Take the time to export the list of files at the FS level, put them in a table, update the table for every FS access and voil, you have a queryable FS.
(Details : Create the table in RAM at mount time and flush it to disk on end. Re-create table from disk if not cleanly unmounted. Support some file formats as filesystems, such as mailboxes and Office files.)

I remember a bug in XP's built-in search. I had to find files in a directory and put them in an other on the same partition. So I cut'n pasted the files in some other directory.
Well, it seems some metadata was noot updating properly : the search returned the same files as results, but from the new directory!

Re:Download a Search Program?

[DNeoMatrix]

"recompiling the shell" hm... it'd be interesting to see a google-written "explorer.exe" to replace the windows default. I know microsoft actually has methods in place to allow this to happen...hmm....

Re:Download a Search Program?

[chrismcb]

Sure it is possible. Check out MottoSearch. http://www.tckerrigan.com/Motto%20Search

Re:Download a Search Program?

[Verte]

Amen. Or, you can write a more contextual one in five lines of [insert favourite scripting language here].

How in hell?

[El Lobo]

I have developed an internal utility for searching and indexing our files in a Vista/XP network with no probems? Do we have special MS treatment? Nope.

Is it any easier to replace Apple's search?

[Gilatrout]

My problem with this is not if it actually easier or not to replace Apples search, but the entire presumption that a company cannot put x feature into y product becuase it's hard for someone else. If MSFT wants to put in a search to be competative with APPL, then by all means they have that right, and they are IMO under no obligation to make it simple to replace. What they are obligated to do is allow 3rd parties to develop and install alternatives. The customer can then choose which implementation is better. This choice in no way requires that one implementation must not be coexist with the other.

Re:Is it any easier to replace Apple's search?

[stud9920]

Antitrust 101: Apple is not a monopolist and therefore not blocked from selling you product A's related product B bundled without also giving the possibility to buy product A alone.

Re:Is it any easier to replace Apple's search?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactly. What you forget is that Microsoft is a monopoly. Monopolists must play by a different set of rules. Saying that they can do anything to compete no longer applies once they have a monopoly status. Simply by bundling and make it hard for customers to choose the alternative is an abuse of the monopoly status. You cannot raise the barrier of entry nor grab competitors' marketshare using your dominance. For example, Microsoft did not prevent Netscape from developing a browser but they were guilty nonetheless because they bundled IE to a monopoly product, Windows, and made it nearly impossible to remove in order to grab marketshare from Netscape.

OTOH, file searching feature is closely related to a computer operating system, so the case is murkier than the browser war or media player case. However, Microsoft wasn't really in that market with XP. XP provides a barebone file searching feature and Google stepped in to fill in the need. So, Microsoft's action could be seen as trying to grab marketshare back from Google. It's not a clear cut case, but I've got to side with Google on this one.

Re:Is it any easier to replace Apple's search?

[Almahtar]

"What they are obligated to do is allow 3rd parties to develop and install alternatives."

Alternatives are meaningless if they are, by nature, cripled. If MSFT won't grant the same level of application interface and OS interface to 3rd party search apps, they are stifling competition. They are using the fact that they and only they have access to features of Office and Windows to give their search features that can't be done with other apps. It's anti-competitive and crooked, hands down. If your search is so good, level the playing field and give us access to all the API calls you're using.

Bullshit

[toby]

So you're a fan of security by obscurity?

Ever notice how the really secure systems (*BSD, Solaris, etc) have every line of code public?

PS. It's spelled "kernel".

Re:Bullshit

[KarmaMB84]

Most of the Unix systems were relatively secure even before anyone open sourced their implementations. Microsoft has simply made a LOT of trade offs to make their system "user friendly". I also suspect we'll find all the anti-trust business holding them back from ever fixing it for fear of inviting third parties to sue them.

Re:Bullshit

[TheRaven64]

Most of the Unix systems were relatively secure even before anyone open sourced their implementations UNIX was code-visible (not Free Software or Open Source) from the time of release. It was not taken seriously as a secure platform until a good twenty years after it was first launched. Even more modern releases have had their share of security problems. The number of security holes that were fixed by Theo De Raadt and friends in between forking NetBSD and releasing the first version of OpenBSD are staggering.

Why is it

[toby]

That every antitrust story is tagged politics but never crime?

A curious clue to contemporary American thought patterns?

Re:Why is it

[Anonymous Coward]

That every antitrust story is tagged politics but never crime?

A curious clue to contemporary American thought patterns? Contemporary American thought patterns related to accuracy, you mean? This is being investigated as a civil matter, not a criminal one.

(My other pet peeve is the "convicted monopolist" label - they weren't convicted. They weren't even indicted. They were found civilly liable for anti-trust violations.)

Re:Why is it

[Anonymous Coward]

> That every antitrust story is tagged politics but never crime?

Using multiple synonyms would be unnecessary.

Re:Why is it

[I'm Don Giovanni]

US antitrust law is civil law, not criminal law, thus it wouldn't be accurate to tag such stories as "crime".

How is it harder?

[plague3106]

Just having it available makes it harder? Please. If google really makes a great desktop search product, people will go out of their way to use it, just like people go out of their way to use FF.

Here we go again

[hanshotfirst]

s/Netscape/Google/g
s/1997/2007/g
s/Web Browser/Desktop Search/g

I don't understand the complaint

[the_humeister]

Should TCP/IP stack vendors also complain that Microsoft includes a TCP/IP stack in Vista? Yes there was a time when a TCP/IP stack was a separate product that had to be purchased, even on unix systems.

Re:I don't understand the complaint

[Paradigm_Complex]

We've become accustom to allowing Microsoft to abuse their monopoly, thanks to plenty of previous examples that set a precedent. The fact that Microsoft was for the most part let off in their browser fiasco doesn't mean it was legally correct; it just means the DOJ is a joke. Yes, in theory, MS should not have been allowed to abuse its monopoly to grab the TCP/IP market if it had what otherwise would be competition therein.

What's ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

is that Google Desktop came bundled with my new Vista machine...

Lame

[MrCrassic]

I really hope that this case doesn't get taken to the heights of Microsoft's anti-trust suits did because it's really not worth it...

Mac OS X includes desktop-wide search functions. I am not sure as to how difficult they are to "turn off," but it comes with the OS to provide ease of use for the user instead of having to find third-party utilities to do the same job as Windows users of the past have had to.

Now, Microsoft decides to include desktop searching functions as well. If I am not mistaken, these functions can be turned off, but that does not matter. Google is then planning to sue Microsoft for unfair competition because their Desktop Search Application is no longer useful?

If Google's primary argument in this case is that the integrated desktop search is too difficult to turn off, they better have pretty good lawyesr that can establish a clear and persuasive definition of what it means to "turn off" something. I'm pretty sure that if Google truly wanted to, they could establish an option within their own program (or set a default option) to turn off the Windows searching mechanism. There are also plenty of instructions that could be written to turn off the searching ability. I could go on with this, but the point here is that this main argument is a weak one that will get them nowhere even before the gavel hits the desk.

Google has a ton of applications that are universally useful; why must they target something that MIcrosoft finally got right?

Re:Lame

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Mac OS X includes desktop-wide search functions.

When Apple added indexed searching was there a competitor in the market on OS X? Does Apple have a monopoly on desktop OS's? Do you see how both of those points are critical to antitrust action?

Now, Microsoft decides to include desktop searching functions as well.

They are too late. The waited until a separate market for indexed searching already existed. Now if they want to enter that market the law says they have win based upon merit, not bundling. Technically, MS must either include Google desktop with all Windows installs, or they must offer their own feature as a download. In both cases they are obligated to fully document and provide access to any APIs they use. Google is asking for a lot less than that, but technically that is what it takes for the playing field to be level and that is what Google is entitled to.

Google is then planning to sue Microsoft for unfair competition because their Desktop Search Application is no longer useful?

Google is suing because MS entered the existing market, but is not competing on the merits of their product. Which does a better job, Google desktop or the built in Windows feature? Will it matter or will 90% of all people use the MS version because it is built in, even if it is twice as slow and applies to half as many file types? You call that a win for the consumer and for the free market... people getting inferior products with the development cost bundled into a product they already have to buy to get their work done?

Google has a ton of applications that are universally useful; why must they target something that MIcrosoft finally got right?

Google was there first. MS is the one targeting an existing product of Google's. Why can't MS play fair and obey the law, just once... oh yeah because our system is corrupt so they don't have to, and because most americans are too stupid to understand the economics of monopolies and to apathetic to care who buys which politicians.

Re:Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you're completely incorrect. The indexed search mechanism has been part of Windows since NT 4 (that's how long Windows has been indexing. Seriously). The only change in Vista is that the search UI has been improved to not suck.

For the billionth time, what Google is asking for (the ability for the user to disable Windows indexing) is already possible. And it's billions of times easier to do than disabling Google's indexing if you install Google Desktop (which is not possible).

Funnily enough, the Windows search is not half bad. It's got fair support for various file types (even PDF, which is actually an improvement on the old one which didn't support that) and is pretty fast. Not "twice as slow" like you claim. The only thing Google desktop really has over it is the integration with Google web searches (which results in nasty "A web page is trying to display information from your local computer" type messages from IE) - which, though neat, is a novelty.

MS didn't enter the existing market, it didn't exist prior to NT 4 when they entered it. And if you want to push it back even further, you got an indexed search system ("Find Fast", which was universally recognised as crap) with Office 97 on Windows 95.

Google wasn't there first at all, Microsoft was. They are obeying the law. The law is not to leverage existing monopolies to create new ones. Since they have an existing stake in the Indexed Search thing, your entire argument is basically a crapload of FUD.

I know it's cool to bash MS and all here at Slashdot, but when doing so, try to make sure you're bashing them based on actual facts (there's enough of them, seriously) not making shit up.

In reality, I'm not a fan of government regulation to control monopolies at all - at least the run of the mill (non government-supported) ones. After all, any company has the potential to be a monopoly, all they have to do is release a product people want. If enough people buy a product, a company should have unreasonable restrictions shoved down it's throat? WTF is up with that? Yes, I do get the typical "Ok, you got a monopoly here. Don't try exploit it to create new monopolies" but the whole "Re-engineer everything you have to allow lazy competitors to leverage your work for a profit at no cost to them" stuff the DoJ likes to tout is bullshit.

Anonymously posting, because I've moderated this discussion.

Leopard Doesn't Change Its Spots

[Doc Ruby]

OK, leopards do change their spots, but they're still irresistable killing machines. And Microsoft has played possum a while, but it's still a monopoly.

I wonder if this kind of complaint will ever result in the Federal government officially finding Microsoft an abusive monopoly that must be corrected.

Where's Tarzan when we need him?

Re:Leopard Doesn't Change Its Spots

[Tony]

I wonder if this kind of complaint will ever result in the Federal government officially finding Microsoft an abusive monopoly that must be corrected.

They did. Last time. But for some strange, unaccountable reason, the penalty phase forgot the penalty.

Re:Leopard Doesn't Change Its Spots

[Doc Ruby]

I wonder whether the Gore DoJ would have split up Microsoft into OS, app, dev, game, media & HW companies.

Re:Leopard Doesn't Change Its Spots

[Todd Knarr]

I wish they would. Microsoft makes some very good hardware.

Re:Leopard Doesn't Change Its Spots

[Doc Ruby]

And the total value of all of the separate units would nearly certainly be greater than the monolithic Microsoft.

But much harder to run as a single empire - that's the entire point. The reason why Gates wouldn't allow it, and the reason the rest of us need it done.

Now that Gates is kinda gone, the reorg could accommodate that kind of breakup. And anticipation of it in the new reorg could be part of what's kept Microsoft from doing anything interesting, including its failure to launch Vista with anything like the aplomb with which it launched XP, or even 2000/3.

Maybe if Gore gets a second chance at a DoJ and a remedy, MS will be easier to break up in every way, including from inside Microsoft.

Where does the OS begin?

[nootron]

Ok, IE integration I can see being a problem. But searching files? Isn't this a core feature of an OS? Whats next, suing MS because Windows allows one to store files? Or maybe Maxtor can sue MS because Windows allows you to format hard drives?

Re:Where does the OS begin?

[mgblst]

OR.... and this is the really funny one..., you can try understand what Google actually wants, rather than running off and ranting about how great Microsoft is. Maybe you can stop ignoring, like all the other Microsoft loving morons on this site, that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, so has different rules to abide by. Why is this so confusing for people around here. (It must be the support crowd commenting, if you don't have a script to read from then you can't make a sound judgement for yourself!)

Re:Where does the OS begin?

[nootron]

Riiiight. Here's a tinfoil hat for you. Yea, google is a pie-in-the-sky happy company that just wants world peace and love for everyone. I forgot, they have no business model. I do not support a lot of MS's practices, but it looks like while you condemn a few companies, you happily trumpet others. Way to go, i can see you're definitely a thinker!

Google turning evil

[Bullfish]

Frankly, I don't blame MS for locking up the kernel. We all wanted that right? Security, remember that? At the same time as Google has grown it has shown all the earmarks of becoming what they said they wouldn't be, and it started with the desktop search. Now they are being accused of poor privacy protection, collaborating with censors...

I don't want google or yahoo or anyone else searching my hard drive.

Re:Google turning evil

[Anonymous Coward]

dont install them then, its not like they can abuse an OS monopoly to force their brand of search on you...

Rigggghhhhhtttt...

[djupedal]

"Microsoft May Be Investigated By Attorneys General"

At least until the AG's new retirement villa clears escrow.

Excellent grammar usage

[SpeedyBandito]

Couldn't help but be reminded of an old Onion article... William Safire Orders Two Whoppers Jr.

Tide turns against google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else feel the tide turning against Google? Maybe it is just me..

"Look at MS. They are worse than us! Look over there, not here!"

Take away privacy and you take away some part of human dignity. While not a fan of MS, perhaps they should clothe themselves in the purple of security and privacy while providing innovation (by defending its 'supposedly' safer OS while trying to provide useful features like desktop search), while labeling Google as the (rightful) King of datamining and insecurity and obviously unwilling to work with the security measures of Vista.

Of all the things MS has bundled w/ windows

[night_flyer]

a search makes sense. this isnt like the browser...

Re:Of all the things MS has bundled w/ windows

[DNeoMatrix]

I personally wouldn't run windows if it didn't come with I.E. - seriously - without it you can't even download firefox!

We have seen this before

[Anon-Admin]

1) MS investigated by the AG's of several states.
2) MS taken to court by the states.
3) Federal government takes case away from states claiming federal jurisdiction. Then drops antitrust case due to pressure from executive branch.
4) MS Profits!

I guess we can drop the ??? on this one.

the difference

[hany]

Problem is: Microsoft was "conquering" empty land. In such case it is just sufficient to offer product good enought that people are willing to pay for it.

The "new offering" you're proposing (which is alredy there IMO in the form of some Linux distros) have to "conquer" not empty land, but land conquered, occupied and aggresively defended by Microsoft. In other words, if you just offer better bang for better money, users still have to also consider what to do about their existing infrastructure based on Microsoft's producs.

Those two scenarios are very different. Both for consumers and both for wannabe providers of this "new offering". Not even mentioning that Microsoft still holds the monopoly possition and is thus still much more capable in defending its position for quite a long time.

So, your suggestion is very good and welcome, but here's some test for you: Convince your president to:

1. demolish his existing residency
2. clear up the land previously occupied by that residency
3. buy construction of new, better then previous residency and for very good price from you
4. wait untill you do the work
5. pay you for the work

All that while others expect from him to function as ussual while the demolition and new construction is in progress (and the president is "homeless"). And we assume there is no "previous maintainer" of the current residency actively opposing your work to make your test easier.

Does MS have to sign an NDA

[Anonymous Coward]

to access their OS? If not, then there's ONE example of unequal access.

If Google wanted feature X to make the google desktop search quicker, would that be put in the next update pack? What if MS wanted it? That's a second example of unequal access.

If the OS changes, will MS send out all the new beta code to test to Google? Does it do so for MS applications? Third example.

Re:Does MS have to sign an NDA

[elrous0]

Uh...I'm pretty sure every single MS employee had to sign a NDA before they were even let near *ANY* MS code. Google has similar NDA's for employees viewing THEIR proprietary code.

It's hardly unfair for MS to hold outside developers to the same standards as their own employees when viewing propriety code. I seriously doubt Google would open up their search algorithms to MS employees without an NDA (if they even allowed outsiders to see them AT ALL).

Re:Does MS have to sign an NDA

[Anonymous Coward]

to access their OS? If not, then there's ONE example of unequal access. erm.. ?

If Google wanted feature X to make the google desktop search quicker, would that be put in the next update pack? What if MS wanted it? That's a second example of unequal access. No its not because if the feature does get added to the OS then both have equal access to it. Google just does not have any say in the decision process and why should it be allowed to dictate what Microsoft should add into their products.

If the OS changes, will MS send out all the new beta code to test to Google? Does it do so for MS applications? Third example. What are you talking about? Are you talking about the Patches/Updates released each month? Apart from XP SP2 I dont think any major changes were ever made to XP through OS Updates which rendered programs unusable.
If you're talking about the actual OS.. Developers do get regular builds of the OS at the PDC conferences.

I don't see any reason that MS should comply with Google's insane requests. Unless MS has some kind of hardcoded / limiting mechanism that doesnt allow Google desktop search to hook up with the OS, Google is just being a whiny bitch.

I don't understand...

[twm1010]

Why is Microsoft "obligated" to make it easier for their competitors?

Re:I don't understand...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they are a monopoly.

This is fucking retarded.

[Anonymous Coward]

OK then, so what is an OS allowed to include then? Nothing at all? Are we allowed to have a basic command line?

Why no complaints about Calculator or Notepad? Why no complaints about Hyperterminal?

Why isn't Google complaining about Linux's find?

Why doesn't X and KDE sue MS because Windows already includes a windowing system and desktop environment?

Apple is far more anti-competitive than MS? Why doesn't anyone hassle them?

This knee-jerk windows hating grows so fucking tiresome and is so transparent it is not even funny.

How about taking care of something that matters such as the obvious price fixing in the gasoline market?

Fucking democratic governments and laws - completely useless and corrupt. But oh, you get the illusion that your vote matters... wake up dipshits, you've been taken for a ride.

Re:This is fucking retarded.

[Tony]

Why no complaints about Calculator or Notepad? Why no complaints about Hyperterminal?

Because you can easily replace them? Because Microsoft hasn't limited the ability to run other programs, such as Putty?

Why isn't Google complaining about Linux's find?

Because the GNU/Linux developers haven't intentionally hobbled Google's ability to write a search system for GNU/Linux?

Apple is far more anti-competitive than MS? Why doesn't anyone hassle them?

Uhm... how do you mean? Is Apple in a dominant position, and capable of using its dominant position to force others out of business?

This knee-jerk windows hating grows so fucking tiresome and is so transparent it is not even funny.

The thing that grows tiresome for me is watching Microsoft use the same old illegal tricks to put competitors at a disadvantage, rather than competing on merit. (The trick to a "free market" is competing on merit, not market dominance.)

How about taking care of something that matters such as the obvious price fixing in the gasoline market?

Fuck, yeah.

Fucking democratic governments and laws - completely useless and corrupt. But oh, you get the illusion that your vote matters... wake up dipshits, you've been taken for a ride.

Fuckin' A yeah!

Re:This is fucking retarded.

[White Shade]

Show me where Windows "intentionally hobbles" google desktop search or blocks it from working, or shuts Google out in any way....

I just downloaded and installed Google Desktop Search on my Vista-based laptop right here, while I was writing this comment. Seems to work just fine. Now, tell me, what's the problem again?

RTFOAs

[durnurd]

(O: Other)

While the article posted doesn't necessarily make it entirely clear what Google is complaining about, I had the sneaking suspicion that it wasn't just that a search function existed in Vista, as there has always been. So take a look at some other articles if you really want to know what the complaint is about. I found this:

In a 50-page document Google submitted to the Court, the search provider contends that Vista's desktop search, which is separate from internet search, limits users abilities to run Google's desktop search instead. Basically, Google says Microsoft's new OS only permits users to search Microsoft compatible information, such as e-mail.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement that Microsoft Vista "violates the consent decree" and that its nearly impossible to turn off. "There is no visible way for users to choose an alternate search provider," the Google spokesman stated.

Where do you draw the line?

[qweqwe321]

At what point do you draw the line between "something that should be included in an OS" and "anti-competitive behavior"?

Re:Where do you draw the line?

[Paradigm_Complex]

In this case the issue is not that they included the search feature, it's that they artificially made it more difficult for other parties to compete with their product. The question of whether this should be included in an OS isn't an issue here.

Re:Where do you draw the line?

[Keeper]

How is it artificially more difficult for a 3rd party search product to work with Vista? (keeping in mind the FUD about not being able to disable Vista's search functionality is not true...)

Who's competing who?

[Deathlizard]

In a way, Google's complaint mirrors that of Netscape but instead of browsers, it's search applications.

Not exactly.

In the Netscape case, they had an established product, then MS started to compete. In this case, Vista (originally Longhorn) had a powerful search functionality built in since it's inception. (2001) In fact that was one of the first features that was announced about Vista. Even Windows 2000 and above had text search indexing (indexing service) integrated, although it's not as powerful as the indexers today, it still was in the OS.

Google's desktop beta was released in October 2004. Even the complete Vista overhaul (which happened in August 2004) happened before Google's Desktop was released to beta.

The other thing that needs to be asked is, "Does this deep inclusion severely hurt Google's bottom line overall?" and the answer is probably not. Unlike Netscape, where much of it's revenue was generated by Navigator, GDS is a very small revenue generator for google Vs it's other properties, Especially Vs Google Search or Google AdSense. I'd bet the Google Toolbar has more market penetration than Google Desktop, and the Security/privacy issues that were brought up by the press against GDS couldn't have helped it's penetration as well.

Re:Who's competing who?

[Anonymous Coward]

So because they got google desktop out the door faster than vista, they should be penalized?

That's fairly counter-intuitive. They probably use completely different algorithms for desktop searching .... It almost sounds like you think there's a patent war going on here.

Re:Who's competing who?

[drinkypoo]

The other thing that needs to be asked is, "Does this deep inclusion severely hurt Google's bottom line overall?"

No, it really doesn't. That's really not what this is about.

If google were only a desktop search company, it would destroy their bottom line. If Google's allegations are correct then what Microsoft is doing is quite simply anticompetitive. It hurts competition, and thus it hurts everyone but Microsoft.

However, if government should be getting involved, ideally they would do so by simply writing standards that would prevent them from using software in government, schools, et cetera that is not sufficiently open to permit changes - and this would eventually trickle down to the rest of us.

Unfortunately, some faction within this administration is clearly in bed with Microsoft. There is no other way to explain the DOJ's failure to execute.

Anti-trust

[Tony]

Why is Microsoft "obligated" to make it easier for their competitors?

It's simple, really. A free market is only "free" inasmuch as the consumer is in control. That is, as long as the old middle-school "supply-and-demand, build-a-better-mousetrap" balance is maintained, you have a more-or-less free market.

It has been noted throughout history that when on company achieves a stranglehold on a market, there is no competition. Corporate control of a market is much more sure than government control of a market, because a corporation doesn't have to worry about parliamentary procedure, and whatnot. They get to do what they want, when they want, without the facade of transparency and participation required by many governments.

In this case, Microsoft has a stranglehold on a market. They have used dirty tricks to maintain their stranglehold, too, such as the deals made with all PC suppliers back in the 90s, or the specific targeting of competing products, such as Lotus 123 and DR-DOS.

Consider this: if Ford purchased up all the gas stations in the US, and modified them so that Chevys couldn't fill up, and made deals with all gas-pump manufacturers and all petroleum companies to sell only to Ford, would Ford's behavior be ethical? Legal? Good for the individual (that is, consumers or citizens, whichever way you like to view yourself)?

Microsoft is in the position of Ford owning all the gas pumps.

Microsoft isn't obligated to make things easier for their competitors. They're obligated to not intentionally make things harder.

Re:Anti-trust

[radl33t]

The problem I have is that people entertain the notion that we have free markets. Airlines, defense, auto, construction, energy [electricity and oil], pharma, agriculture, telecommunications, biomedical, software, banking, etc etc etc. Our entire economy [all major industries] are out of control with monopolists and oligopolists that collude to exploit the system in anyway they can. Its absurd and unfair to clamp down on a single company for doing what a corporation is suppose to do under the current system. The system is broken.

The problem isn't Microsoft, they just serve as a brilliant example. Punishing them accomplishes little except temporarily placating a bunch of narrow minded geeks.. IMO, industry wide collusion between corporations is a much bigger problem and it essentially defines our economy.

Absurd!

[weazzle]

While I am not a big fan of Microsoft or their products, I think they should be able to include whatever features they want in their OS. Is it anticompetitive for Microsoft to include a debugger in Visual Studio? Why haven't people complained about the bundling of Notepad, Wordpad, Paint, Calculator, Internet Explorer, or the Backup utility. These all reflect other utilities available for Windows for which there are alternative solutions. Some of you may actually believe that the OS should come with nothing installed which enhances productivity. Honestly, in a free market economy, I don't see why companies keep running to "daddy" whenever Microsoft starts making peoples lives more convenient by improving their OS. I also think it is unfair that Microsoft gets all the flack, and Apple is left by the wayside. Spotlight has been available for a while, they have many more useful utilities bundled with their OS than Windows. The only reason the reason the finger is directed at Microsoft is that they possess the largest consumer base. How about pc makers who bundle and OS with their hardware. I mean, people should have a choice as to what OS they install. Isn't it anticompetitive for Dell to bundle their PCs with Windows. In fact, why should software be the only realm in which this applies. Why aren't Gerber and Leatherman being sued for their anticompetitive multitools? Better yet, people who bundle ratchets with sockets, those guys from Craftsman are trying to corner the market on sockets! I guess my point is that there is no way to prevent people from providing packaged deals. That is a major marketing strategy that I cannot see changing any time soon. And I believe that if Microsoft is causing Google concerns, they should step up to the plate and provide a competitive solution. If they build a desktop search that is compelling enough for other people to give it a shot, they don't deserve to be in the market. Maybe they should try releasing their own OS, or maybe they should just stick to what they are already good at, risking people's security on the web rather than on our desktops.

Re:Absurd!

[Todd Knarr]

This whole flap isn't about Microsoft merely including products in Vista. It's about them including their products in Vista and also locking Vista down to use only Microsoft's products for certain purposes even when Microsoft themselves provide and use an API specifically designed to allow for seamless substitution of service providers. It's as if Microsoft let you install any word processing software you wanted but no matter what settings you changed or what you told the system, double-clicking on a document would only open the document in Microsoft Word.

Internally, the search engine used by Vista's search boxes is a component with a defined API. The search engine registers as an implementation of that API, Vista itself uses that API to be a client of the search engine. And there's a well-defined way in the COM/DCOM system for a component to register as an implementation of an API and for the default or preferred implementation to be selected by the user (this is the same system the Set Program Access and Defaults controls use). But if I as a user install Google Desktop Search and tell the system I want to use it as the search engine, Vista will override my order and continue to use the Microsoft search engine instead. There's no technical reason to do this, in fact there's every technical reason not to, and the complaint is that Microsoft is artifically restricting it's competitors' non-OS products and favoring it's own in ways it can only do because it controls the OS those products depend on.

Re:Absurd!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to add the extremely obvious point that Microsoft has to play by different rules since it was found to be a monopoly that illegally leveraged its monopoly position. All this whining about "Why can't Microsoft do what it wants?" isn't worth a hill of beans when Microsoft has been found to be illegally leveraging. That decision means that Microsoft is supposed to be under federal and state scrutiny and that pretty much anything they do can come under review.

Re:Absurd!

[Anonymous Coward]

so, stop being a monopoly then. MS and customers would have been better served by breaking the company up (not necessarily into *two* monopolies on OSs and apps, I like the idea of breaking them into two companies who are given identical products and source code).

Google the Next MS...for lawsuits

[MSTCrow5429]

Oh come on. Google is just as big of a corporate behemoth in search engines as Microsoft is for operating systems. Maybe in addition to the (failed) motto of "Don't be evil," they should add (and immediately break) "Don't game the system."

Close

[Tony]

Should TCP/IP stack vendors also complain that Microsoft includes a TCP/IP stack in Vista?

Close.

It's more like, Microsoft includes a TCP/IP stack with Vista, but only Microsoft products can use it, and it doesn't allow installation of any third party TCP/IP stacks.

Read the complaint. It's not that Microsoft included a search tool. It's that Microsoft intentionally hobbled the ability to write a third-party search tool.

Corporations are not individuals

[Tony]

You are assigning a right of an individual person to a corporation. That's false. Corporations don't have the same rights as people.

It's more like, Chrysler purchased up all the gas stations in the country, made deals with gas pump manufacturers and petroleum distributors to sell only to Chrysler, and only allowed Chrylers to fill up.

That'd be *one* way to get rid of competition.

No more than Apple did

[Tony]

But, it's not more than Apple did. It's not like Apple made it intentionally harder for others to do it.

That's the key difference. Apple has a tight grip on its OS, but it also doesn't try to fuck over anyone.

Re:No more than Apple did

[elrous0]

No the key difference is that Apple has a tiny market share and is friends with Google--so Google doesn't fuck with them.

And I would point out that Apple is just as jealous about guarding its iPod/iTunes monopoly as MS is about guarding its Windows monopoly. Apple doesn't license its proprietary formats any more than MS.

MSN indexes your hard drive?

[Locklin]

Am I correct in understanding that in Vista, the web-based msn search engine crawls your hard drive? or is it a build in search engine? (ie. daemon running on the local machine)

I'm sure there would be some major security risks inherint in this, particularily if they opened it up to compeditors.

Google should STFU

[pyite69]

Google are the ones who make a Windows-only product - why are they complaining now? It is the same story every time: they strengthen the Windows franchise and then complain that Microsoft has an unfair advantage.

Where do you draw the line?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to take microsoft's side on this but this is too much to ask. How much of OS functionality should be made optional and opened up? I am not sure this is the right approach in terms of both security and performance.

Another question to ask is what additional functionality will google's desktop search provide that MS vista currently does not. Frankly, I am not sure I want anything else.. and if google's desktop search insists on storing any of my info on their servers, that would be the last straw.

On the lighter note, this may eventually lead to a wonderful windows operating system with nothing but a copyright, registered logo and a picture of bill gates.

google desktop search in vista

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey look at that, I can go to google right now and download and install it on vista with no problem! In fact my new laptop came with it installed. Took me two days to un-install it due to the extra bloat it caused on top of the OS just for performance and the annoyance of text search bars everywhere on my system.

Where's Google's issue? Hasn't MS had a search feature in their OS since at least the early days of windows if not DOS? Every addition in my opinion is a fairly straight forward evolution of the search functions.

Sounds to me like Google is upset Microsoft has a feature that is able to compete with them in a market they want to get into, where they are the 800lb gorilla already.

Re:Boo f***ing hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah because having google's installer ask for elevated privileges to turn off the service, which is a trivial thing to do, and would definitavely turn off MSs Windows Search indexing is too hard. You know what, if the goof voyuers at google can't figure out such a simple procedure, one which they could no doubt google for, they deserve to have their teeth kicked it. In fact their software would almost have to be so horribly written that it's almost certainly a public service to prevent it's installation. The world isn't made for the incomprehensibly lazy and stupid, and software shouldn't be written by lawyers.

Where does it stop? Is notepad too far? I bring it up because when you look at writting a notepad program it's barely more than a text dialogue. So maybe there should be court mandated optional 3rd party text dialogues? No, of course not.

MS is "full employment act" for Attorneys General

[Anonymous Coward]

No telling how many lawyers can be kept busy with this one.

He has shown his colors...

[FatSean]

Blumenthal also tried to bully MySpace into giving up user info without a subpoena. What a cock that guy is...spend 30 minutes and get the freakin' subpoena and do it right you jackass. Douchebag lawyer thinking the law don't apply to him...what a novel concept!

How the Atty Gens should react...

[dtjohnson]

1: Organize and put out press releases about how baaaad M$ is
2: Sue M$ for anti-competitive behavior in federal court
3: Settle with M$ as a group or individually for some insignificant (to M$) amount of money
4: Put out more press releases about how M$ has changed its ways thanks to your heroic efforts
5: Spend the M$ money on useless stuff in your state
6: Tell Google (or whoever the 'victim dujour' is') to carry on as usual
7: Tell Microsoft to carry on as usual
8: GOTO 1 and repeat

Re:How the Atty Gens should react...

[PhxBlue]

Tsk, tsk! You should never use a GOTO! Here's a better method:

int x = 1;
while (x == 1) {
1: Organize and put out press releases about how baaaad M$ is;
2: Sue M$ for anti-competitive behavior in federal court;
3: Settle with M$ as a group or individually for some insignificant (to M$) amount of money;
4: Put out more press releases about how M$ has changed its ways thanks to your heroic efforts;
5: Spend the M$ money on useless stuff in your state;
6: Tell Google (or whoever the 'victim dujour' is') to carry on as usual;
7: Tell Microsoft to carry on as usual;
}

Pssh.

[EveryNickIsTaken]

Everyone knows that the greatest file search / file manager program EVER was XtreeGold.

No

[sid0]

Am I correct in understanding that in Vista, the web-based msn search engine crawls your hard drive?
You are incorrect.

is it a build in search engine? (ie. daemon running on the local machine)
Yes, and it can easily be turned off. Google is being moronic here, crying for the sake of crying.

Are you aware that Google is lying?

[sid0]

MICROSOFT HASN'T LIMITED GOOGLE'S ABILITY TO RUN GOOGLE DESKTOP SEARCH.

Microsoft hasn't "intentionally hobbled" GDS!

It's very easy to turn off Vista search indexing. There is an API to use for Google itself!

Google is lying.

Excuse Me, But...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Excuse me but, what's to decide? They did it. They shouldn't have done it. They promised to never do it again. It's more a poke in the eye of justice and fair play than Paris Hilton getting sprung after only three days. It's a no-brainer!

Third Party Parts

[Inhibit]

Most cars are actually constructed wholly of parts sourced from third parties. Manufacturers simply spec out how the car is built and do the building... but much of what goes into the stock car is from different manufacturers all over the globe.

Good example by analogy.

Desktop search was always there

[sufijazz]

Desktop search has always been a feature of the Windows operating system, even before Google existed. With every new version of Windows, there have been some enhancements to this feature. Frankly, Google can kiss my ass. This is just corporate harrassment. They don't have a case here but they will have to spend time and resources fighting all the legal battles for the next several months.

Not Very Concerned

[c_woolley]

I run Vista, Linux and XP at home. I tried Google Desktop search on both my Vista and XP system. It seemed to work just fine on both. I removed it later though, because the product itself was not very useful. I am a little more organized with my software than most (the fact that I use different systems for different reason might tip someone off). Still, I can't imagine someone seriously needing that software. MS developed a version. People can make a choice on which to use. The argument that MS is being anti-competitive is not exactly holding water on this one.

Google=Real

[insomniac8400]

Granted google's search isn't isn't even as close to being as useless as real player was, but it's rediculous to use the law to get microsoft remove a basic os feature. A main street OS can't lack a search feature or a media player. I bet osx would get far if they had to remove the same features.

GO AFTER APPLE

[n1_111]

Why not go after Apple with their "spotlight" technology, that preceded Vista search?

Google's wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google's being stupid.

I know they are proud of their tool and all, but . . ..

This is NOT a standard issue about having full application rights.

Computer professionals EXPECT their OS to provide search functionality across the File System. Find? GREP?

Microsoft meets this expectation.

If Google's tool is substantially better, then people will download it and use it instead. If it is not, well, nobody except Google will care.

Nor should they.

are you refering to this ..

[rs232]

"Desktop search has always been a feature of the Windows operating system, even before Google existed

You're not seriously comparing Google Desktop Search to this:

Click Start, Search, For Files or Folders, on The Internet, Using Microsoft Outlook, For People, MORE, Look for Files or Folders Named, Containing Text", Look In, My Documents, Desktop, My Computer, Local Hard Drives , Browse !!!!!

It's just a repeat of what they did with Internet Explorer/Netscape and Real Player/Media Player. There's no technical reason Google Search and MS search can co-exist on the desktop, but that ain't the way it's going to be. Makes itself the default search engine that can't be turned off?

was Re:Desktop search was always there

logical non-sequitur, trollie ..

[rs232]

"Granted google's search isn't isn't even as close to being as useless as real player was"

logical non-sequitur, trollie. The useless or lack thereof of Real Player bares no logical relation the the quality of Google Search. Else why did MS go to the trouble of leaning on OEMs to drop it, lean on AOL to block access to Real Player content and 'request' caps on non-MS format streams.

was Re:Google=Real (score -1: snort)

You forgot #3

[PPH]

Where is Mr. Clippy when you need him?

Re:You forgot #3

[LMacG]

Everybody knows #3 ...

3. ???

Obligatory

[PPH]

The next steps are:

1) The USDOJ will consolidate the States cases under one action.
2) They will select this guy as the lead prosecutor.
3) The case will go to Federal Court and inevitably fail.
4) ???
5) Profit!

Grammar kudos

[stevobi]

It's nice to see attorneys general instead of attorney generals. Now I'm going to go eat some Whoppers Junior.

it's called OS X ..

[rs232]

"I mean, sure, you can have something like OpenBSD, but just how usable do you think such a system would be? Consider the kernel, the UI, the file system, assorted applications (browser, office applications) etc. and you'd begin to see how hard it becomes to keep the system locked tight with that level of complexity (not to mention scalability)"

It's called OS X based on BSD/Darwin/NEXTSTEP and released in 1999

was Re:Unfair standard?

Why should a bicycle maker reconfigure wheels?

[mazanoid]

Okay, so Microsoft holds an alleged monopoly. (I'll argue that point until there is no other operating system that can type an email, print a document, and produce a comma delimited text-file database) Why require any maker of any product to dumb down their product to allow others to profiteer off of it? If I made a bicycle and found out another company was selling cards to shove in the wheels, and later decided I would make a bicycle with hubcaps, a special torx security screw over a flap for a card, and leave the competition with a stockpile of cards -- so be it.

I don't think any company should have to be forced into submission to allow other companies brain-dead as-efficient access to proprietary functions of a product. ...that's what the hackers, ahem qualified computer science graduates are for....there should be SOMEONE working for google smart enough to work around whatever vista has got in place, even if it's a simple executible that organizes the filesystem into one big old AVL tree. Surely microsoft doesn't have CHOWN and CHMOD style commands yet and doesn't lock the filesystem down to nonproprietary applications... or does it?

Erm, what?

[rose_bud4201]

I have no love for Microsoft, but I'm failing to understand how a company must leave built-in loopholes and deficiencies in its product purely so that its competitors have a fair shot at competing. Pretty sure that whether or not Google Desktop will play nicely with Vista was never something on the design tables in Redmond...seeing as how it would in fact be Google's, not Microsoft's, problem. I'd love for some of my linux applications to run on my MacBook too, but you don't see me suing Apple because of it.

Takes on Richard Blumenthal

[saxoholic]

Maybe this will get modded slightly off topic, but I see a relevant segue to this discussion. I'm a Connectican, and I've noticed a lot in the news lately about Richard Blumenthal standing up for consumers in Connecticut. Do any other Connecticut residents notice this? He is currently suing the federal government over No Child Left Behind, and has been making a good effort to fight unfair business practices. I'm not here to be a spokesperson or anything, I've just really been noticing his name a lot in the news here lately.

Do people in other states find that their attorneys general are as involved?

Shouldn't we focus on...

[r_jensen11]

...what charges Microsoft is appealing? I could've sworn that they're still appealing a ruling to break them up.....

I'm shocked! Shocked!

[Guppy06]

Famously grammar-deficient Slashdot puts up an article referring to "attorneys general" rather than "attorney generals?" Human sacrifice! Cats and dogs living together! Mass hysteria!

Not necessarily

[Almahtar]

... unfortunately, not all Microsoft's API documentation is correct. The code does not necessarily behave as they say in the documentation. Just last summer I ran into several WinAPI calls that behaved nothing like they should, including the famous one that results in menus not adhering to the system theme through all legal calls that should have no effect whatsoever on menus or themes.

So while opening up their API fully would be nice, all they have to do is have one or two "bugs" where calls behave differently from the way they are documented and you still have an obfuscated system.

If they open up their source then even incorrectly documented API calls (whether intentional or not) still can't stop people from figuring out exactly what's going wrong and fix it.

I know they'll never open up the source to Windows, but I'm just stating why there is a big difference between them opening their APIs and opening their source.

You're getting there...

[Almahtar]

"all they have to do is advertise to people (easy, given their brand recognition) and create a better/faster file search engine than the one built into Vista."

... which is really really hard to do when you can't take advantage of all the internal OS knowlege that Microsoft can. Microsoft's search tool is tightly integrated with practically every aspect of Vista... replacing it with a different tool, even if it's a better tool, is pretty much impossible.

If Microsoft opened up all their APIS for all their programs that used search capability and gave the ability to replace the built-in search, you can talk about fair competition. At the moment, it's impossible for people to create a replacement search engine because they don't have access to all the internal technology Microsoft is keeping under wraps.

Not true

[Almahtar]

Many - ok MOST - people don't go out of their way to use FireFox.
I know lots of people that love FireFox over IE but still use IE most of the time because it's what comes pre-installed. It's just not important enough to them to switch even though they have a clear and obvious preference.

You can tell me people go out of their way to use FireFox when it gets 80%+ browser usage like IE.

Re:Not true

[plague3106]

Of course you're right as clearly your data shows. Ugh.

Hint: its not the geeks that are causing FF usage rates to climb and climb.

right.

[Almahtar]

"I don't want google or yahoo or anyone else searching my hard drive."
But Microsoft's cool. Especially with their closed source kernel where I can't tell what they're doing with the information. It's all good.

Not quite

[Almahtar]

It's one thing to provide a set of ratchets with sockets. It's an entirely different matter to provide your next set of ratchets with completely incompatible sockets. Especially when you're the market lead for ratchets with a large margin. That means competitors have to try to adjust their whole design and production line, with a huge head start to you. Not fair for a moment.

Really?

[jotaeleemeese]

They were found to be a monopoly.

They were convicted of what you are saying.

Thus they are a convicted monopolist.

Lawyers might see it differently

[bandmassa]

Anticompetitive behaviour is not defined by whether the code that causes the issue can be turned off by somebody who knows where to look for it, it's defined by the intention of having the code in there as the default.

If a ford had a valve under the hood, down behind the engine in a hard to get at place, that caused a GM parked next to it to melt down, that would be anticompetitive behaviour.