FSFE Supports Microsoft Antitrust Investigation

An anonymous reader sends us to LinuxElectrons.com for an announcement from the Free Software Foundation Europe, in the form of a letter (PDF) sent to the European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. FSFE offers to support a possible EU antitrust investigation of Microsoft, declaring that "Microsoft should be required openly, fully and faithfully to implement free and open industry standards." Opera Software issued a complaint to the Competition Commissioner based on anti-competitive behavior in the web browser market. FSFE president Georg Greve writes in the letter, "Although Opera Software does not produce Free Software, we largely share their assessment and concerns regarding the present situation in the Internet browser market."

Comments

From a web developer standpoint

[psychiccyberfreak]

Ok, let me clear it up, Opera is suing MS over their lack of standards compliance, not browser monopoly. Web standards are probably the biggest pain in the ass when it comes to IE. There aren't many good JS debuggers for IE (there are, but I don't find them very bug free). I think getting organizations to support this is a good thing, although in the end it'll probably slip through the cracks...

Do you know what "anti-trust" means?

[SanityInAnarchy]

*sigh* I don't know why I'm bothering replying to someone who can't spell "lawsuit" and doesn't know the difference between "an" and "and", but here goes...

Having a monopoly on anything doesn't make you illegal, but it does prevent you from using your monopoly in one market to discourage competition in another market. That's exactly what antitrust laws are designed to prevent.

Which is exactly what Microsoft did here -- and does. IE7 comes with Vista. IE6 comes with XP. IE has come with every OS they've put out since at least Win98, if not Win95 (too lazy to double-check that). It's not "free", because it's tied to an OS -- but it is bundled with that OS. That basically killed any chance Netscape had of selling a browser, because Microsoft uses their OS monopoly to effectively make IE "free", even though it isn't.

And that, in turn, helps perpetuate their Windows monopoly, as no one can legally run IE without owning a copy of Windows, and it certainly was never designed to run outside of Windows. Thus, if someone makes a website which is not standards-compliant, but which is dependent on IE (even without ActiveX), that website will only work on Windows.

In the old business world, the end of that story would have been: Netscape goes out of business, IE is suddenly no longer free, but there's no alternative. (Think like the story of Office before OpenOffice.org.)

The only reason we avoided this is, Netscape released their browser as open source, thus making it both truly free (in both senses of the word) and actively developed, and IE is none of these things -- thus, Netscape/Mozilla/Pheonix/Firebird/Firefox can actually compete with IE, whereas the original Netscape couldn't. (I know IE7 is better, but it is a direct response to Firefox.)

Re:Do you know what "anti-trust" means?

[houghi]

since at least Win98, if not Win95

The first version of Win95 came without IE. These were both the normal and the a(lowercase) version. The A, B and later C did have (different versions) of Internet Explorer. source

Re:That's complete bullshit

[SanityInAnarchy]

Or should I use another computer to download a browser, burn a CD and then install it from there?

I didn't say "should". But, if you look at the history, there was actually a time when a browser was considered separate than the OS -- when you might actually go out and buy a browser when you got Internet access.

Of course, people are too stupid to do that, so now everything's bundled. Windows is bundled with the machine. Nero is bundled with every CD burner, and WinDVD or PowerDVD with every DVD drive. And I actually like it better that way.

Lots of people use Firefox, because it's better than IE, and the Firefox user base is growing. So, obviously what you claim, is a lie.

Except for the part where I claimed something? What did I claim?

Well, except you use the word "sell". Anyone trying to "sell" a browser today is an idiot (except perhaps for special embedded devices).

Largely because MS gives away IE, yes. Well, and because of Firefox, which might not have existed, had MS not given away IE.

Utter lie and complete bullshit and idiocy. "One can not legally run IE without owning a copy of Windows". So? Some don't even want to run IE at all, ever thought of that?

I did, actually. What the fuck does that have to do with the current discussion?

If any random idiot somewhere makes a web site which is IE-compliant, is that reason enough to sue Microsoft?

The trouble is, it's not one "random idiot", it's quite a lot of them. And they don't realize they're doing it until they bother to test on another browser, at which point, they often shrug their shoulders and say "Meh, it works for most people."

And that is pretty directly damaging to the Web. That and the fact that those of us who would like to write a cross-platform website will have to spend twice as much time getting it to work in IE as it takes to get it to work in any other browser.

If someone writes a program which only runs on Windows, is that reason enough to sue Microsoft?

Except that you never claimed it would run anywhere but Windows. "Website" implies being able to access it anywhere.

And worse yet, you claim that the fact that IE ships with Windows "helps perpetuate their Windows monopoly". You are so full of shit. What helps them perpetuate the Windows monopoly is that businesses around the world uses Word, nothing else, at all.

Wait, I'm full of shit because I suggest that there might be more than one reason, hence the word helps? Which is more believable, that there is one reason, or that there are many?

If it was only Word, don't you think more businesses would be using OpenOffice on a Mac by now?

And the lies and bullshit continues. Netscape died because it wasn't open source?

I never said that.

Netscape SUCKS, SUCKED, and HAS ALWAYS SUCKED.

Wow, you're a moron.

Out of curiosity, you say you use Debian. What's your browser? Let me guess: Iceweasel?

You are using a Netscape derivative, my friend.

Now, here's a fucking clue, and you probably need to read this three times or so: I did not say Netscape died because it wasn't open source. I said it did not die because it became open source, which is why you have your Iceweasel.