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DOJ To Oversee Windows 7 Development
MrKaos writes "Windows 7 is already being reviewed by U.S. government technical appointees. Under the terms of Microsoft's November 2001 Justice Department settlement, and final court judgment issued about a year later, a government-sanctioned 'Technical Committee' has been formed to oversee Windows development. The TC is responsible for ensuring that Microsoft complies with the terms of the final judgment, investigating complaints about Microsoft abuses and regularly reporting on the company's compliance."
That's ok, you should be able to order a foreign copy (or register your computer as somewhere from a foreign source, depending on how it's done) to avoid this. Unless I'm being extremely naive, it's one thing for a government to spy on it's own people, but it's an entirely different story for it to spy on other countries' citizens (that's just about the most illegal thing I can possibly think of). After all, it only takes one geek with a good router to work out that it's phoning home, and the outrage that most of the "Bloody Arrogant Americans" mob (ie, a large percentage of us foreigners) would be insanely enormous.
does this not bother anyone else? Why is our government so powerful that it can involve itself in development of a commercial product by a private company? Do we not realize that by endorsing this, we are inviting government to get involved in more an more areas of out lives. Why not regulating what types of products you can build as a developer? This is insane. I cannot believe that my fellow slashdotters think this is ok. Government has gone too far.
The more I read about government oversight of operating systems, the more FOSS software I install... "America who isn't paranoid must be crazy" -- Robert Anton Wilson
The DOJ will likely want to ensure that there's a backdoor into the system that's not going to be caught by AV and firewalls that will allow them to snoop into anyone's computer at will. If you don't think they want this, you've apparently had your head in the sand.
Seriously, I haven't seen anyone deeply concerned over the possibility this means for backdoors forced in by the government. Do you really trust the government to NOT do this when it is available to them? Thank god for linux...
I remember reading (long enough ago that I don't remember the source or exact words) something by Gates saying that he feared the worst case for Microsoft would be to end up like their partner IBM: big and slow, with lawyers wedged into every orifice impeding every move. Fast forward twenty/thirty years and now they're in pretty much the same situation. I don't envy them.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
They still aren't in compliance with documentation from the original order. There are lots of functions for example that iexplore/explorer call which are not found in a search of MSDN, and really google fails for a lot of them - except returning one page complaining about the lack of documentation.
The explorer shell could be seen as part of the OS, but a web browser has no business calling undocumented functions. Too bad they tried to bundle the two. And it's also too bad that there is a lot of duplicated code among explorer.exe, browseui.dll, shlwapi.dll, and some others - I can't imagine trying to make a patch for this stuff. Instead of just making a documented API, they copy the code into all sorts of different places. And slightly differently I might add - so patching is not just a copy and paste job - it definitely has to be merged.
This reminds me of Katrina...how do you make a huge disaster even worse? Throw some federal bureaucracy into the mix.
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Because ISPs don't have your encryption keys.
This looks to be a very interesting situation. MS being watched closely while Apple and F/OSS is not.
Should MS' new OS come up with a feature that is the only OS supporting a feature that is part of a newly regulated banking industry security system, how would that play out in court?
If the OS does not come up with anything new, and only adds performance hits, bloatware, and other usability problems, will the consumer throw off MS for other options? If that happens, can MS blame the government?
Somehow, I don't see this working out too well. Even if people just 'think' the government is putting in a super secret back door to spy with, MS' revenue stream will dry up fast. Foreign governments, banks, and businesses will not want that kind of spying going on in their data centers.
Knowing politicians and governments the way we do (when wearing tinfoil hats) if we know this much about how Windows7 is going to be developed, what do we NOT know?
I just don't see this as being good for the industry as a whole. A bad precedent, or so it looks.
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Just wait until the first backdoor-so-that-the-govt-can-fight-terrorism is found... "doom" doesn't even begin to explain fallout.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
you be careful when out there today; We're at terror alert orange! Which means something could go down somewhere in some way at some point in time, so look sharp!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If Microsoft had been split into separate competing companies back when they lost the original DoJ lawsuit then:
(1) Microsoft would collectively be bigger and more profitable than they are now.
(2) Microsoft would be largely free of this kind of oversight.
Why did they fight so hard to remain a regulated monopoly instead?
There fixed that for you. Bureaucracy in itself isn't bad. The problem with FEMA was that it was run by idiots who, over the years, drove away all the competent people. FEMA for the most part did a good job with the 1996 Midwest floods, Nor Cal earthquake, and Sept. 11. By the time of Katrina, who was in charge of FEMA: A lawyer who had no experience in emergency management, no experience running a large organization, and may have exaggerated or falsified his resume. Also the federal government in its wisdom decided to merge the previously small and independent FEMA into the huge conglomerate that is the Department of Homeland Security while reducing its funding.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
How do you know that hasn't been in every version since they included a built in network stack? (Big Hint: You don't!)
Uh. That would be a good thing.
Microsoft used her portrait as a watermark on some of the old license certs, might as well use the language named in her honor. ;)
Am I the only one that thinks she was, well, kinda hot?
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
We can hate Microsoft but as a libertarian, I find this development scary. Getting the federal government involved in the design and manufacture of a product is unwarranted and is akin to precrime. The US Government should leave Microsoft's development of Windows 7 alone. If it turns out to have anti-competitive effects, then the government can punish Microsoft for it. Everyone may say that would be too little, too late, but preemptive strikes are un-American. (And besides, we can always break MS up if it keeps pushing out monopolistic products.)
As much as I would love to see a version of Windows that actually follows applicable laws before legal action is taken against it, I shudder to think of the precedent that this sets. If the government doesn't like/doesn't get enough kickbacks from a company, then all of a sudden their entire design and manufacturing process is subject to unwarranted government intervention.As a republican, I find this sort of increased government intervention frightening.
darkmeridian has a great point, too--we can always break Microsoft up if the monopolistic policies do not stop. It would likely even be easier to separate than Ma Bell was in the 80s--Microsoft peripherals, Microsoft software, Microsoft gaming, etc etc.
Just my $0.02.
$> man woman $> Segmentation fault. (Core dumped)
"We can hate Microsoft but as a libertarian, I find this development scary. "
That is okay I find libertarians scary.
This is part of the punishment that Microsoft received. A pretty ineffective one if you ask me but still one of them.
This isn't a precrime this is probation.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The only way to get a monopoly is to provide better service than the competition.
Hah! If that were true, there'd be no need for antitrust legislation. However, the issue isn't really how they got the monopoly in the first place (it was pretty much handed to them by IBM). The laws that they broke, and are being supervised to make sure they don't break them again, are laws that are intended to prevent a monopoly from abusing its monopoly status to either maintain or expand into other areas its monopoly without providing better service than the competition. You know, things like product-tying, questionable vendor pre-load contracts, etc.
-- Alastair
Get a clue. There already is a free market for operating systems. There's Apple, for one. There are also hundreds, if not thousands, of companies that sell pre-built Linux and *BSD machines. Most people choose not to buy from those companies, and buy from companies that sell Windows PCs, like Dell and HP. Like it or not, most people choose to buy Windows PCs. There's nobody's holding people at gun point telling them to buy Dell.
The problem with Microsoft is that they use their dominant OS market share to unfairly compete in unrelated areas, like web browsers, media players, and security software.
Maybe not
Actually, from Wikipedia, "The Republican party generally supports lower taxes and limited government in most economic areas, allowing for more economic freedom"
Jesus loves me, he loves me a bunch, because he always puts Jiffy in my lunch.
The US Government should leave Microsoft's development of Windows 7 alone. If it turns out to have anti-competitive effects, then the government can punish Microsoft for it.
Once someone has been convicted of murder, they're put in jail until society can be reasonably sure they aren't going to do it again. The convict necessarily loses most or all of his freedoms until he regains society's trust.
While not murder, Microsoft (the corporate entity) has been convicted of anti-competitive behavior. I think it is entirely just for society to monitor them for a while to ensure they don't do it again. Think of it as a convict's probation period. Would a judge let a convicted murderer who feels their last murder was justified go without jail time or probation?
Microsoft's board has not admitted or acknowledged that they've committed anti-competitive acts; I think they still feel they've been unjustly treated by the DoJ. Saying we should just leave them alone and wait until they turn out something else that's anti-competitive is akin to saying we're not going to jail unrepentant murder convicts, not going to monitor them, and if they kill again, then we'll just tell them again that they shouldn't do that. That's not a deterrent!
Not to mention that Microsoft understands that some ethical/law violations make good business sense. They make more money by ignoring a law and paying the fines from the profits they reap than they would make by following the law. When an individual shows no scruples, we put them away. Why should a corporate entity be any different?
Are you kidding? They did great! It has really helped spread out the market and expand peoples awareness of the range of OS's out there. OS is really becoming more of that background as cross compatibility really expands. Wasn't that the point? At least in terms of the 2001 judgment?
IMHO, this is how most government intervention works. They are very clever.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
bring us back to the ideals of the founding fathers of the country
Well, if those ideas are still good and pertinent ideas today, then bringing them back may be good. I don't give a hoot who came up with them though. If our founding fathers said that blacks should be slaves I would flatly disagree with them. Just because our founding fathers said something doesn't automatically make it worthy of being brought back.
But what scares me is political extremism. I don't think that *everything* should be privatized, nor do I think that businesses should have no government oversight or intervention (especially in the Day of Monopolies), though I have heard extreme libertarians say this stuff.
Extreme republicans and democrats are just as scary, IMO. Real solutions to real problems will not come from extremism, nor from blind acceptance of overbroad party-line solutions that apply quite well in economic/social/technological landscapes other than the one we have.
I love it when people show blind devotion to the mythical founders. You do realize it sounds just a wee bit cultish, right? Sure, lets go back to the days when only landowning white men could vote. Yay libertarianism!
The "ideals" of the founders were not ideals, they were compromises that nobody was really happy with. Because of them we ended up with a shitty half-democracy that led us into a civil war that nearly destroyed the country, then, in 2000 gave us one of the worst sham elections in our history. Before the civil war the issue of slavery came up for vote numerous times, gaining approval in the house but failing every time in the senate because of the "southern veto". So, explain to me why we should go back to the "ideals". Libertarians are worse that hard line Marxists, who at least worship a man who was writing in the 1800s, instead of the 1700s.
As somebody on slashdot once said,"one look at any online community will show you why Libertarianism will never work". The real answer is that their probably isn't just one answer.
So Libertarianism will never work because essentially it has never been tried? For all practical purposes our Founding Fathers WERE Libertarians and the system didn't devolve into some sort of Lord of the Flies you envision. There were certainly some serious violations of liberty (slavery and equal rights for instance), but if you look at the way the Federal Government was VERY Libertarian in nature. Some government protections and regulation is a good thing. Too much can be bad. Some social safety nets are great. To many and people can become dependent.Even free speech is only good in moderation. Free speech doesn't mean you can yell fire in a theater and it shouldn't mean that you have the right to shutdown a speaker just because you don't like what they want to say. Libertarians do not believe in everyone's unlimited right to do whatever they want. Their liberties are constrained by the rights of others. For a reasoned defense of liberty and a condemnation of federal intervention I invite you to listen to Frederick Bastiat's "The Law". It certainly challenged some of my thoughts at the time.
It should be noted that Robert Bork wrote a brief arguing in favor of the Justice Departments case against Microsoft. Robert Bork = The father of conservative legal theory, most notably pertaining to anti-trust as found in "The Antitrust Paradox".
BTW, the notion that someone like GW Bush who was hailed by all Republicans[back in 1999-2005 timeframe before his approval rating hit 28%] as being the Great Savior of Conservatism, is somehow no longer a Conservative is laughable. It reminds me of the Communists who argued the collapse of the Soviet Union didn't count because they weren't really Communist.
Founding fathers did not intend to be interpreted the way they are interpreted now. Heck, they did not even intend "all men are create equal" to apply to blacks and women.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Look at the scope of the Federal Government during the early periods of the US and look at it now (up till around say Jackson or Polk). The Federal Government was nothing compared to its scope and breadth today and yet the ceiling didn't fall down around our heads. People by and large took care of themselves and others, without all the of the Federal bureaucracies.
Also, don't you think it is a little unfair that you accuse me of wrapping Libertarian thought in the flag when I referred you to a Frenchman as my inspiration for liberty? I used to think that Libertarian thought was nuts (I still think some of the fringes are way off base) until I heard Bastiat. I again invite you to listen to Bastiat as it is a step by step defense of Liberty, and decidedly not scary crazy. :-)
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."