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."

Comments

I am _so_ calling this one:

[smittyoneeach]

DoD infiltrates DoJ, mandates Win7 is coded in Ada,
for that geeky-kinky Gates-on-Gates[1] action.
After something like twice the development time/budget of Vista, the effort collapses, the government relents, and WinXP, Nervous Pack 3 is approved for release as Win7.


[1]Yeah, yeah, I know that BeelzeBill won't be involved in Win7, but I appeal to Slashdot's preference for cheap japes over reality.
SecDef Gates is unlikely to outlive this administration, as well.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[smittyoneeach]

Yeah, or 4: you be the judge.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[gadget junkie]

I, for one, welcome our new department of Justice Overlords!!!!!

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[morgan_greywolf]

Pssst. DoJ had oversight of Vista, too, and it turned out just f...uhhh...oh. Nevermind. Nothing to see here, move along

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[urcreepyneighbor]

mandates Win7 is coded in Ada,

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?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Huggs]

yer doin it wrong... Your post is gay, so you must also be gay, because you made a gay post, and only a gay person would make a gay post, notthattheresanythingwrongwithbeinggay... no...

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[darkmeridian]

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.)

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[pmbasehore]

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.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[LWATCDR]

"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.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[bberens]

Everyone may say that would be too little, too late, but preemptive strikes are un-American. I disagree on two counts. First, this is not a preemptive strike. This is the punishment for past wrongdoings. I would liken it to being on parole. The 'police' watch over you very carefully for a while to make sure you keep your nose clean. Secondly, it's no longer correct to suggest that preemptive strikes are un-American. That has been our standing military policy since at minimum 5 years, and arguably longer than that. It is in fact, you, who are un-American. (even if I agree with your stance).

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[smittyoneeach]

OP was intentionally ambiguous. The geeky-kinky action is completely up to the reader.
It could mean dressing as Winnie the Pooh characters for a game of Petals Around the Rose, for example.
SecDef Gates, of course, would follow a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, in any case.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Anonymous Coward]

As a republican, I find this sort of increased government intervention frightening. Then maybe you should stop calling yourself a republican.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Joseph Hayes]

I'm committing a few of your pundit remarks to memory... first time I've heard some of them. Beezel-Bill, Nervous Pack, thats good shit man. I'll be waiting to use those in the office, OH! Shauna's at the waterfountain and was asking me if she needed to turn on this automatic update thingy... here's my chance! *scatter*

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[MrMarket]

No government intervention... M$ = Evil...No government intervention... M$ = Evil...No government intervention... M$ = Evil...No government intervention... M$ = Evil... Slashdotter's head esplodes.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Amiga Trombone]

I disagree on two counts. First, this is not a preemptive strike. This is the punishment for past wrongdoings. I would liken it to being on parole. No, it's not like parole, parole has a defined expiration date. What's the expiration date of Microsoft's parole?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[narratorDan]

I'd hit her.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Darinbob]

If it turns out to have anti-competitive effects, then the government can punish Microsoft for it. Yeah, 5 years after it has started shipping maybe some court will decide that the next version of Windows will have to improve matters.

Though the logic seems a bit off that having the government monitoring the design and manufacture is too intrusive whereas breaking up MS (a much more drastic measure) is fine.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Nillerz]

I agree for the most part, the government should have no right to tell private businesses how to operate and develop. Microsoft isn't killing anyone, and there are alternatives out there (growing ones, EEE anybody?). Microsoft should have every right to push any software they see fit whether or not it's inducing a monopoly. The only way to get a monopoly is to provide better service than the competition.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[BountyX]

Very scary indeed. What if they sneek a bot net in there...one of those bot nets the millitary wanted to create and distribute amongst us citizens...?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[The_Quinn]

we can always break MS up if it keeps pushing out monopolistic products. Not very "libertarian" of you.

How about: "if you don't like Microsoft products, don't buy it"? Wouldn't that be a better alternative?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[AJWM]

Fine. If, as a libertarian, you don't want government meddling in a company like Microsoft, then I sure that, as a libertarian, you would be happy to remove all the government regulations that prop up a company like Microsoft; limited liability corporate status, for starters.

In this case, though, there is already a judgement against MSFT for antitrust violations, so it's not exactly "preemptive", it's more like Microsoft is on parole, and this is just part of the parole supervision.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[AJWM]

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.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[erroneus]

Really? Do you REALLY find Libertarians scary? I mean, in the sense that they want to change the status quo, they are scary... I'll go along with you on that. But Libertarians just want to bring us back to the ideals of the founding fathers of the country. Do you think that US independence was a bad idea too? Honestly?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[jlarocco]

Perhaps it's when the preloads stop (i.e. when there's a free market in Operating Systems). Unless you build your own box, you're a satisfied Microsoft customer and you paid them for their product, whether you use it or not.

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.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Ravon Rodriguez]

Actually, from Wikipedia, "The Republican party generally supports lower taxes and limited government in most economic areas, allowing for more economic freedom"

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[PetiePooo]

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?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Ravon Rodriguez]

and after that, I'd do her.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[quanticle]

The issue isn't how Microsoft got its monopoly, its what Microsoft did afterward. Namely, their anti-competitive actions in the web browser market got them into trouble, not their possession of a monopoly.

Microsoft should have every right to push any software they see fit, whether or not its inducing a monopoly.

Now that's something that I can't agree with. That's the sort of justification Ma' Bell used when restricting the types of phones that one could use.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[HairyNevus]

Thank you, for pointing out Wikipedia is in error. I'll edit the article immediately.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[thtrgremlin]

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.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[bryce4president]

but preemptive strikes are un-American.

You've missed the last 5 years of war haven't you?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[kaiwai]

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.)

I'm in the libertarian camp. Although I do agree there needs to be enforcement to ensure that marketfailure (normally due to large government, and its influence over the economy, but thats a different matter entirely), there needs to be a body to uphold the law. The problem is that it is has gone from unclogging the market to the government almost defacto-nationalising Microsoft through its interference in the day to day running design of Microsofts products. Given that approach, it might as well just become a state owned enterprise (NZ jargon for a business owned by the government, but along business lines).

If they really do wish to 'unclog' it, they should make specifications for their products open and available for third parties to implement - royalty free and no NDA. For those Microsoft fanboys, that doesn't mean source code, just specifications. That alone would fix the mountain of problems stop competitors competing with Microsoft based on product quality and price. Given the size of government (there is no way to decrease it once it gets to the size of the US's one), force that all companies who tender for software supply agreements with the government must provide their software on atleast 4 other platforms; Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux and FreeBSD (As well as Windows).

Not only would that unclog the specifications issue but also ensure that there is a level playing field for consumers to choose what they want rather than being forced into a particular decison because a given application vendor is too fucking lazy to make their software available on more than just Windows.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[LWATCDR]

One they don't want to bring us back to the ideals of the founding fathers that is myth one.
The founding fathers supported slavery and didn't support women's rights. Both of which I consider bad ideas. Do you really think that they would support any form of equal rights? Unless you think you know how they would think if they where born in our times. BTW if you think you know that they are are just flipping nuts.

Libertarians are scary because they have a totally unrealistic view on the world and at the same time are totally sure that they have the one true vision just like every other flavor of extremist. 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. 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.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[ari wins]

Instead of looking at it as a pre-crime, which indeed is scary, I see it more like probation. Microsoft has already shown the propensity to break the rules, according to court rulings, and they drag their feet on fixing the issues until they've already saturated the market.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[kaiwai]

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.

Not even that, three companies; Operating system, Middleware and services. The three would no longer be reliant on each other; services and middleware would realise the world doesn't revolve around Windows, and Windows would finally focus on producing a better OS rather than being used as a leverage point for all of Microsofts middleware. Hell, we might even get a MSSQL for Solaris! Media Player for Linux!

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Mr2cents]

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for" - Will Rogers

(Just had to think of that quote while seeing the graph).

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Anonymous Coward]

One they don't want to bring us back to the ideals of the founding fathers that is myth one.

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.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Omestes]

Are you SURE you know what the founding fathers wanted? I sure as hell don't, since it was 200+ years ago, and I'm not psychic. I do know, though, that they never read Ayn Rand, which seems to be the basis of most libertarian thoughts. We interpret history (and thus historical intentions) through the window of the present, and our intentions. Thus claiming you know their true intentions seems impossible, unless you can strip away all of the onus of the intervening history and your own psychology.

I know our founding fathers, though, read Locke and Mills, both of whom would be somewhat at odds with modern libertarian ideals, since they supported a more communal version of "rights" than most libertarians do today, as opposed to the base individualism that haunts the modern libertarian ideal. I doubt that many people from before the modern age would ever actually identify unmitigated individual greed as the basis of a political or social system.

That said, libertarians don't personally scare me, even if I am at odds with their ideals (mostly on the economic front), libertarians getting their way scares me. As does any narrow political ideology. Our system works best with a high degree of contention, and argument.

Personally I find the economic ideals of most libertarians to be naive, and based on personal greed rather than any actually rational basis. A truly free market would be a very bad thing for most of us. I do buy some of the social, and legal, ideals of the libertarian ideal though. But... my idea that government should exist only to maximize the good of the people under it is antithetical to much of the libertarian ideal, which seems to say "government should exist only to maximize my good".

Being that this veers dangerously off topic, let me add, this DoJ thing rather scares me, even if I understand that it isn't a "spook" thing. If the DoJ wanted to peek at the product AFTER it was developed (publicly and transparently), and only limited in the scope of the antitrust issue, I would be slightly less paranoid about this.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[RiotingPacifist]

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. Thats what was going to happen before bush got in, but the change of administration meant the DOJ were told to finish the case quickly ( as big business is good )

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[RiotingPacifist]

Do you think that US independence was a bad idea too? Honestly? On behalf of the rest of the world im gunna have to say yes

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you hate America?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[BrotherBeal]

She's not really my type.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Danse]

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. Yeah, that was tried. The current administration made sure that they only got a slap on the wrist instead, and this was after mountains of evidence proved that they intentionally leveraged their monopoly in illegal ways. I certainly wouldn't rely on a Republican administration to do a damn thing about anti-competitive behavior. It's hard enough to get done under a democratic one. I'm still pissed at that judge for shooting off his mouth too.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[RiotingPacifist]

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. And how do they do that? the reason thier being punished is because they went round telling people "your not going to ship that with mozilla netscape, because if you do youll have to use a different OS"
Whens the last time you saw a preloaded windows box come with lotus/star/open office?

If Doj wernt involved win7 would probably ship with microsoft earth and have some sort of mysterious incompatibility with googleearth (something like if appname=googleearth & rand 0.2 then crash) and other blatant moves to hurt google

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Gilmoure]

Like no competition contracts; keeps all those pesky gov't accountants outa' everyone's hair.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[RiotingPacifist]

yeah but when they killed the competition, who's left to buy stuff from?
lotus?
netscape?
sgi?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[RiotingPacifist]

Well it didnt prepackage software that killed of their competitors.
AND certain vendors even managed to ship competitors products (dell shiped windows xp with googleearth right?)

sure the OS was a fuck up but not an anti-competitive one.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Mr2cents]

I have to say I don't follow the US election that much, but after reading your post and looking up the meaning of "RINO", I'd like to point out the broader problem (IMHO).

On a sidenote, you "accuse" him without any arguments, so people, don't turn off your critical-thinking-brainlobe yet. But for now, let skip that discussion and simply assume you're right (even if only in your opinion).

Then what position is McCain in, if he would admit this (pure thought experiment of course)? Should he move to democrats? Because that's about the only option he's got. That's really the sadness of two-party systems. It's only one party more than Soviet Russia, as the saying goes, and you are presented with only two choices both as a voter and as a representative. I'm glad that in Europe, we have this chaotic-looking mix of big and small parties. This way you can better choose for representatives that stand for what you find important.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Aram Fingal]

As a republican, I find this sort of increased government intervention frightening.

As a Green Party member, I do too. By participating in the process, the government is lending legitimacy to the result. Undesirable things could happen right under their nose and it will be difficult to have any recourse because Microsoft can always argue that whatever they did was approved at the time.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[LWATCDR]

"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."
That statment and disconnect from reality show exactly why I find libertarians scary.
The "This is what the founding fathers meant" is just another from of rapping a political agenda in the flag. The first thing that the founding fathers did was to put government controls on the production of alcohol. So no you have and any libertarian that claims that they are just doing what the founding fathers would do are just nuts.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[ultranova]

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.

Except that it isn't precrime, it is a consequence of illegal action Microsoft has been convicted not only in the US but in EU as well, thus making it postcrime, or punishment. Whether it is an appropriate punishment is another matter; however, a convicted criminal being closely monitored by officials in circumstances it committed the crimes in the first place is hardly particularly sinister from those officials part.

Surely even libertarianism allows the government to enforce the laws, and take precautions against known and convicted (in multiple courts) criminals continuing their spree ?

Everyone may say that would be too little, too late, but preemptive strikes are un-American.

Now if only you could convince your government of that, it would go a long way towards improving said country's imago and help start rebuilding its diplomatic prestige, which I fear the world will need before long with the raise of dictatorial China and continued worrying trends in Russia, not to mention the looming peak oil crisis.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[WaroDaBeast]

The problem with the ideals of the founding fathers was that there was always a 'but.' Everybody could theoretically vote in those days, but some people would make sure you didn't understand some passage in the Bible if you happened to be a black person, even if you were clever and actually did understand. Talking of the Bible, all men are considered equal before God. But somebody argued that the story of Ham -- who, because he saw his father naked http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0109.htm#20, was cursed to be "the servant of servants" -- implicitly meant that black people were to be slaves according to the Bible.

And the story goes on; right ideals, wrong enforcement thereof.


P.S.: After having read my post about twice, I gotta admit that some ideals weren't that right, such as the one that stated that a plot of land was yours after you had worked the soil hard to produce vegetables and whatnot.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[CAIMLAS]

Uh, no.

MS is being subjected to this because they were declared an illegal monopoly. MS brought this upon themselves through repeated abuse of their market dominance.

They already "tried" to break MS up. MS just reorganized internally to nary a hickup. And, historically, breaking up a large corporation does not work: the children of Ma Bell are now a group of even larger corporations owned by the same parent companies which "compete" against each other only in guise.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[smittyoneeach]

If I had a nickel for every bit of useless drivel I've posted on /., I'd be golfing with Bill G. and Warren B.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[gbjbaanb]

And, historically, breaking up a large corporation does not work: the children of Ma Bell are now a group of even larger corporations owned by the same parent companies which "compete" against each other only in guise. See, capitalism works. Take one big company, chop it into pieces and you get several big companies. why did that **** Bush not take the opportunity to create more multinational companies bringing more tax and commerce dollars in to build up the US economy?!

Break Microsoft up, its your duty as a Republican.

Unless you think they couldn't survive without their monopolies propping each other up? :-)

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[CAIMLAS]

No, I doubt MS could survive in today's market w/o the monopolistic prop.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[k1e0x]

But Libertarians just want to bring us back to the ideals of the founding fathers of the country. That's not actually true.

The founders did not create a voluntary society, and the early US government was not a libertarian government. (Need examples? Alien and Sedition Act, Genocide of the American Indians, Slavery?)A libertarian government would not do such things.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[wizardforce]

Do you REALLY find Libertarians scary?

some of them yes, specifically those that adhere strongest to the idea of non-intervention in economic issues regardless of consequences [eg. environmental issues, anti-trust regulations] mostly because in my opinion, 1) a truly free market doesn't exist by definition with a monopoly in power 2) the definition of an action of force isn't consistent throughout the party, there are variations ranging from the moderates [partial legalization of drugs etc.] to the extreme [that legal punishment is an unacceptable action of force regardless of the offense]

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Mastodon]

I know our founding fathers, though, read Locke and Mills

Well, they read Locke. I don't know who Mills is, and I doubt they read John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[k1e0x]

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.) I'm with you, government designing anything is bad.

The Trabant, was a car designed in East Germany by the government. The same model was made from 1957 to 1991. It smoked, it had a two cycle engine, and it broke down a lot.. but it was good enough for the people so they never needed to make anything better. (while Volkswagen on the west.. well they could only manage to make some of the most successful and popular cars sold world wide.) Also look at Toyota, they started exporting cars to the US in 1958 and they were not much better than the Trabant? Did Toyota improve its model of cars and offerings by 1991? (Ever hear of a Lexus?)

Korea was one country until 1948 but back then North Korea was richer than the south. Japan developed the north from 1910 to 1945. Even after the Japanese left, North Korea's industrial lead enabled it to maintain greater wealth over South Korea well into the 1960s. Where are they today? North Korea is in absolute poverty, and South Korea is an industrial powerhouse.

In the 1980 France decided to embrace the internet and allow every citizen to use this new technology. They created the Minitel network. While it originally was a novel device the government could never keep up with all the technological experiments in the west. While the free market produced, Yahoo, Amazon, Ebay, Google, etc.. France produced.. yep, 1980's dumb Minitel terminals.

What can we learn from this? Government produced products suck. They never get any better because there is no incentive to do so, and barley working is good enough. Do you see lines getting shorter and customer experience improving at the DMV. No, why? because the government bureaucrats running it are not going to inconvenienced in any way if they do not improve service.. their "customers" are forced to go there. There would be no Lexus without the free market, we would all be driving crap like the Trabant made several decades ago.

Government control of anything, even a company as loathsome as Microsoft is bad bad news for the computer industry.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[iminplaya]

US "independence"... That's funny.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Anpheus]

Honestly, I use Firefox, VLC and AVG Free.

Unfair competition when two of the three is a free product and the third I've never seen an advertisement for in the OS doesn't really exist. Honestly, how can I begrudge Microsoft for giving me IE for free when, how the fuck else would I download Firefox?

Incorporating a browser into the OS is natural and progressive and frankly, I would bemoan the decisions made if this were an alternate reality in which IE was forcibly removed from Windows by a court decision. We'd be stuck with dialup, telnet and distributing what is currently considered -core- operating system functionality via floppies.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[I'm Don Giovanni]

This isn't "punishment", it's Microsoft's "Get out of jail, free!!!" card.

When Windows 7 comes out, if any party has a beef and threatens suing for whatever reason, Microsoft can just say, "The DOJ already approved this, so there!" Windows 7 will be essentially, lawsuit-proof.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[k1e0x]

Libertarians are scary because they have a totally unrealistic view on the world and at the same time are totally sure that they have the one true vision just like every other flavor of extremist. 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. Maybe you fear what you do not understand. This is a case *FOR* Libertarianism not against it. The case is that we do not have to agree on anything. GOOD! Let's not agree, we don't all have to.

Using government to force everyone to agree is the problem in many cases. Libertarians seek a voluntary society where people can choose how to best do things for themselves.

Let's not agree on what will be the mandated equal education in EVERY school in the country. Creationism, Evolution, Gay rights, pledge of allegiance, sex ed, abstinence and on and on. All of those arguments disappear when people can choose what school to send their children to for themselves.

I'm with you, there isn't just one answer for America.. there are 300 million best answers.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[iminplaya]

Well, the content producers could make their material in a standards compliant format. That would eliminate much of Microsoft's edge. Microsoft paid them off, yeah, but they took the money. What Microsoft includes in its system is between them and the customer. On top of everything else, Apple is still the king of lock-in. And their software is damn near all inclusive. Personally I like that. Forcing separation of media players and browsers is dumb. Just don't break third party stuff.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Red Flayer]

Get a clue. There already is a free market for operating systems.

It's important to note, however, that the existence of a free market does not preclude the possibility of a functional monopoly. Actually, due to barriers to entry (in this case, the overhead of developing a truly competitive OS and the interoperability problems with a closed-source OS), a free market will tend towards a monopoly.

The question is, do we want to let a natural monopoly run wild, or do we want to regulate it to ensure that competition can exist in related products (applications)?

To me, there is resounding support for regulation of natural monopolies. There's a reason the Sherman Anti-trust Act (and other acts) were passed and enforced a hundred years ago (give or take a few years).

Almost all economists would agree that regulation is necessary to compensate for natural monopolies (even the Austrian School agrees!) for their models to function efficiently.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[ColdWetDog]

If I had a nickel for every bit of useless drivel I've posted on /., I'd be golfing with Bill G. and Warren B.

Well, not quite. According to my careful calculations, you'd only have just shy of $253.00 USD (assuming one drivel per post). You need to start charging more for your drivel.

Or driveling more in each post. Whichever works.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[setagllib]

That doesn't make any sense. Companies like Adobe lock down to Windows just as much as Microsoft. To them it's all about market share, and even if Microsoft is separated, the widespread platform that is Windows XP will remain the primary target of commercial software developers, even if only for legacy apps.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[DiamondMX]

It's not preemptive if it follows a judgement on the same company about the same product, regarding the same offence. Plus MS has made the 'it's too late to change it now' defence before, regarding IE's integration as Explorer. However it's not so much the product as the companies marketing and sales actions that make them anti-competitive, so this is somewhat futile anyway.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Patoski]

That statment and disconnect from reality show exactly why I find libertarians scary. You must have been around some truly rabid Libertarian(s) or something...

That statment and disconnect from reality show exactly why I find libertarians scary. The "This is what the founding fathers meant" is just another from of rapping a political agenda in the flag. Please point to me where I said the founding fathers were the keepers of the one true flame of Libertarian thought and ideology? Neither did I say that the Fathers set out for a Libertarian state, and therefore Libertarian ideology is sacrosanct. I was merely responding to your post that referred to the founding fathers and then how crazy Libertarianism is. Also, I do not understand your reasoning that because the US was not a 100% pure Libertarian Government that we don't have any idea what a Libertarian society would be like. You're completely ignoring that by and large the policies of the day were largely anti-federalist and had an extremely weak Federal Government. You can point out instances where they had elements of socialism creep into their government, but that ignores the whole forest because you're staring at a couple of trees...

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. :-)

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[zeroduck]

I don't know about you, but ethernet rarely works after a fresh install of Windows. Having a browser really helps out then.

No more Windows on my personal machines, not a problem anymore.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Hubbell]

I cannot say to the former, but both latter points are supported by the libertarian ideals of doing whatever the fuck you want as long as it does not infringe on someone else's rights, within the timeframe that they occurred. Blacks and indians were considered barbaric/subhuman, and therefore not afforded the same rights as civilized whites. Furthermore, we didn't invent slavery, and africans didn't either, but they were damn well happy to sell us slaves they captured in wars between their tribes.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[PieceofLavalamp]

Maybe when they start paying some of their fines and complying with court orders of their own accord. From american gov'ts or otherwise.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

I agree 100%. It's not so much libertarianism, as it is extremism. Slashdot can sometimes paint libertarianism in a bad light. I don't know if there really are so many libertarian extremists out there, or if it's John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory at work, but there's a lot of extreme libertarian views out there. People who think inciting violence or libel should be protected free speech, that (as you mentioned) the government should just fuck off out of, well, everywhere, that the government shouldn't be allowed to pass legislation like the patriot act in times of crisis (yes, I know, it's outstayed it's welcome by several years), or even that we should be allowed to shoot our leaders in the head should we be displeased with them.

Core values, like the tendency to grant freedom to individuals and to keep safeguards to prevent abuse of power, I think are all fine propositions, it's just that when they get taken to dizzying highs that they become somewhat repulsive. Just like with any ideology.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[nick.ian.k]

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.)

And a fine "wokka-wokka" at the overloading of "preemptive strike". And the joke about the telecom industry. And so on and so on and so on. ;P

Seriously though. With Ballmer's at the helm after his statements over the past few years, what other direction is Microsoft heading in *but* behaving in anti-competitive ways? And how awesome *would* it be to see them shift their focus away from competition and towards real honest-to-goodness innovation? Pardon me, but I've just got this strange notion that some folks there may have, you know, been hired on the merits of their programming chops rather than their ability to rim the living daylights out of a few upper-management wackos...

Yes, I'd prefer an inside job to restructure the company, but Ozzie's dropped into his shell since coming on board. What else is going to fucking do it?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Omestes]

Touche!

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Omestes]

Unless your proposing a God, there is a difference here.

The laws of physics are deterministic, while the general streams of human thought are not. Can you tell me with any certainty what your parents intentions were when you were born, or what the hell you were thinking in highschool? Probably not, we're fallible, even when it comes to the past versions of ourselves.

Now stretch this back 200 years, through many very significant cultural changes, and tell me you really know what was going on in their very individual head, while your missing 90% of the context to make it meaningful.

I can say, with pretty damn good certainty that 1+1=2 200 years ago, but that is a different bag of tricks, and not applicable to human trends.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[UnixUnix]

"how the fuck else would I download Firefox?"

Archie, gopher Veronica and tell[net] her how to ftp

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[gtall]

How about we let everyone test and approve which drugs they can take. Any drug company can put out there anything they like, no FDA for them and we'll all live free and happy.

How about no NTSA and the FAA? We'll let everyone ignore the airlines that kill too many of their customers.

No need for OSHA either, everyone can decide to stay away from companies that are dangerous to their workers' health.

Let there be no SEC because those nice capitalists on Wall Street will happily treat everyone with equality and fairness.

And no more of these state department of motor vehicles. If 5 year olds want to drive, they should be allowed. While we're at it, let's get rid of those pesky state agencies who guarantee the octane rating on gasoline sold in their states. No one will buy gas from companies that scrimp on the octane and there'll be octane testing kits available (to buy) for anyone who doesn't trust them.

Let there be no FDIC, if people want to put their money in Fly-By-Night Banking Thing, they should be allowed to lose everything they put in there, serves them right for making the wrong decisions.

Gerry

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Rennt]

What's the expiration date of Microsoft's parole? How about the day they cease to be a monopoly.
They have no right to freedom from interference until they stop interfering with the market.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Nillerz]

Ma' Bell did have a monopoly, but if they hadn't then we would never have the national land lines set up as well as they are. Imagine 3 different standards in a developing technology that requires that much effort and money to set up. I think similarily, Windows provided an example of how a decent GUI for an operating system works (yeah I know they borrowed components from Apple) but Linux is around, therefore it is not a monopoly. Hell, they're competing sith something that's free, and I think the government should butt out. First its controlling this business, then it'll be controlling every business, regulating prices "competitively". How far should it go?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[The_Quinn]

They didn't kill anything. Lot's of people gave them their money, and the competition eventually lost. Microsoft software supports businesses who are making billions of revenue through its use. As long as people can create great wealth while using Microsoft software, why should they change? Because you said to?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[jonasj]

Honestly, how can I begrudge Microsoft for giving me IE for free when, how the fuck else would I download Firefox? ftp to releases.mozilla.org? Windows has command-line ftp. :-P

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Zashi]

wow. that was an excellent post. Use of red and blue, Simple, poignant, complete use of the metaphor. *golf clap*

*The above post was actually sincere*

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[LWATCDR]

"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."
That seems pretty close to me.
It was mostly a joke that they scare me. For the most part I don't worry about them since they are so far out that there is no way they can do much harm. As a whole they don't seem willing to resort to violence to make their point so as long as they are none violent they will be just a harmless curiosity that can do no real harm.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[Anpheus]

To the first reply above this, ethernet rarely working after a fresh install is out of the norm for me. Esp. if you use a slipstreamed or recent install disc with SP2/3 as part of the installation. Obviously your Windows disc can't include drivers for new software and interfaces that came out after the disc was stamped.

To the second and third replies, you're talking about hugely, enormously stunting the growth of the internet, its accessibility and affordability.

Without IE, there would be no Firefox. Sad to say, but Netscape would probably still be selling their browser.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[LWATCDR]

No that is also the problem there are a LOT of really bad answers as well.
There really are not 300 million best answers.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[LWATCDR]

While you are pretty much voicing the most extreme version Libertarianism it is all too often the one version I hear from most Libertarians.
Just like comunisum and the works of Ayn Ryand all sound good to start with it soon sounds ends up a big mess.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[byteguy1]

Maybe we can just have the gov't fill in for Bill when he leaves? Lemmee see--didn't they do something like that for Chrysler Corp a number of years ago? Oh, wait. That's because Chrysler was having difficulty in running a profitable company in a legal way.............

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[quanticle]

Competition with something that's free does not erase the fact that their bundling practices are anti-competitive, and therefore illegal.

Indeed, one of the reasons Linux on the desktop does not have a greater presences is that Microsoft threatened to revoke volume discounts for resellers that also bundle Linux.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[RiotingPacifist]

They didn't kill anything. Funny me and the courts seam to disagree with you on this one. They illegally used their monopoly in one area to stifle competition in another.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[The_Quinn]

Just because something is "illegal" doesn't mean it is wrong. Surely there are laws that you disagree with.

And there is nothing wrong with "stifling" competition, as you put it. As long as there is no actual or implied threat of physical force, there is no problem.

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[k1e0x]

I see, so you have the authority to tell others what is best for them? Tell me.. where did you get such power?

Re:I am _so_ calling this one:

[k1e0x]

Well.. yes, you are correct. We don't need such things.

A lot of people seem to think that government is the only thing holding society together.. but these agencies and regulations you suggest are unnecessary because the market will self regulate.

Next time your at the hardware store or Walmart look around at all the unregulated products that are sold that if manufactures wanted to save money and kill people they could. On many of these products you will see the Underwriter Laboratories (UL) logo. When you see that logo you can be assured that the coffee pot you are buying has been tested for safety and will not burn your house down. Underwriter Laboratories is a private company, shockingly those manufactures pay them to certify that their products are safe. This is a market based solution, one that is not so alien to the problems you cite above.

Now lets say the FDA was private.. and they certified a new heart drug that was found to be dangerous (this happened recently) .. can you sue the FDA for improperly certifying that drug? Can you sue the pharmacist that sold it to you? Will the FDA loose trust to a competing certification firm? In government, nobody is ever to blame.. they say "whoops.. we killed a bunch of people, sorry." and nothing changes.

Reality is the market is what keeps you safe, that fact that people want safe, high quality, products means there is money to be made in producing safe, high quality, products.

Boeing wanting to make safe aircraft that do not crash so they can keep the airlines and customers happy and continue buying safe Boeing aircraft is what keeps the planes in the air.. not the words the FAA write on paper.

Yup.

[Kingrames]

This.

Will signify the year of the Linux Desktop.

If there was anything that could make windows worse, this administration will find it.

Re:Yup.

[hkgroove]

Is it just the conspiracy theorist in me that finds this scary as to what could be added into Windows 7? Super-secret backroom deals that the DoD / DoJ can covertly spy on the unwitting populace?

Re:Yup.

[faloi]

Why bother with something covert when you can just subpoena all the information from ISP's? That way even people that avoid Windows can get caught, too.

Re:Yup.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Yup.

[Darkness404]

Because you have at least *some* choice in ISPs. Though most all are the same, at least if Comcast sends the info out you could jump to Time-Warner which won't be better, but Comcast may find that a reason not to give out the info.

Re:Yup.

[Tubal-Cain]

Because ISPs don't have your encryption keys.

Re:Yup.

[badboy_tw2002]

How do you know that hasn't been in every version since they included a built in network stack? (Big Hint: You don't!)

Re:Yup.

[barzok]

Is there anyplace in the US that is served by both Comcast & TW?

I can see leaving Comcast or TW for Verizon or (insert DSL provider here), but Comcast to TW implies that there's local competition for your cable dollars, and I don't think that happens today.

Re:Yup.

[a_real_bast...]

Hmm.. The fact there's whole alphabet-chunks devoted to spying on citizens of other countries; CIA, NSA, GCHQ... so what would this change?

Having it autospy would be stupid - I know NSA are good at data processing, but no-one's that good. Giving the ability for "qualified agents" to echo the person of interest's screen output to their machine, now... (",
Rather less likely to be detected, because it wouldn't be used except in targetted surveillance.

Which is really comforting, neh?

Re:Yup.

[s13g3]

You seriously think that there isn't a U.S. made operating system that hasn't yet been back-doored by the NSA and / or CIA as a result of a back-room deal somewhere? I mean, I'm even a US citizen and I'm not so naive as to believe that they aren't all pretty well universally compromised, and there's no need to "phone home" on a regular basis so as to be caught out that easily - there are ways, and then there are ways. If you think that there is anything in a Windows installation that somehow makes your secure int he face of the Feds, you're sorely mistaken - your only hope is third-party tools which are very possibly just as compromised. Need evidence? Examine the cd-kit given out to Law Enforcement to enable them to access Windows Computers more easily by bypassing encryption and password security features.

I have it on good authority that there's only one OS on the market that remains safe from NSA/CIA/DOD/DOJ back-dooring at this moment, and that is mainly a result of it not being a natively U.S. produced distro.

Re:Yup.

[Saint Stephen]

When you use the Kernel debugger, pretty much everything windows does becomes pretty transparent. Especially when you connect with a Firewire computer and freeze it in Kernel Mode. It's all in Inside Windows 2000, etc.

Re:Yup.

[ahabswhale]

Why would you need to back-door Windows when it's so easy to break into without it? As for your LE CD kit, yeah there's tons of tools like that you can get as a civilian for free. Windows (including Vista) is trivially easy to hack if you have physical access, it's only marginally (and debatebly) less so if you don't.

Re:Yup.

[_KiTA_]

Is it just the conspiracy theorist in me that finds this scary as to what could be added into Windows 7? Super-secret backroom deals that the DoD / DoJ can covertly spy on the unwitting populace? Ah, silly tech, they don't have to send people OVER to do that, they just have to ask Microsoft for a favor over the phone.

Re:Yup.

[steelfood]

Major cities are served by multiple providers. Usually not in the same areas, but there are a few places where you do have a choice.

Re:Yup.

[Dog-Cow]

Within any given country, it's far more legal to spy on other nations than it is to spy on your own citizens. Quite the opposite of what you suggest.

Of course, in most countries, it's perfectly legal to spy on your own citizens, but those same countries are rather unlikely to disallow themselves from spying on others.

In the US, it's illegal to spy on anyone without a warrent. Of course, it's done all the time anyway.

Re:Yup.

[s13g3]

Quite true. As a systems administrator, consultant, and long-time general PC repair expert, I know intimately how simple Windows is to hack when you have physical access, and have been privelged for many many many incredulous looks from friends / family / customers when trying to explain, "No, I don't need your password, it's irrelevant."

Remote compromise is only marginally more difficult. Regardless, the whole point of the originating poster about this deal making Windows somehow more compromised for the US Gov is ludicrous, because it's already completely compromised on so many levels it's just not funny.

Re:Yup.

[Drathos]

I don't know about that specific pairing, but I know that in some parts of northern Virginia, Cox is available as an alternative to Comcast. I'm not sure if both are available or if it's just one or the other since I don't live in one of those areas, but I know that Cox is available in select parts of Fairfax County even though Comcast covers most of area.

Re:Yup.

[thtrgremlin]

Year of Linux:
-Server 1997
-Desktop 2005

Sorry if you missed it.

Re:Yup.

[tdcarrol]

I am using the TW/Comcast comparison as part of my decision on where to get an apartment.

Re:Yup.

[RiotingPacifist]

Microsoft code isn't locked in a vault, plenty of people have seen it. If it had blatant OSS code there they would have been caught already.

Re:Yup.

[glitch23]

It's just the conspiracy theorist in you. What makes you think if the DOJ wanted something in the Windows source code that they would do it now instead of, oh say, any time? They can approach MS anytime they want. For all we know there is already code in Vista for spying. This is merely oversight. The MS developers touch the keyboard while the G men just watch what the final result is.

Re:Yup.

[glitch23]

Is there anyplace in the US that is served by both Comcast & TW? I can see leaving Comcast or TW for Verizon or (insert DSL provider here), but Comcast to TW implies that there's local competition for your cable dollars, and I don't think that happens today.

Define anyplace? If "anyplace" means any town/city/county then yes. If by "anyplace" you mean a single house then no. I live in north-central WV. The town I'm in is split between Comcast and TW. It used to be Adelphia and TW until TW and Comcast bought up Adelphia after its bankruptcy. I don't have any idea where the definitive lines are (whether they run over street boundaries or whatever) for who gets serviced by TW as opposed to Comcast but generally if you are in town on the west side of I79 it is TW but if you are in town on the east side it is Comcast. So to switch providers you have to move to another house but in this area that can mean just moving 2 miles away by way the crow flies.

Re:Yup.

[gtall]

Wow, I guess we should simply take your word for it, right, given the strength of the evidence you've given. Could you please give it again so we can save it for future reference?

Gerry

Re:Yup.

[Grishnakh]

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).

Why should there be different versions for different countries? There's nothing wrong with the US government spying on people using backdoors in the Windows OS, and especially spying on other countries' governments. Remember, Windows is made by an American company, so the US government has every right to get Microsoft to put backdoors in so they can spy on other countries.

If you don't like it, don't use an OS made by a foreign company. How hard is that? These days, it's pretty trivial to make your own home-grown Linux distro if you're a country or company, and if you're an individual it's trivially easy to get a Linux distro not made by an American company. If you're so stupid/lazy you can't do that, then you deserve to be spied on by the US government.

I can just imagine...

[Perseid]

the staredown between the DOJ geeks and the MS geeks as they both fight for superiority. Think there'll be fistfights in the breakroom?

"Power to the people!" Smack.

"This one's for Billy!" Punch.

Re:I can just imagine...

[JrOldPhart]

I always liked "Biff" and "Zot" as Batman style onomatopoeia.

Re:I can just imagine...

[equid0x]

Hmm could end up a good catfight... DOJ still uses WordPerfect.

Re:I can just imagine...

[doktor-hladnjak]

That reminds me of the time I was on a college recruiting trip for Microsoft.

Around the corner at the college fair from our table was the one for Department of Justice Antitrust Division. One of the guys I was working the table with walked over there for fun to see what they were up to. I think he grabbed some literature and awkward smirks were exchanged when they saw his name tag.

Directly across from our table was the table for Philip-Morris. This wasn't Altria Group recruiting lawyers or payroll specialists or whatever. This was the part of the company that still went by Philip Morris that sold cigarettes and they were looking for regional sales representatives. Towards the end of the night, the guy from that table came over to our table to schmooze with us. He said something like "Well, we both work for evil companies, right?". All I could think was "WTF? Windows and Microsoft may have their issues, but at least we aren't marketing cigarettes to kids."

Looking forward to this

[edwebdev]

I have been waiting for a built-in Windows National Threat Advisory widget for so long.

Re:Looking forward to this

[gEvil (beta)]

I have been waiting for a built-in Windows National Threat Advisory widget for so long.

Ooooh! And they can have it automatically change the desktop background color or something, too!

Re:Looking forward to this

[Tubal-Cain]

Or, if you are deemed a threat, change your wallpaper to something illegal.

Re:Looking forward to this

[mhall119]

You want a widget that never changes color from orangish-yellow?

Re:Looking forward to this

[kcjefff]

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!

Re:Looking forward to this

[ch-chuck]

It should not take too long for M$ft to copy an existing one then claim they innovated it.

Re:Looking forward to this

[RMingin]

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Windows-Widgets/Widget-Miscellaneous/Homeland-Security-Widget.shtml


You're only about a year behind.

Besides, it's not the threat level widget we should fear, it's the automatically granted remote logins and kernel-based keyloggers.

Re:Looking forward to this

[turgid]

Every year I try to think of something witty and simple to code for April 1st to release on freshmeat.net, something as cool as the sliderule written in python and gtk. What could be better than a pointless applet that pokes fun at the War on Civil Liberties. It'd have to be GPL'd and cross-platform. Thanks for the idea. I hope I can remember to do it by next year.

Re:Looking forward to this

[et764]

There is a Windows Sidebar gadget you can get that tells you the current threat level. I used to use it, but I got tired of it always telling me the threat level was "Elevated."

Re:Looking forward to this

[rootooftheworld]

what a fun exploit this could become

You're kidding?

[Midnight Thunder]

Vista has issues without external help, so I'd hate to see what DOJ intervention is going to do other than make it even worse. I am not a big Microsoft fan, but please let them at least try to develop a decent OS without an external committee. Let them succeed or fail on their own merits. If the DOJ wants to intervene anywhere, at least do it in vetting the results or paying attention to contracts.

Re:You're kidding?

[Kamokazi]

This reminds me of Katrina...how do you make a huge disaster even worse? Throw some federal bureaucracy into the mix.

Re:You're kidding?

[kellyb9]

I'm a little taken back by the fact that people find this suprising. Most businesses that are entrenched in MS probably want to review the changes that are being made to make sure that it complies with their future business direction. The DOJ is one such entity that is simply far too entrenched in MS to think about using something else. Therefore, they have a pretty big interest in Windows 7. Not suprising... not suprising at all.

Re:You're kidding?

[Darkness404]

By the way, most of he big MS critics are just altra rich folks who are suffering from sour grapes: Mcnealy and Ellison, I'm talking to you!

Ummm... No. Most of the big MS critics are tech people who have used an OS other then Windows (Linux, BSD, Mac, UNIX, etc) and see that Windows is worse then other OSes and don't want to pay money for an OS they will never use on a new computer. Basically, business practices can make MS illegal, but the code they use creates the most critics.

Re:You're kidding?

[UnknowingFool]

This reminds me of Katrina...how do you make a huge disaster even worse? Throw some incompetent federal bureaucracy into the mix.

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.

Re:You're kidding?

[LMacG]

> Vista has issues without external help

Vista got the same oversight. From TFA: "The [Technical Committee] reviewed Windows Vista".

Remember, the consent decree has been in place since 2002 -- the DOJ presented the proposed settlement in 2001, but the judge didn't approve it till almost a year later (although some states objected to the terms, what was approved in 2002 has remained essentially unchanged).

Re:You're kidding?

[JCSoRocks]

I love how much abuse FEMA gets. Everyone always leaves out the awesomely retarded governor of that state. The few things she did do... were interesting.

Re:You're kidding?

[UnknowingFool]

From my standpoint, everyone that was involved with Katrina was over their heads. Why I put more blame on FEMA is that emergency management was the reason it was created and it failed due to the incompetence at top. The governor of a state and the mayor of the city might be idiots but they clearly were not trained for this kind of situation. One of the main reasons/excuses that the federal gave why aid was not sent earlier was that Louisiana and New Orleans had not formally requested it. Basically they didn't fill out the correct paperwork; however, numerous counter examples were given where detailed requests were being passed to FEMA and the federal government but for some reason, it did not act on the requests.

Re:You're kidding?

[Dog-Cow]

You do realized that one of the most "feared" US agencies actually contributes code to the Linux kernel, right?

Re:You're kidding?

[Yogiz]

That's where the difference between open-source and proprietary comes in.

Re:You're kidding?

[sheepofblue]

Sorry bureaucracy produces nothing and is bad. It is possible that it provides a structure that allows real productivity however with time the bureaucrats tend to think bureaucracy is the product and slowly grind down anyone trying to excel. The Vogans were a parody but like all parodies there was a kernel of reality.

Re:You're kidding?

[RiotingPacifist]

sorry but the DOJ don't get to actually code it, they simply look at the specification make sure it doesn't contain any anti-competitive software.
look at the code make sure it matches up to the specification.
look at the code make sure there arnt any unneeded changes that mess with other peoples software.
e.g lotus software, while not saying that it was purely to screw them over, claim that changes to windows gave them problems, well now the DOJ will know if it was deliberate or not
and there were rumours that around 95/98 the low level rendering code for the openGL stack that microsoft provided was deliberately crippled

without looking at the code you cant be sure that ms are playing nice

Re:You're kidding?

[UnknowingFool]

Well if you look at FEMA during the Clinton years, they were effective and did a great job. I think it starts with having an effective leader. Starting in 1992, James Lee Witt was the first FEMA director in its 30 year history to have emergency management experience. Before then FEMA had been a dumping ground for political appointees in search of a cushy job. Under Clinton, Director of FEMA became a cabinet level post. Some of the things that FEMA handled during under Witt:

• 1995 World Trade Center bombing
• 1997 Midwest Red River flood
• Nor Cal earthquake
• Sept 11, 2001

The problem was after Witt left, Bush, forgetting history, replaced him with Joe Allbaugh (Bush's former campaign manager), a political appointee with no experience. When that Allbaugh left, Bush replaced him with Mike Brown, another political appointee with no experience. Today's director R. David Paulison, thankfully has some experience. Now this isn't a anti-Republican slant. Gore, had he been elected, could have made the same mistakes as Bush in appointing a new FEMA director.

Re:You're kidding?

[CAIMLAS]

Oh, I don't know about that.

I don't fundamentally disagree with you, but with regard to Katrina specifically, the local and state level bureaucrats had completely fucked the pooch long before the Feds decided things had gotten out of hand.

Re:You're kidding?

[will_die]

Sept 11 was handled by Joe Allbaugh, nor did Witt handle the world trade center bombing.

Re:You're kidding?

[UnknowingFool]

True Allbaugh was in charge of FEMA at the time of Sept. 11 but he started his position in February 2001. The agency was still largely the product of Witt. It wouldn't be a few years after Witt left that his departure was felt. Witt was in charge of FEMA when the 1995 bombing took place.

Re:You're kidding?

[GuyverDH]

Troll? For stating something that is obviously true?

By the time any kind of bureaucracy is involved, the committees have over-regulated said bureaucracy with conflicting rules as to make it impossible to be effective.

Oh wait - this is my freak following me around and having fun.

I wonder how I find out the identity of the freak, as to have them barred/prohibited from touching my posts....

Heh

[Oxy the moron]

At first I read that summary:

"...responsible for ensuring that Microsoft compiles with the terms of the final judgment...

Pity... I thought "final judgment" would be an altogether fitting and proper name for any compiler that could successfully compile a Windows OS.

Re:Heh

[steelfood]

And the day they compile the release version of Windows would be Judgment Day.

Eh.

[Mongoose Disciple]

As judgements go, this seems toothless or perhaps worse . . . unless you consider the specter of this years ago to have caused Microsoft to make some different decisions.

According to TFA, the DoJ is mainly concerned with:

- Compatability/bundling in four areas, three of which, such as bundling an instant messenger, Microsoft has given up on since '01. Web browser is the area on that list still in play.

- Making sure that bugs in previous versions of Windows don't recur. Congratulations, your tax dollars are providing extra Windows QA.

Re:Eh.

[The Angry Mick]

Congratulations, your tax dollars are providing extra Windows QA.

My thoughts exactly. Congrats and good luck to the DOJ for being voluntary beta testers!

Re:Eh.

[L4t3r4lu5]

Voluntary? Bullshit! You're paying their salaries!

Re:Eh.

[ConceptJunkie]

Congratulations, your tax dollars are providing extra Windows QA.

That's more constructive than what they are usually used for...

Win 7 is officially vaporware

[Thelasko]

With this much oversight, any development will slow to a crawl. If anything gets released at all, it will be a rehash of products they already make.

Insert Windows Vista joke here.

Re:Win 7 is officially vaporware

[MBGMorden]

With this much oversight, any development will slow to a crawl. If anything gets released at all Ok, I'm as "Down with MS!" as the next Slashdotter, but do you honestly believe there's even the slightest chance in hell of Microsoft not releasing anything at all? If that's the case it will be a World War or asteroid impact that causes it, not some government oversight.

Re:Win 7 is officially vaporware

[Thelasko]

You didn't finish reading what I wrote.

If anything gets released at all, it will be a rehash of products they already make. Government oversight tends to make things fall behind schedule. I mean WAY behind schedule. Why do general contractors charge so much money? Because they know how to fight through the bureaucracy an get everything approved by the building inspector. Microsoft will have a huge learning curve, especially since the rules for oversight seem vague.

I'm not saying we won't see anything from Microsoft, but you can expect the development of Windows 7 to be twice as long and the product to be half as good as Vista.

This makes Microsoft into a massive sitting duck. No development creates opportunities for competitors to improve and surpass. It happens with every industry, it doesn't matter if it makes cars or software. Slowing or stopping development is what kills businesses. If that is what the DoJ is planning to do, this will do it.

I'm not saying "Down with MS!" I am merely stating the facts. The only thing I said that was critical to MS was:

Insert Windows Vista joke here.

DOJ conclusion on Win7

[caywen]

"Normally, we'd be concerned about anti-trust violations. But Win7 sucks so hard, never mind. Based on what we've seen with their last OS release, well, Microsoft - go ahead and do whatever it is you wanted to do."

Re:DOJ conclusion on Win7

[bsDaemon]

So, you're saying that Windows Vista is the ultimate in "New Coke" plans?

Re:DOJ conclusion on Win7

[caywen]

If "New Coke" caused severe headaches, cost 25 cents more, and forced you to buy a new kidney every few months, then I can see that analogy.

So would you term this...

[sirgoran]

The blind leading/watching the blind?

The ill-informed overseeing the absolutely stupid?

Or

The haven't-got-a-clue trying to look like they know what they're doing while watching the hard pressed to deliver working in an unrealistic timeline.

Just trying to get it figured out what kind of cluster Fsk to call this gem of an idea.

-Goran

The DoJ is almost irrelevant

[bogaboga]

That DoJ is almost irrelevant in my opinion. Weren't they supposed to somewhat oversee the development of Windows Vista? What happened? And why should I believe this will be any different?

I believe that to some folks, the DoJ is the Department of Jokes.

Re:The DoJ is almost irrelevant

[Darkness404]

Yes, the answer was to get into US jurisdiction so his trial would take longer then his prison sentence.

Re:The DoJ is almost irrelevant

[RiotingPacifist]

what anticompetitive moves did microsoft make with vista?
DOJ dont care how much the product sucks, they just have to make sure that non-ms companies can still compete when it comes to the software that runs on it.

too far

[youngdev]

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.

Re:too far

[maxume]

The theory is that Microsoft broke the law and that regulation and scrutiny would be better (for society) than breaking it up or dissolving it.

Re:too far

[Waffle Iron]

Why is our government so powerful that it can involve itself in development of a commercial product by a private company?

Microsoft wouldn't even exist in its present form if the government weren't already willing to butt into peoples' private homes and businesses to dictate which files in their computers can or can't be copied. So I don't see how Microsoft would have much to complain about on this issue.

Re:too far

[Moofie]

Because Microsoft broke the law, and DOJ is trying to prevent them from doing it again.

That's not to say that this isn't just a ridiculous situation, but it is a situation of Microsoft's choosing.

Re:too far

[Austerity Empowers]

I wholly encourage the government to protect citizens from overly powerful corporations. I don't think this is the correct approach to MS, but it's all we as citizens left them with. The government should force MS to open up device drivers and file formats, and provide tools to encourage competition. MS should not have the power to use a successful product to hurt the country. They've made people filthy rich, good job, but the industry is stagnant so share and compete.

What the gov't is doing is stupid...but we're confused about what capitalism is and isn't and not providing clear direction.

Re:too far

[maxume]

The idea that bundling a web browser into an operating system is anti-competitive is why I call it a theory.

At this point, if a company tried to ship a consumer operating system without a web browser, they would be laughed out of the computer business.

Re:too far

[andy9701]

Before we weep too much over Windows and their government overlords we should mourn all the good startups that were crushed by unfair competition from MS. Of course Netscape comes to mind but it isn't the only one.

Such as Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net.

Re:too far

[UnknowingFool]

Judging by your UID, I would like to say "Welcome, you must be new here." For those of us, who have been around a little longer, MS agreed in its settlement with the government over a decade ago for this kind of oversight. For the most part the DoJ has stayed out of MS development when clearly MS has not lived up completely to the agreement (i.e. it only recently released the APIs that it said it would do over a decade ago and then only for a $10,000 license).

Re:too far

[YodaJosh]

Did people really forget what Microsoft did so easily? The free market is only free because regulation keeps it that way. Given the choice between a government stranglehold or a corporate stranglehold on the computer industry, I'll choose government. At least they are accountable to the people and can be kicked out of office when the people are unhappy. The best that happens here is the Windows 7 rocks, and is open and non-monopolistic. The worst is that it sucks and is open and non-monopolistic. Windows haters here would argue that that worst case may be the best case after all ;). Win-win.

Re:too far

[Threni]

> Why is our government so powerful that it can involve itself in development of a commercial product by a private company?

Governments should do what is best for the people. If that means ensuring that the worlds biggest companies don't break the law at the expense of the competition or the public then so be it. I mean, you could argue against anti-monopoly laws. This is the same sort of thing. Extraordinarily large companies with appalling track records of abusing their control of a market should be watched very carefully. You don't see Red Hat or Sun threatened with these sorts of sanctions. There is a reason.

Re:too far

[Bagheera]

I think you've missed the main point, and confused several others. This isn't about the Government butting into the development of a private company's product. This is about about the Government enforcing legal judgments on a company that was (here's the important part) convicted of breaking the law several times.

If it was just the government butting into a random developer to force them to do things Big Brother's way, you'd be closer. But it's not. It's a convicted monopolist who got busted for it, but still managed to stay in business more or less intact.

While I appreciate the Libertarian view on big government, this is more about law enforcement than big brother.

Cheers,
Bagheera

Re:too far

[Thelasko]

I am personally all for fines. A standard dollar amount won't do it. It should be a "special tax." If a corporation is found guilty of wrongdoing it should pay higher taxes for x number of years. If a corporation is found guilty of mass murder, it should pay a 100% tax for the rest of the life of the company. Basically, a corporate death sentence.

Re:too far

[maxume]

It's what Netscape was worried about...

Re:too far

[MBC1977]

"I am personally all for fines. A standard dollar amount won't do it. It should be a "special tax." If a corporation is found guilty of wrongdoing it should pay higher taxes for x number of years. If a corporation is found guilty of mass murder, it should pay a 100% tax for the rest of the life of the company. Basically, a corporate death sentence."

And who would pay the salaries and benefits of the workers (i.e. programmers, human resources, janitors, etc.) at this company? What you state borders on absurdity.

Re:too far

[ConceptJunkie]

What about the perspective of the government making sure that a convicted monopolist (that faced only trivial penalties) doesn't continue to use their tremendous influence illicitly. That's not government intrusion, that's law enforcement. There's a huge difference.

Re:too far

[drsmithy]

Before we weep too much over Windows and their government overlords we should mourn all the good startups that were crushed by unfair competition from MS. Of course Netscape comes to mind but it isn't the only one.

And by "crushed" in this example you mean "squarely beaten by a better product after completely and utterly dropping the ball", right ?

Re:too far

[Thelasko]

And who would pay the salaries and benefits of the workers (i.e. programmers, human resources, janitors, etc.) at this company? What you state borders on absurdity. Corporate taxes are taken after expenses are paid. All of those salaries you mention are expenses and therefore, not subject to taxation. It's all disclosed in an income statement. Wikipedia doesn't do a very good job of explaining it. Off the top of my head:

revenue-expenses-interest+interest-depreciation-taxes=Net income

Following that equation, you will see that taxes are taken out last. They are basically a percentage of the profit, not the income. By taking 100% taxes from the company, they will be able to pay everyone they owe money to, except share holders. It will encourage share holders to take responsibility for what they invest in, for fear of losing their investment.

Re:too far

[RiotingPacifist]

No Netscape were worried about Microsoft threatening PC distributors to not ship Netscape and instead ship IE. and *drum roll* that's exactly what MS did.

Re:too far

[RiotingPacifist]

yeah it had nothing to do with MS hastling distributors. nothing at all to do with that right...

Re:too far

[RiotingPacifist]

I suspect the change of administrations didn't help. The DOJ probably had a good plan to bitchslap MS into line, but when the republicans got in, they were told to do the least amount of damage to a major corporation possible.

Re:too far

[RiotingPacifist]

There are ways around your plan. Private equity for example is a good way to make lots of money and not pay any tax at all.
take out huge loan
by microsoft
move debt to microsoft
microsoft pay no tax instead they pay a bank back for 5-10 years
once they pay the bank back sell microsoft and youve just earned a huge loan over 5-10 years
and they the new owners could do the same.

tax as a punishment simply wont work

Re:too far

[CAIMLAS]

MS is not only a convicted monopolist, which carries the weight of such decisions, but they got off pretty lightly given their offenses.

Also, MS is a governmental sub-contractor, and a military one at that. This is a pretty marginal oversight for such a company.

Re:too far

[gbjbaanb]

At this point, if a company tried to ship a consumer operating system without a web browser, they would be laughed out of the computer business.

But back then, what was this thing called the 'browser' you talk of?

Nowadays things are different, MS killed the nascent browser marketplace to install their own. Imagine how different things would be if there was serious competition for a browser that didn't start 2 years ago with the release of Firefox. Recall how we were stuck with IE6 for so long without change? Remember how quickly IE7 was rushed out? What if that rush had happened way back in 1996 and not 2006.

Re:too far

[maxume]

I still don't see how it is unfair to call IE3,4,5,6 'features' of the OS, it isn't as if Microsoft charged a lot of money for them (I don't remember if they charged for the Unix versions).

Re:too far

[drsmithy]

yeah it had nothing to do with MS hastling distributors. nothing at all to do with that right...

Nowhere near as much as it had to do with the unmitigated sucktitude of Navigator 4.

Re:too far

[Darundal]

The fact that Microsoft provided no way to REMOVE the browser from the OS was part of the issue as well. They then claimed that there was no way to remove IE from the Operating System and have it still function. Then, someone was brought into court who proved them showed a copy of Windows 98 without IE (although whether you think his methods and the end result count or not as what it claims to be is a different discussion altogether).

Re:too far

[gbjbaanb]

its not unfair to our modern eye, but back then there was no browser. Then Netscape made one and started selling it. MS suddenly decided they wanted this internet thing for themselves, so they produced IE and gave it away with the OS. Note: not part of the OS back then, no integration at all, that came later with IE4.

So, they crushed the other companies chance of success by giving away something, that they developed with money from other parts of MS. They didn't play fair, they abused their market dominance to ensure people stopped buying Netscape.

Think of it like this - take something you like, coffee? Now imagine Coca-cola (or a.n.other seriously successful company) decides to capture the coffee market, they produce something similar and give it away for free, paid for by Coke sales. Pretty soon nobody buys coffee, the coffee shops and importers give up and go trade something else. You're still happy, right?

Re:too far

[maxume]

You are essentially saying that a leading company with a large market share should not be allowed to add features to their product.

A better analogy would be an upstart Cola maker coming out with a new drink that had some new stimulant in it that was better than caffeine (but somehow un-patentable) and saying that Coke is not allowed to use that stimulant in any of their products because it would make it too hard for the upstart to gain business.

I get the argument that the selection of browsers might be better, or have more whizbang features, I just don't buy the argument that a new company has more of a 'right' to the new market than an entrenched player.

Re:too far

[gbjbaanb]

Its not what they did, but how they did it. If they hadn't entered a new market by subsidising their product like this there wouldn't have been a problem. If they had sold IE separately, no issue. They sell plenty of other software that isn't bundled, why would IE be so different all of a sudden? Remember - there was no integration back then, it was not an embedded part of the OS and wouldn't be for ages.

Your analogy is not valid - Coke has its secret recipe that no-one else is allowed to use, everyone has their patents and copyrights. This is not about that, its about destroying a market so you become the only player.

Re:too far

[maxume]

If they had destroyed the market, there would be no Opera. You need to argue that they harmed the market.

Re:too far

[Tim C]

yeah it had nothing to do with MS hastling distributors

You're right, it didn't. Netscape 4 wiped the floor with IE 3, was on a par feature-wise with IE 4 (but a lot less stable) and was utterly outclassed by IE5.

I rant about this on here a lot, but MS did not kill Netscape, Netscape killed Netscape. Bundling IE with Windows may have killed it eventually, but it killed itself long before that happened. Netscape 4 was a slow, buggy, crash-prone piece of crap, and I speak as someone who has never and will never use IE as their primary browser. I used Netscape 4 right up until around M13 of Mozilla.

Quite apart from that, throwing the existing source away and starting again for Netscape 5 was what finally did it - no new releases in the time MS got IE 4 and 5 (and 6?) out the door, and you wonder why it died?

MS hassling distributors may well be holding Firefox back, but it certainly did not kill Netscape. It didn't get the chance to.

Re:too far

[Thelasko]

Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I do have some issues with your plan:
1) The loan would have to be larger than the companies assets (in a well run company anyway).
2)The private equity firm would have controlling interest in the company.
3)With the Equity swap comes a risk swap. The company would be in constant danger of defaulting on that kind of debt. If the company goes bankrupt, the loan gets paid before the stock. Basically, they are SOL one way or the other.

I think in most circumstances, it's still a corporate death sentence. Any financier would have to be high to back it. Either way, the investors in said company are out their investment.

Don't hold your breath

[Toe, The]

Windows 7 is "scheduled" for maybe something like sometime in 2010, but they're not making any promises. And if you look at the slated "features" It also looks like they're not sure what they have going on there. Updated versions of Paint and WordPad? Is that really what they're going for?

Instead of "Windows 7" the real code name is "Maybe we can come up with something you will want to buy, unlike Vista...?" However, unfortunately, they really have no idea how to accomplish that.

Oh, and just to be a snob... by comparison, OS X 10.5 looks like it will be adding real features and actually be released in about one year from now.

(I know, -3 Troll/Flamebait... But it was too fun not to post.)

Re:Don't hold your breath

[value_added]

Windows 7 is "scheduled" for maybe something like sometime in 2010, but they're not making any promises ... Instead of "Windows 7" the real code name is "Maybe we can come up with something you will want to buy, unlike Vista...?"

Personally, I think a code name of "Not Sure" would be more concise, and if the uptake of Vista is any indication, more appropriate given the typical user.

Not Sure, now with ... electrolytes!

Then again, maybe I have it backwards. Vista is the one with electrolytes, and Not Sure will be redesigned to use toilet water.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[mhall119]

Updated versions of Paint and WordPad? Is that really what they're going for? Maybe that's all they could accomplish on a short, 3 year, release cycle. It's not like you can turn out significant improvements every 6 months you know.

Re:Don't hold your breath

[Nightspirit]

Vista gets a lot of flak, but all it really needs is to be faster and a little more stable (the OS for more is more stable than XP, but for some reason firefox 3 keeps crashing). Both of which are not selling features to the general public, they generally won't upgrade unless something is more shiny or has "500 new features".

Re:Don't hold your breath

[RiotingPacifist]

OFC 500 new features have to be new now, because if a competitor offers that 'feature' as a product on windows, its called anti-competitive. TBH there isnt much money left in the OS market, apple can get away with what they do because of thier small market share means competitors can go to windows instead, but essentially all thier doing is developing core aplications and libraries.

TBH because of microsofts market dominance they cant really add aplications that other people already offer. Without the ability to add new aplications to thier offering theyre basically just maintaining a kernel, a window manager and the core apps they offered in xp. And whens the last time a non-geek got really excited by a kernel upgrade, adding shine to the WM will just draw critism because its slower and more bloated and who cares about paint or notepad.

Perhaps the best thing they could do would be to build some framework for 3rd party apps to use on windows, say they start offering all aplications an API to a world map & a personal information manager, but then theyd be hurting microsoft earth and outlook.

How about....

[ArIck]

they check for illegal cooperation between a OS powerhouse (Microsoft) and a music/movies powerhouse (RIAA/MPAA)

Re:How about....

[HerculesMO]

Too convenient.

They all take money from the same coffers -- would not serve the greater good. Greater good, being themselves.

Yes, I am a conspiracy theorist at small levels. Just too easy to see all this information out there and think otherwise. I swear though -- no tin foil hats.

Re:How about....

[Kamineko]

Oh yeah! Good point!

Wouldn't want 'em missing that out.

Re:How about....

[plasmacutter]

The MAFIAA is one of the DOJ's Golden boys.

The DOJ is even further in bed with these organizations than Hatch, Leahy, or Feinstein ever could be on their best days.

Hell, check out my sig.

The biggest, most disgusting abuses of monopoly power present in vista are in the service of the MAFIAA, so I compare this development to appointing a rapist to oversee a child molester.

Re:Reviews

[Darkness404]

Don't worry.... Windows has never added in any GNU code... That is why it is so slow and crashes all the time.

Yet, somehow...

[Zekasu]

I truly doubt that this will stop another repeat of the many viruses that plagued Windows in the past from happening.

It might, speaking tentatively, stop, or perhaps better yet, slow, the spread of giant botnets.

Even if everything was to be square and safe, viruses rendered immune from spreading via the net, you'd still have some other crazy way of viruses spreading, like throw hardware or, oh, I don't know... iPods?

Re:Yet, somehow...

[rob1980]

I truly doubt that this will stop another repeat of the many viruses that plagued Windows in the past from happening.

That's ok, because that's not the intent of the committee anyway. They're just checking to make sure Microsoft is abiding by the 2001 DOJ settlement.

Re:Yet, somehow...

[Gyga]

iPods are hard to share between computers without mucking around with their programming. Anyone who can mess with an iPod's programming can run a virus scanner. Thus iPods probably won't be used by virus writers anytime soon. I am more concerned with regular usb drives and a return to infected files being used to spread crap. Of course tricking users into downloading hot-xxx-porno.wmv.exe will always be popular.

Government? In MY computer?

[WolverineOfLove]

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

Re:Government? In MY computer?

[RiotingPacifist]

what like linux (because the NSA never made any commits to the kernel!)

Re:Government? In MY computer?

[jez9999]

"Men who isn't coherent must be illiterate" - Me.

Re:Government? In MY computer?

[thewebdude]

As postulated in Cory Doctorow's latest "Little Brother" :

http://paranoidlinux.org/

Paranoid Linux is an operating system that assumes that its operator is under assault from the government (it was intended for use by Chinese and Syrian dissidents), and it does everything it can to keep your communications and documents a secret. It even throws up a bunch of "chaff" communications that are supposed to disguise the fact that you're doing anything covert. So while you're receiving a political message one character at a time, ParanoidLinux is pretending to surf the Web and fill in questionnaires and flirt in chat-rooms. Meanwhile, one in every five hundred characters you receive is your real message, a needle buried in a huge haystack. ~Cory Doctorow (Little Brother, 2008)

When those words were written, ParanoidLinux was just a fiction. It is our goal to make this a reality. The project officially started on May 14th, and has been growing ever since. We welcome your ideas, contributions, designs, or code. You can find us on freenode's irc server in the #paranoidlinux channel. Hope to see you there!

DOJ will ensure a backdoor

[Explodo]

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.

Re:DOJ will ensure a backdoor

[iamsolidsnk]

Perhaps, but the simple workaround would be a hardware router / firewall, preferably one that runs linux like Linksys WRT series.

wtf people, not enough tinfoil?

[spleen_blender]

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...

Re:wtf people, not enough tinfoil?

[Strudelkugel]

Given that Google is has the same trajectory Microsoft did in the 90s, Google will one day face the DoJ. Note that the DoJ has is revisiting Intel's practices as well.

Those who think the DoJ action against Microsoft was a good thing will get to consider what happens when the DoJ tells Google how to manage its business. What is on a computer is one thing, how someone uses it online is probably much more interesting, at least if you like to wear a foil hat. The OS you are using will not matter.

Re:wtf people, not enough tinfoil?

[RiotingPacifist]

have the DOJ gone after IBM (the IT powerhouse of the 80s)?
Because last time i checked you had to do something illegal before they could sue your ass. What illegal practices are you accusing google of?

Re:wtf people, not enough tinfoil?

[Strudelkugel]

have the DOJ gone after IBM (the IT powerhouse of the 80s)? Because last time i checked you had to do something illegal before they could sue your ass.

Not true at all

Anyone, or any legal entity such as a corporation can be sued at any time for any reason. I am not accusing Google of doing anything more than gaining predominant market share, like Intel, for example, and getting sued for it.

As for the utility of antitrust suits, here's an interesting view.

After I saw an NT beta at COMDEX in the 90s, I speculated that Microsoft would be sued for antitrust by the end of the decade. I thought NT would be successful enough to get the competitors bent out of shape, and sure enough, that is what happened. Don't forget how much Unix cost back then. A low cost 32 bit OS was a disaster for Unix vendors. The huge mistake Microsoft made was to not settle with the DoJ.

Google is not likely to make the same mistake, but ultimately it will come down to which competitors or other interests have better lobbyists than Google, and how politically popular it will be to sue them. On that score, Google is more vulnerable, since they are doing so much tracking of what might be considered personal information. <tinfoilhat>Now imagine there is a future Nixonian US president, one who decides that forcing Google to give up some personal information might be very useful. That would be a good to time for that president to tell his or her AG to threaten Google. The "plumbers" will think: "it got us inside Microsoft, right?</tinfoilhat>

History repeats itself...

[StandardDeviant]

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.

Re:History repeats itself...

[Anonymous Coward]

M$ has only themselves to blame for being in the position you posit.

They still aren't in compliance with documentation

[b4dc0d3r]

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.

Fistfights? Nope.

[Nick Driver]

the staredown between the DOJ geeks and the MS geeks as they both fight for superiority. Think there'll be fistfights in the breakroom?

Nope, because the DOJ geeks will have badges, guns, pepper spray and tasers.

Re:Fistfights? Nope.

[drodal]

the staredown between the DOJ geeks and the MS geeks as they both fight for superiority. Think there'll be fistfights in the breakroom?

Nope, because the DOJ geeks will have badges, guns, pepper spray and tasers.

and the MS guys "don't need no stinkin' badges"....

Re:Fistfights? Nope.

[MBGMorden]

Nope, because the DOJ geeks will have badges, guns, pepper spray and tasers. But the MS guys will be packing office chairs . . .

Re:Fistfights? Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't BSOD me bro!

Re:Fistfights? Nope.

[snoyberg]

Don't worry, all those products will be running Windows Mobile, so it'll be a fair fight.

Re:Fistfights? Nope.

[MikeBabcock]

But the MS geeks can erase their social insurance data :-)

Re:Fistfights? Nope.

[steelfood]

Reference: Planet of the Apes.

Re:Fistfights? Nope.

[rootooftheworld]

fuck office chairs, do you reallize how much an old KEYBOARD weighs, let alone a hole PC. Besides, Stallman must have some inheritance from
his uncle hitler (think big bertha)

New Win7 Slogan

[copponex]

"We don't pay attention to users." -Gates

No, we're serious.

[mollog]

Perhaps you haven't been following the Microsoft/DoJ saga. Microsoft has gained its dominance on the desktop by spiking its competitors software via the API. The gummint is just trying to be the police that makes sure that the API is fully open and available to developers just as it would be for Microsoft's internal developers.

Where have you been?

Because the DOJ knows that

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want a back door for spying coded right, code it yourself!

Re:Because the DOJ knows that

[Antifuse]

Exactly! This is the first thing that came to mind when I read this story - "Hrmm, government oversight in the development of the most used operating system in the world. Illegal wiretapping is now legal... Keyloggers, anybody?" Makes me ever more anxious for a copy of Cory Doctorow's ParanoidLinux.

Is it just me?

[zappepcs]

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.

Re:Is it just me?

[comm2k]

Yeah because in case of F/OSS they just couldn't download the latest version of $APP via SVN/CVS/GIT/whatever if they wanted to.

Re:Is it just me?

[thebdj]

This looks to be a very interesting situation. MS being watched closely while Apple and F/OSS is not. One is a monopoly while the others are not. I think that is fairly ample reasoning right there.

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? Would you like to re-write that in English maybe? Features like what you describe are not the issue that has gotten MS in trouble in the past. It is bundling of things like Internet Explorer and Media Player in such a way they act as "integral" parts of the OS that were not easily removed or replaced by third-party applications, thus using their monopoly in the desktop PC market to stretch into other areas.

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? They've already blamed users for software issues in the past. I somehow doubt they are above blaming the government for any problems that may or may not come up.

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. And in that same vein, why would US Government facilities use any operating system with known back doors. Let's put some thought into this. There are thousands (if not millions) of government issues machines running Windows operating systems. Now, do you think the government would risk a back door becoming known in such a way that it would compromise every last one of those systems? Or do you honestly believe that Microsoft would push out a total secret build just for government users. Even if they did, don't you think such a build would be readily available through your favorite Torrent Tracker website. I think a fairly well-known quote sums it up quite well, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

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? You already know nothing. You know nothing about your politicians or government. I think you may be crossing that line between "HaHa Funny" paranoid and "Batshit Crazy" paranoid.

I just don't see this as being good for the industry as a whole. A bad precedent, or so it looks. So it is better to let an abusive monopoly run amok and be totally unchecked. This isn't about secret government backdoors and spying on citizens. Those types of deals are not run out in front of the press for all too see. If the goal was to introduce these things it would be done quietly without anyone knowing it and a bare minimum of developers knowing either. The key to any good secret is having as few people knowing about it as possible. I mean hell, at some point it is no longer a secret when everyone knows, right?

Re:Is it just me?

[tokul]

MS being watched closely while Apple and F/OSS is not.

"As part of its Information Assurance mission, the National Security Agency has long been involved with the computer security research community in investigating a wide range of computer security topics including operating system security."

http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/

Re:Is it just me?

[magus_melchior]

I'll see your tinfoil hat and raise you a Faraday cage...

Note that Microsoft was spared a break-up by not just an overzealous judge, but also a very corporation-friendly administration coming into office and remaking the DoJ in its unitary executive image. That's probably why the initial 'punishment' from the Bush DoJ was effectively a nerf bat on the wrist. That, and MSFT got a nice tax cut as well.

What concerns me is that this corporate friend is now examining the new product from Microsoft. Why do I get the feeling that there's going to be much quid pro quo exchanged in the next few weeks? I mean, surely 8 years is enough time to ensure a few of the technical committee being bought or intimidated*?

"Sure, you can make GPL software an absolutely royal pain to install on international builds. The EU? Eh, the users will move heaven and earth to get the US version. I do get the corner office after January next year, right?"

DRM annoyances

[sucker_muts]

This makes me think:

When will regular users notice that they are being denied of access with certain software or hardware? I know very well what the consequences of DRM are at the moment, but it seems that regular users don't know, care or notice the badness of DRM.

The sooner people start noticing they are being held back, the more they might want to use open alternatives. :-)

Re:Death Knell

[TheRealMindChild]

Just wait until the first backdoor-so-that-the-govt-can-fight-terrorism is found... "doom" doesn't even begin to explain fallout.

Re:Death Knell

[UtterCoward]

I predict doom, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Slashdotter predicts death of Microsoft. Details at 11.

Re:Death Knell

[scipiodog]

Actually, I would say that as soon as the government gets involved it's guaranteed to be a worse O/S.

Serious, all those MS-haters out there should rejoice - this couldn't be better news for them.

Re:Death Knell

[rolfwind]

I see Ubuntu as overtaking Windows slowly. It's a long time coming but the momentum just seems to be on their side. When the OS is given away free, the development and evolution of the product is really, really fast and everybody is up-to-date vs. Windows Model of just security updates for X amount of years and then an upgrade that only a portion of the users get that may or may not be well recieved.

Vista really showed the flaws in the old, monolithic process of Microsoft's. I hope Windows 7 will be better, but MS often overhyped future products to forestall any decisions by the purchaser in favor of a competitor.

What are you talking about?

[argent]

What does government oversight of Windows 7 have to do with making viruses harder to spread?

Not nearly far enough

[mollog]

Perhaps you tuned in late. Or, perhaps you just were not paying attention. Maybe you shouldn't be commenting about things that you have no clue about.

Microsoft came to dominance by sabotaging the API so that its competitors did not have a good API to use, and its internal divisions for Excel and Word had a secret API that worked well. This is monopolistic behavior.

Part of the judgement agreed to by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is that Microsoft will open its API to all.

Re:Not nearly far enough

[jeiler]

Maybe you shouldn't be commenting about things that you have no clue about.

Well, there goes Slashdot's whole purpose for existence.

Re:Not nearly far enough

[The_Quinn]

Microsoft came to dominance by sabotaging the API It doesn't really matter what APIs exist or don't exist - so long as a business can achieve a better bottom line by using Microsoft software (which people can and do debate), then Microsoft will continue to be successful.

A business does not have an obligation to support competitors. In fact, you want to beat your competitors and win in the marketplace.

Re:Not nearly far enough

[drsmithy]

Microsoft came to dominance by sabotaging the API so that its competitors did not have a good API to use, and its internal divisions for Excel and Word had a secret API that worked well. This is monopolistic behavior.

So you're suggesting no-one except Microsoft was able to write fully functional Windows applications ?

Re:Not nearly far enough

[ckaminski]

Am I dyslexic? I thought it was Kotar-Kelly?

Re:Not nearly far enough

[RiotingPacifist]

Microsoft came to dominance by sabotaging the API so that its competitors did not have a good API to use, and its internal divisions for Excel and Word had a secret API that worked well. This is monopolistic behavior.

So you're suggesting no-one except Microsoft was able to write fully functional Windows applications ?

Yes.

Re:Not nearly far enough

[drsmithy]

Yes.

So you would subsequently argue that no-one makes better Windows applications than Microsoft, because it's impossible ?

Re:Not nearly far enough

[RiotingPacifist]

Nope, just that they can not use the full functionality of windows, they can ofc find ways around this limitation

Re:Not nearly far enough

[PhotoGuy]

So you're suggesting no-one except Microsoft was able to write fully functional Windows applications ?

Yes, I would agree with his sentiment. When Win2K was gaining popularity, I worked for a company that provided a suite of consistent system maintenance tools for a number of platforms. It was my job to do the Win2K implementation. One of our products needed to list all processes (ps-like). There was no API to do it. But MS programs could do so. I had to reverse engineer some processor interrupt that their PS command was doing, to see how it got a list of running processes.

That was one small example. I experienced about a dozen similar situations. There are undoubtedly hundreds, if not thousands, of similar problems for developers of larger Windows applications.

(Microsoft Exchange Server is another interesting case I came across in a recent company I started. It's completely designed around being able to get mail *into* it in every way possible; but to extract or read email out of it, in any sane standard format, is damn near impossible; or at least a herculean effort, where it should be trivial.)

For anyone who is down in the trenches, Microsoft API's just reek of anticompetitive behaviour, start to finish... And when they get their hands slapped, they come up with the minimal required documentation, for a massive fee. Governments just seem to roll over left and right for MS; I guess they know the right folks to pay off...

Re:Not nearly far enough

[PhotoGuy]

EnumProcess didn't exist (well, it likely did, but wasn't documented) at that time... (In fact, I probably *was* using it, in raw INT form, that I reverse engineered from MS's PS.EXE use of it.)

A lot of MS API's that they use themselves are *eventually* documented, but that lag time gives them a competitive advantage on the app-building side.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Microsoft chose regulation.

[argent]

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?

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[lubricated]

Power. They want it and don't want to share. The shareholders didn't fight, they couldn't even if they wanted to. All the VP's and CXO's would have had half the position they had previously.

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[$1uck]

Its funny the only thing I see saving Microsoft from its downward spiral is splitting into separat companies. You mention "competing companies" I fail to see how any of the companies spawned from MS break up would be competing though. You would end up with an OS provider, office tools provider, developer tools provider and and entertainment company. I suppose the office tools and developer tools companies could offer competing solutions in a roundabout way.

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[BlackSnake112]

Most likely since it microsoft was broken up, certain parts would have died off. Those parts were pet projects of top people and they didn't want them to go away. What would you break microsoft into? I would split them into: OS division, browser division, programming tools (Visual studio, C++, etc.) division, office suite division, games division, hardware division. I think one is missing. Main point is, which one(s) would be hurting without the others?

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I fail to see how any of the companies spawned from MS break up would be competing though. You would end up with an OS provider, office tools provider, developer tools provider and and entertainment company.

Why? There is no reason the copyrights and patents that go into Windows can't be given to two different companies, both of which could create competing OS's from the Windows code base. That would, in fact, probably be the ideal solution, with both companies forbidden from any non-public communications or exclusive deals.

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[The_Quinn]

In other words: "Resistance is futile."

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[argent]

I fail to see how any of the companies spawned from MS break up would be competing though.

Well, the Windows group is competing with the Embedded group, and managed to scuttle a bunch of WinCE-based devices in favor of NT-based ones that couldn't be made cheaply enough to compete.

The Excel group were still a bit of a rogue division in 2000, trying to make the best product instead of trying to best support the Windows-Office codependant monopoly.

Windows Service for UNIX is in direct competition with Win32 and .NET, and of course .NET and Win32 are competing with each other.

Split them up and the bits that have been muzzled lest they step on the monopoly's toes would have a chance at actually competing. Maybe not directly competing with each other, but no longer avoiding the appearance of becoming part of that competition.

Otherwise, well, remember DEC? Used to have some great products, but they refused to get serious about the personal computer market for fear of losing mini and mainframe sales, so their personal products were overpriced and underpowered. Where are they now?

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[CAIMLAS]

I imagine that, within a short few years, the only companies remaining there would be the operating system and office companies - and those with diminished market share.

The entertainment company might survive, if it's able to start turning a profit. But right now, my understanding is that most of MS's endeavors are feeding off the financial success of Windows and Office corporate/OEM sales, still.

The development tools provider would, likely fail, I think. They reason their tools have been as successful as they have been (vs., say, competing tools) is that support is integral to the OS, providing a large market share. With a split, I think such inter-working approaches would be unprofitable.

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[gbjbaanb]

The developer tools are very good, however would they be profitable enough to continue? Quality costs often enough, and if they end up sacking half their engineers leaving enough to make C#-only tools, they'd probably go the way of Borland.

If they kept all their engineers, would the costs be too great to support all the variations they currently support?

I'd also say the Server division (if its not part of Office) would fail, nobody really cares about BizTalk server, Sharepoint, and so on. IIS would disappear quickly once people started having to pay for it, the only one left would be Exchange.

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[CAIMLAS]

Well, it's more complex than even that, as the division of the company into autonomous components would be very difficult.

What, exactly, composes an operating system? In my mind, any functional division would require the development tools - C# and VB.NET at least - to be kept with the OS company. However, this does not apply to ASP.

Now, something like IIS is not part of the operating system; would the "Networking" company get the ASP.NET Visual Studio? And, how would the Windows product line be devided up, as "Windows Server" is now a distinctly different product from Microsoft Vista (in terms of both marketing and functionality)? (And, would there be anything put in place to prevent the different Windows product lines from competing against each other? That could be interesting!)

And would IE belong alongside the Networking company, or the OS company (as that was one of the original reasons for MS being declared a monopoly in the first place)?

Any such move would obviously be disruptive, and undoubtedly change the way that the software industry works. Exactly how to carve up MS's existing products into different companies would greatly impact the success of said companies, to be certain.

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[R2.0]

Did you even read what you wrote? With MS split up, they couldn't "collectively" do anything. Part of the split would be the fact that their management would have to separate into 2 groups and not interconnect. at all. So Bill Gates could have stayed with the OS side, or the Apps side, but not both.

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[magus_melchior]

"Collectively", as in "sum of wealth", not "working collaboratively". Sometimes it helps not to read between the lines.

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[gbjbaanb]

I'm not so sure - dev tools should not be part of the OS. I'm sure MS execs would argue against that, but then, I reckon they'd argue that IIS is an integral part of Windows Server too :)

The tools division being separate makes sense, then we might start to see Visual Studio competing directly with Eclipse and producing code for other OS targets - eg Linux and Mac. that would be a good thing. I'm sure the .net framework would have to move with the tools division too, otherwise it'd be so horribly crippled, .net would die and they'd only be practically able to produce native code compilers. (or, ironically, Java IDEs and compilers :) )

Probably the easiest way to carve them up would be to do it to MS's own internal divisions. The ones that currently get reported on their accounts (they realigned to the 3 they'd like to be)

Microsoft Platform Products and Services Division;
Microsoft Business Division;
Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division

Re:Microsoft chose regulation.

[argent]

With MS split up, they couldn't "collectively" do anything.

Are you familiar with the concept of a public stock company?

Bill Gates could have stayed with the OS side, or the Apps side, but not both.

And right now he's with neither side.

You know, I can't really summon up a lot of worry about the idea that the richest man in the world might have retired a few years earlier. My heart fair bleeds for the boor bastard, it does.

Dear Mr. Mukasey:

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Dear Mr. Mukasey:

Linux kernel in Windows 7 please.

Thanks.

At last! Microsoft seeks help!

[G3ckoG33k]

"DOJ To Oversee Windows 7 Development" At last! Microsoft seeks help! Hope they can improve things in Redmond. The operating systems have not been so great from that place. However, I am really surprised that DOJ would have that expertise. It doesn't sound like that kind of institution. (BTW, what is the emoticon for deadpan?)

Re:At last! Microsoft seeks help!

[filesiteguy]

I'm working right now with the California Attorney General (similar to the DOJ) on my part of the implementation of a software project for property recording (http://ag.ca.gov/erds1/).

Unfortunately, the entire focus for them is not how to get teh software implemented but how to avoid fraud. Though that should be a component, I feel it overshadows the actual implementation.

Just my $.02...

Re:Death Knell

[bsDaemon]

I'm not predicting the death of Microsoft. They have other products, which are quite good. It is just Vista is allegedly a nightmare (don't use it, haven't used it, don't need it) and Windows 7 is shaping up to be a sterotypical govt boondoggle -- the Vietnam/Iraq of operating systems.

The deal with Novell, aiding the Linux port of Silverlight and also, if not helping, at least not opposing Mono, are probably their "back door" escape policy.

If Windows goes down in flames, then they can still push their wares on Linux -- at least on Novell/SuSE.

Of course, with a fully OSS Java coming shortly, that might put a boulder in that path as well.

Microsoft is not going to die, but it will have to significantly remake it self, like IBM or Madonna.

Trust The Government

[filesiteguy]

Oh, good.

I like when the government gets involved in software development.

We get quality products like the California DMV upgrade and the latest IRS sofware upgrades...

Re:Trust The Government

[jd]

And this would be worse than ME, Vista or XP Service Pack 3, how?

Re:Trust The Government

[rootooftheworld]

this is M$ AND the government - they'll figure out how

Re:Death Knell

[nurb432]

I think the NSA admitted making the request for this in the past. No one stood up then.

Enough of this

[MikeRT]

Anyone who remembers that era knows that Microsoft's competitors got into marketplace trouble by sucking even worse than Microsoft. Netscape gave Microsoft the browser market because Communicator was a steaming pile of dog shit compared to IE4 and IE5. Java didn't take off because Sun didn't focus anywhere near enough effort early on into getting a fast interpreter (JIT should have been in version 1.0) and Sun didn't help things by treating Swing like a curiosity for the first few years of its existence. Need I go on?

With Windows Vista, the DOJ should have laid off. It was a total debacle for Microsoft and signaled that they are in decline. If there is anyone who merits a look for anti-competitive, restrictive behavior it's Apple. I say this as someone who still happens to enjoy a nearly 100% Apple ecosystem in his house (iPod, MacBook Pro, AppleTV...)

Great

[halcyon1234]

So we're going to get some DoJ PHB looking over the coder's shoulders, saying "Hrm, y'know, I really liked that paper clip thing. I turned him into a doggie and kept him jumping around all day long. He ever wrote all my memos for me. I-- I mean the DoJ-- really mandates that he be put back."

Re:Reviews

[snoyberg]

If a Linux coder had access to the Win7 code, I can imagine some IP lawsuits aimed at Linux along the lines of "Your developer had access to our code and included it in the kernel. Therefore, we own the kernel now. Which lines? Well, we can't tell you that, it would violate our IP." SCO anyone?

Let me guess...

[ZarathustraDK]

MS is gonna put a positive spin on it with some kind of fancy "DoJ-approved" sticker to go with your new laptop.

Re:Let me guess...

[UnknowingFool]

No, remember this is MS. It would either be "DoJ Capable" or "DoJ Premium Ready"

Cue the embedded NSA spyware fearmongering

[octaene]

If there was ever any doubt that the NSA has the ability to monitor all our communications, this should squash the last hangers-on... I, for one, welcome our new NSA overlords.

Re:Cue the embedded NSA spyware fearmongering

[Atriqus]

"Cue?" Screw that noise, cue was years ago. I'm already sporting a tin-foil hat, running at them with a pitch-fork, torch, and an unfounded sense of outrage!

That is why we call it a 'settlement'

[TimothyDavis]

Many /. users seem to be confused about what Microsoft was found guilty of. Again, it is not illegal to be a monopoly; it is illegal to use the leverage of being a monopoly to stay a monopoly.

Microsoft used tactics to very much hurt other businesses - and as such are being 'rehabilitated'. This might actually be a good thing for Microsoft, as the company will know where they stand when building a product and shipping a product. If two years after Win7 ships a company cries foul play, Microsoft can point back to this committee.

In general, I do agree that the government should stay out of the way of business.

Re:That is why we call it a 'settlement'

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Again, it is not illegal to be a monopoly; it is illegal to use the leverage of being a monopoly to stay a monopoly.

Actually, most of the actions they were convicted of were leveraging a monopoly to gain unfair advantage in other markets (office suites, Web browsers, server OS's, e-mail clients, media players, etc.).

This might actually be a good thing for Microsoft, as the company will know where they stand when building a product and shipping a product. If two years after Win7 ships a company cries foul play, Microsoft can point back to this committee.

Unless the net administration has any more teeth than the current, this will not make much difference. All the big players have given up on the US courts as hopelessly ineffective. They just go straight to the EU these days.

Maybe, all we can do is hope

[Mick Malkemus]

I'd dump MS like a hot potato if Linux was able to run the programs that are built around it. I've tried to install wine several times without success. Not everyone is a geek, many people like myself, need a more user friendly application before we can use it.

Re:Maybe, all we can do is hope

[mitgib]

yum install wine

There, now you can be a geek too. Heck, I even installed it on my EEE

sudo apt-get install wine

Quis custodient ipsos custodes?

[querist]

Who watches the watchers?

And does anyone really trust the DOJ any more?

Why, Why, WHY!

[FurtiveGlancer]

Why can't they just overlook it instead?

I know I'm not the only one

[erroneus]

When the US government, or more specifically, the executive office has the power to tell US businesses to facilitate spying on US citizens or even citizens abroad, there are several implications that I cannot get beyond.

#1 Employees of companies that are complicit with US Government ESPIONAGE demands are quite likely to be tried, convicted and even executed as spies.
#2 Spying of this sort cannot be expected to be limited to phone calls. Internet and ALL other technologies can be expected to have complied. This would include Microsoft and possibly even Apple.

It's one [wrong] thing when we have government agencies doing their cloak-n-dagger thing under direction of the executive. But it's another when our consumer products and services are made to do the will of our big brother executive.

Homeland Computer Security

[Roger W Moore]

I can just see it now for all us non-US users...
"Please look at the webcam, place your finger on the scanner and make sure your computer has a network connection."
or worse:
I'm sorry but your username has been placed on the 'no-compute' list. Please try again after the current US administration has expired.

Re:Homeland Computer Security

[austin987]

I find it disturbing that parent was modded funny.

Re:Vista sucks becuase of the DOJ

[SirSlud]

Don't you wonder why if Apple decided to sell OSX in retail to run on beige x86 boxes, they'd go out of business? Is it because OSX sucks? Or is it because the consumer chooses windows?

Or maybe a company abused its market dominance.

In some alternate reality, where MS competed rather than monopolized, a lot of folks are running beOS ...

Government oversight..

[Cathoderoytube]

Yes considering how astute government bureaucracies are I'm sure they'll really make a lot of difference

Government: We're having some issues with this 'notepad' program. You can't include it, it's anti-competitive.
Microsoft: Are you crazy?! Nobody uses that for actual word processing!
Government: That may be so, but including a word program with your operating system is unfair to the people who make MSOffice
Microsoft: Oh.. Okay... Well, what if we struck some sort of deal with the 'MSOffice' people as a gesture of good will? Maybe bundle their software with our OS?
Government: Why that sounds like a wonderful idea. I'm sure the MSOffice people would really appreciate such a brotherly gesture.

Re:Reviews

[Miseph]

Hey, if it goes down like SCO, then I'd be all for it.

It was funny the first time around, so I'm sure it would be even funnier the second time around.

Re:Death Knell

[cp.tar]

Vista really showed the flaws in the old, monolithic process of Microsoft's. I hope Windows 7 will be better, but MS often overhyped future products to forestall any decisions by the purchaser in favor of a competitor.

Previously, Microsoft's hype would stop people from buying a competitor's product in favour of whatever Microsoft was promising.
Now the hype prevents people from buying Microsoft's current product. Instead, they decid to tough it out with the old product, because the new one is known to be buggy, and maybe the next one won't suck as much.
At this point, Microsoft's biggest competition is Microsoft. In the worst possible way.

Linux gaining ground is more or less a side-effect, though it doesn't mean it won't become a major one in the future. Maybe Linux will become Microsoft's next biggest competition, but it still isn't today.

Wait and see, that's what we do.

other people remember it differently ..

[rs232]

"Netscape gave Microsoft the browser market because Communicator was a steaming pile of dog shit compared to IE4 and IE5"

"I think we should have to do even more cloning of Netscape .. Clone their client technology early and often (full embrace strategy)"

"In worst case scenario, Netscape will .. explicit sabotaging of any protocol extensions we make"

"Java didn't take off because Sun didn't focus anywhere near enough effort early on into getting a fast interpreter"

"it becomes clear to me that the Java OS will try to conquer the embedded marketplace .. while infesting all other computing devices with it's programming language"

"We also talked about slowing down and coordinating modifications to the Java language - I proposed a "Java Language Council" made up of key tools vendors - MS, Borland, Symantec" .. But Sun don't get invited to the party .. :)

"With Windows Vista, the DOJ should have laid off. It was a total debacle for Microsoft and signaled that they are in decline"

The DOJ never did squat to reign in Microsoft. Vista isn't a problem for Microsoft as they have decided their key strategy is getting control of the Internet, through litigation threats and re-innovating the protocols. Billy boy is always ten steps ahead his partners .. er partners. Is there a differece .. :)

"If there is anyone who merits a look for anti-competitive, restrictive behavior it's Apple"

How many times has Apple been in court as often as Microsoft and for doing the same things.

Re:other people remember it differently ..

[gbjbaanb]

"it becomes clear to me that the Java OS will try to conquer the embedded marketplace lol, its ironic that Java has conquered MS's markets with the version called C#.

does really matter ..

[rs232]

"It doesn't really matter what APIs exist or don't exist - so long as a business can achieve a better bottom line by using Microsoft"

It does indeed matter that Gates sabataged the APIs so as to get a competitivew advantage against the independent software developers. It only doesn't matter if you posess all the ethics of a sewer rat. It's a moot point whether business save money by using MS software. On average one fifth of their revenue.

"A business does not have an obligation to support competitors. In fact, you want to beat your competitors and win in the marketplace"

As is patently obvious the Windows monoculture isn't a market place. The OS functions so as to funnel off revenue from the rest of the economy. In effect any business that uses Windows is a client subsidiary of the MIcrosoft organization. It not as if they wan't to do business with MS, they have no choice.

Re:does really matter ..

[The_Quinn]

Microsoft is only successful because many business are making billions of dollars in wealth by using their software. They are not going to switch just because *you* don't like them.

If Apple, IBM, Sun, HP, or any of the other OS vendors have a value proposition that makes a company more competitive, more wealthy, or some other kind of advantage, then businesses would recognize that and go for it. In fact, if *you* could 'build a better mousetrap', you could be rich by replacing Microsoft. But - you can't.

But you can vote with your dollar, just like every other person who does so.

Government Spyware

[wooferhound]

If the government gets involved with Windows development, there will be so much Spyware and Backdoors, that privacy on a Windows machine would be impossible

Overseeing to ensure backdoor additions?

[lpq]

I'm sure the gov would love to oversee Win7 development -- they want to make sure the necessary back doors are included with no bugs this time.

what do you mean if ..

[rs232]

"If the government gets involved with Windows development"

What do you mean if, I figure the current backdoor is a little better hidden. It would be interesting running Wireshark on a Windows network and seeing where it's sending packets. At least before they make it illegal.

This is a waste of taxpayer money

[raddan]

The Justice Department is so fucked up. Does anyone really think that mandating portions of code will really solve antitrust issues? Sure, like the rest of Windows products, via convenient features, the code steers you toward eventual lock-in. But that wasn't really the issue-- after all, Apple, Sun, IBM, and most software development houses in the 90's all used this same strategy. The issue was that Microsoft was threatening their own customers, OEMs and integrators, if they did not play by Microsoft's rules. THAT was the problem.

Now what we will have is an operating system that was created in some fictitious anti-trust-free-zone, burdened by additional government "oversight" whose cost will be passed along to both taxpayers and Microsoft's customers, because Microsoft still plays like a bully, and the original issues brought up in the antitrust trial were NOT RESOLVED. When Microsoft is forced to play by the same rules as everyone else, that's when customers will finally be able to objectively decide whether they want to go the convenient, locked-in route or the some other way.

a decent OS ..

[rs232]

"please let them at least try to develop a decent OS"

Microsoft was never concerned with making a decent OS, what they were always about was shuffling the APIs and file formats so as to sabatage their partners/competitors. They still haven't even tackled the virus/spam/phishing epidemic. See that's isn't a priority.

one word

[thtrgremlin]

Korea

This was Clinton's doing

[thejuggler]

True, and it was the Clinton era justice department that went after Microsoft. The trial just lasted well into the Bush admini1stration. But do not confuse the Republican In Name Only's (RINO's, Aka Senator John McCain (Rino) Az, Senator Norm Coleman (Rino) MN, Senator Olympia Snowe (Rino) ME and many many others including President G.W. Bush), with conservatives or conservatism.

Re:This was Clinton's doing

[sheldon]

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.

Re:This was Clinton's doing

[Red Flayer]

But do not confuse the Republican In Name Only's (RINO's, Aka Senator John McCain (Rino) Az, Senator Norm Coleman (Rino) MN, Senator Olympia Snowe (Rino) ME and many many others including President G.W. Bush), with conservatives or conservatism.

The Republican Party is run by these people... the party has been taken away from the old conservatives. I think now it's you and others like you who are the RINOs.

The solution is for conservatives to split off and form their own party... but then the devil Democrats would win major elections, so instead you'll toe the party line and vote for McCain. (Note, I'm generalizing -- you specifically may not do so, but the vast majority of conservatives will).

Note the same logic applies to those unhappy with the Democrats.

There's a reason Jefferson, et al, believe the advent of a two-party system was a disaster... and we're living the nightmare.

I just thought it's important to point out that when your party leadership is nolonger conservative, the conservatives are the ones who are RINOs.

Re:This was Clinton's doing

[thejuggler]

Your right that the Republican party leadership has been hijacked, but does not make the rest of the 'non-Republicans'. We intend to take the party back. It will take a few years.

Also, many of use knew President Bush was not a true Conservative, but given the choice of Bush or Gore, we chose Bush. Now many people are claiming that John McCain is a Conservative. The "Conservative Bar" is being lowered by the Republican leadership. Thus by today's standards, President Kennedy was a Conservative. But hey, all the political party's change over the years. There was a time when the Democrat party was not full of Socialists.

Actually I would like to see a binding "None of the Above" ballot option. That way if None of the Above gets the most votes then we get to choose a whole new field of candidates. Yeah I know, it will never happen and we would have to change the Constitution to do it, but it would be interesting.

Cheers, and as I always say "Vote Conservative"
http://www.wilgeno.com

Re:This was Clinton's doing

[jayp00001]

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.

I cannot find anyone that ever thought GW Bush was a conservative let alone the saviour of conservatism. I will however agree that he ran as a conservative, and had the democrats put up anyone other Kerry he'd have been a 1 term president.

Re:This was Clinton's doing

[ivan256]

All Republicans? Do you mean before, or after the smear campaign he ran to win the nomination? Are you under some mistaken impression that Bush ever won a national election for a reason other than the fact that he was less awful (only slightly) than the other guy?

Re:This was Clinton's doing

[sheldon]

I cannot find anyone that ever thought GW Bush was a conservative let alone the saviour of conservatism.

So much enthusiasm back in 2000 and 2004. All the 'W - Still the President!' in your face bumper stickers.

and now so much denial.

Re:This was Clinton's doing

[kesuki]

well, perhaps a republican can explain to me how a 'big government' democrat like bill clinton could shut down the government 3 times, because the congress spent too much in their budgets, while 8 years of dubba have caused a catastrophic rise in the national debt, nearly doubling it.

i realize, dubba is being called a republican in name only, but then where does that put clinton? a democrat in name only? Dinos and rinos oh my.

Re:This was Clinton's doing

[ivan256]

Sorry, I should have said "perceived as less awful"...

Since he signed the prescription drug plan bill, it actually turned out that he was just as terrible as people were afraid Kerry would be.

Re:This was Clinton's doing

[sheldon]

eh? Prescription drug plan was a signature issue of Bush's in the 2000 campaign and it was signed in 2003. I don't see how any of this could have come as some sort of surprise to you. Maybe you just aren't as well informed as you think you are?

Besides the Prescription bill was everything the Republicans could hope for. If the Democratic party had written the bill, it would have ended up costing the Government less money and that is bad.

Does this mean we might all go to jail?

[HighOrbit]

Does this mean we might all go to jail when we get that dialog that the program we are running has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down? Is a fatal error the death penalty?

Re:That joke would be...

[Thelasko]

Doesn't slashdot(sic) have a "whatcouldgowrong" tag? That's "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"

Perhaps more like...

[CheckeredFlag]

Ensure cooperation between a OS powerhouse (Microsoft) and a music/movies powerhouse (RIAA/MPAA)

Monitor

[kaiwai]

This administration couldn't even monitor 15 hijackers; you're saying that these idiots can some how monitor 200million pc's?

Re:Monitor

[rootooftheworld]

15 geniuses v. 200 mil. dumbasses. i think they'll handle it.

"Un-American"

[breem42]

Actually, I'd say that these days, preemptive strikes are _typically_ American.

Sorry... I just get really annoyed when it is stated that something is un-American, and by that it is meant that it is "bad". America and Americans are just as prone to vices and ill will as every other nation on earth. Furthermore, this usage is also a slur against every person who is not American. To people from other nations it sounds ignorant and boorish. It puts your nation in a bad light.

I'm sure to be attacked by people who will point out the arrogant French, the ineffectual/wimpy Canadians, etc. etc.

Bureaucracy in itself IS bad!

[mangu]

The problem with Katrina wasn't Katrina itself, it was the idiots who built levees that allowed a city to exist below the natural water level in a zone where hurricanes happen from time to time.

The problem with MS-Windows is the legislation that allows copyrights for binary executable files. Check the US Constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". Which part of "Writings" they didn't understand? Where is it mentioned the exclusive Right to codes compiled from Writings?

If the US Constitution were fully respected, programmers should have to publish their source code in order to get copyright protection.

Re:Bureaucracy in itself IS bad!

[UnknowingFool]

The problem with Katrina wasn't Katrina itself, it was the idiots who built levees that allowed a city to exist below the natural water level in a zone where hurricanes happen from time to time.

The levees were built over 40 years ago based on the best known estimates at the time. However, over the last 30 years, the Army Core of Engineers has repeatedly warned that they were not adequate and asked for funding to replace the system. Every year, they were told to fix the levees, but when it came time to fund the upgrade, no money was given to them to actually do it.

Re:What is this really about...

[DragonTHC]

the NSA has had access since windows 98.

Re:Death Knell

[Xuranova]

I see 'insert linux distro here' as overtaking Windows slowly.

So now its Ubuntu?

Before wasn't it slackware and before that Redhat? Was SuSe ever part of the cool kids gonna take down Windows club?

Per; the courts - a matter of record

[mollog]

It was shown to the courts, and they ruled it true, that Microsoft had a hidden API that they used for their internal divisions, and a less functional API that they published.

Please. Do your own research.

Re:Per; the courts - a matter of record

[drsmithy]

It was shown to the courts, and they ruled it true, that Microsoft had a hidden API that they used for their internal divisions, and a less functional API that they published.

What functionality was missing ? What things could only Microsoft programs do ?

Please. Do your own research.

I have. I see no evidence that Microsoft's developers use undocumented APIs any differently to third-party developers, nor that they gain any amazing advantages from them.

The idea that Microsoft is this one single entity working together is ludicrous.

Strategy to Fight has been a complete failure

[CCW]

Microsoft could have settled back in 2000, before they were ever a convicted monopolist by agreeing to split the company into two or three parts. I think it was a combination of arrogance and blindness by Gates and the senior leadership.

They knew they could "beat" the DOJ, and this is the result. Completely flat stock price for 7+ years. Senior management distractions. Inability to compete in Internet properties, hamstrung eating their own dogfood.

In my opinion Microsoft + Microsoft Applications + Microsoft Services could have been much bigger and more profitable than it currently is as one entity, since the divisions would have been free to take their independent projects where their customers were best served, rather than what the Microsoft bundling dictated. They probably wouldn't have wasted billions on the Xbox foray either. Vista wouldn't be such a complete mess and wouldn't have taken so long to deliver.

Re:Death Knell

[Ren.Tamek]

Call me a cynic, but I just don't think people would care even if something like this was discovered. Our government can now hold us (yes you or me, anyone, get it through your head voters!) indefinitely without charge or accountability and the population accepts this. Windows, meanwhile, can decide whether or not we are even allowed to use the files on our computer, and what we can do with them. Some schemes actively delete stuff from our hard drives. I would have reached the end of my tether with both the OS and the Government years ago, yet Bush got voted in for a second term, and people are still buying Windows Vista even as they discuss how crap it is in comparison to XP. What is the mystical point at which the common man decides that enough is enough? Surely it's been and gone by now?

Agenda?

[Ren.Tamek]

Well, Windows Vista is insecure, unstable and slow. The Government uses Windows internally, and needs it to be secure, stable and fast (in that order). Apparently, all Microsoft wants it to is force you to upgrade your hardware, which would make a lot of government machines obsolete in about 5 years. Maybe there's an agenda behind keeping an eye on Windows 7 development, who knows.

Re:Death Knell

[RiotingPacifist]

care to prove it? or is your post as stupid as your sig.

Libertarians misuse US Independence

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The libertarian call of "If you disagree with us you disagree with the founding fathers" is not very much different to Bush's "If you disagree with me then you're supporting terrorists". Both are just designed to silence criticism.

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.

Re:Libertarians misuse US Independence

[Tanman]

So what if someone disagrees with you?

Re:Libertarians misuse US Independence

[DamienNightbane]

Heck, they did not even intend "all men are create equal" to apply to blacks and women.

Well maybe if they actually acted equal in the first place, they would be considered equal and treated equally. As it stands today, they want to be more than equal.

Re:Vista sucks becuase of the DOJ

[drsmithy]

Don't you wonder why if Apple decided to sell OSX in retail to run on beige x86 boxes, they'd go out of business? Is it because OSX sucks? Or is it because the consumer chooses windows?

No, it's because Apple makes all their money on hardware. When OS X is available for normal PCs and all those Mac sales dry up, they'll be in trouble (like they were last time they tried it).

In some alternate reality, where MS competed rather than monopolized, a lot of folks are running beOS ...

BeOS would have had a lot more success if it had gotten past the beta stage. You might also want to look into the part Apple played in its demise.

Re:Death Knell

[nurb432]

Due to your attitude and apparent lack of intelligence, i will respectfully decline your request.

Have a nice day, and be sure to drink an extra bud while you watch your fight show on SpikeTV.

Moron.

Re:Death Knell

[gbjbaanb]

Redhat has done very well in the server marketplace. Ubuntu is beginning to do very well in the desktop marketplace (if anecdotal accounts from colleagues who've "downloaded and tried it out" are anything to go by).

If Linux takes off in the mobile marketplace, then the world will have changed by about as much as when IBM or DEC fell from their thrones.

You can officially call this the end of Microsoft

[Monoliath]

This is going to absolutely...destroy Microsoft...who in the world will trust ANY software released by a private company that was SUPERVISED by the government...given the times we live in today?

HAHAHAHA they got what they deserved...as far as I'm concerned. If shitty business ethics and sell-out-man-ship won't rot you from the core...uncle sam looking over your shoulder while you work...definitely will.

Good riddance, to bad rubbish.

Microsoft compared to child molester

[mcneely.mike]

If you knew a child molester who was convicted time after time, wouldn't you want their release to be monitored? Microsoft breaks laws all the time, but we should be saying monitoring them is scary?
GIVE ME A BREAK!
If you repeatedly commit a crime you deserve to be monitored (and chemically if not actually neutered). Just 2 more cents.

Windows 7 Codename.

[muzicman]

They are going to call version 7, Everest Edition... Why you might ask??? Because it is going to be the biggest mountain of bloat ware the world has ever seen.

Settlement expires by 2012 if not earlier

[snowwrestler]

The original settlement defined an expiration date of 5 years post-decision, extendable by an additional 2 years under certain conditions. Subsequent negotiations between DoJ and Microsoft have extended the settlement for those 2 years, and a few parts until at most 2012.

Link

So to summarize: it is like parole. Like parole the "person" being monitored (company in this case) was recently convicted of a crime. And like parole the monitoring has a defined expiration date.

Two Possibilities

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Your right that the Republican party leadership has been hijacked

That statement doesn't make sense. I'm tossing up between two possibilities:

You're right that the Republican party leadership has been hijacked

Likely but boring. Or

Your right to the Republican party leadership has been hijacked

Seditious and fun!

Institutionalized Operating System

[MrKaos]

Despite the fact that Microsoft brought this upon itself it looks like a largley political move under the guise of "anti-trust" compliance, the only problem I have is that the DOJ should be non-political and seperated from government influence. I don't really know who can dictate terms to Microsoft anymore but a decision like this seems to say more about the state of government being largely dictatorial than concerned about avoiding an entrenched monopoly.

All in all it appears to me that the government sees this as one monopoly that it should be controlling, influencing and owning. Design and deployment decisions that affect the products installation into government departments are a small and "not-unreasonable" next step and now that Bill Gates has stepped aside, who is charismatic enough at Microsoft to reason against such a scenario.

A very slippery slop indeed.

Dog and pony

[blueforce]

It could be my gross lack of understanding just what "compliance" means with respect to the DOJ requirements, but I fail to see how this is even a feasible undertaking.

There are a number of large programs and projects that are subject to third-party V&V. But, from my understanding, this isn't anything like a Verification and Validation.

There must be scores of millions of lines of code in Windows proper, from the kernel to the UI. A simple Technical Committee from the DOJ is supposed to pore over the source looking for violatins? That's what TFA seems to imply. Of whom is this technical committee comprised of? Hopefully a highly capable third party. I find it difficult to believe - not impossible - that the DOJ just happens to have the manpower and skillsets in-house to handle such an undertaking.

So, if it's not a complete code analysis, then it must be something less. That implies something more superficial. Are they supposed to simply validate specs to features - a black box test if you will? Or is this going to be a superficial, less-than-effective CTL + F for defaults as TFA seems to imply.

I've worked on a lot of software projects, big and small. I've worked on everything from C to ASP.Net and everything in between from small applications to large enterprise scale systems. I can say anecdotally that the most difficult part is reading and understanding an existing application. Some TC from the DOJ is just going to whisk in with a team of ninja geeks fresh out of Carnegie Mellon and Stanford and Viola' the code is analyzed? Just like that?

I'm just not buying it. The efficacy of this endeavor is completely suspect. It's either a complete waste of my tax dollars, or it's a complete waste of my tax dollars disguised as "to protect and serve."

Re:Vista sucks becuase of the DOJ

[SirSlud]

The first point I know - I find it strange that MS can turn a profit on Windows, but Apple can't.

The second point, I concede. I had forgotten about the Apple clusterfuck but let me phrase it this way. If beOS had made it stable, and they had better business acumen, do you think they would have managed to find themselves able to really offer consumers a choice in the desktop world? Because at the end of the day, it seems that if MS isn't going to let an x86 distributor with any reasonable clout sell another commercial OS on x86, the point is moot. It just seems strange to be, the dynamic between MS and Apple - ok, fine, Apple isn't going to let you ship Apple hardware with your OS on it. Seems reasonable to me. MS can say "Pray I don't alter the deal anymore," to every distributor of x86 on the planet.

What other products in the world have this kind of competitive disparity in the marketplace? Why is a country that is so about the entrepreneur and competition so quick to denounce the demise of new commercial oses as simply pure incompetence. And hell, despite the fact that Apple may have wrongly squashed beOS (or beOS deserved it for doing the wrong thing, take your pick) .. what other product has such a market vacuum that tons of people would come together and build an alternative for free and make it an actual player in that market?

The whole situation just smells to me. Frankly, I don't have much sympathy for MS (or Apple, should they ever come under the gun) if they employed monopolistic practices.

Re:Death Knell

[DamienNightbane]

I for one welcome our new Linux overlords.

Re:They still aren't in compliance with documentat

[Victor Speranza]

Instead of just making a documented API, they copy the code into all sorts of different places. And slightly differently I might add

Welcome to software development? Any large project that has many programmers working on it will show the exact same characteristics.

Another reason to switch.

[Zashi]

The government's contribution to linux: selinux.
The government's contribution to windows: bureaucracy.

Hmm... Now I'm all for proprietary and and open source software cohabiting. Some things are better done as proprietary, others as OSS. But does this not seem like all the more reason to use something, in the very least, non-windows?

Re:Vista sucks becuase of the DOJ

[drsmithy]

The first point I know - I find it strange that MS can turn a profit on Windows, but Apple can't.

Because OS X isn't better enough (and lacks the application library) to cause the mass migration that would be necessary for Apple to have sufficient volume.

There is also the rather significant point that Apple simply isn't interested in being a player in that market. Whether or not they could make the transition is completely nullified by the fact they don't want to (in particular, Steve Jobs has zero interest in the "commoner's market" of Windows).

If beOS had made it stable, and they had better business acumen, do you think they would have managed to find themselves able to really offer consumers a choice in the desktop world?

If I could make those sort of predictions with any meaningful accuracy, I'd be laid back on a beach somewhere with a cocktail, not posting on Slashdot.

Seriously. There are *way* too many "what if" possibilities there to even consider trying to make a comment.

What other products in the world have this kind of competitive disparity in the marketplace?

Photoshop ? (I have no idea of Photoshop's marketshare, I'm just throwing out a name I know to be basically synonymous with a certain part of the market).

Why is a country that is so about the entrepreneur and competition so quick to denounce the demise of new commercial oses as simply pure incompetence.

Because, thus far, it's basically been true. The last time there was a serious alternative to Windows on generic x86 was OS/2, and that was largely killed by a combination of incompetence, bad business and lack of interest on behalf of IBM. BeOS, for all the good press it gets here (and a certain amount of technological impressiveness) was nowhere near as mature or marketable as OS/2 was, back when OS/2 was an option.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.....

[ivan256]

Adjust the chart for inflation, and zoom out a couple decades and see what it tells you.

GWB is a poor example for Republican fiscal policy. He neither believes in, nor abides by it.

Re:Continued Failure to Comply.

[jwilcox154]

Grok law has a nice write up about how M$ continues to fail its five year compliance duties.

Looking at the source rather than going by your obviously biased Journal, Microsoft is striving to meet the goals of the demands. Unfortunately, some of the documentation has gone AWOL. As a result they are having to make their best guess. Microsoft is now documenting their code so they can be more compliant with the EU and the DOJ. BTW, Internet Explorer is more standards compliant and it is no longer tied into the rest of the operating system.

The market remains a stagnant monopoly where significantly better products struggle to gain traction.

A stagnant monopoly? I could have sworn PC manufacturers are including Ubuntu as an option and Firefox was gaining market share.

A better punishment would be for government to quit purchasing things from Microsoft and fine them the costs of transition.

Judging by your posts, the only way you would be satisfied is if Microsoft and every other software company went out of business.

Re:Death Knell

[Spy der Mann]

"doom" doesn't even begin to explain fallout. Quake perhaps? How about Halo III? Ah, I know! LEROY JENKINS!!!