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EU Antitrust Troubles Continue For Microsoft
Julie188 writes "Opera Software's year-old antitrust complaint against Microsoft took another step toward being vindicated, and the Oslo-based browser maker can't help crowing over the European Commission's decision. Opera had filed a complaint with the EC in December, 2007, contending that Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows violated antitrust rules. Yesterday, the EC sent a 'Statement of Objections (SO)' to Microsoft with a preliminary finding that bundling IE with Windows does indeed constitute an antitrust abuse. Microsoft has eight weeks to plead its case and change the EC's mind, an unlikely outcome if ever there was one. Opera's CEO said, 'On behalf of all Internet users, we commend the Commission for taking the next step towards restoring competition in a market that Microsoft has strangled for more than a decade.'"
That only telling people the full terms of use after they can no longer return the product is also a pretty underhanded means of doing business?
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Its hard to deny that MS has gotten where is has through quality or good practices. I hope the EU does what we should have, and slaps them hard on behalf of all the consumers and competitors they have swindled.
FTP? Welcome to 1993 if that's the case. They install a lot of other crap with 80% of users choose not to use - iTunes vs Media player for mp3's is a good example.
...how it is that the courts in America ruled that Microsoft was ok to keep bundling IE with Windows, while Microsoft's hopes in the EU when faced with the same issue is basically nil? (by the way, this question is half sarcastic, half totally honest)
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
In all likelihood, Microsoft would not actually remove IE, they would just create a registry key that enabled or disabled the web browser functionality. Such a key might already exist, put in place just in case the US government demanded that they remove IE from Windows.
Palm trees and 8
They might be able to get away with obeying the court's decision (provided that is there decision...there's still time for Microsoft to bribe them like they did at ISO for OOXML) for every release of Windows from 7 onward. I somewhat doubt - unless the EU is really that hellbent on punishing Microsoft for all its evil deeds - that the order would be retroactive for all previous versions of the operating system.
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
How is the average computer illiterate going to download a browser if Microsoft is not allowed to bundle one? Buy a disc?
It's simple. Include a CD with 20 web browser installers on it. That will be simple enough for anyone to figure out.
IIRC the way Windows XP N was in Europe was that the user was presented with a choice of several non Microsoft media players at first run.
Nobody actually bought N (well, no OEMs, I'm sure a few people did out of principle). My guess is Microsoft tries to offer that as a combined product/SKU with the "no media player" editions and, failing that, it'll get it's own SKU.
The European Commission were the ones that actually got them to make "Windows N" without media player. And in that case I think MS could have actually left a few core "system-ish" files and still have met their requirements.
This time let's see a version of Windows that doesn't have MSHTML.DLL, SHDOCVW.DLL, or even WININET.DLL. Then perhaps developer finally will stop embedding IE or calling these files bypassing users choice of browser... Or perhaps not. Did Windows N actually ship to stores or get preloaded anywhere?
Well, I guess I will just have to stick with Windows NT 3.51 and Windows 95 if I want that sort of thing. :P (BTW, Mozilla SeaMonkey 1.1.14 works great on these!)
Nah, they wouldn't have to go that far. I'm sure the nice folks at Opera(and Mozilla as well) would be happy to settle for having Opera and Firefox preinstalled along with IE on a default Windows install, and then letting the user decide which one they wanted. Then they wouldn't have to rip IE out and Opera couldn't claim an unfair advantage, since their browser was right there on the desktop besides IE. Shouldn't be hard to add Opera to the disc image either.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I think that microsoft should make it a one or two click affair to try out different browsers, different programs like open office for trying.
at least i think this would a reasonable solution to the anti-trust
(except my fantasy of microsoft getting sliced into little pieces :D )
They tried that defense (intimately tied to the OS) at the original antitrust trials and an expert was able to remove IE back then in less than an hour.
The FACT that Microsoft has made IE more indespensable to windows, not less, pretty much is giving the Justice Department a big middle finger. No Linux distro I know of nor OS X fundamentally needs it's OS to do updates or anything like that. It's just BS on MS's part.
I hope they get shafted by the EU, since I feel shafted everytime MS forces me to use IE for one of their piddly little tasks.
Microsoft is pretty much a de facto monopoly.
If GM owned 95% of the auto market and somehow used their monopoly position to, say, put a proprietary, patented gas tank in their car that could only be filled at gas stations owned by GM, that would be a much more valid comparison.
How about a non-browser dependent package manager? Someone, please introduce Bill Gates to 2009!
Of course I still prefer buying a nice shiny CD from the Mozilla Store. (Buy one! Better yet, buy a dozen!)
Linux doesn't come with a browser. It gives you the option to aquire one, but doesn't have to come with one. (emerge -vat firefox works great btw)
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
wget?
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Opera have always been suffering under the delusion that customers would be lining up to buy their desktop product if only Microsoft wasn't "strangling the market". This is such bullshit. Since day 1 everyone has been saying that Opera are on crack. Web browsers are expected to be free. Sure, maybe some people would like to pay for a web browser.. I mean, people pay for bottled water too.
Every time Opera talks to the press I get the feeling that they would like nothing better than to force Microsoft and Mozilla to charge $99 so they can go back to doing the same.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Microsoft uses IE for a great many things keeping security within windows.
Besides the fact that you can simply just get firefox and use the IE emulator for anything IE required. I rarely use IE unless it's required and even then it's only 1 click emulation start. Not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Aren't other browsers already bundled into new PC's anyways? I'm quite content with free browsers out there. I can't see myself ever paying for one in the future. Opera makes a halfway decent browser for mobile phones, but I don't surf enough sites that require it to pay for it so I use IE instead.
Removing IE breaks a lot of functionality in XP, so I doubt they can simply have bundled and unbundled product lines
As other posts pointed out, it's not clear if that's even true. If it is, they can always remove the the browser application, while leaving the browser components in.
But there might be another option. Instead of removing IE, they could bundle other browsers, or an installer that will get other browsers, into the default windows install.
What IE emulator are you talking about? Surely not IE Tab?
Why does everyone think you need a browser to download something. It's not like HTTP is a protocol made for downloading files.How about FTP, p2p, or an add/remove programs that actually adds programs.
It doesn't have to be hard. I cannot believe so many people on slashdot actually think you need a browser to download a file. A lot of times a browser uses FTP anyway to download something. Now I will agree that most people have become accustomed to having a browser pre-installed. I'll even agree that it can be useful. But it absolutely is not necessary for downloading.
Dear poor brainwashed windows users, in the free world there is something called Package Managers These wonderful tools makes managing all your software downloads and updates for your computer a very pleasant experience.
OEM preinstalls.
No Linux distro I know of nor OS X fundamentally needs it's BROWSER to do updates or anything like that. Fixed that.
If IE was as basic as Sound Editor, MS Paint, or Movie Maker you might have a point. But as it is a full featured browser your analogy isn't accurate. Microsoft has not poured billions into any of the programs you mention. Nor have they updated any of them significantly in a decade. If they updated Paint the way they do IE, Photoshop would get trampled. Ditto for the other two you mention. However perhaps the solution lies there. Strip IE down to a bare bones browser with minimal functionality like the programs you mention.
"Windows would require massive retrofitting to make IE that replacable"
Which really says a lot about how far they have gone to maintain their dominance since the Win9X days when IE could still be exorcised by programs like 98lite.
While they might just have to hide IE for the short term, I think in the long term they should be forced to correct Windows and IE to make IE a properly uninstallable program. It is how it should have been from day one.
Sure many third party apps that made the poor decision to embed IE will break too and will need to be fixed, but that just needs to happen. It's not like this is the first time either MS removed a library or bundled app that someone else depends on.
But Mac OS and Linux distros aren't de facto monopolies in the operating system market. If Mac OS came on 95% of computers and Safari was on the machines out of the box, I think the EU would pursue the issue too. It's about using one monopoly/near monopoly position to further another one.
If Microsoft held less than half of the market, I don't think MS would have been the target of the EU for this
Okay, smartass. Most (read: the ones people usually care about) distributions of Linux come with a browser. There. Fixed it for you.
Apple has their own browser (which you can remove, IIRC, but their non-monopoly marketshare protects them from prosecution in any case)
Linux folks in general have at least some appreciation of open source software, to the point that some won't even use Firefox (opting instead for Iceweasel, Konqueror, or Ubuntu's 'abrowser'). What hope does a completely closed-source browser have of thriving in such a community?
Oo, oo! I know! When Microsoft goes away?
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Fine. So Canonical, Red Hat, Novell, and the Debian Project are bundling browsers. No-one is saying OEMs shouldn't be able to do the same. The point is that the Linux Foundation isn't the one bundling. Also, the distributions don't tightly integrate Firefox into the rest of the system (in fact, Debian uses Epiphany by default). Removing it is a simple apt-get or yum.
Back in my day, Sonny, we wrote our browsers in Assembler from scratch with the hex panel on the front of the machine!
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Close... I think a fair expansion on this example is to assume GM also allowed you to replace the gas tank for free in any gas station ever, and that their gas tank was included as a service rather than their cars being sold without a tank and consumers left to their own devices to drive the car tankless to someplace to get one...
Microsoft certainly pushes IE and other products on consumers but this lawsuit is ridiculous, the wide range of windows software makes a package manager silly [and, if implemented would only result in worse favoritism concerning whose software made the cut] and forcing your grandmother to figure out how to FTP Firefox via the command line before she can check her email is just silly.
I hate M$ as much as the next guy, but seriously Opera, don't be unreasonable, FF hasn't had any trouble breaking into the browser market, maybe you're just doing something wrong?
From a ruling in 2001, they are certainly a monopoly, and have abused that status.
Link.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Really? Here's a question for whatever 80 year old, possibly Amish, European dumbass thought that one up. If Windows doesn't come with a web browser, how do you get one? You just go download firefox...ohhhhh wait, you can't go download it because there's no browser. You don't see audio editors going out of business just because Sound Editor has been included with Windows for like 15 years. And I don't think Adobe is very worried about Photoshop getting trampled by MS Paint. There's a reason CNN doesn't just use Windows Movie Maker for their field editing too. This is just idiotic.
Yes but it is when you have another browser installed you can't remove it and it pops up every now and then in different programs!
e.g
all the windows live products
windows update
and MS Outlook (It uses the engine)
null
I would think the argument that Microsoft swindles its customers is foolish. There is stuff that Ubuntu does that I think Microsoft is remiss in not doing, certainly. Ubuntu's out of the box DVD burning and ISO viewing capabilities are certainly better than what Windows offers, but, to say that Linux is better is silly. To say that Microsoft rips its customers off, is just ignorant.
Really, the only real weak link in the Microsoft stack is actually IE. But IE was better than everyone else for almost 7 years, and, the only reason its lagging is arguably because Google is writing 50M checks a year to Mozilla and is also probably spending as much on Chrome. Similarly, Apache enjoys its success against IIS because Apache is well funded by the consortium of ISPs that use it.
Beyond that, there are some noticable gaps between Linux and Windows.
Right now, my Vista desktop is in a lot of ways far more polished and more attractive than the Linux desktop is. The Windows 95 desktop of Start Bar and multiview folders is a design that has proven so successful that even Apple's dockbar is closer to it than the original Mac Finder (it's even at the bottom now!), and of course, that 9x bar is ripped off completely by KDE and Gnome, but with "other stuff". Sure KDE 4.x struggles along with its search in the start bar trick, but it works swimmingly well on my Vista right now.
Internally, a brief scan of Vista shows an operating system where Linux lacks and in some rather strong ways. Right off the wheel, Windows desktop tends to get the balance of thread priorities between services and user interface right. There is no answer to WAML on Linux. There is no answer to DirectX 10.
Everyone rips the Windows SDK but it has fonts native to the drawing API. Honestly, not having fonts with X might be hyped as a good architectural support but honestly its a copout because X lets you draw everything else. But if anything vindicates Microsoft's GDI model it is that Remote Desktop is proven and solid and excellent with Windows, and Linux doesn't even really use X's remoting capabilities for its remote desktop. So there, you have a Linux operating system that robbed its gui developers of something as basic as fonts in order to achieve a network transparency that you don't even use for your own remote desktops, eschewing a simpler bitmaps based api instead. How foolish is that!
No Linux widget set has the flexibility of the the much maligned USER and COMMON CONTROL widget library that bundles with Windows. The File Open dialogs in Linux are weak compared to Windows XP and offer simply no comparison to that in Windows Vista. ListViews in GTK are ok but they don't have the report view that was added for XP and they certainly don't have all the other fancy stuff that came out with Vista, and finally, yes, even the dated Windows MENU objects are going to be joined by the swank new Office 2007 menu bars. That's right, Office 2007 menus are going to be NATIVE TO WINDOWS 7. Please, desktop Linux? Desktop Windows is simply better, and not just better, but amazingly better and in a lot of ways.
The desktops for Linux are not as universally extensible as those for Windows and largely that's a function of Linux being unable to agree on a single object model whereas COM is now well entrenched, well understood, and at least for inprocess objects, works rather well. Where's IDispatch for Linux?
If we go back up to the desktop, we can have a look at Windows control panel and just perhaps enumerate a few quick things still missing or incomplete in Ubuntu. Accessibility. Speech. Color Profiles.
Then of course we look at system snapshots that Windows let you roll back system versions if you want to.
I'm still waiting for a Linux development product with an integrated forms editor, the same way that has been out since VB and then Visual C++, since, well, 1993, besides Java. KDevelop can't do it. Linux development in some ways is stuck in a world that Microsoft left almost 20 years ago,
This is my sig.
I personally look forward to when TV's are no longer sold with remotes. Only when we stop the unfair bundling of remotes with TV's will consumers be forced to no longer accept "good enough" remotes when far better remotes are available for purchase.
Personally, I find the whole IE bundling witch hunt paternalistic. Let Opera, or whoever, advertise their products in the marketplace, and get people to buy them. Firefox did that full-page ad and that did far more to increase its market exposure and usage than all of the thousands upon thousands of dollars wasted on anti-trust litigation.
My point exactly - bundling isn't a necessity. And, because of lack of bundling, we have choices. apt-get install lynx (or yum install or rpm -hiv or emerge) is just as simple, removal is simple, and, wait, we can chose a default browser rather then being given one!
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
"Do you really want developers all installing versions of the browser core all over the OS with their applications?"
It would make more sense to me if they simply didn't require a web browser application.
If an application really did require a web browser, however, then it can ask for a browser application to be installed in a central location where the app and other apps can make use of any libraries. Doesn't seem silly to me.
In the old days there were plenty of application that would tell me "This program requires Internet Explorer to be installed". After MS started bundling it, developers seemed to get lazier and just assumed it was installed and/or that I would want to install it.
in your eloquence you seem to forget something very obvious. simply create a shortcut in the start menu that starts a little program that 1) asks the user waht s/he wants, 2) downloads over ftp/bittorrent/whatever and 3) installs the browser of choice.
it's a matter of attitude. you will only find a solution for a problem if you want the problem solved. if you don't want it solved, then you won't put in the effort that is often neccessary.
I absolutely cannot stand IE as it is today, and so, I'm typing this post using Google Chrome on Windows Vista.
How does Opera even make an anti-trust argument when FireFox is gobbling up IE market share? For an increasing percentage of Windows users, IE is the thing you use to download some other browser.
From a consumer perspective, that a Linux distribution comes with Firefox is not really any different than a Windows distribution coming with IE. In both cases, I can go and get and use the browser that I want to use. Really, in that sense, Opera's problem is not so much Microsoft as it is Google. FireFox and Chrome are both better than Opera is too, and that's really what Opera's problem is.
This is my sig.
So Microsoft did make a 'N' series of Vista (Ultimate N, Business N, Home Premium N, Home Basic N etc.) for EU, basically that's have the Windows Media Player and all the WMV/WMA functionalities removed. (i.e. Sound Recorder can't save in WMA)
But I doubt if it's cheaper than non-N version. (Could some people in EU tell me?)
If EU is going to be decided as antitrust, Microsoft will just make the N not to include the browser. Who is going to lose?
How about OS X and Linux? Can they ship browser binary bits on the disc?
I think bundling their FTP client is seriously hampering the market for FTP clients. Please remove it!!!
"If Windows doesn't come with a web browser, how do you get one?"
This is asked and answered in several places, but there are a variety of easy ways this can or could be done.
* First, OEMs would pre-install their choice of web browser(s) for you.
* Get a CD-ROM with the software from your vendor (Firefox and IE are available on CD
* Windows could get with this century and add a friendly non-browser based package manager.
* A simple auto-downloader (double-click an icon and it grabs the file).
* Other, optional, file sharing applications - could be P2P or even just a friendly GUI FTP program.
* Start with IE installed, download another browser, then uninstall IE (if IE were truly optional you could do this).
Notepad wasn't limiting web progress last time I checked.
Quick way to get 30% Funny 70% Troll: defend Opera browser on
"How is the average computer illiterate going to download a browser if Microsoft is not allowed to bundle one? Buy a disc?"
:)
Sure! Do you want 3.5", 5.25" or 8"?
How about Hatred of the most non-standard complaint yet highly used browser? Or should I say enforced?
Quick way to get 30% Funny 70% Troll: defend Opera browser on
ftp.opera.com
No, I don't expect the common user to know what ftp even is, let alone know how to interface with it outside of IE.
Look at how Windows 7 handles its extrenuous programs. It asks the user if you want to download and install Windows Mail and whatnot during setup.
It would be very easy for them to do the same thing with web browsers. "Click here if you want to install Internet Explorer, or any of the other browsers on the (generously inclusive) list below."
In fact is a wonderful idea. You buy a remote made by a third party. All tv makers will follow a standard communication protocol for sending commands for TV's, DVD players, you'll have true universal remotes IR or radio. If the protocol is bidirectional you can even integrate it in your own domotica system (my dream).
Microsoft doesn't ship windows with antivirus, arguably a critical component (windows is exploited frequently AND MS recommends AV strongly). I don't see how this is /that/ different to be honest. Not really arguing one side or another here, just saying that both a browser and whatever is necessary to make the OS secure should be included with the initial install.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
They'll start shipping MSVPC with an Ubuntu image on it, that has FF installed on it. There's just no other way to do it fairly.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
It's hard to include software in a package manager when you need specific permission from EVERY package AND you have to charge for most of them.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Removing IE breaks a lot of functionality in XP, so I doubt they can simply have bundled and unbundled product lines like they do with WMP.
That's what they want you to believe.
Microsoft uses IE for a great many things keeping security within windows.
Ah yes Windows the last bastion of computer security! They should can could remove IE.
It is very dangerous when rulings like this come about. Who is to define when bundling of one product with another constitutes antitrust violation? When Apple "bundles" Safari with Mac OS X, is that antitrust? When you install Ubuntu and Firefox is "bundled" with it, is that antitrust? When you install a text editor and syntax highlighting files for a bunch of languages are "bundled" with it, is that antitrust? What about Solitaire? Can that be bundled? Why the emphasis on the browser? Because Opera feels it inconvenient that Windows already comes with a browser?
Let me tell you something. I found out about Opera when it was in version 3. Back then, you could use it for 30 days (if you didn't use it during a day, it didn't count against your 30 days), and if you liked it, you had to pay. Shareware. Their marketing message at the time was something along the lines that, we're so sure you'll like the speed of our browser, here are the links to download Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Try and compare. And they were absolutely right. Their browser was faster in every respect, leaner, smaller, tighter. When you clicked a file to download it, it immediately began to download, while you were selecting the destination. Contrast that with IE and Netscape of the time, which waited until you took half an hour to navigate to where you wanted the file before they even started. Page rendering was faster. The interface was uncluttered, simple, quick, easy to use. It was a wonderful product. I continued upgrading through versions 4, 5, 6, and 7. At some point in there, it stopped being shareware and became free software. And at some point, I stopped using it and moved on to Firefox. The reason was simple. The browser grew and began to include all kinds of bells and whistles. The interface became cluttered. Too much junk in my opinion. I am sure that some people like that, but for me, the very reason to use Opera was that it was the opposite of these other bloated browsers. It became IMHO what I was trying to get away from. Don't get me wrong. In the 5 or 6 or 7 years that I used Opera, it was a lifesaver. It was a joy to use, much, much, much better than the alternative (which at some point between the demise of Netscape and the first release of Firefox, was only IE or very crippled browsers). I just think they should have concentrated on having the tiniest yet fully featured browser, lightning fast, low memory usage, etc. So they could keep linking to the IE download page, because they could be so sure and correct that their browser kicks the pants off the competition. Unfortunately they chose the legal route, which is always a bad thing.
Back to Microsoft. If due to some court case, Microsoft is not allowed to bundle anything together, then soon nobody will be allowed to bundle anything together. This will be horrible! Besides, if you buy computer with Windows OS and there is no browser bundled with it, how in the hell are you supposed to download a different browser? 99.9% of computer users will NOT know how to download a browser without first having one with which to download one. In fact, even if you were going to compile wget from sources, you'd still need a browser to get the sources and the compiler. This is an example of courts, companies, lawyers, who have no clue about computers (and think the monitor is the computer) just trying to play the lawsuit lottery against Microsoft. Face it. They no longer have a monopoly. Apple is nearly at 10% of the market. Linux has some share. The *BSDs have some share. People DO have a choice now. If they don't buy an Apple (which is dead simple to use and doesn't cost more than a comparable "PC" machine), and if they don't want to learn Linux (or won't or can't) then it is their choice to use Windows. And there is no monopoly in the browser area either. With IE, Konquerer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, shit the list goes on and on. What monopoly? This is not antitrust. This is bullshit. Sorry. I LOVE Opera. Opera 3 especially. It has come a long way since then, many improvements, but the fact is that when all was darkness around and Opera shone some light on the Internet by making it actually bearable to use rather than the horror that was IE or Netscape, but I am no fan of this lawsuit.
For example, with OSX, Linux etc. you can install (e.g.) Opera without having to use the bundled browser at all.
Although you have to be command-line-happy to do it on the Mac.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
because microsoft has a monopoly. next question.
The EU is simply socialist.
Perhaps, from a US perspective at least, but it certainly doesn't have anything to do with this..
Now can you please define socialism to set this poor socialist Swede straight?
Because it is impossible to get access to another computer. So much so that we should support their monopoly no matter how damaging it is to computing.
Perhaps not, but I bet they use TCP/IP stacks and such that are built into the OS, and I bet the user interface is displayed using GUI libraries that are supplied as standard. Desktop operating systems didn't always come with TCP/IP stacks and GUI libraries, and people used to sell products that supported such features as add-ons.
It's funny how easy it is to pick a single example of something in a context where you don't like it, and then paint a very black and white picture of its merits. The reality is rarely so simple. I wonder how all the Linux geeks here would feel if several popular distros converged to leave one dominant player that most people used because it came with everything they could possibly want, and then a minor player sued and the main distro was forced to unbundle everything from the Linux kernel and GNU tools.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Shouldn't be hard to add Opera to the disc image either.
Yeah, until all the other browsers in existence start complaining. I want Konqueror on that image as well!
I don't see why Microsoft should be required to provide a copy of Opera or any other third party software with a Windows release. What would need to happen is that when you buy a computer in the shop then yes, you would probably get a browser but that would be provided by the OEM or the shop.
If you choose to wipe your OS and install a Microsoft Windows operating system then you would get no browser or perhaps something extremely basic that you could use to download something better (Notepad is basic, MS Paint is basic, ..). Your next move is to install a Browser of your choice, just like you currently install a Photo Editing suite, or a CAD suite or a Database suite. Of. Your. Choice.
I would further hope that if Microsoft [as an abusive monopolist] were found to be providing any incentive for businesses to install their browser (or music player, word processor) by default that they would get a massive bitch slap.
I saw it commented further down that "Linux comes with a browser" but thats wrong. Linux is just the kernel, it is the distribution that comes with a browser. This is possible because the licence provided by the linux kernel and the other software included in such distributions is permissive. If Microsoft allowed people to make distributions containing a custom version of Windows, then I don't see any problem with such persons providing such distributions containing third party software. Microsoft don't allow that though and that is their problem.
How about a non-browser dependent package manager? Someone, please introduce Bill Gates to 2009!
Would that be the same 2009 where hosting everything from e-mail clients to word processors in browsers, making far more advanced use of scripting and plug-in systems than anyone dreamed of a few years ago, is one of the dominant trends in the software industry?
But I guess code re-use sucks and we should go back to the days of reinventing the wheel with every new application. Yep, software was much better back then.
Remind me again, do any common Linux distros have used the same front-end to support browsing both local filesystems and the web?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Include a CD with 20 web browser installers on it. That will be simple enough for anyone to figure out.
Except for the fact that the overwhelming majority of PC users never install their own operating system and software, that's a really compelling argument.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
and they come with browsers too...
Which can be uninstalled.
And OJ isn't a murderer.
The OEM will install one for them or they can get burnt to a disk or on a USB stick, ftp or maybe by just thinking happy thoughts.
And, if you think that your super TCP/IP stack is better than the native kernel version, you are free to make your own distro that includes it. If you have a GUI that is way better than X, you are free to make an OS that includes the basic Linux kernel and whatever software you can find that uses your GUI. You can even pay a licence and put commercial software on your distribution and sell it for whatever you want. Cool eh?.
Such a think would not happen, because a minor player can make their own distribution and float it on the marketplace. If a major player is found to be supressing competition unfairly then of course they need to be taken down. If they are just better than you then sucks to be you.
I mean they not only bundle the firfox on default cd, but also OO.org and bunch of others. And no, giving it free does not make them immune. And what about KDE? as a project they don't support anything but integration with konqueror. (well not entirely true, but they still bundle it by default)
BAIN http://www.devslashzero.com
And I have mod points...
People are drastically missing the point here. Nobody's punishing Microsoft because they're Microsoft, and nobody's saying you can't bundle a browser with an OS.
The facts are these:
1. You can't leverage a monopoly in another market.
2. Web browsers and operating systems are separate markets.
3. Microsoft has the monopoly on Operating Systems.
4. Microsoft leverages their Windows monopoly to further their browser market share.
So nobody is saying Microsoft can't bundle a browser - they just have to provide options. Make it so you can choose your browser on install, make it so the OEM can choose a browser to bundle with default installs, whatever. Some sort of choice. You can bundle fifty browsers if you want. Just don't bundle your own and only your own.
As of now the problem isn't that Microsoft is bundling a browser, it's that they're bundling only their browser and offering no options to anybody.
Q: How do you know a liberal has lost an argument? A: They start calling you names
Which would make Rush Limbaugh a liberal. It would in fact make the Bush administration liberal throwing the name terrorist around way too freely.
That would make you a liberal as well as a lot of so called conservatives since anyone that doesn't fully agree with their opinions is a socialist, liberal or pinko.
Q: How do you make a liberal sad? A: Remind them of their carbon footprint
Q: How do you make a liberal angry? A: Tell them a Capitalist is making money off their carbon footprint
The biggest problem with this as a whole is it's just baseless name calling from a racist simpleton.
It ignores the fact I'm a conservative but a real one which believes in actual conservatism and not pandering to the South and their huge population of low-IQ, high religion gullible dimwits, like yourself.
Capitalism isn't about breaking laws and shitting all over everyone. Maybe when you understand capitalism then you can start your own business, make a decent living and stop resorting to being a grumpy little racist tit.
As a web developer, I really and truly hate Microsoft from the bottom of my heart for the steaming pile of incompatibility that is IE.
However, I cannot conceive selling a consumer/business OS without a web browser these days. From the end user perspective, browsing the web is simply a piece of basic functionality. What's more, it would make windows the only consumer grade OS that does not have a browser after installing a graphical environment. OS X has safari. The major desktop environments for *nix have a browser by default (galleon or konqueror) or the distro has added one (firefox in xubuntu, for example). Even damn small has dillo.
Technically, it does not make much sense to yank the browser out. If I understand correctly, Trident draws much of the windows desktop anyway, so it is a small step to wrap a window around it and call it a browser.
No, today the browser is just part of the OS. The Commission's directorate general of anti-competition (DG Comp, for those who hang out at Schuman) missed the boat on this one. They should have been fighting this fight a decade ago. Today is too late.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
The question I have for Obama is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single fat colored mammy sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check?
Far from helping the economy, Microsoft has harmed it. It has reduced competition in the computer industry, which means fewer jobs and higher prices. It has a long history of pushing for H1B visa increases intended to reduce the average wage of skilled tech workers. Why when there are so many people out of work are they STILL pushing H1B visas?
Also, Microsoft is an abnormally profitable company. That comes from somewhere. For every dollar that Microsoft makes in profit, that could have been $0.25 ~~ $0.30 to a normally profitable company. Which means, because of Microsoft's monopoly, we have one business employing fewer people instead of 3 or 4 business of roughly the same size employing 3 or 4 times that number of people.
Microsoft should be broken up by the government as an anti-competitive monopoly.
If you're an OEM, you can just remove whatever the distribution picked for their browser and replace it with Opera. Microsoft doesn't let you remove IE.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Removing IE breaks a lot of functionality in XP,
You're joking, right? Try XPlite, for example:
http://www.litepc.com/
Works as advertised.
Any number of shells exist for replacing windows explorer, too. Most actually have *more* functionality.
Anyway, they don't need to remove it - just deliver XP - or, probably be more relevant to be talking about Vista - with alternative browers installed as well. Opera, Firefox, Chrome.
But then they already have the browser that their oem installed.
(provided that is there decision...there's still time for Microsoft to bribe them like they did at ISO for OOXML).
The ECJ is not some dinky little standards body. The ECJ is a immensely powerful court composed of some of the most powerful people in Europe. Its decisions legally bind entire industries and countries. It is more like the SCOTUS than ISO
I am not saying that the members of the ECJ are incorruptible, just that Microsoft, as rich as they are, have nowhere near the means to corrupt them.
Of course, this is not in the court system yet. Right now it is being handled by the European Commission's Directorate General of Competition, which is kind of like the US Attorney's office in the US. This institution exists purely to find and punish anti-competitive behavior. Its members live under a microscope and its deliberations are a matter of public record. They regularly go after massive European corporations openly supported by member State governments.
Some foreign IT company is not going to have the means to corrupt this body, either.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
Really? Here's a question for whatever 80 year old, possibly Amish, European dumbass thought that one up. If Windows doesn't come with a web browser, how do you get one?
Well-deserved flamebait mod especially since there are a number of simple, consumer friendly solutions, such as:
1/ MS ships a simple gui application which behind the scenes has a config file and uses ftp to download a browser. Any browser supplier for windows can have an ftp link included in the config file if they want. The user just sees a list of browsers and clicks on the one they want which is ftp'ed to their PC and installed. Each browser supplier could include a short description/promotional spiel to be shown before their browser selection is made.
or
2/ OEMs decide which browser or browsers to include.
or
3/ IE is installed but can only be used initially to choose (and download if necessary) a browser
etc. etc.
Ownership, but not regulation, regulation is not part of socialism, that would be a part of the capitalistic system that requires it. This move is regulation of a capitalistic system, doesn't really have much to do with socialism, other than the fact that many socialists generally would be in favor of regulation of capitalistic markets as long as they exist to try to reign in the destructive powers of large corporations.
Socialism is foremost about distribution of wealth and to create a society where everyone has equal opportunity in life, regardless of where they were born or who their parents were.
Dell would likewise be totally retarded and not include a browser along with all the other OEM crap they put on. For fucks sake at least come up with a 21st century argument.
Norway isn't part of the EU. Next please.
You use whatever the OEM provided. 21st century arguments only please. I wonder who's being a dumbass here - the highly intelligent court officers who can see how Microsoft's illegal behaviour has been a real detriment to an important market or the person who thinks that anyone would buy an OEM PC without being able to browse the internet.
Take your head out of your ass and realise that the vast majority of Windows installs are done by OEMS and which OEM would be thick enough not to include an internet browser. How about joining the rest of us in the 21st century.
Apparently XPLite can still strip out IE, Outlook Express and Windows media player.
The seriousness of the above post is not guaranteed.
If you think that by reducing H1B visas that employee wages will increase then you're gravely mistaken.
What is going to happen is that more and more jobs will be outsource to other countries. No problem for me seeming as I work in one of those other countries so will be happy to take the work.
If you need an expert in a certain field and all you have is joe blow half decent php programmer then you need to import people.
The more smart people that the US can convince to come over the better it will be so I don't understand why you'd have a problem with this unless you're complaining because all those smart people are making competition for you.
To amplify this point, on my Mac, even Safari recognizes Firefox as my default browser. No program opens any link in Safari, ever. And sometimes, even Safari opens a link in Firefox (certain addon upgrades).
When I designated Firefox as the default browser, every program in the system respected it immediately. AidumX even replaced the browser icon with Firefox's, so I know right from the toolbar which browser will run if I click it.
No such luck on Windows.
Ignore this signature. By order.
No Linux distro I know of nor OS X fundamentally needs it's BROWSER to do updates or anything like that. Fixed that.
Neither does Windows.
What we have here is people complaining that Windows comes with IE by default. Except that pretty much every other OS/Window Manager does too, but they're ok because they're not dominant.
So what we have is a case whereby if a company becomes the dominant player in OS's specifically, they are expected to strip down their offerings of any bonus/extra software just in case it's seen as squashing the competition.
Oh how I would laugh should this complaint ever be directed at Apple for example. In a parallel universe, where Apple has 95% of the desktop, could you imagine Steve Jobs saying "Yeah no problem, we'll take out iTunes/Safari".
Oh, and who is leading this complaint again? Opera you say? What do they make again?
throw new NoSignatureException();
I think that even if Microsoft didn't install with a browser but after start up allowed you to configure your system to download and install it that OEMs would still just have IE anyway so I really don't see what Opera is trying to get out of this.
And capitalism == a few, privileged (usually with inherited wealth) individuals unfairly using the masses to create massive wealth for themselves while leaving others impoverished.
The one that died the moment most of their catalog consisted of non-DRM'd songs?
Wait, are you saying that Obama should create or save Jobs?
The government can not directly create or destroy private sector jobs, it can, however, enforce the laws and create an environment of competition which, in itself, creates jobs.
've got a great idea. If someone coincided the term 'browser market' and made shares such a big deal, let's also create an RSS reader market and sue MS that it's monopolizing the RSS reader market with IE. I chuckle here when I read that OEM's inclination towards pushing in other browsers with Windows was the fact IE is bundled. Funny. They can smack a tri-color pony from TrU on your shipped background and the only reason they haven't done it is because they've not been paid for. Oh right... someone would bundle Opera out of sheer generosity, yeah. Well, thank god for two things: 1. I haven't used IE the last 4 years except to do some browser-compatibility checks, and I guess there is no monopolized bundled experience with IE. 2. The web standards development is independent of market shares.
Strange this isn't picked up in the Linux Standard Base.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
A major part of Opera's complaint was explicitly the "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" strategy in conjunction with bundling. It seems this argument is now often forgotten in news and discussions.
The problem is more complex than "Oh, don't be anal, what's so terrible about bundling, you gotta have bundling." Can't you remember our discussions? How a monopolist breaking standards hurts us all?
A myth? We can clearly see the effects of this unfair distribution of wealth in the poverty that exists across the world, are you denying this poverty? Is poverty a myth?
Grandmother: "A small one, I only need it for shopping"
Hey look! I made a car analogy :-)
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Oh? Can you specify which countries do not use the capitalistic system? And which capitalistic countries poverty does not exist in?
But there might be another option. Instead of removing IE, they could bundle other browsers, or an installer that will get other browsers, into the default windows install.
...AND make sure that their other products (like Exchange) work as well with the other browsers as they do with IE.
I am not really here right now.
If the EU wants to be consistent, they would have to require Apple to remove iTunes, Safari and iLife from every Mac delivered in Europe. That means you either have to download it or buy the software as a separate cost item.
In the end, I think what EU really wants is to strip down Windows 7 so it has the same functionality as the first release of Windows 95--you have to install the web browser, media player and possibly the fast disk search functionality separately.
It has a long history of pushing for H1B visa increases intended to reduce the average wage of skilled tech workers.
MS pays on the 67th percentile (so top one-third) of companies in it's industry. Seattle is not as expensive as say Silicon Valley/NYC/the bay area, so 67th percentile is pretty decent. Second -- MS has super-rigorous interviewing standards, and fires under-performers quickly. They're not looking for H1Bs to cut costs. To be among the best in the world, you gotta hire from among the best in the world. It's illogical to think that the best programmers in the world are only Americans.
There are many companies that do abuse H1B guidelines to lower payroll costs. MS (Apple/Google/etc.) are not among them. In case you aren't aware, these companies are always on the lookout for talent -- they poach talent from each other all the time. The bidding war on talent is always on.
Why when there are so many people out of work are they STILL pushing H1B visas?
Because people working on J2EE/Ruby/whatever web technology are probably not qualified to work on the next version of Visual Studio/SQL Server/Windows.
Also, Microsoft is an abnormally profitable company. That comes from somewhere. For every dollar that Microsoft makes in profit, that could have been $0.25 ~~ $0.30 to a normally profitable company. Which means, because of Microsoft's monopoly, we have one business employing fewer people instead of 3 or 4 business of roughly the same size employing 3 or 4 times that number of people. Microsoft should be broken up by the government as an anti-competitive monopoly.
You've actually nailed everything that's wrong with antitrust law!
Your suggestion is basically this: MS is really successful. Like, really really successful. If we were to just give a little bit of that success to other companies, many other companies would be successful as well. To achieve this distribution of success, we should break up Microsoft. Basically, you're advocating punishing success!
All of those are capitalistic, some may have a more regulated form of capitalism, but it's still capitalism...
And you didn't mention any capitalistic countries without poverty..
When you first start up Windows 7, it has a little task list for you, like "Get Anti-Virus" and whatnot, in the bottom right corner. They could very easily make a little app that downloads a browser for you, and remind you to "download a browser - click here."
You've actually nailed everything that's wrong with antitrust law!
Your suggestion is basically this: MS is really successful. Like, really really successful. If we were to just give a little bit of that success to other companies, many other companies would be successful as well. To achieve this distribution of success, we should break up Microsoft. Basically, you're advocating punishing success!
That is, of course, the Bill Gates argument. "I'm successful, so let me be successful." Al Capone was successful as well. Standard Oil was successful too.
Microsoft is successful because of its illegal and unethical actions. Its "success" is at the expense of the consumer and the industry. That sort of "success" denies a functioning market place of greater success.
that's better than waiting.
Oh... Qt has been out for a long long time.
MS can not help itself BUT be unethical. It is not just what they know; it is what they are based on. As it is, it is never innovative. It does BUY a lot of innovative companies, or steals the tech from them. Of course, with their true RD program in place, that is going to change. Right now, it is about trying to lock up software ideas with patents, but still...
The best thing that can happen for America (and the world) is that MS stays together and is held in check. EU is about to lower the boom. Most likely Holder will do so as well (though to be honest, Obama is showing that he is more pragmatic than a party hack; very refreshing compared to the last 8 years). If MS is broken up, I think that we will see true innovation come from at least one of the groups assuming that they create multiple companies with each having initial duplicate code.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm a libertarian, when I lose an argument I say: "you're right".
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
No that I'd classify Microsoft as any kind of favorite, but get real already folks.
If Microsoft should disband IE from Windows, then the same should go for Apple with Safari, ASUS with Mozilla on their Eee PC and any other vendor that creates a preference for a browser.
And, for the bigger picture, the same should go for any application distributed with the operating system.
And, lastly, any operating system distributed with a computer should be disbanded and sold separately.
So what about cellphones ? Of course, with the multitude of operating systems for cellphones on the market, the same should apply there.
Etc, etc, etc....
Let's get real for a moment - consumers in general have no longing to build and brew their own PC/cellphone/PDA/whatever.. None at all. They want a solution, and they want it to work.
These anti-competitive lawsuits are starting to borderline on ridiculous. Opera has the same competitive environment on the PC as it has on the Mac and on Linux and FreeBSD. They choose to compete on the market, they know the stakes beforehand, and if their product turns up sour, they shouldn't be allowed to file suit.
This signature is DRM protected. By the DMCA, you are not allowed to counteract or oppose to it.
My father works part-time for the Foreign Office (FCO) here in the UK. Last week, he sent me this email:
"After ordering hundred of computers loaded with Vista, the FCO has done a deal with Microsoft whereby we can buy the following. Excel 2007; Word 2007; Language Settings; Office Accountant; Powerpoint 2007. The price for this package is £17.00, as opposed to a r.r.p. of £172. So a big saving. It seems attractive on the surface: should I go for it? Or won't it add much ? I can only order via my office computer."
I was conflicted: tell him to go for it, or point out that this is Microsoft's way of screwing over the government of the UK and sucking needless taxpayers' cash into the bank accounts of the Microsoft monopoly?
I told him to go for it - but at least I felt guilty about it...
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
For example, with OSX, Linux etc. you can install (e.g.) Opera without having to use the bundled browser at all.
I believe you can do it in Windows as well. Or did they remove the FTP client ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
What about the apple ipod-itunes monopoly?
The EU commission has been investigating whether or not it is a monopoly for some time, despite not having a complaint from any company yet. They're still trying to decide if it is a monopoly, basically if cell phones are valid competitors for playing music (a point being mooted by the iphone and other convergence).
Put aside antitrust law for a minute and then tell me what law MS has broken. If you think it was bundling browsers, pass a law saying "OS makers cannot bundle browsers" and apply it to everyone.
The web browser situation doesn't make much sense to me. Firefox's success is measured in downloads, for instance, not the number of people who call the Mozilla Foundation requesting an installation CD. If I want to install Opera, I need a web browser to get to the Opera website.
I suppose Microsoft could set IE's home page to a Microsoft site describing alternative browsers. Then there are concerns of fairness -- Firefox is listed above Dillo, for instance, oh noes! But that would reduce antitrust concerns.
if microsoft had to unbundle ie how many people would really know where to get their favorite non-ie browser from? most home users don't even know about the ftp protocol and even if they did can you access a search engine by connecting to ftp://google.com? what if you don't know the exact ftp repository? would you prefer these people telnet to the http daemon and send raw commands? and even if microsoft were to bundle 20 other browsers with their operating system what's to stop them at browsers, now we've got anti-trust law-suits against file system types... or we've got 100's of other browser makers suing to get their browser included in windows. microsoft is fighting a loosing battle as king of the hill. if a browser maker wants to bundle their software they can do so with linux, it's not an unfair advantage to bundle software with *gasp* an operating system that requires software to be functional.
They tried that defense (intimately tied to the OS) at the original antitrust trials and an expert was able to remove IE back then in less than an hour.
except even then typing a URL in a folder window brought up the website
juenger1701
Well MS planted the WININET and supported all third party companies including their rivals (Real Networks, AOL) to use it exactly for that reason. You can't really remove IE from Windows unless you code a 100% compatible (not 99.9999%) replacement library which will seamlessly work.
As there are free Virtual machine solutions now, on a full setup Windows machine's virtual disk image, remove the IE and shared libs. You will be surprised how many apps will fail to run including the products of the companies who won in anti-trust case. You can't blame them too, see how easy to embed Webkit and everyone (Adobe,Google) goes with that method today.
If they remove IE what will I use to download Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari so I can then ignore IE? A thumb drive it is then.
I think you misunderstood. By capitalizing Jobs, I think he was referring to Steve Jobs.
"Your suggestion is basically this: MS is really successful. Like, really really successful. If we were to just give a little bit of that success to other companies, many other companies would be successful as well. To achieve this distribution of success, we should break up Microsoft. Basically, you're advocating punishing success!"
Microsoft is not successful because they were selling the best software, or even the second best software. They are successful because of a good business strategy (regardless of the legality of it). Why should we care if that good business strategy is punished? A good business strategy does not improve our society; in fact the effect of Microsoft's monopoly position was to stagnate technological growth, especially in the operating systems, web browser, and office markets (not coincidentally, the three markets where Microsoft was most successful). It is not inherent to monopolies to cause that sort of stagnation, but when a company reaches the dominant position by selling middle or low-tier products, that is generally the effect.
Beyond that, Microsoft also used its success in one market -- operating systems -- to create a dominant position in other markets, killing competing, higher quality products. Why should we be afraid to punish this kind of behavior? The purpose of antitrust laws is not to punish successful companies, but to ensure that success is gained by being the best.
Palm trees and 8
Have you EVER tried to strip IE out of a WinNT based OS? Do you remember how horribly unstable Win95 was when it first came out? How if it went a day without a BSOD it was a miracle? That is what you get when you strip IE out of a WinNT based install. Now I know many of the Linux users HATE MSFT, but come on, I don't care if they are a monopoly or not, having them make a change which will make the OS an unstable mess just to encourage competition? Not the smartest way to go.
Besides let us be honest here: we are talking about Windows here folks. The OS with some of the most clueless computer users on the face of the planet. Ultimately they will probably force MSFT to place Opera and Firefox onto the default install, and you know what? Really won't change a thing. Why? Because the power users and those who know anything about browsers tend to avoid IE like the plague and thus will have a different browser that they use, and the clueless think "Internet=Big Blue E" and will not use anything else. You might add a percent or two one way or the other, but frankly bundling won't help and unbundling IE will send the OS back to the days of Win95 instability. And I don't think even the EU is willing to completely bork every new install of a MSFT OS just to "foster competition". Besides how much competition would you actually get if the users have to go and hunt down IE and install it just to stabilize their OS?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I have an idea. Let's go and sue Linux distributions for bundling free and open source browsers with it, because it wrecks the market for my $40 closed source browser!
Sure, go ahead. Daniel Wallace tried that a couple of years ago, with a very similar argument. He claimed that he wanted to sell his own operating system, and that the GPL amounted to price fixing at zero, and thus Linux was hindering him from selling his own OS.
In short, the court didn't like that argument. He tried to amend his complain several times, but those amended complaints didn't fly either. But if you feel like paying for nothing, go ahead and sue.
I'm expecting from Microsoft to file a complaint versus Apple demanding inclusion of IE on every iPhone and iPod.
the wide range of windows software makes a package manager silly
No it wouldn't. It wouldn't work exactly like on Linux, but certain features of such package management systems would be very welcome in Windows.
One example is updates. Currently, each application comes with its own update agent, making the system load dozens of update agents at system boot. Wouldn't it be better if every application installer added an update repository to a central package management system, and letting that single piece of software keep tabs on all updates? That would be a nice addition to Windows.
>>>I'm a libertarian, when I lose an argument I say: "you're right".
The joy of finding someone who understands ... thanks for making my day. :-)
In B.C., our fascism is green.
> The web browser situation doesn't make much sense to me.
There are a lot of laws that make no sense, but everyone needs to obey them all. Even Microsoft.
How did that get modded flaimbait? It raises a good point. The boundary between vital and optional OS components is not clear cut at all. It's probably changing. So answer the question.
Does having a witty signature really indicate normality?
Are they going to go after Apple for bundling Safari with OSX? How can a vendor even try to sell an OS in this day and age that doesn't come with a web browser?
If Microsoft actually goes along with this, the best they can do is to present users with a choice when they go to "the Internet". In IE7, users are given a choice to select their preferred search provider. It seems like they will have to expand that and make the user choose their preferred web browser. Of course they will make IE the default, and include out dated versions of the others. Or maybe someone at MS will have a sense of humor, and they'll come up with a Googlesque "Feeling Lucky" option. Of course Lynx will have to be available, if for no other reason than the WTF factor.
Put aside antitrust law for a minute and then tell me what law MS has broken
Put murder aside for a second and what law did Jeffrey Dahmer break?
It doesn't work that way. We have laws and we can't have a legitimate discussion without considering them and why they were enacted.
You don't need antitrust law for a free market.
Well, that is why you are wrong. When you have a monopoly, especially one like Microsoft, you don't have a free market.
The absurdity of this is overwhelming. Nobody ever thinks about why Opera is doing this - it isn't because they love "the people" and want to ensure they get a good browser. It's because they really want some more of that money (yes, yes, Opera is free - I understand their revenue model). What a great way to abuse a bloated bureaucracy - if you can't defeat your competitors in the open market, then get government to handicap them for you.
But seriously, how the does EU "law" even work? I'm not even going to insult Hammurabi by calling them "laws." I'm going to henceforth refer to EU ruling as "Lord Fauntleroy's Whims".
So lemme get this straight: They ruled in 2002 that MS had to decouple IE from Windows, and allow users not to have it as the default browser, yadda yadda yadda, all so other browser makers could "compete." And I'm really sure that your average user, when confronted with an OS with *no* browser is really going to go comparison-shopping. No, I'm pretty sure it goes like this: "WTF!? Der Komputer hat keine browser!?! Ich moechte god damned IE!" *downloads IE.*
Anyway, so now, the commission has *further* decided that Microsoft can't even include IE at all, because Opera bitched about it? Seriously, when does it end? When Opera's happy? What's next?
"EU rules that Microsoft Windows 7 runs too fast, looks too pretty. Due to a complaint from Sun who said that Microsoft is abusing their ability to produce good software that runs well, the EU has ruled that Microsoft must write an "Uglification and Slowification" patch within 15 minutes or else be fined 1 Hojillion Euro per second until they do." Ugh.
Far from helping the economy, Microsoft has harmed it. It has reduced competition in the computer industry, which means fewer jobs and higher prices.
On the contrary, Microsoft *created* the (boxed) software industry. All other software makers exist because Microsoft created a market where there was none before. (Now, arguably, if Bill Gates hadn't done it, someone else would have later on. But there's no reason to believe that 'somebody else' would have done anything differently.)
It has a long history of pushing for H1B visa increases intended to reduce the average wage of skilled tech workers.
Microsoft is one of the highest paying companies in Washington State. And H1B Visa workers are paid at the exact same scale as others with the same job title. If they're trying to reduce the average wage of skilled tech workers, they're doing a godawful job of it.
The reason Microsoft is a big fan of the H1B visa program is that it's otherwise virtually impossible to get skilled technical staff in Washington. Microsoft and all the other tech companies in the area, combined with the mediocre Universities, have completely drained the talent market. (I can assure you; it takes us 9 months+ to find entry-level Javascript/SQL positions. It's crazy.)
Why when there are so many people out of work are they STILL pushing H1B visas?
Because the people out of work can't write software and, frequently, the H1B applicants can. If you live in Washington, and you have even basic IT skills, you can find a job. I don't know where you live, but job markets are different in different areas (shocker!)
Also, Microsoft is an abnormally profitable company. That comes from somewhere. For every dollar that Microsoft makes in profit, that could have been $0.25 ~~ $0.30 to a normally profitable company.
Sounds like it comes from your ass.
Which means, because of Microsoft's monopoly, we have one business employing fewer people instead of 3 or 4 business of roughly the same size employing 3 or 4 times that number of people.
Wait, what? Who's "we"? Are you talking about business automation? You've totally lost me here.
Microsoft should be broken up by the government as an anti-competitive monopoly.
I'd much rather see some other company write better software than they do and compete on an even keel.
Comment of the year
It's the IT version of the moronic "those illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs!" idiocy. Possibly racism, too. I love the H1B visa program; our QA team consists of a Chinese woman, a Indian woman, a Armenian man, and an British man, all top-of-their field. The H1B program is the kind of "mixing pot" laws that made America great, and will continue to do so.
Comment of the year
Microsoft is not successful because they were selling the best software, or even the second best software. They are successful because of a good business strategy (regardless of the legality of it).
I would just like to point out that Oracle, PeopleSoft, and IBM are all "successful", and they all sell god-awful software. If Outlook isn't first or second best, well, it's still about 10 steps above Lotus Notes. And I'm sure half the country has had a wrong paycheck, or a late paycheck, due to PeopleSoft.
Comment of the year
First off, as a loyal Mozilla user since the days of Mosaic, I strongly disagree that IE was "better" in 1996. Penn State installed IE on all its machine, and I hated it.
What was good about NN? IE4 was flat out better. You had a fully programmable DOM in JavaScript, and NN had layer tags, partial scripting capability, and then document.write to redo the whole document for everything else. I mean, how many years went by where Netscape could not do reflow content around hidden elements? I remember a lot of web developers that wanted Netscape to win, didn't like Microsoft, but wound up being impressed with what they did with IE 4. I remember sitting back popping a cold one with a big Netscape fan, screwing around with IE 4 Javascript, and we both looked at each like, it's all over for Netscape if they don't respond.
And they didn't. And it's not like they didn't have the money. At the time, Netscape had billions in venture capital and they blew it on turning a browser into this whole computing platform, except that it sucked to program it.
The fact of the matter is, sometimes yeah, giving something away works, but, if it you do that, it has to be good. IE was given away for a long time when NN was being charged for, and went nowhere. Everyone had IE 2 and the W95 plus pack, and it sucked. But people went and bought NN.
If -anyone- killed NN by giving a product away for free, too, it is the Apache Foundation and the FOSS community. Let's not forget that the whole point of Netscape's business was an end to end internet with the big money coming out of the enterprise and that there was a Netscape Enterprise Web Server. Netscape was expected to make big money off of their server business, much more so than their browser business, and their efforts to monetize the web server business were shouted out and drowned out by FOSS advocates, who went with Apache.
This is my sig.
You can't really remove IE from Windows unless you code a 100% compatible (not 99.9999%) replacement library which will seamlessly work.
This is not about the libraries but the applications you run as a user.
Funny. If your operating system Windows isn't shipped only with IE your OEM ships it e.g. with Chrome or with Firefox and Opera.
Problem solved. Equal conditions for everyone including IE. Monopoly abuse is when you abuse one monopolistic market situation, e.g. Windows to get another monopoly, i.e. IE at the expense of competitors.
OK - a follow up. Who does this help? How is the consumer served by this usurpation of Microsoft's right to sell a product that meets customers needs and is supportable by them?
Nevermind. I know your "answer", and it's a joke. I'll do it for you.
Because, umm, it will open up the market and better browsers will prosper and advance the state of web browsing!
Ahahaha. What a joke. You could make the same argument about just outlawing Windows. It also ignores the fact that there are better browsers already. I was an IE holdout until not too long ago, and even I use Firefox now.
You misspelled "retarded solutions". How the fuck can Microsoft support an OS when they have no idea which browser a given user is running? How the fuck was MS supposed to deliver embedded browser support to their apps back in the day before the other browsers were mature? God, you people are just insane - I don't get how you can think these kinds of low-minded thoughts and still have the brainpower to use a computer to reach and post to SlashDot.
You probably should learn about free market economics.
OOh, how about the highly intelligent slashdweebs who think an operating system sold in your "21st century" shouldn't have a web browser built in? How about the highly intelligent SlashDorks who think all OS purchases are through OEMs? Or the ones who think Microsoft can support an OS in the "21st century" without knowing anything about which, if any, web browser is installed? How about the "highly intelligent" Slashdweebs who think product design should be done by committee?
What is wrong about making money as a company.
Anyone capable of installing an OS from scratch is capable of getting a web browser for it. It's not my 21st century it's everyone's - you however seem to think that more than a handful of people will be inconvenienced by this and those who are inconvenienced by it will be able to solve the problem without too much trouble because they, unlike you, aren't thick as pigshit.
By the way Windows isn't designed by one person it's designed by a group of people - isn't that a committee?
If they remove IE what will I use to download Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari so I can then ignore IE? A thumb drive it is then.
You can use command line ftp; here's how to get firefox without IE. I don't think this is practical for your average user, however.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
The federal gov't would employ even more people. Let's give them Microsoft's OS biz. Bonus: disincentivizes other companies to create their anti-employment efficient companies.
Wall St. is suspiciously profitable with low headcount. Let's nationalize them too.
In the end, I think what EU really wants is to strip down Windows 7 so it has the same functionality as the first release of Windows 95--you have to install the web browser, media player and possibly the fast disk search functionality separately.
And that would be really great. For example - if I have to use WMP for some internet radio, I use verion 6.4 (mplayer2.exe), so why the version 10 (or is it 11) takes up space in my hard drive?
Or do you really want that windows 7 or the version after 7 include a media player, MSOffice with reduced functionality (because it is bundles with the OS), MS iTunes equivalent, MS IM client, CD burning software, audio/video editing software, programming environment (something like visual C) and use 100GB of HDD space, but you still need to download all of the aplications because you do not like the integrated ones.
Well, here's what I can't figure out. If Microsoft is supposed to not supply a browser, how does one get one on their computer? And at this point everyone is used to browsers being free and integral, so telling people they MUST buy one because the governing body is trying to encourage innovation and detour monopolistic practices is going to go over like a wet brick.
So I don't particularly see how Microsoft could get away from installing SOME browser on the computers, which is what the problem is in the first place. If they distributed opera instead of IE, someone else would complain about the fact that Opera was the only choice. And since Microsoft distributes Opera now on their computers, then when Opera has a problem, that must be a Microsoft problem. Etc Etc Etc Ad Nauseum.
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Absolutely nothing. The problem is that Opera is abusing anti-competition laws in the EU. The intent of anti-monopoly/trust/competition laws is to protect individual consumers, not to give companies a government-enforced weapon to bash each other over the heads with. There are a few reasons why this is a messed-up situation:
First, enforcing these gray-area "anti-competition" laws puts the EU in the position of having to decide the optimal amount of "competition" in the market in a given industry. They also, implicitly, then have to make decisions about what is a "fair" amount of market share for a particular company, for a particular product line. It becomes a situation where they're like the "cosmic fairness arbiter," and companies petition them for favors. Entrenched bureaucracy, untouchable by voters, results in corruption.
Second, the assumption is made that lost revenue for Microsoft translates directly into "more jobs for the rest of us" (somehow). It doesn't, and here's why. Some of that lost revenue is going to be the fact that Microsoft has to expend resources to comply with EU rulings - they're going to have to spend developer time altering software, dealing with EU trustees, etc. That's just resources down the drain. Nobody benefits from that. Now, if the EU rulings result in an artificial shifting of market share away from Microsoft to other companies, consumers only benefit if those resources flow to a competitor who creates value more efficiently than Microsoft. Ignoring mindless MS-bashing ("DUURR - M$ is soo inefficient."), I don't think that anyone could legitimately make the blanket statement that "all software development companies that compete with Microsoft in this product line are more efficient than Microsoft."
The key thing to remember is that anti-monopoly/trust/competition laws are there to benefit individual people, not other companies. Opera's pretense that they just want "more competition" is hypocritical. They don't want "more competition," they want less of it from Microsoft. They want more money. There's nothing wrong about that, but abusing laws intended to benefit consumers is not an OK way to go about it.
How are consumers going to feel if they buy a computer and it comes with no browser? It's essentially useless out of the box. Shut up Opera, this is bad for everybody.
So even if this thing goes nowhere, Opera's complaint still forced Microsoft to default to standards mode in IE8.
Clever signature text goes here.
Yea, but who has to produce that CD? MS? Why should MS have to incur the cost of producing a CD with all browsers on it just because they sell an OS.
Will my cell phone have to ship with more options? OSX?
Or can the OS maker charge to include that CD? Or is this up to the PC distributor? Opera would love that. They'd have to pay for no one to use their software.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
Um, except for education. I don't mean places with web addresses ending in .edu or .stateabbreviation.us, but rather education in the verb form. I recently (about 3 months ago) did a training session at the office and attempted to explain web security to people. But as a matter of web security, I was trying to explain how javascript can be harmful. To demonstrate this, I showed three separate instances:
Internet Explorer on the default settings,
Firefox on the default settings,
Firefox with NoScript installed.
Now, I freely admit that I didn't show how to go into IE and reduce all the permitted scripting options, because those aren't tunable by one webpage at a time. I have not heard of a NoScript equivalent on IE. Now, I'll continue my point.
As I was demonstrating how JS worked and how it could be harmful, a lot of people were curious what this Firefox thing was, so the session went two ways, with people understanding that there are more browsers in the world than just IE, and to people understanding that their browsers do a helluva lot more than just show pretty pictures.
Now, I have two women in the office who have adopted Firefox just because I showed it to them, and so they figure that was my end goal (no, it wasn't) and I've told them frequently "I don't WANT you to use Firefox over Internet Explorer, I just want you to be SAFE on the internet. I don't care WHICH browser you use, it's your choice." To this they usually respond that they like the add-ons and then they try and ask me why ActiveX won't work in Firefox (I've tried explaining that one over and over and we devolve back to the "internet works in that other thingy" conversation). And I've got one user who won't use Firefox and doesn't trust it at all. And the boss man is still stuck in IE6 world, so even though he likes the concept, he's not changing. Then again, he considers it a challenge to visit websites and to turn on scripting when he needs it, and off again when he doesn't. And I've a whole 'nother user who uses IETab and Fire.FM, but he knew about Firefox before I showed it to the office.
Now, for the caveats, I am THE guy for IT at the office, and we're a small group, about a dozen people. But, the most security related problem I've had in the past three months (as opposed to the dozen or so virii I've removed in the past year alone from the same people's computers) is whether you can make a site secure by going to the address bar and changing the protocol from http to https.
The sites I've found that are best to demonstrate that that doesn't work are http://search.yahoo.com/ and whatever banking site most people use (https://bankofamerica.com through https://wellsfargo.com./ YMMV.
Has anyone else been answering that same email question from friends family and coworkers? It's even to the point that my parents got that same email in their inbox, about a week after the folks at my office. Yai yai yai.
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Ya know, I think he was...
Wouldn't it be nice to emulate ActiveX controls on Linux embedded ARM installations? I mean, who would have thought that the embedded groups were doing it wrong all this time and all they had to do was use Firefox code to do .ocx emulation on the hardware.
This is why I agree that /. should enforce comment posters to be logged in (no, I don't really think that, I occasionally post AC, like once every six months or so)... so that we can ridicule them in public, hahahaha
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What, like Ubuntu?
/me ducks
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Ok, so I've been replacing windows shells on and off since 98 or 99 with the likes of Litestep, so I'm on your side. As a matter of fact, I have fond memories of my brother thinking I was like the world's most penultimate hacker because I had this different windows on my computer, and how cool was I. Then when he learned what LS was, he wanted me to set his computer up like that, but I told him he would have to learn the RC file stuff, and he quickly grew tired of that.
So here's the question I have that ties into this, that most folks can't or won't answer. It's great to have a new window manager, but what about the graphical rendering engine? That's usually done by Windows still, and what about replacing the GUI engine on Windows. Now, I realize that X has been around forever, and that no-one seriously rewrites X, except for that whole fork a while back, but is there even an OPTION to replace GUI32 on a Windows system?
That's what I'm waiting for. I was really hoping for minWin to be a true core kernel, but I guess that won't happen. Ah well...
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If you need an expert in a certain field and all you have is joe blow half decent php programmer then you need to import people.
yes, and that is simply not the case. There is NO lack of experienced, skilled, and available talent in the U.S.A. to state otherwise is simply a lie. The H1B visa program allows companies to hire people from out of the country willing to work less than the prevailing wage and thus reduce the prevailing wage.
This is not racism, that is a lie propagated by the companies who want to keep wages depressed.
The more smart people that the US can convince to come over the better it will be so I don't understand why you'd have a problem with this unless you're complaining because all those smart people are making competition for you.
"Other" countries are more protected of their skilled labor. The U.S.A. is anti-labor to the extreme and having been in the iindustry for almost 30 years, I have seen wages pretty much freeze for the last 10 years.
Microsoft is not successful because they were selling the best software, or even the second best software.
Who defines "best" (and how) ?
A good business strategy does not improve our society; in fact the effect of Microsoft's monopoly position was to stagnate technological growth, especially in the operating systems, web browser, and office markets (not coincidentally, the three markets where Microsoft was most successful).
Evidence ?
Beyond that, Microsoft also used its success in one market -- operating systems -- to create a dominant position in other markets, killing competing, higher quality products.
Evidence ?
That is right! Capitalism has nothing to do with laws nor with personal views nor "shitting". Even wikipedia has the right description!
No, since Apple is not a convicted monopolist. Monopolists play by different rules than other companies.
Actually, Microsoft itself is stripping Windows of lots of stuff. You can optionally install it later. Remember, Linux distros have had package systems for ages. You can easily install additional applications at any time. No reason why MS can't do the same.
Clever signature text goes here.
Really, would you say that a drug dealer/drug rehabilitation center owner is a successful business? You are failing to understand then, what is "anti-trust law" and why it is there.
That's your assumption. In fact, OEMs have wanted to install other browsers, but Microsoft has threatened them to keep IE.
Clever signature text goes here.
It is not a lawsuit. It is a request for the EU antitrust authorities to look into Microsoft's actions in the browser market.
Oh yeah, that must be why the iPhone App Store is such a flop... Seriously, Linux distros have been doing this for ages as well.
She wouldn't be forced to do anything like that. OEMs would preinstall the browser of their choice without Microsoft forcing them to bundle IE. And OEMs do want to use other browsers.
Actually, Firefox has had a lot of trouble. 15% market share with giants like Google, Sun, IBM, etc. throwing their muscles behind it is an extremely poor result, and shows that Microsoft's actions have impeded competition.
Clever signature text goes here.
Well in EU there is NO gray area. Anti-trust law applies when a company can leverage it's, lawful, dominance in one market to dominate another market.
The same anti-trust law would apply to Apple, if they suddenly make all iPods* work ONLY with iTunes(with incompatible patented protocol) and for songs bought from iTMS(not ripped, not received in any other way).
Same would apply to Intel, if they decided to force nVidia and ATI(AMD) out of mobile GPU market by making some changes.
* - I have no idea what market % iPod has, but if it were more than 70%, that would make sense.
The absurdity of this is overwhelming.
What's absurd is the average Slashdotter's understanding of economics and antitrust law.
Nobody ever thinks about why Opera is doing this - it isn't because they love "the people" and want to ensure they get a good browser.
This is both a strawman and irrelevant. It's like arguing that when Opera calls the cops after someone robs their office no one thinks if they're doing it out of love of the people. Of course they aren't, but that doesn't mean people think they are and it doesn't mean we shouldn't enforce either antitrust laws or theft laws because of it. Sometimes when people act in their own best interests (like reporting a theft of their property) the laws can work in the best interests of that company and society.
It's because they really want some more of that money.
Gee really? Corporations want money? Thanks for the inside info genius.
...if you can't defeat your competitors in the open market, then get government to handicap them for you.
Yeah, I also get the government to handicap the mafia for me by forcing them to obey the criminal law codes that apply to everyone.
But seriously, how the does EU "law" even work?
So let me be sure understand you. You don't know how the law works, but you though instead of learning you'd come to Slashdot and post about how stupid the laws you don't understand are? That's just brilliant.
I'm not even going to insult Hammurabi by calling them "laws." I'm going to henceforth refer to EU ruling as "Lord Fauntleroy's Whims".
Yeah those whimsical europeans copying american antitrust laws almost exactly. What nonsensical hilarity.
So lemme get this straight: They ruled in 2002 that MS had to decouple IE from Windows, and allow users not to have it as the default browser, yadda yadda yadda, all so other browser makers could "compete."
Umm correct assuming the "they" in your sentence is the US court system.
And I'm really sure that your average user, when confronted with an OS with *no* browser is really going to go comparison-shopping.
You think users would be involved, how cute. Guess what users generally never install Windows and the same magical fairies that install Windows on computers (OEMs) are probably going to put a browser on as well.
Anyway, so now, the commission has *further* decided that Microsoft can't even include IE at all, because Opera bitched about it?
No, the commission has decided that MS bundling Windows and IE seems to be illegal. This isn't terribly surprising since the US already convicted them of the same crime and so did several other countries. The EU has just convicted MS of other crimes regarding other antitrust abuses. The EU just notified Microsoft that they're going forward with the complaint and gave them a couple of months to respond before they go ahead with the prosecution.
Seriously, when does it end? When Opera's happy? What's next?
When MS stops breaking the law and changes their business model to a legal one. So far MS has been intentionally breaking the law and paying the fines and settlements under the assumption that the courts are weak and ineffective. The US proved them right since after MS very large campaign contributions all their legal problems magically went away there. It has come to the point where american companies like Sun take MS to court in the EU because they have no confidence in the US court system. Hopefully the EU will effectively punish MS to the point that they stop their illegal actions and level the playing field.
I don't know if you've noticed but Web technologies pretty much suck these days. Web pages still use half completed versions of decade old specific
That's a really, really good point... I mean, unless the EU intends for everyone to roll their own FTP or HTTP client, there's got to be *some* way to access stuff over a network that comes "bundled" with the OS, like yum or whatever. I'm sure that if it were a Microsoft "Network-Accessibility Application Downloader," Opera would go crying back to mommy about that.
I agree, that it ought to be *some* browser. But now it *can't* be IE. So it has to be one of Microsoft's competitors' browsers. This is beyond the stupid. This is like Burger King complaining to the EU and so now anytime you buy a McDonald's value meal it has to come with Burger King onion rings. If you want the McDonald's fries, you have to get them separately. Retarded.
well, I've long been a proponent of MS picking up an APT like system, but they're on the way to that with Windows Update and the way that the error reporting system works. I mean, it's only a so so deal right now, because they can't be responsible for 3rd party dev, and we here at /. on the forums get that they wouldn't be, but most consumers think it's Microsoft's problem when their router is misconfigured. Go figure.
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The only thing that's beyond stupid here is your understanding of the situation. That Microsoft can't bundle IE doesn't mean that OEMs can't bundle any browsers. In fact, OEMs have always wanted to be able to bundle other browsers, but Microsoft has abused its monopoly power to prevent them from doing so (see the Netscape case in the US).
Clever signature text goes here.
OEMs will install the browser of their choice.
Browsers are free nowadays.
Clever signature text goes here.
Why has MS been conviced of that in both Europe, Korea, the EU, and so on, then? You know better than all those courts?
Wikipedia:
"In economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos , alone or single + polein , to sell) exists when a specific individual or enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it. Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods."
I get it. So all antitrust complaints are automatically invalid? What about Microsoft's antitrust complaints against Google, or Google's against Microsoft?
Antitrust laws are laws. Just like laws against robbing people. Microsoft broke the law. Surely you are not saying that if I am robbed, I should stop whining, not go to the police, and instead blame myself for being stupid enough to get robbed?
You can't since Microsoft is abusing its monopoly to prevent competition, which is what they have been convicted of previously.
Also, are you saying that IE is a superior browser compared to Opera, Firefox and Safari?
Clever signature text goes here.
It is not a lawsuit, but an antitrust complaint. If you can demonstrate that Microsoft has hurt the market with stdlib.h, go ahead.
Clever signature text goes here.
I think it was former PM Harold Wilson who once said "Those who are not a socialist when they are 20 have no heart, those who are still a socialist when they are 40 have no brain."
My interpretation of this is that caring is innate and cannot be learned, but meaningful, valid conservative values can only be gained through experience. He was "old school" conservative, the sort you might not agree with but you could respect.
Assuming my interpretation is correct, then low IQ conservatism is not conservatism at all. It isn't learned, it's not wisdom from experience, it's not based on the merits of an argument, it's based on religious beliefs and talk-show propaganda alone.
My interpretation also precludes conservatives who hate socialists, as it requires that a person only be conservative where wisdom dictates and socialist in all other cases.
Now, I could be wrong and this might not be what he meant at all, but I put it to my fellow slashdotters that the idea of understanding the place of all philosophies in life is intelligence, that rejecting a belief because it contradicts your own is folly.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Absolutely nothing. The problem is that Opera is abusing anti-competition laws in the EU. The intent of anti-monopoly/trust/competition laws is to protect individual consumers, not to give companies a government-enforced weapon to bash each other over the heads with.
That is factually wrong. Competition law of course serves consumer interests as 'perfect competition' is an ideal but it is competitors which always file these complaints. We know that the IE market share is just because of bundling, not because the product is superior. Microsoft abuses one monopoly to get a second one. That is illegal. As a competitor you can simply ignore the unfair disadvantage or you file an antitrust complaint that will be decided on legal grounds. Danger ahead for Microsoft: The burned soil in Brussels.
No the purpose of the laws is to promote competition as perfect competition is a desirable state of the market. If laissez-faire does not create a free market the authorities intervene to improve things. In fact they intervene very little. Microsoft can have its OS monopoly but they cannot abuse it.
Learn the basics of competition law and market economics. Or have a look at what Ordoliberalism means.
Your are joking.
All the Comission wants is that consumers self-select what is the best browser for them. Sounds reasonable to me.
Efficiency of development is not the issue here but of course competition also stimulates standard compliance.
Actually all that Opera wants is Microsoft to behave and embrace open standards. You know that the complaint was a response to what Microsoft did with Open XML.
Well, the fact that you get a product as IE preinstalled artificially destroyed the market for webbrowsers.
Is the hangup for Noscript for your users video? Because I've been saying we need a "simple" option for Noscript, perhaps give the user a choice of simple or standard on first install, that gives the user instead of a dozen or more blocked elements a "play video" button along with a "list all blocked elements" if the play video button doesn't play what they need it to. While I am not a coder I bet it wouldn't be hard to have Noscript look for *.avi, *.flv, *.mov, *.mp4, etc and have that file associated with the "play video" button. This would NOT decrease security, since it would still block all by default. It would simply cut down on the frustration of those who aren't technical minded and keep them from always clicking "allow all" which is what I've seen happen to with my customers.
I personally think this is doable. And by adding a "simple" option(GUI wise we are talking about only two elements-play video and list all blocked elements,which is what Noscript does by default anyway). we could increase the security for all those home and business users that aren't tech minded without compromising security in the least. And if it helped cut down on worms and spambots even a little, wouldn't it be worth it?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If IE was as basic as Sound Editor, MS Paint, or Movie Maker you might have a point
Isn't it? It only just got tabs, and it barely renders standards-compliant pages...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
yes, and that is simply not the case. There is NO lack of experienced, skilled, and available talent in the U.S.A. to state otherwise is simply a lie.
No, it's not. Our company, being in Seattle, is competing with Microsoft for talented IT people-- they aren't out there, Microsoft or one of the other 5,000 IT companies, has already hired them up. It takes us 8+ months to fill even entry-level positions. I don't know where you live, but what you're saying is complete bullshit for Western Washington State.
The H1B visa program allows companies to hire people from out of the country willing to work less than the prevailing wage and thus reduce the prevailing wage.
Microsoft pays H1B visa employees on the same scale as all other employees. If they're trying to "reduce wages", then they're doing it in an intensely stupid way.
Are there some companies somewhere that abuse the H1B program? Possibly. Is Microsoft one of them? No.
Comment of the year
Put aside antitrust law for a minute and then tell me what law MS has broken
Put murder aside for a second and what law did Jeffrey Dahmer break?
??? I'm not saying "don't apply the law equally to everyone". I'm making an argument for the law being flawed. All economists do not all see eye to eye on antitrust issues, you should know. There is room for legitimage disagreement, as unpopular as that opinion might be.
You don't need antitrust law for a free market.
Well, that is why you are wrong. When you have a monopoly, especially one like Microsoft, you don't have a free market
No, you're wrong. You don't have an efficient free market with a monopoly.
What do you mean by "especially one like Microsoft"? What other monopolies are you so experienced with that you have some special considerations you want to apply to MS?
The biggest flaw in EU's case -- they fail to account for the expanding role of the OS over the last decade plus. Video/Picture viewers, music players, web browsers are simply part of the OS these days. The classical computer science definition is not the same as the consumer's definition.
Well in EU there is NO gray area. Anti-trust law applies when a company can leverage it's, lawful, dominance in one market to dominate another market.
There is nothing but grey area . Let me paint a few shades:
1. What is the market Opera is vying for? Is it the 'Windows PC' browser market? Is it the 'PC' browser market? Is it just the 'browser market' (OS/Architecture be damned)?
2. What is the definition of an Operating System? Is it the classical computer science definition? Or is it based on a consumer's expectations of what they should get when they buy an OS?
Opera (on the desktop) is only available for windows. So I could argue that Opera is in the 'Windows PC' browser market. Any player in this market stands to lose if MS bundles IE, but gain if MS is not allowed to. For them to gain, however, you have to penalize MS in the OS market -- because now they have been forced to sell an incomplete product. I could also argue that the 'Windows PC' browser market is, by definition, an aftermarket.
<obligatory car analogy>
You expect any car you buy to have upholstered seats. This does mean that custom car upholstry people lose business. But you can't rule that car companies have to stop providing upholstry -- even though there is undeniable proof that this hurts the aftermarket upholstry people. Even if there was one car company with 90% market control such a ruling would have no basis.
</obligatory car analogy>
You probably should learn about free market economics.
From your comment, I see how well you understand it.
Knowing about something is not the same as accepting it to be true/sensible/fair/desiarable/whatever. I'm not an economist, but I've done more than my fair share of research on antitrust/competition/monopoly etc.. I don't accept something I read if it doesn't make sense. On slashdot itself, countless people have argued over the wisdom/fairness/whatever of all kinds of laws relating to censorship, freedom, privacy, intellectual property etc. The only law everyone here likes to stand behind unquestioningly is antitrust law. And only because it hurts MS -- so it must have been written by people wiser than us -- who are we to question it?
Really, would you say that a drug dealer/drug rehabilitation center owner is a successful business? You are failing to understand then, what is "anti-trust law" and why it is there.
Please explain your analogy. How does MS relate to the drug dealer, and how does it relate to the drug rehabilitation center, and how is antitrust law linked to drug dealers and drug rehab center?
Not if Opera has their say, browsers are not...
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well so long as the video window is shown (think the difference between ytimg blocked or not on noscript) then usually just clicking the placeholder shows the video after a confirmation dialog. But that placeholder is not always shown.
Otherwise it's usually that they forget noscript is there, because they assume that since I showed them firefox with noscript that they must use it. That's not my point, my point is heightened awareness of what is happening. Like the new proof-of-concept with javascript finding the addresses of other tabs and doing a dialog popup to prompt for login credentials.
I think it's just a matter of education. People don't just get behind the wheel of a car and go cruising off, and they don't just pick up power saws and just buzz away. There's always a period of instruction. Now, am I proposing that we license computer users before usage? Of course not, but I am saying that they have to learn what's happening.
I get tickled when they come back and say that their kids were using firefox before them, and that now the kids are like "welcome to the 21st century"...
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Removing DRM might lower switching costs, but it doesn't remove their monopoly IF they in fact have a monopoly.
Management or Programmer or User or OEM or Courts, who should decide whether a piece of code to run in Kernel mode or User mode?
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
How would have software ecosystem fared had U.S. Court of Appeals split Microsoft?
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Microsoft has used their position in the OS market to affect the quality and timing of third party software written to run on their operating systems. Application and language tools written by Microsoft benefitted from access to proprietary information about the OS that was not available to other developers. An example of this was back when MFC used to be bundled with third party compilers. These compilers, such as Borland, and Watcom... usually had down level versions of MFC. Developers were coerced into buying and using MS tools to get immediate access to supported APIs. The third party compilers were often better code generators, but could not compete because of unfair licensing practices.
There used to be a market for TCP stacks, and popular applications tended to be bundled with them. I realize that the day did come when TCP was a natural to support in the OS, but including the protocols doesn't imply all applications should be part of the OS as well. Just because X Window gets shipped with LINUX doesn't mean XEYES is part of the OS. Know what I mean?
There is nothing but grey area . Let me paint a few shades:
1. What is the market Opera is vying for? Is it the 'Windows PC' browser market? Is it the 'PC' browser market? Is it just the 'browser market' (OS/Architecture be damned)?
It is the browser market (OS/Architecture be damned).
Opera (on the desktop) is only available for windows. So I could argue that Opera is in the 'Windows PC' browser market.
Really? The fact that you didn't even bother to visit Opera's homepage before making such claims says it all. Because (sit down, kid, it'll be a shock for you) Opera is availible for Windows, MacOS, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, QNX, OS/2 and BeOS.
<obligatory car analogy>
You expect any car you buy to have upholstered seats. This does mean that custom car upholstry people lose business. But you can't rule that car companies have to stop providing upholstry -- even though there is undeniable proof that this hurts the aftermarket upholstry people. Even if there was one car company with 90% market control such a ruling would have no basis.
</obligatory car analogy>
You're better with analogies than you are with facts.
I'd be pretty pissed of if I could buy a car with exactly one upholstery color and shape and if the seats would be deliberately made incompatible with third-party upholstery. Besides, I expect to be able to choose what upholstery I want before I buy a car, not after. And if my only choice is to put my upholstery above the one that is provided, it would piss me off to.
But education doesn't work. Hell it has NEVER worked. Why? Because trying to teach the technically inept to understand advanced concepts(and just remember that just because You and I don't think it's advanced doesn't mean it isn't) is like someone expecting you to understand how to perform brain surgery by watching someone else do it.
Besides why should they have to? I mean, my mechanic doesn't expect me to learn how to rebuild an engine: that's his job. Just as I wouldn't expect him to learn how to lock down a WinNT based OS. Because that is MY job. Just like Apple we should be striving to make things that "just work" WITHOUT forcing the user to understand concepts that they probably won't be able to grasp anyway. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the users are stupid. It is just that their minds don't think that way. I used to believe in education too, but I listened to my users and gave up. Because I would try to explain a concept to them and I would watch as their eyes would glaze over and they would get that lost look on their faces. Finally it was a customer that lives in my building tha showed me the light.
He is a retired NASA engineer(helped build the mockups for the shuttle) and now does graphics and artwork. I started to explain to him how to use CMD to test and setup connections on his LAN. He got this look of horror on his face and said "Why on earth would I want to learn that? I don't have enough hours in the day as it is and I HATE all that computer nitty gritty stuff. That is why I am happy to hand you money, just as my graphics customers are happy to hand their money to me. You LIKE that nitty gritty stuff just as I like graphic artwork. So why should I kill myself learning it?" and he was right.
Trying to educate the users is like trying to bail the ocean with a spoon. They DON'T like tech crap, they only want to use it as little as it takes to get their REAL job done, and even if you managed to educate them new threats come out every day and they sure as hell ain't going to keep up with tech news. That is why we, the tech guys(and gals) of this world should be doing everything we can so they DON'T need to be educated. Unfortunately most of those that write security tools such as Noscript tend to be of the "Learn the tools and RTFM,Noob!" camp which frankly is a serious problem. We should make the tools easy for the mothers and grandmothers of this world, not belittle them because they "don't get it". That is why with my customers I set everything up as much as possible for automatic. Patches, AV, Anti-spyware, defrags, etc. And by taking this attitude not only have the virus infections of my customers gone WAY down, but business from referrals has gone up from all the people saying "You should take it where I take mine. He sets it up so you just turn it on and go!". So good luck with educating your users, I truly wish you luck. But from my experience trying to educate the users with anything more than the most basic concepts (IE Bad-Firefox Good) is like pissing in the wind.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
How the fuck can Microsoft support an OS when they have no idea which browser a given user is running?
In the OEM case MS *don't* give OS support, the OEM does; so *they* can decide if they want to install and support Firefox etc.
In other cases, MS can and would treat it like *any other non-ms software* and refer you to the browser supplier. They could even make this clear in the 'browser install' application - "If you chose any browser other than IE you will not get support for it from MS, but from the browser supplier". In case you hadn't noticed, lots of windows installs *already* come with various non-MS software.
Simple really, so simple even us "insane retards" can understand it; such concepts are obviously well beyond MS shills though.
Opera is availible for Windows, MacOS, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, QNX, OS/2 and BeOS.
My bad.. doesn't really affect the logic of the case though. How do Opera's sales on OS-X get affected by the lack of choice on that platform? The fact that OEMs can install Opera as the default, or offer a choice to the user -- this can't even be done on OS-X. Why is this non-lockout an offense at 90% market share but true lockout is not an offense at 10% market share?
I'd be pretty pissed of if I could buy a car with exactly one upholstery color and shape and if the seats would be deliberately made incompatible with third-party upholstery.
Bad analogy. IE is customizable (toolbars, default search engine, favorites, homepage etc.). Consider those your color and shape. The basic analogy was good -- you're stretching it too far now.
Besides, I expect to be able to choose what upholstery I want before I buy a car, not after
Bad analogy again. You can only make that choice once in a car. Whatever is customizable, you can change it any time you want. See what I mean about taking an analogy too far?
And if my only choice is to put my upholstery above the one that is provided, it would piss me off to.
Bad analogy again. It makes no tangible difference if IE is still on the machine, if you never have to use it. It makes a tangible difference in the upholstery case.
Instead of splitting hairs over the analogy -- how about dealing with the actual issue at hand? And simply acknowledging that choice already exists.
The objective of these policies is the creation of - at least - contestable monopolies.
When netscape argued that bundling IE with windows was foul play, they had a point. Today? Technology evolves. What was a luxury yesterday is a staple product today. It follows that what was abusive bundling back then is, today, the bare minimum of functionality.
The libraries that come with IE are also used by Windows update to do the download.
New things are always on the horizon
There are quiet a few services (like specific microsoft project, sharepoint, etc.) which only work with IE (actually: active X, or whatever they are doing) and some don't work the same way in, for example, firefox (exchange webmail).
New things are always on the horizon
So when the government throws you in jail for 5 years for robbery, it is considering you as state property for the rest of your life?
Clever signature text goes here.
Guess those evil socialists on the US government hate success too.
Clever signature text goes here.
Choice may exist, but fair choice doesn't.
You really should've read the original complaint. Vital part of it is that Microsoft should cease its embrace extend extinguish tactics and start following standards.
Car analogies aside, let me explain how bundling IE harms the competition:
First you have to keep in mind that Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop OS market, so its actions can have vast effect on this and related markets. One of the markets is browser market. As IE is bundled with Windows and Windows is the dominant OS it is easy for web developers (and some software developers too) to assume that PC=IE. And you cannot shift the blame for IE-only sites and apps to devs alone as they choose to use Microsoft's incompatible implementations -- they have basically two choices -- support IE or be standard-compliant (which will most likely break things in IE).
Now, we all remember about Microsoft's dominance in OS market, don't we? A developer which is usually under time-pressure is more likely to ignore the standards knowing that there will be IE on the PC for sure. If you make it according to standards you can at most assume that people *might* have another browser or *might* download it. IE is simply there. And developers who make their apps IE-only is exactly what Microsoft wants as it helps to lock user further to Windows.
That is the point where unfair competition lies. This is how Microsoft is using its desktop OS monopoly to gain share in browser market to strengthen their OS monopoly even further.
Unbundling is simply needed to put IE on par with its competitors.
That download app actually uses an IE-library.
New things are always on the horizon
, Microsoft or one of the other 5,000 IT companies, has already hired them up. It takes us 8+ months to fill even entry-level positions. I don't know
Well, I am not in the position to verify or refute your claim, but it runs counter to my experience. I can't speak to your hiring process, but there is a glut in the market.
There is practically *no* inexperienced or cheaper workers in MA, but there's plenty experienced workers. This is why H1Bs are so bad. They get lots of fresh youngsters who are cheap, but leave the experienced "more expensive" IT workers looking.
What I'm trying to get at is that MA is a *different market* than the one Microsoft is in. The US, if you haven't noticed, it pretty goshdarned big, and it's perfectly possible for one region of the country to have no available experienced IT workers while another part of the country has a glut of them.
Look, if those experienced IT people can't get jobs, maybe they should stop demanding so much pay. Or move elsewhere. That's how the world works, the H1B program doesn't change anything about that. I can assure you there are no roving gangs of unemployed experienced IT people where Microsoft does its hiring.
Comment of the year
Ahh. Nice strawman dude, though I guess I was imprecise in my wording. Microsoft indeed allows OEMs to _add_ any browser they want. Microsoft also has a basic minimum set of details they know about _their_ OS, including that IE is installed. The point was not including any browser in the OS is retarded.
That's a really, really good point... I mean, unless the EU intends for everyone to roll their own FTP or HTTP client, there's got to be *some* way to access stuff over a network that comes "bundled" with the OS, like yum or whatever. I'm sure that if it were a Microsoft "Network-Accessibility Application Downloader," Opera would go crying back to mommy about that.
wimps. what's wrong with the ftp command-line client? :)
How likely is this to affect the US?
Removing IE breaks a lot of functionality in XP, so I doubt they can simply have bundled and unbundled product lines like they do with WMP. Windows would require massive retrofitting to make IE that replacable.
So would MS maintain two very diffrent OSs in order to continue selling the completely integrated product in America, or would they make IE swappable?
Sell Europe Windows 95 for the next 10 years. See how they like that.
how does one get one on their computer?
1) Companies could send out CDs that have their browser. This use to happen back when Netscape and IE were competing against each other. :o
2) Companies can give away CDs to stores with the purpose of the store giving away the CD. This use to happen back in the day.
3) They can sell their browser in stores. Shock horror
Actually Opera's motives are completely selfish. But they happen to advance mine which are aligned with the law.
Opera wants people to have to choose a browser because in that scenario there's a greater chance that they'll choose Opera. This is not in contradiction with the law.
I want people to choose Opera, Firefox, Chrome, anything-but-IE because it reduces Microsoft's monopoly. The law has antitrust laws because they realise that a monopoly results in less competition, which results in less choices for consumers which results in inferior products.
Look at how much IE changed in such a short time after Firefox gained some marketshare. This is because of increased competition. There would be even more changes if there was even more competition. However gaining marketshare against IE is an uphill battle because of their illegal practices.
Look, I understand the points you are making, but I still think you're reaching the wrong conclusion from those points.
Standards compliance is the result that realizes your goals -- not removing IE. Applications are moving to the web (email, social networking, photo albums, more, for example). This means, from the consumer perspective, the browser has become a fundamental part of the OS. The OEM/user choices I pointed out do exist, and are all the fair choice necessary. It's not fair to MS to cripple windows by stripping a browser from it -- including a browser in windows is a natural/obvious choice. It's a core requirement -- like having a TCP/IP stack. It is valid if you want to take MS to task on standards compliance. I will argue that the 'standards compliance/subversion pie' has a lot of fingers in it (consider Netscape's font tag as one example) -- so it's not just MS that's guilty here -- but that's a whole discussion by itself. Bundling the browser is not limiting choice. It does hurt Opera (and others) financially, but it doesn't limit customer choice -- which is what matters (again -- this is because of the OEM/user options I pointed out earlier) -- so stripping the browser is not the answer. Removing IE just hurts users (I can list a bunch of reasons if you wish).
On standards compliance -- like I said, there's plenty of blame to assign to many parties, and plenty of arguments to consider. I won't claim that MS is completely clean in the matter -- but I will contend that there are mitigating factors. It's a whole topic by itself. One thing worth mentioning is IE7 and IE8's improvements -- indicating that MS is taking stds. compliance seriously -- though Opera/EU would argue that it's a case of "too little too late", and they'd have a point.
I think one way it can be done is this:
1) You buy a machine loaded with Windows 7.
2) When you boot the first time, it launches a bare minimum web browser that sets up your Internet connection, whether through LAN, broadband modem or dial-up modem.
3) The minimum browser then brings up a list of software you want downloaded--web browser, media player, low-cost business software suite, etc. Once selected, it will download and install the software.
Ok, it seems to me that you are mixing two metaphors. In the first place, on the topic of an mechanic expecting you to have knowledge about your car, I expect your mechanic would like you to check your own fluid levels once in a while, so that when things aren't right, you can take the car back to him to be serviced. Just like I expect my users to ask me when there is something out of the ordinary.
For the second part, you start talking about a kindly older man in your apartment building with money to burn, then you digress into locking down computers. I don't ask my users to learn how to use gpedit, or how to reconfigure firewalls, or how to setup Exchange, but I do ask them that if they're going to visit random sites on their own, that they at least learn how to be safe at it.
As far as people not being able to understand the tools, every one of my users and my family that I've started using Firefox and NoScript have fully understood how to use it after about 10 minutes instruction and practice. I may get the occasional phone call from one of them asking why the page doesn't show something that they expect to see, but all in all, they are able to use the tools just fine...
So was this post just a troll?
And why would you say that IE is bad, it's just unsecurable is all...
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"WTF!? Der Komputer hat keine browser!?! Ich moechte god damned IE!" *downloads IE.*"
Germany has the biggest market penetration of Firefox (between 35% and 40%), non techie German friends are very clued up about the issues at hand and chose Firefox over IE quite often fore very sound reasons.
If people in Germany did not have IE bundled what will happen is that people will ask their friends and they would be recommended Firefox or other browser quite often.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There are 2 victims when a monopoly abuses its position in the market: the general public and the monopoly's competitors.
It is funny you suggest that somehow a victim of the apparent wrongdoing of Microsoft is not entitled to search for redress following the normal legal channels.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Having a monopoly isn't illegal. Using a monopoly in a market (music stores) to have an unfair advantage in another (media players) is. Despite having done that in the past, Apple has (mostly) stopped that practice.
Wait, are you saying that Obama should create or save Jobs?
We can rebuild him. We have the technology.
On mobile phones, they are mostly making money by creating custom versions for various customers. The actual license price for each shipped browser is less than half a dollar or something.
I think Opera realizes that selling browsers to end-users isn't going to work. Which is why even Opera Mobile 9.5 is free of charge.
I have no idea what this has to do with anything, though. Are you just looking for something to smear Opera with?
Clever signature text goes here.
This might be a backup solution to very few people, since most people either know how to get a browser (some), or will get Windows preinstalled on a new PC with a browser included by the OEM (the vast majority).
Clever signature text goes here.
Apple runs an entire ad campaign capitalizing on "looks all the things you can do with our OS that isn't built into Windows". They're leveraging their OS to push all their proprietary built-in software (including their own browser Safari). Why is it a crime in Microsoft's case, but not in Apple's? With IE market share at all-time lows, they're hardly killing the competition.
Nope. If Opera had their say in a government fiat imposed system, then for sure browsers would be pay-per-[sale|download|whatever]. This is in direct opposition to the crowd such as works on Firefox. The stated goal of the thread was that Microsoft should not supply a browser, so the question is are browsers free at that point but not installed by default, or are they a big-box-store cardboard-box add-on?
I like Opera, I'm just not an Opera fan myself. The interface doesn't ... mesh well with me? Maybe it's been too long since I've looked at it?
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They would not, but that's besides the point. A free market would have ensured that browsers became free of charge anyway.
Selling browsers to consumers would never have been very profitable in the long run. Even Netscape was free of charge for consumers.
Depends on when you last looked at it. The interface these days is as clean as anything else, and of course snappier than Firefox because it isn't XUL :)
Clever signature text goes here.