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Windows 7 To Be "Thoroughly" Tested For Antitrust Compliance
CWmike writes "Technical advisers to the antitrust regulators who monitor Microsoft's compliance with the 2002 antitrust settlement will test Windows 7 'more thoroughly' than earlier versions of the operating system were tested, according to a new status report filed with the federal judge watching over the company. Microsoft is also facing renewed scrutiny from the EU, which two weeks ago filed preliminary charges against the company over bundling IE with Windows, and said more recently that Microsoft 'shields' IE from competition."
what am I going to use to download firefox? Do they really expect end users to learn to use FTP? I'm not sure the DOJ has thought this through.
Just a simple example: the embedded FTP client in IE that integrates with Windows Explorer. It's a good idea, a sound implementation, but why should it be denied to other browser makers? It's not like I didn't pay for Windows Explorer.
Contrary to what you might think, I would like W7 to do a good job. I would also like to have it work properly in diverse networks, and be able to deploy applications and shares across those networks without regard to OS. I would prefer installing IE8 not to break some of my old .NET applications when it doesn't interfere with similarly ancient Java apps. If it takes Neelie Kroes to make Microsoft do this, I say bring on Neelie Kroes. She's now up there on my "great women in IT" pedestal along with Rear-Admiral Grace Hopper.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
You are wrong. Forcing them to "open their formats" is exactly the wrong approach. OOXML is the kind of thing you can expect to see in all of their published documentation and there is no liklihood that anyone would be able to faithfully implement anything they have published. But if there are known standards for, let's say, browsing the web, they should be prevented from writing apps that use the internet protocols in ways that are not standards compliant and they should be prevented from supporting only MSIE under such circumstances.
On the other hand, opening their formats is also important for immediate relief. I am thinking long term and future uses.
Right now, according to MarketShare, IE6 and Firefox 2/3 are roughly tied for market share (about 20% to each). TheCounter says that IE6 has 34% of the market while Firefox has 17%, and even W3Schools says that IE6 still has about 20% of users.
The moral of this story is: lots of people don't upgrade. They don't even run Windows Update. They use the browser they got when they installed XP, and they probably don't even know anything else is out there.
This is why, whenever Microsoft ties an application to the operating system, the market suffers. It becomes really hard to compete in that space. Right now, nobody's making money selling a web browser that competes with the one that comes with Windows. This is the way it's been for more than a decade now. The antitrust action against Microsoft was nothing more than a slap on the wrist; it did nothing to restore competition.
If Microsoft is so interested in bundling high-quality apps with the operating system for the good of its users, then why haven't they bundled Microsoft Word?
As much as I detest Windows in all forms, Windows 7 seems to be shaping up to be a half decent OS. Hate to have to admit it, but there it is.
Now all they need is a bash terminal, wget, vim, locate, grep, tail, touch, top, a package management system (emerge, apt, rpm - not really fussy), more text-based config files instead of a registry...
sudo mount --milk --sugar
Open Formats: Designed so anyone can use them, and is encouraged. Usually fairly easy to implement and can save a lot of time in development costs.
Opened Formats: Designed to be hard for other people to copy. Trying to implement them can be rather difficult as it was tightly integrated with their applications that use it. So the cost of implementing the Opened Format is almost as much as it would be to purchase the software or the library to use it from the original vender.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Can you please explain why Firefox supports innerHTML, considering it is a Microsoft invention
Because (successful) software developers are pragmatic more than they are pedantic. One only has to look at the relative successes of Linus Torvalds versus Richard Stallman as a prime example.
Microsoft also invented Ajax (well, they were the first to implement the XMLHttpRequest). Just because the devil gives you a pony doesn't mean he still isn't evil. And it doesn't make the pony evil by proxy.
I think I should probably stick to car analogies.
It's not necessarily what is bundled or not. It's their #!@$@ business practices and closed APIs. I really don't give a crap if an alternate browser is on the system or not. What they should care about is that it is easy to put it on, remove the one you don't like, etc. You should be able to mix and match as you see fit.
This focus on 'bundling' has always annoyed me. Why should we force microsoft to bundle anything that they themselves didn't create? that's stupid. We definitely should look into their dealings with OEMs though! That whole forcing OS/2 out of the market with their exclusive contracts were not cool. Educate yourself on the real criminal behavior: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm
To test for antitrust, they need simply test how easy it is to mix and match different components. If the OS is getting in the way of that, fine the hell out of them.
this is exactly backwards, it would be better to make microsoft's closed & proprietary file formats & protocols illegal, and force microsoft to use open file formats & protocols that are not written by microsoft...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The problem is not so much bundling, as the impossibility to unbundle e.g. WMP and IE.
I do think, even as a Good European, that the EU would not be doing this if MS were French. Maybe if they were British.
Mods: Offtopic? Really?
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.