Slashdot Mirror
EU Says MS Must Offer Other Browsers; Now What?
Glyn Moody writes "So the European Commission is going to require Microsoft to offer competitors' browsers with Windows. '...Microsoft will be obliged to design Windows in a way that allows users "to choose which competing web browser(s) instead of, or in addition to, Internet Explorer they want to install and which one they want to have as default..." [Microsoft] now has until mid-March to respond to the Commission, and might also ask for a hearing. Brussels will not adopt a final decision until it has received Microsoft's official reply.' But having the option to install Firefox, say, is useless unless people know what it is. The implication is that we need some kind of campaign to ensure that people understand the choices they will have. How can open source best exploit this latest EU decision?"
At least, not by me. I imagine that most users will be confused by the presence of more than one "internet" on their machines, and one browser or another still has to be the default. Does MS have to make Firefox the default browser, too?
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
Microsoft being forced to design Windows in a way that allows users "to choose which competing operating system(s) instead of, or in addition to, Windows they want to install and which one they want to have as default..."
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Now you DIE, Mr. Bond!
[...]
Or you just offer weak support for bundling other browsers. If I'm not mistaken, many viewers will probably see Google Chrome ads on this page. Which is definitely a good start for getting out the word about alternative browsers. Even better is to apply peer pressure to your friends, neighbors, and relatives. Peer pressure can be an excellent tool for getting people to conform to non-conformity. (Bizarre idea, eh?) Especially when the non-conformity is actually the direction that conformity is going.
Let's just make sure we do the RIGHT thing and don't get too focused on a particular browser. As long as it's not IE, the world will be a better place. ;-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
with the integration between Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer.
So... I really hope Microsoft says "sure" and bundles 10-20 really crappy and outdated browsers, with firefox and opera nowhere in sight. The EU deserves a clusterfuck like that for coming out with this stupid decision.
I am not a *blank*, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
Hasn't Mozilla said that they do not want to be bundled with Windows.
Which browsers make the cut and which don't??
It's not difficult to install a new browser. Someone who doesn't know about other browsers or how to install them isn't going to be installing Windows out of the box anyways. They're going to be installing a pre-packaged image from some company... or they got their computer built by some technically knowledgeable person who knows about other browsers.
IE is integrated pretty heavily into Windows as well.
I dunno, I'm all for people having choices and having knowledge... but this seems stupid. I mean, what's next, make them include iTunes with the default windows package?
As an IT professional and engineer, I'm not even sure that I would WANT them to have other browsers installed, by default, on a system... I want it to be as clean as possible by default.
Utter confusion is the first thing. Few average users are going to be able to handle the idea that there is any point to multiple browsers on one computer. Either one works and the other one does not, or there is no point. If one is broken, then it shouldn't be there.
Next, if MS, Dell or any other large OEM is going to be including FireFox, Opera, Safari and others on a computer they are going to require some pretty stringent requirements on release planning and QA. If these aren't present in the organization supporting them the OEM will introduce these. This means there will be a "official" release and a Dell release. That is going to help, isn't it?
Since the HTML rendering engine and a good part of the browser is used for displaying lots of other stuff besides web pages, this is going to make for some interesting times. Some HTML that displays differently between the "source" and the actual rendering.
Certainly going to be interesting.
How about this:
Bill Nigh kicks Chuck Norris' ass before breakfast
Now, just start one about FireFox
Firefox is so badass that it doesn't care what OS it runs over .....
Firefox invented the Internet
Firefox killed the blue screen of death
your turn
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Of non technical people making technical decisions.
"Microsoft will be obliged to design Windows in a way that allows users "to choose which competing web browser(s) instead of, or in addition to, Internet Explorer they want to install and which one they want to have as default..." What part of Windows doesn't allow users to choose a competing web browser? They even include a web browser so you can go and download the competing web browsers. How nice is that.
Mozilla doesn't want to be automatically packaged and there's nothing in this sort of result preventing Microsoft from packaging out of date crappy browsers. Moreover, the real issues are that 1) IE is in many ways interconnected with the Windows operating system and other Microsoft products and 2) IE is set as the default browser. If microsoft keeps a check box that you need to check when installing to make IE not the default browser then it will not get checked by the normal users. It is probably a better idea to just let the free market continue its slow progress. Firefox and others will win out. And that will occur long before the Year of Linux.
Microsoft is going to fight this decision tooth and nail. They will appeal it and appeal it and appeal it. Microsoft has no good faith intention of complying with this order, any more than they comply with any other order. Look at what they did with the US anti-trust case. They stalled until W became the unelected US head of state, and then Bush promptly caved in and gave Microsoft everything it asked for.
I'm a 28 year old network administrator and software developer. I've been doing this stuff professionally for ten years now, starting with telecommunications programming when I was 18. I'm posting this from an Ubuntu laptop, which has a few terminals open tailing logs on various Debian and FreeBSD servers I manage. I publish most of my software under either BSD or GPL licenses.
Now that you understand where I'm coming from, let me say that you're partially right when you assert that crippling Microsoft's software is stupid. The fact is, this whole thing is insanely stupid, and reeks of socialism. I've been through Microsoft's lengthy history of pushing shitty software on the masses using grossly unethical business methods, and I still strenuously object to this course of action.
The fact that you would even suggest forcibly placing a corporation's patents and copyrights into the public domain indicates you're either (a) incredibly young and naive, (b) stupid, or (c) an unfortunate combination of the first two options. Nobody has the right to tell anyone else what to do with the works they create; I'll be damned if anyone's going to restrict my right to license my works as I see fit. I may not like Microsoft as a general rule, but they deserve the same treatment I enjoy under the law.
I would recommend attending a reputable university to enhance your understanding of basic economics and IP law, but it seems to backfire for a lot of folks who already have warped perceptions in these areas.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Freedom of the people to choose a different browser is great. Somewhere, however, the line has to be drawn. Microsoft is clearly not limiting the ability of other browsers to work with Windows, and is not stopping anyone from downloading and installing a different browser. What happened to the freedom of a company to sell their own product without interference? Why should they advertise for a competing product in their own? Even more, why should they be required to bundle a competitor's product in their own? Should the Adobe Flash installer also include Silverlight? Should RedHat include a Slackware install disk? Really, where does the madness end? I think the appropriate response from Microsoft would be to stop selling Windows in the EU. The EU wants people to see alternatives, so great. Stop making Windows available until there's a public outcry and reversal of these insane rulings.
Yet, everyone has been buying programs for video game consoles for almost 30 years
I think this statement best summarises where you are wrong. You do realise that most people have never owned a console. I am talking about the majority of computer users, not people in some African nation. You really do have a very warped view of the world, if you think 50% of people using computers even know what a browser is.
I honestly hope it works out with Apple getting its ass kicked for only offering Safari. Seriously, where's the justice?
If the geek had an once of sense he'd put more distance between himself and the EU bureaucrat.
There is precedent now for government to add or subtract - mandate anything it wants from any OS distribution - depending on which way the political winds are blowing.
More to the point, how is Microsoft going to exploit it? I'm not an anti-MS zealot, but I can completely see them bundling some third-rate thing that still uses the IE rendering engine or something like Safari that's nowhere near usable on Win32.
That said, if IE is still the default option (or from the user's perspective appears to be), then this judgement really amounts to zilch no matter which side of the debate you're on.
I think the most significant line in the slashdot article is this:
"But having the option to install Firefox, say, is useless unless people know what it is."
But Glyn then goes on to suggest some kind of publicity campaign, which misses the point of this entire inane EU process. Because if a publicity campaign were useful, it should be done regardless of this ruling.
The average user does not, and continues to not, care. For those of us who do care, we know how to install Firefox and don't need Microsoft or the European governments to hand-hold us through the process. This EU process been one big, fat waste of time.
Even if Microsoft offers a version of Windows that lets users choose explicitly to install IE or Firefox (and I guess, what, Opera as well? Safari? Chrome?), I bet you good money that most users will choose "Microsoft Internet Explorer" because it has Microsoft in the title. As in, faced with this bogus non-option, an ignorant user will choose the program that was written by the operating system vendor.
And I mean this bet literally, because when I write web browser plugins I make sure they support IE first. It's the browser most people have because most people don't care. Until and unless the EU makes Microsoft bundle Firefox to the exclusion of IE---a move that hardly seems fair by any rational metric---most users will still use the most convenient option, because most users simply don't care. End of story.
An advertising campaign that would sell Firefox needs to begin by making people care about their web browser as an application, then explain why Firefox is a better application for browsing the web. History suggests it's an uphill battle.
Incidentally, the fortune file entry at the bottom of my article listing right now is "bureaucracy, n: A method for transforming energy into solid waste." How appropriate.
Take care,
Mark
There is a solution...
Shouldn't Mac OS also have come with other browsers then?
What about the iPhone, which does not even allow other browsers to be used in its OS?
I'm not in favor of Microsoft, but Apple is not that much different.
The problem isn't bundling. The problem is using an OS monopoly as leverage to foist an inferior Web browser on consumers. This is all to stop development of the Web because it threatens to replace the Win32 API for most applications.
As a Web developer who's wasted hundreds of hours on that inferior browser, I welcome this decision.
Just so you know that I'm not a hypocrite: if Apple were in the same position, of having an OS monopoly and using it for nefarious purposes, I would equally support an EU decision against them.
Remember: the problem isn't bundling, it's leveraging a monopoly in one market to gain one in another. This is particularly important in the case of IE, as it's holding back the an important part in the development of the Web and computing as a whole. It's also still relevant, due to the release of Silverlight and that Microsoft has and will continue to hold back support for competing, open technologies like Javascript and SVG.
What's wrong with the people opposing this, do they want Microsoft to tie-up the Web with their shitty, proprietary cruft al la Silverlight?
I agree with you to a point. The issue that the EU is trying to redress is really a long-past issue of the 1990s. Microsoft's practices wiped out Netscape, but that's ancient history. Firefox, as IE's chief competitor, has made great strides in the market without any help from the EU or anyone else, but by simply being a damned good browser with a good feature set, easy expandability with dozens of rather good extensions. In a real way, the market itself ultimately is correcting the issue.
But there is a flip side. Just because ultimately the market seems to be making some headway in trashing the Microsoft monopoly doesn't neocessarily mean that Microsoft should not be punished for previous anti-competitive behavior. Quite frankly, this isn't the way to do it. The ultimate problem here is legal systems in North America and Europe that allow companies with large bank accounts to essentially buy the time the need. Microsoft made a mockery of due process, but it's merely taking advantage of a system that is essentially designed to put off justice as long as possible (look at how long SCO could keep an utterly foundationless set of legal claims going).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Since MS, it seems, will be writing the Pros and Cons for their competitors, I'm sure some marketing research company is just salivating thinking about the money MS will pay them to find texts which pass MS's legal department's vetting, yet cause the vast majority of users to choose IE.
At first when I read this, I thought, "How could the EU possibly come to this conclusion? Firefox has over 20% market share and is still climbing. Are they dumb?" But then I sat down and thought about it. Who prompted this investigation? Opera. Opera has not had the success that Firefox has enjoyed. Now, most of use don't see this as a problem, but to the EU, it is a problem because Opera is a European company. The way the EU sees this, it's not a question of alternative browsers being able to take root, (Firefox already shows that is possible) it is a question of alternative EUROPEAN browsers being able to take root which has not happened. Think about the consequences of this decision. Considering that Mozilla has already stated that they would not bundle their browser with Windows, what other "major" browsers are really left? Just Chrome, Safari, and Opera, and I have trouble seeing Apple and Google forcing themselves upon MS. Really, Opera is the only browser that would really benefit from this. The way I see it, it's all politics, they want to help Opera, the poor European browser, fend off those terrible Americans who can build better products.
What's to stop Microsoft from offering a crappy version of Firefox? They've got engineers to spare; they could download the code (ah, open source) and tell their engineers to muck it up so it crashes or mis-renders and so forth. Then install it so IE7/8 looks shiny compared to a rotten turd that they put in because they had to.
I don't think they'd even have problems releasing their Firefox CE (Crippled Edition) source code to comply with the GPL. ("Here, you guys can have this back!")
In other news, Microsoft Windows users are now covered under the Americans with Disabilties Act...
While I agree the GP is making a silly argument, I also think that you are not evaluating this correctly either. You state that your license should not be restricted in any way, I agree, because you are not a convicted monopolist who has been caught leveraging that monopoly illegally. Face it, MS is forced to play by different rules. Now if you don't agree with the law have it changed, but as it stands, they are on a totally different playing field.
Not to mention that putting a disc in a Wii and installing PC software are about as far apart as changing the oil and just putting gas in the car.
The EC is demanding that Microsoft "redesign" its OS to allow equal competition of browsers on the desktop. This is sort of like the FTC ordering GM to allow a free choice of stereos in its cars, rather than ship cars with only its (former) in-house brand of Delco.
Yet, knowledgeable users are not restricted from installing their own choice of browser, e.g. Firefox, and just ignoring IE completely. So, the main thrust of the EC's argument is that ignorant users need to have a choice put right in front of them, to force them to not be sheep.
This decision by the EC comes at a time when Microsoft's stock price has dipped under $18, which is where it was in the late 1990s. Bill Gates, the founder of the company and chief executive throughout MSFT's monopolistic phase, has left the company and is busily donating his great wealth to charities all over the world. Microsoft's revenue is down, and its grip on the browser market is slipping in the face of natural and normal competition by products like Firefox, Safari, and--soon, perhaps--Chrome. Increasingly, mobile devices are incorporating browsers and IE is not number one in this market; Opera for example has focused strongly on the handheld market, and Apple, Google, and Palm are attempting to dominate this niche with their new non-Microsoft products.
All in all, it seems like a silly time to implement a monopoly-busting decision that had its roots in a bygone era when Microsoft was truly dominant. Today Microsoft is increasingly looking like a dinosaur, like GM, its products coasting along on past momentum with some slick non-Windows OS's coming up fast on some of these new netbooks and handhelds. It's a new era and the stodgy bureaucrats of the European Commission need to get a brain transplant to keep up. I wouldn't bet on Microsoft going away any time soon, but they are no longer the threat they once appeared to be, just as that previous behemoth IBM was swamped by the competition in the 1980s and 1990s with no need for government intervention.
In researching this situation a bit, I came across an interesting proposal for unbundling future versions of IE from Windows for the sake of better security. This is a far more intelligent thing to do than the stupid, simple minded idea of adding extra icons to the desktop.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Let's be honest. This is about money. They need pocket grease. And although your intentions are good in that you'd support a decision against any other company in the same position, let's again be honest - that isn't going to happen, the parameters of a monopoly will be redefined to suit their needs.
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
A more pertinent question is when iPods are going to ship with an eMusic client.
Safari is good!
You obviously haven't used it.
The real problem is that this decision should have been handed down ten years ago. It's irrelevant now. And who gets to decide what browsers come installed?
Open Source zealots still use IE to post to Slashdot. Why?
Because MS is an OS monopoly that illegally ties its browser to its OS. It's difficult to get away from Windows and IE, because of their anticompetitive behavior. That's the whole point of the EU decision!
Here comes the worst...OpenOffice file formats are 100% open for years now, i.e., free to implement but there is not a single open source office suite that implements them with 100% fidelity!
What are you talking about? OpenOffice.org implements ODF perfectly well.
Same story on browsers and so on.
These are folks that talk "vendor lock-in"..."open formats" and all the similar rant. Please give us a break!
Sorry, but it is vendor lock-in when the file format is not published and has to be reverse engineered. That wouldn't be a problem if the software were well written, but it isn't. MS Office isn't even compatible with itself, as it refuses to open old Word files because MS has determined Office can't do it in a secure fashion. OOo is so far ahead of MS Office that OOo can open the old Word files MS Office won't!
Microsoft had found ways to make Java under-perform while promoting their own proprietary and non-compliant Java VM. Microsoft did similar things against DR-DOS. I expect to see the same of any co-bundled browser.
Any implementation of a browser alternative should be written as a drop-in replacement for the trident rendering engine, not merely the inclusion of some alternative browser package in the add/remove programs list. Part of what is wrong is that too many applications become vulnerabilities by virtue of trident's own vulnerabilities. But if those same API handles were linked over to webkit or something else, then people would have a true alternative that fixes problems not only with the browsers, but within applications that use the rendering of them.
Exactly. There are two sets of rules, those for Microsoft, and those for Apple.
Apple can force Quicktime on you in their OS, Safari, Itunes, and many other bundled applications... but Microsoft cant. This is just getting tired and old.
Lay off microsoft. The OS's features are stripped to shit as it is because of these stupid laws.
MS may like having IE intergrated into the OS, where as Firefox doesnt like that approach. Why cant MS intergrate the browser the way they want and leave Firefox to develope how they want?
What browsers CANT you run on windows? Opera, Safari, Firefox... they all run on windows. Where is the problem?
Perhaps the EU should also force MS to include other operating systems such as OSX and Linux on their install disks for Windows 7. That would be FAIR. (rolls eyes)
"here are two sets of rules, those for Microsoft, and those for Apple."
No, there is the set of rules for the convicted monopolist Microsoft, and then no rules for anybody else, including Apple, Linux (distributions thereof), BSD (distributions thereof), Sun, ...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You use the word socialism as if it is a bad word.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Well they could simply force any browser on the market to respect standards. A bit like the Euro safety standard: Euro NCAP for cars.
If the new browser do not respect the current standard like HTML 5 in 2009, it can't be bundled with an operating system.
Prolem solved. IMHO.
As a web developer I couldn't care less about browser brand. It can be named Safari, Internet Explorer,Opera or Firefox. Open source or not. I don't care. What matters is the compatibility with standards. Then people could choose their browser for their performance, UI, whatever.
Yes, but this is the same argument as saying "it's okay to commit a crime, just don't get caught".
So Apple, Firefox, whoever, can leverage THEIR market share at the detriment of MS, until they are in a position of 49% dominance, and MS is on 51% dominance ?
It's okay to leverage and foist your product using bundling No matter how shitty / proprietary ala iTunes, Adobe etc), provided you don't step over the magic line, is that it ?
You have a strange world view my friend.
1. That is a trick question, and it's loaded of course. IE is compliant with many standards, but not all. Then again, there is not a single browser out there that is 100% compliant with all the web standards either.
2. Actually, there was a LOT less work involved for web designers when firefox/chrome/opera were irrelevant. Sadly, even if IE were removed from the face of the earth instantly, it'd still be difficult to write complex web applications for the remaining browsers because even firefox, chrome, opera aren't 100% compatible with the standards and have differing behaviors. If you think otherwise, you haven't done much web design.
3. Depends on what you consider competent of course. In *my* daily usage, it's more stable than firefox 3, so does that make it more competant? There have been fewer critical bugs for IE 7 than firefox as well, does that make it competant? Of the browsers that have an engine that can be used inside another application as a renderer via activex, it is the most competant. It does a lot worse on the acid tests, and it isn't as far along with implementing the more advanced CSS features. IE has it's strengths and weaknesses, but all the current browsers do.
Is the history of browsers and how Microsoft killed the ones before it.. not by making a better one (actually they did at the beginning), but by first of all Including it with the OS, and secondly tightly integrating it into the OS.. When IE was started, it was a separate but free download.. if they had kept it that way, much trouble would have been avoided.
Your calculator and notepad examples are relevant.. IF Microsoft had not been suppling these apps since the 3.0 days and there where people selling them as separate apps, you can bet your ass they would be pissed when all of a sudden MS included them in the OS for free. What do you think would happen if the next version of Windows suddenly included a photo editor that was on par or better than Photoshop ?
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Every OS in the market probes this, with the glaring exception of MS OSes.
You can remove the browser in any other kind of machine and your computer will sit there, happily doing anything else you asking it to do, because the browser is an *user level* application.
If the brilliant Software Engineers at MS do not understand this (ha! As if...) it is not the market's fall.
Also some people here are way too young to remember how MS *abused* their monopoly in order to obliterate the competition, who were selling a product that threatened to make the Windows platform irrelevant. The threat was so real that now Google may bring that promise to fruition in spite of MS's interference.
That is what monopolies do, which is illegal, and why governments need to intervene, otherwise such companies would continue to stifle progress and innovation.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No ! It absolutely isn't the same argument.
Because Microsoft are a convicted monopolist they have to live by different rules, rules which govern monopolists and their behaviour.
These rules do not apply to companies who are not monopolists, Apple is not a monopolist so these rules do not apply to Apple.
Yes ! Obviously, duh, because Apple & Firefox are not monopolists.
Do you understand now ? It's really not that hard.
Oh ! Whine, whine ... moan, moan ... cry, cry. Poor little cruelly victimised US.
Absolute bollocks, the EU fines far more European companies than it does US ones.
Stop wimpering like a girl and stand up for yourself for goodness sake you whinging loser.
Another problem is that in IT classes people are taught microsoft, not the critical thinking required to seek their ideal solution. Microsoft will retain their monopoly until IT education becomes education and stops being indoctrination.
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Grow up. Might as well say most families are socialist. Children do not contribute and yet they get all these free handouts where the parents will go to jail if they don't. Absolutely terrible.
Nobody has the right to tell anyone else what to do with the works they create
Faulty logic. Ownership, by definition, is the right to control something. Any ethical, not legal, argument saying "because they own it" is meaningless.
All he's suggesting is another, possibly appropriate, way to fine M$ by taking something of value (the monopoly a gift from society at large in the first place) away from them.
As an aside it is also not unreasonable to say that when patents and copyrights become de facto or de jure standards, just like trademarks and for much the same reasons, they should be lost. Monopolies (i.e. market failure) are unhealthy for exactly the same reason any centralized power is unhealthy and are an unfortunate byproduct of current unstable, winner-take-all intellectual property market structures (it's always going to be more efficient to create "IP" once and copy it n times than to create it m times and copy each n/m times) and we need to find ways of fixing that.
---
You communist! Breathing shared air!
thx for the info. HTML 5 is under work for...6 years (IMHO it all started in 2003?) and all they can provide is a "draft".
Then we bitch companies like Microsoft because they don't respect standards but if they did all you would have is HTML 4.01 and CSS 1.
How could you possibly respect standards when there is none or only obsolete ones are available?
No one is claiming IE shouldn't be the only browser bundled because it's crap, they are using the same lame monopoly argument they always pull out and mod down people who disagree.
Try asking yourself one question: If IE was currently the best browser by your definition would that make it ok for Microsoft to bundle it? If the answer is no then your three questions don't matter.
First, they were convicted in the US not the EU, and this decision only affects their OS distributions in the EU, therefore your "excuse" is flawed. Also, the majority of the case against them was dropped they were never declared a monopoly and broken up, they were merely-declared anti-competitive. The final ruling stated that all they had to do was release APIs for third party use. Explain how you extend that decision to the current topic.
Second, every single business strives to be a monopoly, at which point they are then taken down by a government; pending local national laws. You only hate them because you don't recognize their right to do the same exact thing that every other business is trying to do. Now if the means to do so are illegal that's one thing, but unfair to bundle your own product with your own product? Come on.
Third, just because they were convicted of something (relatively minor concerning weight used) does not mean that everything you make them do is "fair". In what other industry could you seriously, with a straight face, require a company to bundle it's major competitor's products with their own by law . Say that last sentence over and over again until the absurdity of it finally hits you.
Oh, and I detest IE and all the curses it brings upon us in the software development community. Just because I hate them for philosophical reasons does not mean I cannot defend their basic rights as a business.
You want to blame someone, blame the companies that sell all their computers pre-loaded with Windows.
"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!"
Wrong !
Microsoft has been found guily of "[abusing] its dominant market position to crush rivals" in the EU by the EU Competition Comission. It has taken the appeals process against this judgment all the way to the top and it lost.
So once again, and it really really is not that hard. Microsoft have to abide by different rules because they have been convicted of abusing their monopolists position in the market. Companies who have not been convicted of this do not to abide by these restrictions.
Do you understand ?
After they crushed Netscape? Maybe you're too young to remember, but Netscape 4 was truly far superior to anything Microsoft had developed up to that point.
All technical factors considered, IE should have died a slow death, not Netscape. The only reason it continued to dominate was due to bundling with Windows, which attained monopoly status illegally. This is all well documented in the DOJ antitrust suit.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
"here are two sets of rules, those for Microsoft, and those for Apple."
No, there is the set of rules for the convicted monopolist Microsoft, and then no rules for anybody else, including Apple, Linux (distributions thereof), BSD (distributions thereof), Sun, ...
And I agree with the grand-parent-post that having one rule set of rules for Microsoft, and a different set of rules (call it the "null set", if you like) for "anybody else" kind of sucks. I fully understand the argument behind it, but I still think it's a bad idea.
I think the GPP's core arguments still apply and are left unaddressed:
Sure, Microsoft killed off Netscape in the past. But Netscape was a "for-profit" project. You had to actually pay money to run a copy of the "Netscape Navigator Gold" webbrowser. Firefox is open source, not-for-profit, and open source, so it cannot "go bankrupt". It's open source, and so whoever wants to keep working on it and keep working on it. Microsoft cannot kill FF. Isn't that protection enough? Doesn't this show that the current situation is not analogous to the past situation?
IE8 - what number should I call to let you know?
It has incomplete (barely there) support for all the weirdness that goes into ACID3, but the XHTML and CSS2.1 support is very good now. I design for IE8 and completely ignore IE7, and I find that my pages work just fine in Firefox and Safari without a single modification now.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Well they could simply force any browser on the market to respect standards. A bit like the Euro safety standard: Euro NCAP for cars.
If the new browser do not respect the current standard like HTML 5 in 2009, it can't be bundled with an operating system.
Prolem solved. IMHO.
Well, I guess it would be "problem solved", in a sense that no browser would be allowed to be bundled with Windows at all. I don't know any browsers today that are 100% compliant with HTML and CSS specs. IE is obvious, but for Firefox, you can still dig out some obscure stuff in the bug tracker, and I'm sure Opera has its quirks, too.
Besides, who'd determine compliance? Some government agency? I can imagine that - "100% HTML4/CSS2.1/ECMAScript3 compliant - EU certified". Not for free, of course...