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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?"
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...
Hasn't Mozilla said that they do not want to be bundled with Windows.
Most people will not notice a difference between any of the internets.
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 agree. I know what I'm doing and I still find that this or that file or link opens by default in browser X when my main default browser is Y. for example Minefield grabs the firefox links some of the time etc..
As for my poor mom with a barely adequate supply of computer memory I constantly find her sluggish computer with two or three browsers running and causing page swaps. Her bookmarks scatterd on all of them and her calling me up because she can't find the one she needs.
Then there's the nag screens that ask you to make this or that your default browser. You don't dare click "don't ask me this again, because youi can never get that back again unless you know the magic about:: command on firefox.
You just don't want to that horror to come uninvited to novice users.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
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.
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.
I certainly notice. I just the other day got - an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
The real question is, will the firefox use a different tube than the explorer? And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material. So I think people will know if they're using the one or the other.
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.
A more realistic solution would be to allow people to permanently uninstall Internet Explorer. This really is my biggest gripe. There is no choice because even if you choose another browser, you can't choose to not have Internet Explorer at the same time.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
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?
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.
Dear god, how this got a +4 Insightful I'll never know.
Madness? Using an illegal monopoly to muscle into other markets is madness. You're saying you'd be quite happy for the electric company to bundle a crappy washing machine that tears your clothes with your electricity bill?
Oh, and the electric company have ensured that even if you buy another washing machine, you can't remove theirs. And theirs insists on washing your clothes from time to time, no matter how hard you try to remove it. That's what MS did here - they used one product that you pretty much *had* to buy to bundle in a bug ridden piece of crap and force it on customers.
You can't remove IE from a system, they managed to bodge it in pretty well. And no matter how many competitors products you install, from time to time IE will pop up again.
If you're going to talk about the freedom of a company to sell it's product without interference, go speak to Netscape. They deserved to be able to sell their product without Microsoft illegally killing their market. And yes, it was illegal. Both the US and the EU have ruled on that now.
Calling decisions by some of the top courts on two continents insane just shows how much you're missing the point here. You're right about a line needing to be drawn though; the courts are telling Microsoft they've stepped over it, and it's about time.
Yeah I agree it's stupid and pointless. There are tons of browsers out there. Bundle all? That's crazy.
What they should be clamping down on are the "forced bundling strategies". Where Microsoft coerces manufacturers to NOT supply competing O/S on their computer hardware - by having preferential pricing if they don't.
After all it's software. Whether it's 1000 or 100 copies, no big diff in cost to Microsoft. All it affects is their long term strategic stuff.
Basically if Windows-only OEM PC Maker gets charged price X for windows per laptop, the rest should get the same price, and not higher just because they also have Linux/BSD/FreeDOS options. Same goes for Microsoft Works, Office etc.
No funny games like that, and it stays that way till Microsoft no longer has "monopoly" status.
If Microsoft wants to supply stuff for free that's fine, but then they have to offer that option to all in the same category (I say "same category" because I haven't considered the ramifications of a "if you offer it free to any one except charities, it has to be free to all others too" policy).
Safari is good!
You obviously haven't used it.
During the US anti-trust trial about the same thing one expert witness demonstrated a windows install stripped of IE. It was based on CE (whatever verion was based on XP tech), but this in turn demonstrated that windows can be (and is) modular - just not the one they throw on desktops.
Or for a simpler experiment at home, look for tinyXP or nLite to get rid of IE for you.
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
What, Opera?
Internet Explorer runs faster on Windows than Firefox does. And it works with sites that use ActiveX.
I use Firefox. But I am not deluded about the percentage of users that know what standards compliance is, let alone care about it. The only way "the other half" is going to switch to another browser is when they discover ad blocking. And if they do that, all that free content I enjoy so much is going to dry right up.
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.
"IMHO they're missing the point."
It seems to be you who's missing it.
"How about going all the way: what about shipping computers offering other OS's?"
This is a matter of EU anti-trust laws, under which having a monopoly in one market (personal computer operating systems in Microsoft's case) isn't illegal, but using that monopoly to try and establish another one in a different market (Internet browsers and rich Internet content) definitely is illegal. Note that the definition of "monopoly" from the EU's viewpoint only concerns their own markets, so it's irrelevant what share of other markets a company may or may not have.
"The above suggestion is much like the browser issue is to windows"
It bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the browser issue under EU anti-trust laws, which existed before Microsoft did, and were therefore also being used to curtail corporate monopoly abusers before Microsoft existed.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
None of the OEMs are bundling other browsers because IE has a zero cost to them to include, despite it being a non-zero cost to Microsoft to create. I.e., Microsoft are using their Windows monopoly to distribute their web client.
If the Windows OEM license fee was broken out into a Windows fee and an IE fee, then more OEMs would decide to skip the IE aspect and install Firefox, Chrome or Opera.
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.
Hello, I am a Microsoft Customer called Dell. I buy a lot of software and I would like to add Firefox. However if I want to do that, Microsoft changes their price.
They have been convicted of this.
Please remember that the end user is often NOT Microsofts customer.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
bundles 10-20 really crappy and outdated browsers
I've never understood why there isn't a central application installer in Windows, something similar to apt-get & Co of Linux, or the Store of the iPhone. Let 3rd party register and submit apps to it, vetted by MS, possibly payware, and in this antitrust case they can add Firefox at no charge. On first run of the OS, let the user customize the apps they want, charge them if necessary and make money along the way.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
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.
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You communist! Breathing shared air!