DOJ Nixes Lax Policy, Hardens Antitrust Enforcement

eldavojohn writes "A policy from the Bush era seen as a hurdle to the government prosecuting companies under antitrust laws has been withdrawn by Obama's Department of Justice. From the article: 'The DOJ's Antitrust Division has withdrawn a September report that "raised too many hurdles to government antitrust enforcement and favored extreme caution" toward antitrust enforcement action, the DOJ said. The change in policy could mean that the department looks harder at the actions of technology vendors such as Google, Oracle and IBM, as detractors have raised antitrust concerns about all three in recent months.' You may recall that Google has come under some antitrust scrutiny recently and the pressure may have just gotten a little more intense."

Comments

Neat

[Stormwatch]

Can we finally have Microsoft cut in two now, please?

Re:Neat

[evolx10]

Microsoft is like the broom from that Disney thing that mickey mousekinson chopped up with an axe, Microsoft must be burnt in a plasma furnace to remove all essence of suck.

Re:Neat

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I should be able to use the Windows Kernel with X, the Windows API on Linux, and Office on Free BSD. If the same company owns all of these products (and has near monopolies on all of them) there is no room for any competition.

The kernel, office software, and window manager/X-equivalent components should be compatible with alternatives. That would be called competition. What we have now is called a monopoly.

Re:Neat

[bluefoxlucid]

Yeah and if the Windows OS is the most popular business desktop system, the target market for an office suite would be Windows; why waste development time on other systems? Macs were popular in schools until recently; after they fell out of popularity, MS withdrew IE and Office support on MacOS. Sun has a vested interest in cross-platform office suites, because then they could migrate you to SunOS desktops and bring StarOffice with it; who the hell else (besides Open Source non-businesses) writes such software for Linux, BSD, MacOSX, and Windows?

Re:Neat

[Anonymous Coward]

What entitles you to other people's work on terms of your choosing?

What doesn't?

The law? That cuts both ways.

Re:Neat

[Captain Splendid]

What entitles you to other people's work on terms of your choosing?

That's not what he said and you know it. Don't be an ass.

Re:Neat

[bluefoxlucid]

Of course not. He directly listed his terms and said that's how it should be; the GP just questioned him on the basic assumption implied by that.

Re:Neat

[portscan]

yawn...microsoft is so last century.

Re:Neat

[jcr]

So you think that if you buy a car from Ford, then you should only be able to use CDs from Ford?

That's one of the more absurd analogies I've seen in the last year or so. It's more like, Ford gets to decide what they want to offer, and you don't get to compel them to offer what you want. You only get to choose to to business with them or not.

I understand you are a libertarian, but that doesn't mean you have to agree with "might makes right."

Your straw man needs a bit more stuffing, sport. I didn't say anything at all along the lines of "might makes right".

-jcr

Re:Neat

[Runaway1956]

Cut in two? Not enough. The browser needs to go, simple as that. DirectX needs to be torn out, and put into competition against things like OpenGL. The office suite needs to be ripped out of the hands of the operating system people, and any future collusion absolutely prohibited. Take out the silly chat program, and make it earn it's own way. Turn Microsoft's portfolio into a damned paper doll. Competition might actually IMPROVE the various products. Those that don't improve can die out and be trashed. It isn't entirely a matter of making "Microsoft" competitive, but making each of Microsoft's products competitive.

Re:Neat

[Miseph]

Never before have two people worked so hard to be completely wrong while disagreeing on everything.

Kudos to you both, really. It's funny when people are this stupid.

Re:Neat

[Thinboy00]

He implied he'd be willing to pay a reasonable price for the individual components. Presumably, if the components were individualized, other people would also be willing to pay whatever they see as reasonable, and if MS-I, MS-II, and/or MS-III couldn't figure that out, they'd go out of business.

Re:Neat

[kklein]

I have been arguing for this for 10 years (I'm assuming the OP means breaking it into separate OS application companies). Here's why it would be good for everyone, including MS:

1. Windows would get better. Without having to be part of such a large organization with such a large corporate line to toe, they could work smaller/faster/smarter, like Apple does. Yes, Apple makes applications as well, but they aren't comparable to the high stakes involved with Office. Also, by losing their biggest actual benefit (the tight integration with Office), they will have to compete more on features, usability, and security--which will be good for everyone.
2. It would be good for Office. By being cut loose, the application company would no longer have to put the Windows platform, branding, and goofy UI idea du jour ahead of the main goal: making the best office suite better. Suddenly, I think we could expect the infuriating hobbles put on the Mac version of the product (Why no VB support? Why can I only see 5 Styles in the style list? Why can't it look more like Pages, which looks more like Word 2003?) to disappear, and--even better--the introduction of a native Linux version.
3. This would be good for Apple. Suddenly, their platform, which is already very good, gets better, because of the better, wholehearted (as opposed to half-assed) support from the application company.
4. This would be good for Linux. Suddenly, with Windows playing on an even field, and a native Office, I think we'd see a lot of companies and even more tech-savvy home users move (I'd move off the Mac in such a case, I think). With the influx of users would come more development cash, opportunities, and interest. Linux would not only become more viable due to the things MS does, but because of the increased attention, Linux could really grow and mature.
5. This would be good for every software company in the world. Suddenly you're not competing with the MS Windows/Office/EverythingElse juggernaut; you're competing with individual products. You have a shot!

I don't really hate MS products. In fact, I really like Office. With the exception of PPT, nothing really has all the features and ease-of-use Office has (Keynote beats PPT soundly, though). A lot of times I have tried to move off of Office out of principle (or because of the frustrating UI of Word on the Mac--but it's still better than Office 2007!), but I always end up back, because I always find that there's something it does that nothing else does (or, rather, does right--tables in Word are the biggie).

I also liked Windows, a lot, through the Win2k/XP years. I only recently switched back to the Mac, due to the horrid mess Vista is (I really don't think 7 is much of an improvement--although it does seem a little better, from playing with the beta for a few hours). I would like to see all that talent at MS put to better use making a better product. I just don't think that it can be done with the company so big. The bigger a company is, the less each individual does--partly due to laziness/anonymity (not really that big a problem, I don't thing--most people like doing a good job), partly due to lack of clear focus. Too many cooks.

So there you go, Mr. AC. Those are the reasons why cutting MS in two would be good, exactly.

Re:Neat

[Runaway1956]

Yet another automobile analogy (large cars):

I can haz a Kenworth with a Caterpillar, Detroit, or a Cummins engine.

I can haz a Peterbilt with a Caterpillar, Detroit, or a Cummins engine.

I can haz a Freightliner with a Caterpillar, Detroit, or a Cummins engine.

I can haz a Mack with a Caterpillar, Detroit, Cummins, OR a Mack engine.

Stepping down to the smaller, cheaper modes of transportation,

I can haz a Ford Taurus with a 4 cyl, 6 cyl, or even an 8 cyl engine, automatic or 5 speed, with a variety of rearends. I can even have a GM or Chrysler engine under the hood, if I choose to invest the time and/or money to do so.

What gives Microsoft the right to say what I may or may not install on their operating system? What gives them the right to say that I CANNOT use their API's, or their file system, or their office suite on Linux, OS2, Solaris, or whatever I CHOOSE?

MS never had the right to put a string into Windows that checked fro MS-DOS, then refused to install if the DOS was from some other company.

It's far past time to break the monopoly. AT&T was probably the most benevolent monopoly in American history, and it was broken up. Microsoft's breakup is long overdue.

Re:Neat

[SleepingWaterBear]

Because I should be able to use the Windows Kernel with X, the Windows API on Linux, and Office on Free BSD.

You might just get Office on Free BSD, but if the Windows API weren't tied to the Windows Kernel I don't think either would continue to exist for long. Both the Windows kernel and the Windows API are really quite unappealing on their own; it's the lock in that the combination of the two creates, and yes, to a lesser extent, the advantage gained from their better interoperability, that make Windows successful.

And yes, I've done enough work with the Windows API that I know what I'm talking about.

Re:Neat

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up! Just because two people disagree doesn't mean one of them has to be right!

Re:Neat

[dhavleak]

The browser needs to go, simple as that.

Why does the browser need to go?
What is preventing you from using a different browser?

DirectX needs to be torn out, and put into competition against things like OpenGL.

What prevents an OEM from providing Open GL drivers on Windows?
What is to say that without DirectX we would have seen Open GL v3.x?

The office suite needs to be ripped out of the hands of the operating system people, and any future collusion absolutely prohibited.

What is the collusion of which you speak?
What synergy do you see between Office and Windows, that disadvantages say Open Office?

Take out the silly chat program, and make it earn it's own way.

I assume you mean MSN messenger? Check out the Win7 RC -- already done.

Turn Microsoft's portfolio into a damned paper doll. Competition might actually IMPROVE the various products.

Because you care about improving things, right? Yeah, I totally got that from your post.

Re:Neat

[drinkypoo]

What entitles you to other people's work on terms of your choosing?

Microsoft is a public corporation with high revenues and taxes, and a monopoly, and as such exerts an undue influence over the market and in fact the government. As a corporation it should not be permitted to exist at all unless there is a benefit to the public. Microsoft has unlawfully exerted its monopoly status (which it has only been able to gain due to copyright law) to establish undue influence over the market and something must be done to prevent them from continuing to press their unfair advantage.

Something you really need to keep in mind here is that Microsoft has no natural right to exist. If corporations do not serve the people, then why permit them to exist? Microsoft has arguably done more to hold computing back than any other "entity". Why not get a little something back? You act like Microsoft has had nothing from us all this time, and that is patently false.

Re:Neat

[Trepidity]

They have repeatedly and willfully violated the laws of multiple countries, have been fined multiple billions of dollars, and that has not deterred them as they continue to violate those laws. That means breaking them up into multiple competing companies, with the products decoupled from each other, is the only real remaining remedy with teeth.

Re:Neat

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one of the more absurd analogies I've seen in the last year or so.

Ok. Sorry. I forgot that you aren't going to cut me slack and try to understand what I'm saying, instead you are going to axiomatically deflect my arguments. Let me break it down for you: hypothetical car monopoly A could install a technical measure to prevent CDs that were not purchased from A from playing. Your argument

What entitles you to other people's work on terms of your choosing?

applies equally well in this situation. I.e., you are saying that A's capacity to prevent CDs purchased from competitors (that is, "might") makes it ok (i.e., "makes it right"). Your notion that each individual has the right to enter into any deal they wish allows for abuses.* In fact, it is so well recognized that laws, under the name "antitrust" were written. As an exercise for the reader, you can look up the abuses committed in the early 20th century.

Perhaps you can argue that CD's and cars are disparately different items, and subject to monopoly "bundling" protections, whereas two more closely related things such as the kernel and window manager can be "bundled." This would be a valid argument. In fact, decisions have been made that web browsers and OS's cannot be bundled; whether window managers and OS's can be bundled is a question for the courtroom. I know which side I stand, however.

*This idea you have stated is the bedrock of free market capitalism. It works very well in perfect competition. Notice, however, that not all markets admit perfect competition. In these cases, free market rules do not apply. Your morality (entering freely into agreements, etc.) may work well on the scale of 10 to 20 people. However, it does not work well with hundreds of millions of people. Additional effects come into play, and such simple rules, unfortunately, do not cut it.

I didn't say anything at all along the lines of "might makes right".

It terrifies me that you Ayn Rand people don't even understand your own philosophy.

Re:Neat

[Captain Splendid]

It's exactly what he asked for, and you know it.

Sweet! You're a parser who loves to ignore context. You guys almost make furries look good.

That's advice you would do well to follow.

Barking up the wrong tree there, you hideous freak.

Re:Neat

[dhavleak]

Also, by losing their biggest actual benefit (the tight integration with Office), they will have to compete more on features, usability, and security--which will be good for everyone.

I saw someone else post this as well -- am I missing something? What's the tight integration between Windows and Office?

It would be good for Office. By being cut loose, the application company would no longer have to put the Windows platform, branding, and goofy UI idea du jour ahead of the main goal: making the best office suite better. Suddenly, I think we could expect the infuriating hobbles put on the Mac version of the product (Why no VB support? Why can I only see 5 Styles in the style list? Why can't it look more like Pages, which looks more like Word 2003?) to disappear, and--even better--the introduction of a native Linux version.

I don't know.. I can't think of any windows platform/branding/goofy UI that Office has to put ahead of it's main goal. Perhaps you could clarify that point? You're not talking about the ribbon right?? I mean, that's an example of awesome UI, and it would surely have been implemented irrespective of Office being made by the same company as windows (see here for details).

The Mac issues I'm not familiar with (I'm not a Mac user) but I suspect it's mostly a numbers game. For example balancing the cost of creating a VB runtime for Mac vs. the Mac office revenue. Same case for making Office available on Linux -- low linux installed base, plus very high adoption of (and pre-disposition towards) OOo among that installed probably makes it infeasible irrespective of Office unit being a part of MS, or an independant company.

This would be good for Apple.

Sure, but that's no justification for splitting MS.. I mean, if MS ceased to exist altogether, even that would be good for Apple.

This would be good for Linux.

Same point as above -- that doesn't really justify splitting MS.

So there you go, Mr. AC. Those are the reasons why cutting MS in two would be good, exactly.

So, I think I understand what you mean when you say it would be "good". But that's not the same as "fair"...

Re:Neat

[jcr]

Your morality (entering freely into agreements, etc.) may work well on the scale of 10 to 20 people. However, it does not work well with hundreds of millions of people.

You have that exactly backwards. Freedom scales perfectly well, while command economies don't, as the collapse of the soviets and all empires before them so plainly demonstrates.

-jcr

Re:Neat

[Runaway1956]

Obviously, there is something about "monopoly" and "unfair trade practice" that you fail to understand. MS attempts to present the world with a monolithic operating system, with such claims as "the browser is an integral part of the OS", thereby using that monolithic structure to crush competition.

If, A: you don't understand that, you should read history outside of MS approved sources.

If, B: you are just trolling as an MS fanboi, no amount of explanation is going to change your mind

If, C: you really WOULD like to see MS actually make constructive contributions to computer science, as opposed to just enriching it's current stockholders, you should agree with me. Breaking up Microsoft, and forcing each division to act independently, will almost certainly make each of the divisions more standards compliant. Interoperability will improve unbelievably, because IE, for instance, won't have the wealth of the other divisions to draw on. It is only that wealth, and the stubborness of MS, that has prevented IE from being standards compliant in the past.

MS Office was nothing more than a bludgeon used by MS to re-write standards in a manner difficult to copy by other office suites last year, remember? MS reps waltzed into the conference, paid off a few people, and bullied the rest into signing off on a new standard. Phhht. As a seperate corporation, they could never have pulled that off.

Maybe MS Office really IS the best office system in the world - but it should stand on it's own merits, and not rely on all the rest of the MS monopoly.

What we have today really sucks. And, because so few people can even imagine how much better things COULD BE, they think that they are happy with it.

Your sarcasm is noted. There IS NO sarcasm in my post, here or above. I do care about improving things. I am quite certain that MS only cares about lining their pockets.

Re:Neat

[Jared555]

The question is if it would actually happen or not.

What stops the smaller individual companies from keeping everything Windows only? It is harder to say they are a monopoly if it is 10 companies but the only way to get in is by some contractual fees/rules that no one would agree to.

Re:Neat

[scamper_22]

I still don't see the *need* to split up MS or even to pursue antitrust arguments against MS.

I'll list the main arguments below.

1. The market seems to have provided better protection.
Compared to so many other industries, the software world is remarkably open with such a low barrier to entry. I see absolutely nothing wrong with MS even using hidden APIs for its own benefit. All is fair as far as I am concerned. MS slacked on the web, Google popped up. MS's strategy of providing the software while others fought for low margins on hardware worked for a while, until people craved a tight integrated hardware solution like Apple. It's not just Microsoft. Remember how MS stuck it to those old players who tried to bundle the OS and hardware? MS changed the game by breaking that monopoly. I worked for telecoms before and everyone knew the game. Our customers would play one vendor against another. They knew not to put themselves in a position to be subservient to a monopoly.

2. Good jobs in engineering are almost always back by 'anti competitive practices'. Like it or not, that is the field we're in. We work hard on IP, that is then copied very quickly. Among the only tools we have to ensure a stable cash flow are things that many would deem 'anti-competitive', such as exclusive sales channels, vendor lockin... I've worked for companies big and small, and they all do it to the best of their ability. To those that wish for the 'good ole' days' before MS, just review your history. The big telecoms were able to be a bit open in terms of software because they had huge monopolies which could then fund some R&D. Various hardware companies killed you on on hardware costs. Let's not even get started on Asia. Japan is just one giant anti-competitive system :P I don't know about you, but I like to have a company with loads of cash flow behind me so they are stable. Why do engineers want to commit suicide as a profession... I just don't know.

Yes, I don't think 'competition' or 'benefiting society' are reasons to step into anti-trust. For one thing, what you think is good for society might not be what I think is good. I think having strong champions in industry is very important... even at the cost of a little 'anti-competitive' behavior. The free market provides plenty of competition and the barrier to entry in this industry is EXTREMELY low. This is not a government mandated monopoly like the telecom industry or anything like that.

Re:Neat

[dhavleak]

I'll take D - "none of the above" :)

you really WOULD like to see MS actually make constructive contributions to computer science, as opposed to just enriching it's current stockholders, you should agree with me.

Enriching it's shareholders requires continuously improving products (which is done through research and developement based on that research). The ribbon is a recent and visible example of that, from the product group you were referencing. (recycling electrons). You might contend that MS is up to all kinds of nefarious activities to enrich it's shareholders. There's many things to be said about that. First, it's debatable. Second, if they break the law in anyway, there are harsher penalties for that - breaking up the company is pretty mild. Third, nefarious activities aren't the sole domain of very large companies, so breaking up MS isn't the solution to that either. And finally, you still haven't pointed out this synergy between Office and Windows that you're referring to..

Interoperability will improve unbelievably, because IE, for instance, won't have the wealth of the other divisions to draw on.

But any modern OS is incomplete without a browser. If you were to break up the company, you would have to include the browser in the OS unit.

It is only that wealth, and the stubborness of MS, that has prevented IE from being standards compliant in the past.

I would contend that it's a lack of competition that caused IE's stagnation and lack of standards compliance. After a few years of good, solid competition from FF, IE's vitality is finally getting restored. The rest of the industry let us down by not competing with IE. Mozilla righted things with FF.

MS reps waltzed into the conference, paid off a few people, and bullied the rest into signing off on a new standard. Phhht. As a seperate corporation, they could never have pulled that off.

Nothing related to OOXML and ODF is not politicized. Your version of events isn't neutral either. If there was indeed bribing involved, how do we know that Office (as an independant company) would not have large enough coffers to do the bribing on it's own? Their revenues & profits are on the same scale as Windows revenues and profits. They don't need any funding from the OS division.

but it should stand on it's own merits, and not rely on all the rest of the MS monopoly.

And it does. I honestly have no idea about the 'assistance' the office team gets from the rest of MS, that you're referring to.

What we have today really sucks. And, because so few people can even imagine how much better things COULD BE, they think that they are happy with it.

What we imagine (in terms of a better world, software-wise) is hardly justification for breaking up MS. For instance, if Apple open sourced all it's software, and it's hardware designs, and released all it's patents into the public domain, of course things could be better. But that's not a good enough reason to force them to do that -- they are completely justified in following the business model they have today.

Re:Neat

[PCM2]

Maybe MS Office really IS the best office system in the world - but it should stand on it's own merits, and not rely on all the rest of the MS monopoly.

I don't completely understand this comment. I have used OpenOffice.org, KOffice, AbiWord, Lotus Symphony, and Google Docs, and not one of them has persuaded me to quit using Microsoft Office. You're welcome to read/write my .doc files using any of the above if you prefer, but I am going to continue to allow myself to be bludgeoned by an unfair monopoly, as you put it -- as do a whole lot of other people. How is that not "standing on its own merits"?

Re:Neat

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you could notice that unbridled capitalism doesn't work on the scale of hundreds of millions of people, citing the 1900s like I mentioned. I am definitely not suggesting a command economy; no one is. That is a straw-man and you know that.

Re:Neat

[shutdown -p now]

What gives Microsoft the right to say what I may or may not install on their operating system?

Pray tell, what are you restricted from installing on your Windows by Microsoft, exactly?

What gives them the right to say that I CANNOT use their API's, or their file system, or their office suite on Linux, OS2, Solaris, or whatever I CHOOSE?

Did they ever forbid you from using the things you list in the manner described?

Last I checked, neither Samba nor WINE nor ntfs-3g were sued by Microsoft.

Of course, while you have the right to try to use Microsoft APIs and formats on other platforms, Microsoft has no obligation to specifically aid you in doing so, by e.g. providing an official NTFS driver for Linux. Why should they?

Re:Neat

[The_Quinn]

This is an example of "If I controlled the world" type of thinking. Perfect for burgeoning bureaucrats, or aspiring dictators.

It is actually a pretty weak attempt, actually. Many MUCH more enthusiastic power brokers have made much more interesting and grandiose attempts to control the world to make it better

Unfortunately, trying to control everything at the point of a gun has always led to disaster. People need to be free to deal with each other voluntarily, dealing with each other peacefully with dollars, instead of guns.

Re:Neat

[chromas]

I think a better comparison would be a piece of hardware that actually comes in the car--like the actual CD player--instead of CDs because nothing in Windows stops me from loading and running other software. I can change the CD player or other components in my car all I want. I can change some components in Windows, too; for example, I can replace the Explorer shell with KDE4 or Litestep.

I don't have the source for Windows so some things I would have to reverse-engineer or hack. I've not purchased a new car before but I assume they don't come with schematic diagrams.

I don't think Microsoft should have to make its products modular but it also shouldn't be able to do anything about people hacking it. Also, Ford doesn't make CD players or CDs.

Re:Neat

[wilsoniya]

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Re:Neat

[Capsaicin]

What entitles you to other people's work on terms of your choosing?

Freedom - which is, after all, about the right to choose.

If a producer of X says I can only consume X if I also consume Y, I loose one degree of freedom (ie. the choice of whether or not to consume Y). Since producer->consumer is a one->many relationship there is a net gain to freedom if the producer is restrained from forcing consumption choices on consumers.

Freedom may scale well, but what you are offering us is less choice, ergo less freedom.

Re:Neat

[tsm_sf]

What is the collusion of which you speak?
What synergy do you see between Office and Windows, that disadvantages say Open Office?

Classic astroturf moment.

Re:Neat

[Runaway1956]

"Enriching it's shareholders requires " only that sales are made. FUD makes a large number of sales.

"But any modern OS is incomplete without a browser. If you were to break up the company, you would have to include the browser in the OS unit." Wrong. Redhat doesn't make a browser, nor does Suse, Debian, or any of the other Linux OS's. A web browser is not necessary for an operating system to operate, period. There are any number of methods by which MS could offer a CHOICE of browsers, including the method used by Ubuntu: package half a dozen or more on the OS installation CD, and let the user CHOOSE which, if any, he wants.

"I would contend that it's a lack of competition that caused IE's stagnation and lack of standards compliance. " Good - you do admit that in one instance, at least, what's been good for MS has not been good for the advancement of computer sciences. Stockholders were quite happy with a substandard browser, and only opensource competition offered the stimulation to improve.

MS Office was designed and built to integrate itself into the operating system, much as the web browser does. The people with the source code to the operating system KNEW how to make it fit like a hand into a glove. Obfuscation, as much as anything, defeated some of the office suites of yesteryear. Without the insider information available to MS Office developers, WordPerfect and others were left out in the cold. Added to that was the common FUD put out by Microsoft, pressuring businesses go by MS Office to ensure "support" by MS.

And finally, justification for breaking up ANY company? It is sufficient to demonstrate that society is likely to benefit. All business exists at the sufferance of government. When government decided that hemp should be illegal in this country, all industries related to hemp went out of business. The government unilaterally decided the nation would be a better place without hemp, and that was it.

If/when the government decides that this nation would be better off without a monopolistic giant that abuses the computer sciences, microsoft will be history. No further justification needed, and no apologies to any stockholders.

Re:Neat

[Runaway1956]

Do you suppose that MS Office does NOT have access to the most up-to-date source? And, advance warning when some new "feature" might break something?

Let's say that a change in some API will break OpenOffice - when does OOo find out about it? Probably when OOo users complain, then they have to research, and find a fix.

Let's say that the same change in the same API will break something in MS Office. When do THEY find out about it? About 6 months before it is ever released to the public as a beta. That is to say, in plenty of time for MS Office and Windows teams to get together and fix the problem, before the public ever becomes aware that there MIGHT BE a problem.

Re:Neat

[MLS100]

Right, because every other software company ports their products to *nix.

It couldn't possibly be that it makes perfect sense to not spend tremendous time and effort porting and maintaining a desktop application for an OS that holds at best 1% of the desktop market.

Re:Neat

[Runaway1956]

Those were rhetorical questions, mocking the post above my own. ;)

Meanwhile - I don't believe that any of the programs you mention use any MS code. Each was developed independantly of MS code, although they do manipulate MS assets. No one expects MS to support Samba, Wine, or ntfs-3g. On the other hand, one MIGHT have expected MS to make life a little easier on those who developed them. Why shouldn't they?

Re:Neat

[Repossessed]

Nobody is saying you should get rid of direct X, the problem is that you can only use directX on windows, which provides an anticompetetive effect, anybody who wants to program their game for directX will have a harder time porting to a different OS.

The problem with the browser was never that it was included (Netscape was free after all), it was that IE didn't follow the standards *and* was included. You couldn't use activeX without having a windows server, and the way of doing things was changed even by people running other servers, to match IE, because everyone had IE. So if you didn't have windows you were locked out of swaths of the web. These days the browser war is a bit of a failure, activeX has died on the web for the most part, and MS has been pushed into implementing standards compliance with IE8. Removing the browser at this point would be pointless.

Re:Neat

[644bd346996]

I still don't see the *need* to split up MS or even to pursue antitrust arguments against MS.

Compared to so many other industries, the software world is remarkably open with such a low barrier to entry. I see absolutely nothing wrong with MS even using hidden APIs for its own benefit. All is fair as far as I am concerned. MS slacked on the web, Google popped up. MS's strategy of providing the software while others fought for low margins on hardware worked for a while, until people craved a tight integrated hardware solution like Apple. It's not just Microsoft. Remember how MS stuck it to those old players who tried to bundle the OS and hardware? MS changed the game by breaking that monopoly. I worked for telecoms before and everyone knew the game. Our customers would play one vendor against another. They knew not to put themselves in a position to be subservient to a monopoly.

So, because Microsoft hasn't managed to stifle all competition for the past 15 years, they don't need to be regulated at all, and they can keep using their copyrights and patents to prevent new competition from cropping up? Are you at all aware that using patent law to the detriment of the entire industry is prohibited by the US Constitution, and that their IP portfolio can be invalidated simply for hindering overall technological progress?

Re:Neat

[sortius_nod]

So one has to specifically state that they are going to pay for things now? Is it not implied that if I want goods or services that I pay for them? Is this not why there are exceptions (open source, freeware, shareware, etc) to prove the rule (pay for what you use)?

No, jcr is just being a tool as usual.

Giving the power solely to a corporation is not a good idea. Splitting MS into distinct parts is a good idea. They used intimidation and underhanded tactics to procure most of the products they ship and to gain the market share they have, so it's quite reasonable to enforce the anti-trust against MS... Anyone who disputes this should take it up with the DOJ in the US.

Re:Neat

[jcr]

If you imagine that we had "unbridled capitalism" in the 20th century, I suggest you take remedial history course. Pay particular attention to the disasters of 1913, which made it possible for the United States to get involved in world war one. Our freedom declined sharply from that point.

-jcr

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

What gives Microsoft the right to say what I may or may not install on their operating system? What gives them the right to say that I CANNOT use their API's, or their file system, or their office suite on Linux, OS2, Solaris, or whatever I CHOOSE?

They don't. They're not going to help you do it, however (which is what you really want).

MS never had the right to put a string into Windows that checked fro MS-DOS, then refused to install if the DOS was from some other company.

They do, however, have every right to say: "Our software may not work with versions of MS-DOS other than ours. We have not tested it, we will not test it and we are not responsible for it not working." Ie: What they actually they did.

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

Microsoft has arguably done more to hold computing back than any other "entity".

Then, please, argue it. I could do with a laugh.

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

Redhat doesn't make a browser, nor does Suse, Debian, or any of the other Linux OS's.

They don't make OSes, either, so that's hardly a compelling argument.

A web browser is not necessary for an operating system to operate, period.

99% of the code that comes with an OS is not necessary for it to operate. Everything from the network stack to the command line are completely unnecessary.

That, however, does not imply they are unwanted.

There are any number of methods by which MS could offer a CHOICE of browsers, including the method used by Ubuntu: package half a dozen or more on the OS installation CD, and let the user CHOOSE which, if any, he wants.

Why should they be compelled to offer and support any browser but the one they want to ? Especially when end users can just install their own, preferred web browser with a few mouse clicks.

Good - you do admit that in one instance, at least, what's been good for MS has not been good for the advancement of computer sciences. Stockholders were quite happy with a substandard browser, and only opensource competition offered the stimulation to improve.

Wait, so "computer science" improved because other competitors appeared, or it stagnated because Microsoft stopped anyone else making a browser ?

MS Office was designed and built to integrate itself into the operating system, much as the web browser does.

How ?

Without the insider information available to MS Office developers, WordPerfect and others were left out in the cold.

The plethora of successful non-Microsoft software products on Windows demonstrate how laughably false this claim that only Microsoft has the ability to write good Windows software is.

Re:Neat

[dhavleak]

These arguments have been rehashed many times, but I guess once more won't hurt.

"Enriching it's shareholders requires " only that sales are made. FUD makes a large number of sales.

Same is true of a giant corporation, a smaller company, or even a FOSS product. Office being independent of windows does not preclude them from using FUD. Enriching shareholders still only requires that sales get made - no matter the size of the company. As I said earlier - nefarious activities are not the sole domain of large corporations.

Wrong. Redhat doesn't make a browser, nor does Suse, Debian, or any of the other Linux OS's.

Every consumer linux flavor (indeed every consumer OS) provides a browser. None of these linux distros you mentioned actually even makes a kernel (and that's pretty core functionality as far as OSes go :P). So their business model isn't really comparable to MS's business model. What works for them doesn't necessarily have to work for MS.

A web browser is not necessary for an operating system to operate, period.

A text editor is not necessary for an operating system to operate, period. A text editor is required functionality. Same case with a browser on a consumer OS.

There are any number of methods by which MS could offer a CHOICE of browsers

That's doesn't mean they should be forced to do that. In any case, it's besides the point. MS has one browser -- IE. In the event of MS getting split up, IE should and would be a part of the OS division.

including the method used by Ubuntu: package half a dozen or more on the OS installation CD, and let the user CHOOSE which, if any, he wants.

As I said earlier, the user already has plenty of choice. Nothing compels them to use IE. I understand you want to emphasize choice (hence the caps) -- but where did the choice get taken away to begin with?

Good - you do admit that in one instance, at least, what's been good for MS has not been good for the advancement of computer sciences. Stockholders were quite happy with a substandard browser, and only opensource competition offered the stimulation to improve.

Not just one instance -- many instances. MS's charter is not the advancement of computer sciences. They have a stake in that, only as far as it meets their business goals (and enriches their shareholders). One amendment to the statement above - it's not that stockholders were happy with a substandard browser (IE 5.x, IE6) -- stockholders were happy with the best browser that existed at the time (due to lack of competition from the other players - i.e. the rest of the industry was slacking off). When FF got really good and exposed IE's weaknesses, shareholders were not happy, and that pushed MS into action again. The industry made a lot of noise about IE subverting the standards and thus making it impossible for them to catch up. FF proved this was untrue. They simply accepted the defacto standard imposed by IE, and using that as one of their design goals they made an awesome browser.

MS Office was designed and built to integrate itself into the operating system, much as the web browser does. The people with the source code to the operating system KNEW how to make it fit like a hand into a glove. Obfuscation, as much as anything, defeated some of the office suites of yesteryear. Without the insider information available to MS Office developers, WordPerfect and others were left out in the cold. Added to that was the common FUD put out by Microsoft, pressuring businesses go by MS Office to ensure "support" by MS.

I think if you re-read this paragraph, you yourself will have to agree that it's not much more than a pretty vague accusation. (for example "fit like a glove", obfuscation, insider information, "left out in the cold", FUD, pressuring businesses, etc..) --

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

Do you suppose that MS Office does NOT have access to the most up-to-date source? And, advance warning when some new "feature" might break something?

Yes. Perhaps they might get marginally more than anyone else, but certainly not enough to matter in product cycles that last nearly a decade.

Let's say that a change in some API will break OpenOffice - when does OOo find out about it? Probably when OOo users complain, then they have to research, and find a fix.

No, they find out when that API is deprecated, which with Windows generally happens on the order of 5-10 *years* before it actually stops working.

Windows is not Linux. Legacy support is an *extremely* high priority, not a "hey, cool, it still works" comment at the end of a mailing list post.

Let's say that the same change in the same API will break something in MS Office. When do THEY find out about it? About 6 months before it is ever released to the public as a beta. That is to say, in plenty of time for MS Office and Windows teams to get together and fix the problem, before the public ever becomes aware that there MIGHT BE a problem.

On what basis do you make the claim that Windows APIs change that frequently ? How do you reconcile this with the demonstrably excellent legacy support in Windows that frequently results in programs decades old still working on the most current releases ?

Either Windows APIs are constantly changing to break everything that runs on Windows, or it's a stable API that endows excellent legacy support. You cannot have both. Actual reality demonstrates that the latter is true, so you need some pretty compelling evidence to make the former even pass the laugh test.

Re:Neat

[Air-conditioned cowh]

I should be able to use the Windows Kernel with X, the Windows API on Linux, and Office on Free BSD.

What entitles you to other people's work on terms of your choosing?

-jcr

I'd like that garden gnome next to the fish pond. And once I've bought it, no garden gnome smith is going to stop me putting it there on terms of my choosing!

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

No, that was NOT what they did, you douchebag. They made windows crash if it detected dr-dos, and caldera got a tidy sum as the usual too late and useless remedy out of the lawsuit. Stop with your revisionism.

No, in some Windows 3.x betas they detected a non-MS-DOS and displayed a warning message.

Re:Neat

[dhavleak]

Do you suppose that MS Office does NOT have access to the most up-to-date source?

I honestly can't even image why they would need/want such access. Office suites do not use some advanced OS functionality that requires say low-level OS constructs etc. In fact, each Office version is available for multiple versions of windows, so if anything, they probably write abstraction layers on top of the windows APIs to make life easier for themselves.

And, advance warning when some new "feature" might break something?

I think you might have put the cart in front of the horse in this analysis :). Applications like Office, Firefox, Photoshop, Adobe Reader, Flash, etc. etc. are used by such a ridiculously huge number of users. Forget the versions in development - there are so many released versions out there that are expected to function flawlessly with the next version of windows whenever it is released. i.e. the windows team will probably be bending over backwards to make sure that they do not break any of these applications. These applications (or rather their teams) will get the CTP/Beta/RC builds of windows to test against to be sure, but the windows guys will already have done their best to make sure that nothing breaks.

Let's say that a change in some API will break OpenOffice - when does OOo find out about it? Probably when OOo users complain, then they have to research, and find a fix.

Would it not be due diligence on the part of OOo to test against the CTP/beta/RC builds when they are available? The beta would be available roughly one year ahead of the release of the OS. Btw, see this resource -- MS is clearly serious about making sure that apps are ready for the next version of windows.

Let's say that the same change in the same API will break something in MS Office. When do THEY find out about it? About 6 months before it is ever released to the public as a beta.

Aside from the points above, I'm just not following your logic here. Your entire post sort of makes the assumption that MS wants office to always function perfectly, but wants to break (or does not care if they break) other applications that run on windows. How could that possibly be their goal? The whole reason everyone sticks with windows is the ridiculous wealth of apps on it.

Re:Neat

[Cyberax]

"Pray tell, what are you restricted from installing on your Windows by Microsoft, exactly?"

Unsigned drivers on x64 Windows (including OpenSource drivers which I help to develop).

"Last I checked, neither Samba nor WINE nor ntfs-3g were sued by Microsoft."

TomTom.

Re:Neat

[professionalfurryele]

Look it is very simple and wholly consistent with a libertarian perspective.

The government created this monopoly by intervening in the market with copyright. This was done because it was believed (and I feel rightly so, although you may not) that copyright provided a net societal gain. Now it has to deal with the side effects.

This is government intervention to fix more government intervention. I believe that society is a complex beast and that the free market requires maintenance by government. Most sane people do, even if it is only at the level of providing guys with gun to stop people killing each other over contracts. This is all that is happening here.

If you are a libertarian then your complaint aught to be with the market distortion of copyright creating natural monopolies, not with government breaking up those monopolies.

Re:Neat

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

What doesn't?

Thousands of years of tradition, common sense, law, observation of human responses to financial incentives, to name a few. What does?

Re:Neat

[Anonymous Coward]

"I saw someone else post this as well -- am I missing something? What's the tight integration between Windows and Office?"

MS Office can and does bypass the printer driver.

It binds closer to the filesystem calls and uses API calls others cannot, making it faster.

An extreme example is WPfW: the API used was deprecated and Windows Office didn't use it and worked well. WPfW weren't told and was crap.

Re:Neat

[dhavleak]

I'm afraid that's just a myth.

From that link "Another Lotus veteran summed it up: "MS was cooperative and wanted to be cooperative. They wanted to sell OSs." So if anything, DOS wasn't done until Lotus DID run". This is from Mitch Kapor and other members of the Lotus 1-2-3 team.

Re:Neat

[ion.simon.c]

On the other hand, one MIGHT have expected MS to make life a little easier on those who developed them.

You are aware that MSFT used to have "plugfests" with the SAMBA team? These were little shakedown meetings where the SAMBA folks would get together with some MSFT folks and test their code against several versions and configurations of Windows, and get to ask detailed questions of the MSFT folks.
IIRC, the "plugfests" stopped in the late-mid to late 1990's. There may have been another plugfest or two recently, what with the EU breathing down MSFT's neck.

Re:Neat

[JAlexoi]

Why do engineers want to commit suicide as a profession... I just don't know.

And now back to reality! Most of software being developed in the world is developed for custom orders. So even if MS, Oracle and IBM disapear, "software engineers" will still be valued.(It's like saying that a cook is worthless without a restaurant.)

the barrier to entry in this industry is EXTREMELY low

Yes it IS extremely low, but players like MS make sure that the adoption is close to 0%, in certain areas. That is the main problem.

Good jobs in engineering are almost always back by 'anti competitive practices'.

That is a load of bullshit! I work in a quite large company, that is one of the leaders in it's market, however the competition is extremely fierce. And I do understand clients are actually benefiting. I am pushed a lot to bring value and I like it.
Oh, and BTW, any "Good job" in your post is the 1980's programmer's job or when programmers were considered gods of the tech world and asking them to do something was like praying and hoping of returns. I would never call that lazy-ass job as good.
If you want that kind of job, please become an CS researcher.
And BTW, the company where I work, is basically a competitor of Microsoft in certain niches, so I know how they push the clients to agree to their terms.

Re:Neat

[jbengt]

What entitles you to other people's work on terms of your choosing?

The doctrine of first sale.
(note, GP said nothing about being entitled to other people's work, just that if MS were split up, the parts would have incentives to support their software across a variety of platforms, allowing him to buy something that better fits his choices.)

Re:Neat

[Hurricane78]

If you cut it in two, both will grow to the size of Microsoft today, and rape you from the front and from the behind at the same time. Even if you're male.

Re:Neat

[jbengt]

It couldn't possibly be that it makes perfect sense to not spend tremendous time and effort porting and maintaining a desktop application for an OS that holds at best 1% of the desktop market.

And how do you think that it got to that point? It largely was because of MS' manipulation of the markets. Wordperfect, for example, was popular in part because it ran well on so many platforms, but MS sabotaged it on Windows and also forced OEMs to bundle MS Word, drastically cutting into Wordperfect's market share to the point that it went from the defacto standard of document exchange to a niche product.

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

Unsigned drivers on x64 Windows (including OpenSource drivers which I help to develop).

You can install them fine, just boot into the appropriate mode.

Re:Neat

[fulldecent]

>> their IP portfolio can be invalidated simply for hindering overall technological progress

[Citation needed]

Re:Neat

[Cyberax]

Yeah, sure. Let me quote a relevant passage:

"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

Re:Neat

[rpillala]

I should be able to use the Windows Kernel with X, the Windows API on Linux, and Office on Free BSD.

What entitles you to other people's work on terms of your choosing?

-jcr

I think that's how a market works. Other people's work on terms of your choosing. He didn't say he wanted it all free.

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

If a producer of X says I can only consume X if I also consume Y, I loose one degree of freedom (ie. the choice of whether or not to consume Y).

Your analogy is broken because it does not account for the fact that both X and Y are produced by the same entity and said entity actually considers them not two products X and Y, but a single product, Z.

Re:Neat

[elrous0]

Why should Windows be singled out as the only OS not allowed to come with a default browser when Leopard/Ubuntu/etc. all do the EXACT same thing? And how exactly are you supposed to download a competing browser after a fresh install of Windows if you can't go to their website (because you don't have a browser)?

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

Yeah, sure. Let me quote a relevant passage:

So given that this takes less than thirty seconds to find on MSDN, including waiting for the pages to load, does that mean you simply didn't bother looking, or you're just an idiot ?

Re:Neat

[Cyberax]

So, should I ask all my users to press F8 on _every_ _fucking_ boot? Or maybe to enable a test certificate which defaces the desktop?

There's no way for users to turn off driver validation. All existing methods are so convoluted, they resemble that passage.

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

So, should I ask all my users to press F8 on _every_ _fucking_ boot?

No, you should get your driver signed.

Or maybe to enable a test certificate which defaces the desktop?

That could also work.

There's no way for users to turn off driver validation. All existing methods are so convoluted, they resemble that passage.

Yes. That's because you're not supposed to turn it off.

Re:Neat

[Cyberax]

"No, you should get your driver signed. "

Why? And what for? Also, it costs money.

"Yes. That's because you're not supposed to turn it off."

So, you do admit that Microsoft controls what users should and should not do?

Re:Neat

[HiThere]

I agree that copyright used to be a net societal gain. That went out with the Sonny-Bono copyright extension act, and was made a ludicrous argument by the DMCA.

Similarly patents were once a net social gain, but when the laws became convoluted they became a net social cost. Trademarks, however, still appear to be net social gains.

When figuring whether something is a social gain or cost it's important to look at the implementation. Details matter.

Re:Neat

[HiThere]

MS is a repeating criminal, which has not been reformed. It has no inherent right to exist, being a legal fiction.

The correct action is to cancel it's corporate charter and refuse it the right to do any business at all. If this action were taken by even a few countries, I believe that MS would get the message. If it didn't, then a few more should suffice. E.g., if the US and EU both refused to allow MS to do business within their borders, it would be rather effective almost immediately.

N.B.: I'm not talking about a temporary suspension of the right to do business. I'm talking about permanently canceling the corporate charter, and refusal to recognize the existence of the company. I'm sure that there are many technicalities that would need to be dealt with, but there are precedents in how to handle them. (Louisiana, at least, used to have canceling corporate charters as a punishment for misbehaving corporations, though it was rarely enforced, and originally I believe that all US corporate charters were temporary and expired.)

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

DOS ain't done 'till Lotus won't run.

This is a myth. The very idea that Microsoft would seek to deliberately break the program that was the primary reason they had >90% of their customers doesn't even pass the laugh test. It would be like saying Apple's motto was "MacOS ain't done 'til Photoshop won't run" in the '90s.

Re:Neat

[drinkypoo]

I've not purchased a new car before but I assume they don't come with schematic diagrams.

Well, let's stretch this analogy as far as it will go; first, the car comes with standard interfaces for replacing consumables; and second, the manufacturer DOES make schematics available for a reasonable fee. You can buy the factory service manual or sometimes even just the electrical portion thereof, and I've never seen it cost more than $200 for that... often much less. The manual also has SOME information on the shape of the vehicle, for example it gives you enough information to find out if the vehicle is true (straight) or not.

Perhaps if Microsoft had made full documentation of their APIs available for the cost of reproduction and distribution (factory service manuals are pretty large format books and cost a fair bit to print and ship around, not to mention they are chock full of data which costs quite a bit to produce) we wouldn't be having this conversation. But they didn't.

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

Why? And what for?

Same reason you would use signed code anywhere else.

Also, it costs money.

So did your computer. Or are you banging rocks together to write your code ?

So, you do admit that Microsoft controls what users should and should not do?

No more so than anyone else in their position.

Given that Windows is obviously an incredibly poor fit for pretty much every aspect of your software development process, from philosophy to budget, the real question here is: why the hell are you writing Windows software ?

Re:Neat

[Cyberax]

"Same reason you would use signed code anywhere else."

My driver is signed. By my key, with my fingerprint on several keyservers. Also, you can download the sources and compile them yourself.

However, Windows requires the code to be signed by Microsoft (technically, your certificate must be cross-signed with a key of a trusted party of Microsoft).

"So did your computer. Or are you banging rocks together to write your code ?"

Pay me $500. Yes, it costs money. So did your computer. Or are you banging rocks together to write your code?

"No more so than anyone else in their position."

Linux? Windows XP? Even Mac OS X doesn't require signed drivers, for FSM's sake!

"Given that Windows is obviously an incredibly poor fit for pretty much every aspect of your software development process, from philosophy to budget, the real question here is: why the hell are you writing Windows software ?"

Why not? Am I not allowed to do it?

Re:Neat

[644bd346996]

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution. It's not often that IP laws or the application thereof are struck down due to hindering rather than promoting progress, but the Supreme Court has ruled on several occasions that they can be. It's just really tricky to prove. However, in the context of antitrust enforcement, it's probably quite a bit easier to prove (though still hard). I would not be surprised if it ends up that this is the easiest way to eliminate or significantly weaken software patents, since Justices are harder for the MAFIAA to buy off than congresscritters.

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

My driver is signed. By my key, with my fingerprint on several keyservers.

How do I know anything about you ?

Also, you can download the sources and compile them yourself.

Hardly an option. I have neither the skills nor time to properly audit your code.

However, Windows requires the code to be signed by Microsoft (technically, your certificate must be cross-signed with a key of a trusted party of Microsoft).

Yes. You may find similar situations in, say, Apple not allowing OS X on non-Apple hardware, or Red Hat not allowing the download of binaries without a RHN subscription.

Pay me $500.

Uh uh. First you need some software worth $500 (or, say, 500x$1).

Linux? Windows XP? Even Mac OS X doesn't require signed drivers, for FSM's sake!

Of course, they all have their own different "control" issues instead.

Why not? Am I not allowed to do it?

You can do whatever you want. It is a mystery to me why someone so clearly opposed to pretty much every aspect of Windows software development - from the relative lack of platform customisability to the costs involved - would continue to practice it, however.

Re:Neat

[Cyberax]

"How do I know anything about you ?"

Why do you need to know anything about me? And more importantly, how would it help you? (BTW, I own several codesigning certificates - you can even try to contact me using details in these certificates).

"Hardly an option. I have neither the skills nor time to properly audit your code."

Signing authority does not evaluate code _in_ _any_ _way_.

"Uh uh. First you need some software worth $500 (or, say, 500x$1)."

Why should I? You tried to use the broken window fallacy first.

"Of course, they all have their own different "control" issues instead."

What issues, exactly? Mac OS X does not tell you what you can do with your legally bought computer. Same goes for XP and Linux.

"You can do whatever you want. It is a mystery to me why someone so clearly opposed to pretty much every aspect of Windows software development - from the relative lack of platform customisability to the costs involved - would continue to practice it, however."

I like several Windows applications and I also try to help other users.

I do not object to paying for software (I have MSDN subscription). But I absolutely detest to pay (_and_ to agree to restrictive conditions) to be able to use my computer and let my users use it too.

Re:Neat

[Ironica]

This would be good for Apple.

Sure, but that's no justification for splitting MS.. I mean, if MS ceased to exist altogether, even that would be good for Apple.

This would be good for Linux.

Same point as above -- that doesn't really justify splitting MS.

It absolutely does justify the DOJ taking action to split MS. If the MS vertical monopoly (OS, web browser, email client, office suite) is hampering open competition, then splitting up that monopoly creates a healthier market place, which produces better, cheaper products for consumers (at the expense of profits for the leading company). That's the entire POINT of antitrust laws.

Re:Neat

[drsmithy]

Why do you need to know anything about me?

To know whether or not you signing your code means anything.

Signing authority does not evaluate code _in_ _any_ _way_.

I never said it did. You state your source code was available, presumably to imply that in some way makes it more trustworthy and/or verifiable.

Why should I?

Presumably, because you're trying to sell software.

What issues, exactly? Mac OS X does not tell you what you can do with your legally bought computer. Same goes for XP and Linux.

Neither does Vista. Not being able to load unsigned driver in no way "tells you what you can do with your legally bought computer". It just stops you loading that driver in Vista. You are still perfectly free to use your "legally bought computer" with Linux, FreeBSD, as a paperweight, or anything else.

I do not object to paying for software (I have MSDN subscription).

But apparently a code signing certificate is too much ? That is, after all, essentially what your entire argument boils down to.

But I absolutely detest to pay (_and_ to agree to restrictive conditions) to be able to use my computer and let my users use it too.

Then you're a hypocrite for using Windows at all. The driver signing in Vista x64 is no more of a "restrictive condition" than any of the numerous others entailed in using Windows or, indeed, pretty much any closed source product.

Re:Neat

[dhavleak]

If the MS vertical monopoly (OS, web browser, email client, office suite) is hampering open competition

- The web browser is a required feature in a consumer OS, so it's not valid to call out that point seperately.
- The email client (Outlook) is available on multiple OSes and Windows versions. What's the integration (vertical monopoly) you're referring to? - Same case with the Office suite. The latest version of MS Office runs on Win XP/2k3/Vista/OS-X will run on Win7, and probably even runs on Win2k. What's the vertical monopoly you are referring to? These products are completely decoupled. The consent decree of 2000 clearly forbids MS from using any Windows APIs in office (or any other product) that are not publicly documented.

.
... splitting up that monopoly creates a healthier market place, which produces better, cheaper products for consumers (at the expense of profits for the leading company). That's the entire POINT of antitrust laws.

A monopoly isn't sufficient for this. Abuse of monopoly has to be proven, and you haven't done that yet.

Re:Neat

[Ironica]

If we were talking about a company that simply created a superior product, marketed it effectively, and became the natural monopoly provider through these efforts, you might have a point.

But you're talking about a company that violated contracts, law, and basic ethics to position an inferior product as the market leader, then leveraged that position to position other, unrelated products as market leaders too. This isn't good for engineers, consumers, corporations using the products, or ANYONE except for those whose personal earnings are influenced by the earnings of one particular company.

It is time to make MS start over again, and give other companies a chance to compete on a more event playing field. Sure, maybe MS Office will continue to be the market leader, and maybe Windows will too... but if Dell finds it no easier to bundle IE than to bundle Firefox with new PCs, if it's suddenly a line-item cost to equip all your workstations with MS Office instead of Open Office... then decisions may be made differently. It may not change the shape of the market a whole lot, but it at least makes it *possible* for the market to change.

Re:Neat

[jcr]

Care to have a civilized discussion about just how unbridled capitalism was in the Carnegie era?

So, are you conceding that you were wrong about the 20th century? I hadn't even touched on the New Deal or Nixon's wage and price controls yet.

-jcr

Re:Neat

[Runaway1956]

False. The DOJ attempted to deal with the problem but before the problem was properly dealt with, an election occured. The big winner in that election chose to direct the DOJ to stop interfering with oil, big business, the defense industry, and possibly human rights issues that might reflect poorly on the administration.

The EU has dealt with the problem more effectively than the US has - but there is still a long way to go before MS is properly harnessed.

Re:Neat

[Runaway1956]

That has been talked to death. One does not NEED a browser to download a browser. In Ubuntu, all I need is the package manager. Open a command prompt, type sudo apt-get install midori firefox opera

Wait a little bit, and I have THREE browsers installed. The browser doesn't connect me to the internet, after all - it only displays what is on the internet, if I choose to see it.

Windoze doesn't need IE installed to perform a similar task, either. Since so few people know how to open a command prompt, or what to do with it, Windows can write a script, based on answers provided during setup, that will download and install whatever browser you wish to install.

Simple as can be.

Re:Neat

[Capsaicin]

Your analogy is broken because it does not account for the fact that both X and Y are produced by the same entity and said entity actually considers them not two products X and Y, but a single product, Z.

The entity obviously thinks that, but your response merely begs the question. Far from "not accounting for the fact", what I wrote was specifically about that fact. I did not claim, nor intend to imply, that this is a case of third line forcing, if that's where you're coming from.

The OP clearly sees them as discrete products and wants to consume some and not others. The fact that "the entity" considers them a single product is the very source of the unfreedom OP experiences as a consumer. And it is in correcting the entity's thinking that the consumers generally are given greater choice. Get it now?

Which is not to say that freedom ought to be preferred to proprietary rights, of course (that depends on your "philosophy"). But this is an example where the two are in conflict.

Re:Neat

[Eivind Eklund]

What doesn't?

Thousands of years of tradition, common sense, law,

Actually, copyright is not thousands of years old - it's a couple of hundred. And law has things to say about monopoly practices - and about losing privileges when somebody or some corporation misuse monopolies.

observation of human responses to financial incentives,

You might benefit from reading "Understanding Motivation and Emotion" for some more complicated basis of motivation. Financial incentives will both increase and destroy motivation.

to name a few. What does?

Ultimately, the threat of violence controlled by the masses. The relatively recent tradition of copyright law is backed in the same thing: It is based on society's offer of using violence to artificially create a limited monopoly on distribution of things you've cooked together out of the things you've learned through being a member of society. And a large part of the moral basis for limiting the offer is that you're choosing to distribute it into society, which modifies society and blocks others ability to fill the same niche - which gives society a strong interest. If you want closer to unlimited protection there's always the option of not releasing it into society. Trade secret law gives you more rights.

Eivind.

Re:Neat

[Capsaicin]

I ought to add that your question begging extends to the solution advocated by OP, namely to break the entity up so that X and Y are produced by separate entities. Again, the fact of Z, for from being unaccounted for, is the very topic under consideration.

Re:Neat

[Risen888]

Fair Use. Not just a good idea. It's the law.

Re:Neat

[elrous0]

Yeah, you don't NEED it. But both Leopard and Ubtuntu COME with them, nonetheless. So if you're going to tell MS they can't install a default browser, then you need to tell Apple and Canonical the same thing (or you're just giving THEM the unfair advantage). What no one wants to admit is that the "MS shouldn't be allowed to come with a default browser" argument is a relic of the 90's. These days, the consumer EXPECTS a default browser with their OS (whatever that OS is). A browser included with an OS today is no more anti-competitive than a browser with any other basic app (media player, calculator, telnet, etc.). This is especially true since most browsers today are basically non-commercial (they're all free and none really make any direct money for their companies).

Re:Neat

[Runaway1956]

No amount of talk is going to convince a person like yourself that MS is a monopoly, nor that something needs to be done to break the monopoly. But, your justifications for inclusion of a browser are pointless.

Assuming that you are qualified to participate in the simplest IT type of discussions, which part of my last post do you NOT UNDERSTAND?

The installation script can be altered ever so slightly, with a popup windows asking the user "Which browser(s) would you LIKE TO BE INSTALLED?"

The choices can include text browsers, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, you name it. The choices can include every single internet browser known to man, or only the 6 most popular, I don't care.

People like myself who DO NOT WANT INTERNET EXPLORER will be quite happy to uncheck the IE entry, and wait for a few minutes while the browser(s) of my choice download.

Fanbois like yourself who feel that IE is an essential part of your computing experience can also feel good that your browser is included in the choices.

While you gripe on Canonical - yes, they do install a default. But, the update tool offers several other browsers, and the default can be completely removed. MS will NOT completely remove IE, no matter how you beg and plead with it. The only way to do that is to remove IE from the installation media before you install Windows.

Monopoly: it isn't a good thing, no matter how you try to excuse it.

Re:Neat

[jcr]

The fact of the matter is that unbridled capitalism does not work.

The fact is that capitalism requires the rule of law; contracts must be enforced, money must be sound, and fraud must be prosecuted and punished. This is a very different thing from penalizing the successful and rewarding the unsuccessful. The market is the best way to allocate resources and effort, with every person making their own choices of what they want to buy or sell.

Where it goes off the rails, is when government gains enough power to plunder; once this happens, unscrupulous businesses will use the government to exclude their competition, or even to commit flat-out theft as in the case of subsidies, protective tariffs, and other corporate welfare programs. The biggest and most destructive example of this plunder is inflation of a fiat currency.

-jcr

Re:Neat

[jcr]

inflation, which is irrelevant to the topic at hand

Inflation is government-sponsored fraud, and it's not merely relevant, it's crucial to the topic at hand. The single biggest deviation from freedom in our modern economy is fiat money.

-jcr

Re:Neat

[Ironica]

A vertical monopoly is when a single producer controls all steps of a process. For example, if a company grows cotton, processes it into textiles, operates a garment factory, and sells clothing, that is a vertical monopoly. Cotton, raw from the field, is of no use to a consumer market. That doesn't mean that the same entity that grows the cotton must turn it into clothing, though.

A vertical monopoly is not, however, subject to antitrust legislation unless it hampers competition. If Gap buys up some cotton fields in Egypt and some garment factories in Taiwan, they can control their costs and supply line better, but they probably can't use this to lock Abercrombie & Fitch out of the apparel market. DOJ yawns and keeps reading the newspaper.

An OS without applications is as useful as raw cotton. That doesn't mean it's not a product, though. It's just not a complete consumer product. There is absolutely NOTHING about the nature of a web browser that requires it to be produced by the same company as an OS; if there were, Firefox, Opera, and Chrome wouldn't exist.

MS has used and abused their vertical monopoly to control pricing and market competition, and that has harmed the market. This gets the DOJ's attention, and is illegal.

Re:Neat

[dhavleak]

MS has used and abused their vertical monopoly to control pricing and market competition, and that has harmed the market. This gets the DOJ's attention, and is illegal.

I was with you until this point.

And that's because, as you yourself said - "An OS without applications is as useful as raw cotton. That doesn't mean it's not a product, though. It's just not a complete consumer product."

i.e. it's not that browsers aren't a seperate product - they are. But they are still a feature required to complete the OS. Without the browser, the OS is incomplete.

Requisite car anology:
(1) A car without a stereo is not feature-complete. A consumer OS without a browser is not feature-complete
(2) That doesn't mean the stereo isn't a seperate product and can't be sold seperately. Nor does it mean that a browser isn't a seperate product and can't be sold seperately.
(3) Consumers who want a different audio system will install one later. Consumers who want a different browser will install one later.
(4) At no point, is there anything restricting the dealer from offering the car for sale with a different stereo, or on the customer from installing a different stereo. At no point is there a restriction on the OEM from installing a different browser, or on the customer from installing a different browser.

So when it's all been distilled, the only difference left is MS's market share. And that's not enough to force them to strip the browser. You have to have market share + abuse. There's no abuse in this case.

Re:Neat

[Ironica]

MS has used and abused their vertical monopoly to control pricing and market competition, and that has harmed the market. This gets the DOJ's attention, and is illegal.

I was with you until this point.

And that's because, as you yourself said - "An OS without applications is as useful as raw cotton. That doesn't mean it's not a product, though. It's just not a complete consumer product."

i.e. it's not that browsers aren't a seperate product - they are. But they are still a feature required to complete the OS. Without the browser, the OS is incomplete.

That is not what I said.

What I said was, an OS, alone, is not a complete consumer-ready product. That's because consumers require applications. A browser is an application. It is in no way incumbent upon anyone that applications be manufactured by or bundled with the OS, any more than that the OS be bundled with the hardware (even though the hardware is even MORE required for complete OS usefulness).

Requisite car anology:

(1) A car without a stereo is not feature-complete. A consumer OS without a browser is not feature-complete

Bad analogy. Cars fulfill their basic function (getting people around) just fine without stereos. Cars can be purchased without stereos. Cars can also be purchased with a variety of stereos. Car manufacturers don't make stereos; they buy them from people who do, and offer them rebranded.

(2) That doesn't mean the stereo isn't a seperate product and can't be sold seperately. Nor does it mean that a browser isn't a seperate product and can't be sold seperately.

But it does mean that, unless people REALLY care, they're unlikely to buy an additional stereo. However, it also means that Kenwood, Alpine, Sony, et al. work to sell their stereos to the car manufacturers.

If Honda decided it was going to build its own stereos, and include them in all their cars for free, and not use anyone else's stereos, while also making it difficult to install a non-Honda stereo into their car (well, you can plug it in, but the sound will only come out of one speaker at a time unless you pop the hood and swap the spark plugs around), and had already engaged in industrial espionage, breach of contract, and product sabotage to lock Ford, Toyota, and Volkswagen out of the passenger sedan market... then that would be more analogous, and would be antitrust.

(4) At no point, is there anything restricting the dealer from offering the car for sale with a different stereo, or on the customer from installing a different stereo. At no point is there a restriction on the OEM from installing a different browser, or on the customer from installing a different browser.

Except for the many years when Microsoft used their market dominance to prevent computer hardware sellers from offering other browsers on computers.

So when it's all been distilled, the only difference left is MS's market share. And that's not enough to force them to strip the browser. You have to have market share + abuse. There's no abuse in this case.

Except for all the abuse that's happened, that gave them their market share. They're leveraging ill-gotten gains, which is STILL having a negative effect on the market. It's not enough that they're not, right this minute, continuing the same practices; after all, what more damage could they do? There's no other DOS for PC-style computers anymore. There's no other OS platform with more than a niche market. There's no one making a living selling web browsers. They already destroyed the market. What happens from here on out is predicated on a manipulated, anti-competitive situation.

It's like saying that a home run should count, because after the ball hit the bat, the steroids the batter took weren't affecting it anymore. The current market position of IE is a product of anti-compet

Re:Neat

[stewbacca]

(1) A car without a stereo is not feature-complete. A consumer OS without a browser is not feature-complete

(5) Nobody buys a car based on the built-in stereo and even if a car didn't have a stereo, that wouldn't stop anybody from buying a car they really wanted in the first place.

Re:Neat

[dhavleak]

(5) Nobody buys a car based on the built-in stereo and even if a car didn't have a stereo, that wouldn't stop anybody from buying a car they really wanted in the first place.

Ok, I now understand why car analogies are frowned upon. I can refute this point, but we end up arguing utterly irrelevant minutae..

btw: Sorry for unloading on you in the other thread. I just got really frustrated with the lack of insight/information (in the entire discussion; ~200 odd posts) and took it out on you and I should not have.

Re:Neat

[dhavleak]

For the sake of brevity, I'll just respond to a couple of items in your post:

while also making it difficult to install a non-Honda stereo into their car

What are the restrictions on running other browsers on Windows?

Except for all the abuse that's happened, that gave them their market share. They're leveraging ill-gotten gains, which is STILL having a negative effect on the market.

Why do you say that? Can you point to the specific area where the consent decree has fallen short?

There's no other DOS for PC-style computers anymore. There's no other OS platform with more than a niche market. There's no one making a living selling web browsers. They already destroyed the market.

But FF and Opera are profitable and healthy (i.e. they're making a living selling web browsers).

Re:Neat

[stewbacca]

Hey, cool! Thanks! I wish more users on here were as cordial. I love car analogies, because I love cars and most people on slashdot have no passion for cars, so it makes for good arguments!

What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[kurt555gs]

Now would be a good time to break them up, as should have been done before. Why wont it happen? Because hoards of Microsoft lawyers now have jobs with the Obama administration.

End result? , lets go after anyone Microsoft doesn't like, as in Google.

Please notice that I did not use "M$" in the body of this post. The use of "M$" inflaes the paid Microsoft shills that seem to hang out here.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[TinBromide]

Microsoft is still going to feel the anti-trust wrath, but they are trying to share the anti-trust wealth that they have been "enjoying". I wouldn't be surprised if the biggest Microsoft Zune competitor (Apple's ipod) got some anti-trust charges in addition to IBM and Google. If anything, by subjecting the competitors to a flame that Microsoft has built up years of resistance against, it will help Microsoft.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[Darkness404]

...And what good would breaking up MS do? What needs to happen is A) Laws allowing you to return bundled software for free for a refund with no hassle B) Enforcing open standards, and open source in government C) requiring that technology education for public high schools be platform independent D) Repeal the DMCA so DRM can be broken

If you take these sane steps, MS will wither, on the other hand breaking up MS is A) Anti-capitalism and B) Won't work to stop its monopoly, only create smaller ones.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[Darkness404]

I don't really get why Apple, Google or IBM would get any anti-trust charges. Apple now has made iTunes DRM free, uses open (if not patented) standards for audio codecs, etc. Apple isn't trying to be abusive in the market unlike MS. The iPhone, while closed, could use a bit of opening but I still don't see it being a monopoly, sure, the restrictions are bad, but its not like you can't get an Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile or Blackberry device and get about the same applications/experience.

Google isn't abusive either, sure they have expanded rapidly, but they haven't been destroying the competition. Now if they redirected all searches of Yahoo to "Did you mean Google?" sure, but not presently.

IBM has also opened up in recent years to fully embracing OSS. Sure, soem things are proprietary, but in 2009 IBM isn't a monopoly like back in the '70s and '80s.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[644bd346996]

Microsoft would had never had the money to launch the XBox as a successful invasion of the video game market if it were not for the combined cash cow monopolies of Windows and Office. (And ironically, if they hadn't been able to move in on the video game market at that time, then the Halo series would have stayed on the Mac platform.)

Breaking up Microsoft might not be worth the effort today, but then again, having a natural monopoly has never been the (legal) issue. It's abusing that monopoly to take over other markets that is illegal, and it certainly is necessary to make sure that Microsoft can't continue that pattern.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[pizzach]

Exactly. If MS was broken into a browser and an OS company, we would definitely still be using IE6 since the browser company would divert all of it's developers to other projects. No affect on anything at all.

I fail to see how breaking them up would be anti-capitalism though. I think you mean anti-Laissez-faire capitalism.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[Darkness404]

But would we be using a browser that was just as bad? A browser is essential for the average person to download newer, better browsers. OEMs, while they could bundle a decent browser, would just as easily buy a crap browser to put on the systems. We would have yet another proprietary browser war, with people having to buy browsers on disk and no Web 2.0 revolution.

An OS is not complete without a browser, if Apple couldn't bundle Safari with OS X then I don't think we would have WebKit nor would we have (by extension) Chrome.

And yes I do mean Laissez-faire capitalism because its really the only form of real capitalism unless by capitalism you simply mean that people have capital (cash).

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[TinBromide]

while I wish that the license used by a company could preclude them from monopolistic policies, there may be an alternate dimension where the GPL is used by a monopoly and is preventing closed source software is unable to compete. Simply being open source or favoring open source does not matter one whit in the eyes of an anti-trust hearing. Its all about what you do with massive market share. AT&T could have open sourced their phones and switches, but they would have still been broken up for preventing competition.

Being a monopoly means that you use the weight of an existing consumer base to prevent competition. Microsoft could say that because apple has such control over the portable mp3 market, their linking of itunes is preventing other stores from accessing that customer base. (like linking IE to windows)

While some of you may say that its apple's product and they can do whatever they want, bundling a browser with the most popular (95%+ market share) OS was once grounds for anti-monopoly proceedings.

Essentially what I'm saying is that Microsoft may be hoping that the government will move the monopoly bar so low that their competitors will have to open up.

Microsoft is a major stockholder in Apple and have routinely paid $750m settlements (to companies like Real) because they were being accused of abusing a monopoly. If they can lower the bar enough, then google may be forced to host MSN ads or route traffic through the MSN search. Apple may have to open up their devices to DRM'd WMA's purchased through the Zune store.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[Darkness404]

But really the Xbox has been a good thing for the video game market as a whole. Sega was doomed from the start with every single console save for the Master System and the Genesis (Mega Drive for those not in the US), and almost ruined the Genesis with all the add-ons (Sega CD, 32X, etc). So past the Dreamcast era even with no Xbox, Sega would have failed. What would have happened would be the Gamecube having all the non-hardcore games and all the Nintendo franchises, while Sony would have most of the market to itself and end up with lots of contracts with developers. Unless IBM (or Apple if they did it right, though they might have not had the capital for an initial loss-leader at the time) stepped in with console it would be SNES vs. Genesis part II. With the Xbox, Sony had to compete for better games (Nintendo having mostly first-party games really didn't care).

Sure, the Xbox was an extension of a monopoly, but game consoles always have been competing with less than 4 other systems, with Sega dropping out, it needed competition.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[flyingsquid]

I don't really get why Apple, Google or IBM would get any anti-trust charges.

Don't be silly, of *course* Google is a monopoly! When people google, who do they use? Google. Google has a complete monopoly when it comes to googling. That's why we have to split the company in two. I propose the creation of two companies, "Go" and "Ogle". Or perhaps "Goo" and "Gle", or even "G" and "Oogle". Anyhow you get my point.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[Darkness404]

while I wish that the license used by a company could preclude them from monopolistic policies, there may be an alternate dimension where the GPL is used by a monopoly and is preventing closed source software is unable to compete. Simply being open source or favoring open source does not matter one whit in the eyes of an anti-trust hearing. Its all about what you do with massive market share. AT&T could have open sourced their phones and switches, but they would have still been broken up for preventing competition.

With open source though, you are not the sole provider of the software, so an abusive monopoly is impossible to create unless no one cares, if no one cares you obviously aren't abusive enough.

Being a monopoly means that you use the weight of an existing consumer base to prevent competition. Microsoft could say that because apple has such control over the portable mp3 market, their linking of itunes is preventing other stores from accessing that customer base. (like linking IE to windows)

That really doesn't work because A) There are loads of MP3 players available, Apple's really isn't that unique, they aren't the cheapest, etc. B) iTunes isn't on most computers by default, it has to be manually installed C) Other stores can easily compete by being cheaper/better, if iTunes is such a monopoly then where does all this pirated music that the RIAA complains about that shows up in iPods come from?

While some of you may say that its apple's product and they can do whatever they want, bundling a browser with the most popular (95%+ market share) OS was once grounds for anti-monopoly proceedings.

It wasn't the fact that it was just a browser, it was also a browser that managed to be annoyingly incompatible with standards. Not to mention was created specifically to stop Netscape. The iPod was not made to stop the Zune, it didn't have price cuts to try to reduce the Zune marketshare, etc.

Apple may have to open up their devices to DRM'd WMA's purchased through the Zune store.

If it was a patent-free, royalty free codec they might have to, but since it is not and you have to pay MS for it, it is no more than glorified extortion.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[Darkness404]

Um, no. The government should use open source for a few reasons A) Its not supporting any company, they can do all patches, security, upgrades, etc, in-house, this increases security because they are the only ones doing it so they can audit their own code. B) Throughout many studies, OSS has been found to be more secure C) Open source is cheaper, less tax dollars wasted D) Open source allows for smoother upgrades when the time comes because the code is there to compare different versions

I should be allowed to return any bundled software that cost the OEM money for little to no hassle and receive a refund if the OEM does not make it an option to have no operating system on the computer. This is common sense and prevents people who do not want to support a company from inadvertently lining their pockets. Plus, if you aren't going to use it, why pay for it?

Cross platform teaching just makes sense in today's world. The student who knows only OS X will be possibly lost if they end up in a job that is Windows only. The student who knows only Windows will be lost if they have to work with OS X or Linux. By supporting cross-platform or mixed-platform technologies, students have a much better knowledge of computers not Windows, or OS X or even just Linux. Similarly all programming languages should be done in a platform independent language such as Python, Java, etc. Not a language or psudo-language that is locked into a certain platform.

I don't think anyone can rationally say that the DMCA is a good thing. All it has done is increase monopolies, lawsuits, and made businesses hesitant to develop any "intellectual" property in the USA. Modchips, Flash Cartridges and other industries that thrive in other countries can't be legally made in the USA because in order to make them you must subvert the copyright protection.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

When people google, who do they use? Google. Google has a complete monopoly when it comes to googling.

Kind of amazing Google hasn't tried to stop people from using "google" as a verb. After all, you were trying to be funny, but Xerox was forced to stop people from "xeroxing" to make the verb no longer under their monopoly, else they would have been split from it.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[SL Baur]

Google isn't abusive either, sure they have expanded rapidly, but they haven't been destroying the competition. Now if they redirected all searches of Yahoo to "Did you mean Google?" sure, but not presently.

True. Search for "search engines" on Google. The first link in the results is a news article about the Wolfram Alpha. In results further down, live.com is listed ahead of google.com. When I click on the "list of search engines" link at the top, I get a page that lists yahoo.com, but *does not* list google.com.

Seems reasonable.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[pete6677]

What really made the key difference is that Microsoft discovered political lobbying. They had never really given it much thought before the anti-trust trial, when Gates was naive enough to think the company would succeed just because of how smart he is. Faced with their eventual elimination, Gates realized that when you run a big business you have to play the game. That means gaining political favor. When Gates started his lobbying arm, he did it the way he does everything else: with full force. Now, Microsoft's lobbyist department is one of the strongest in the industry. No future president or legislator will ever again threaten them with monopoly charges. Hell, they could probably buy Google if they really played their cards right. The monopoly trial was about nothing more than politicians sending Gates a message saying "you've got to pay to play".

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[SL Baur]

Heh. I should have continued. A similar search on live.com yields *no* results for Google. None.

Oh really?

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[TinBromide]

Summary and take-away message. If you own a dominant position in the market and you abuse that position to exclude competition, you open yourself up to a monopoly hearing. It doesn't matter what's possible, what alternatives exist, if you're open source or royalty free, but if you own a dominant position in the market and you abuse that position to exclude competition, you open yourself up to a monopoly hearing. (I'll put this again at the end in case people miss it)

I really wish you were correct. If red hat was the sole provider of support contracts for operating systems and they used their reputation/massive base to exclude 3rd party support, they could be hit. Its all about being dominant and using that dominance to exclude competitors. Simply because something is theoretically possible (users could install netscape and make it default in windows 9x. It wasn't hard, I did it.) isn't enough to prevent that monopoly hearing. The judges don't care about standards, they don't care about royalty-free, they don't care about whether or not there CAN be competition, they only care about what there is. Not all judges are as idealistic as the average slashdot reader.

Other companies COULD have run wires or used ham radio to provide telephone service, but they didn't. There WERE other browsers besides IE. Most of the time, an anti-monopoly suit is brought by competition in the field that the competitor is being forced out of. If Company A didn't have the majority of the install base and a competitor would have been able to survive, then Company A is abusing a monopoly which opens them up for lawsuits. While there's a fine line between the court protecting a companies ability to make money, they will also respect when a company is unable to compete because of monopolistic practices.

if no one cares you obviously aren't abusive enough.

Bingo. There is nothing to prevent you from making a superwidget and owning 100% share of the superwidget market. The second that you start forcing competitors out of the superwidget market with something other than properly applied patents, copyright, or trademark law, then you've just abused your monopoly. If you start forcing competitors out (say by refusing to do business with companies that sell a potential competitor), then you've just opened yourself up to a lawsuit. Also, you're allowed to improve or introduce a new product line to "stop" (capitalists would call it "compete with") a competitors product. If IE had continued to be a stand-alone product or optional at install, there may not have been a case. However, if it was optional at install or stand-alone and Microsoft told HP that they would stop selling windows at OEM prices to HP if they bundled Netscape, that would have been an abuse of the monopoly.

While i know wikipedia is not a legal dictionary, its a good referance on some subjects and doesn't reference open source or most of the things you've mentioned. However, it does mention product bundling which could tie itunes and the ipod together. That could get in the way of ipod users playing zune music or the Zune Store selling ipod DRM'd music. The lack of willingness to license Freeplay to competitors could actually open Apple up to a hearing.

Also, you don't even need a majority in the EU to be a monopoly, the article above says that one company had 39% market share, but if you're dominant, you can still hold a monopoly.

Summary and take-away message. If you own a dominant position in the market and you abuse that position to exclude competition, you open yourself up to a monopoly hearing. It doesn't matter what's possible, what alternatives exist, if you're open source or royalty free, but if you own a dominant position in the market and you abuse that position to exclude competition, you open yourself up to a monopoly hearing.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[R2.0]

You are displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of the word "monopoly". A company is a monopoly if they have a dominant market share - period. And it is not illegal, nor even necessarily bad. What is illegal is using that monopoly position in illegal ways, such as forcing competitors out of business, etc.

It is that confusion that causes these periodic swings in enforcement policy, because the mere fact that a company is that large is an advantage in the market, and hurts competitors. The progressive/liberal viewpoint is that this is enough to trigger regulatory action. So, Google should deserve regulatory sanctions because, since they are so large, it's hard for competitors to make money competing with them. Of course, the problem with this viewpoint is that it will quickly lead to the anti-trust version of affirmative action - companies that are larger than others will be restrained simply because they are larger, with no regard to how they got that way. Better business practices, brilliant ideas, terrible missteps by competitors: it won't matter. "We're sorry, but you have too much market share. Give it to someone else".

Free marketers/conservatives take the opposite tack - if a company is large, so what - they shouldn't be subject to special laws or scrutiny. And we've seen where that leads - the robber barons, Standard Oil, etc.

Right now the liberals are in charge, so that's the way it will trend. But let us at least be precise in our descriptions of the problems

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[SL Baur]

...And what good would breaking up MS do?

Force them to compete on merit?

What needs to happen is A) Laws allowing you to return bundled software for free for a refund with no hassle

No, one issue is that by default, the way they have set up OEM licensing, everyone pays for a Microsoft license. Lowering the refund hurdle aside, that's inherently anti-competitive and unrealistic - the vast majority of people are going to use what came with the system, after all, they already paid for it. It works to stifle any competition. Netscape died a painful death.

Another example. Why is there no competition for MS Outlook? It's a mail program that appears designed to make its users look like drooling idiots. I especially like the "<user> would like to withdraw this message" messages I get all the time. "Oh but the calendar feature is wonderful." I also like how it takes at least 3 or 4 reposts to schedule a meeting and by the time that is accomplished, even Outlook can get confused about the results. (And don't get me started about the idiocy that is top-posting).

You kids have no idea what things were like in the 80s when there was competition, variety and innovation. Now, get off my lawn.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[belmolis]

You're right about why Xerox tried, but in fact people continue to use "xerox" as a generic verb for "photocopy" and yet Xerox has not lost its trademark.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[SL Baur]

We would have yet another proprietary browser war, with people having to buy browsers on disk and no Web 2.0 revolution.

You say that as if it were a bad thing ...

If web pages were written to a true standard, and one has always existed, that would make for the best results. You then select the browser that delivers the feature set you prefer most.

10 or 20 browsers, on top of 10 or 20 O/Ses running on 5 or 10 hardware architectures would make for an extremely hostile (to) web malware environment *and* those who try to buck established standards.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[MaskedSlacker]

Laissez-faire capitalism wouldn't have corporations, patents, or copyrights.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[randomchicagomac]

[Rant]
Compare

If you own a dominant position in the market and you abuse that position to exclude competition, you open yourself up to a monopoly hearing.

with

judges . . . don't care about whether or not there CAN be competition, they only care about what there is.

I am not an antitrust lawyer, but you said it yourself. Having a dominant position in the market is not sufficient to make you a monopoly: you also have to abuse that position to exclude competition. If there can be competition, then you have not abused your position to exclude such competition.

The ancestor post (too many generations) was about whether use of open standards could, by definition, mean that you were not abusing a dominant position. Parent poster replied by saying that AT&T (presumably back in the days of Ma Bell) could have open sourced its switches, but AT&T still would have been a monopolist. That's because what AT&T was selling at the time was better understood as hardware and access to that hardware.

Another topic discussed up there somewhere was whether Apple is abusing its market dominance with the iPod. In this case, open standards, etc., might be able to themselves ensure that Apple is not excluding other music vendors from that market. These standards have less to do with whether Apple is abusing its position to exclude other hardware manufacturers from the relevant market, but that's another story (FWIW, I don't think Apple is abusing this position).

My point is that it's important to determine what the relevant market is--this thread has identified markets in software sales, hardware sales, and software support. If the market is actually selling software that works, a company that uses open standards might, by definition, be incapable of abusing their position to exclude others.
[/Rant]

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[nxtw]

It wasn't the fact that it was just a browser, it was also a browser that managed to be annoyingly incompatible with standards. Not to mention was created specifically to stop Netscape.

Did you use the internet a decade ago? Back in the late, Netscape Navigator sucked compared to the IE versions available at the time. IE4's support for the HTML DOM and CSS were much better than Navigator 4's. Both companies frequently ingored standards and created their own, and many times this actually was good. Remember blink (NN)/marquee(IE)? Frames, cookies, and JavaScript? All Netscape inventions. XMLHttpRequest, which enables "AJAX" and makes things like Gmail and the new Slashdot possible? Originally developed by Microsoft in 1999 and later implemented by other browsers starting in 2002. Oh... and the standard - still a working draft - was first drafted in 2006.

Many of the complaints made regarding IE in the past 5 years or so could apply to the last versions of Netscape Navigator.

• From 2001: "Unfortunately, NN 4.xx had only minor and cosmetic updates while Explorer was able to incorporate more CSS features, and re-work buggy implementations."
• From 2002: "Netscape 4.x is the single biggest obstacle to standards-based web design."
• Some interesting comments from 2003

Read on.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[hedwards]

Why wouldn't they? Nobody in their right mind would allow the top two businesses in a market merge, which is justification in and of itself to break up Google. Sometimes a company being large enough is in and of itself an undo burden on trade.

As for Apple, it doesn't matter whether or not they're DRMed, the fact is that the format they use is nonstandard and represents a barrier to other manufacturers competing with them.

There's obviously more two it in both directions, but it's not exactly hard to see why they should be scrutinized.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[Mattazuma]

They didn't "abuse" their monopoly power making the XBox. Using money earned in their monopoly business to enter another, unrelated market is not an anti-trust violation. In order for there to be a violation they would have to directly use their monopoly to take over another market. For example, requiring the use of Microsoft mice or keyboards in order to run Windows would be an anti-trust violation.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[Curunir_wolf]

No way they will go after Google. Eric Schmidt is a member of the Bilderberg Group, and other executives have ties with them and with the Trilateral Commission.

Obama will never allow any interference with their plans.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

in fact people continue to use "xerox" as a generic verb for "photocopy" and yet Xerox has not lost its trademark.

Some people do, sure. But they've been pretty good about getting TV shows/movies/etc. to use "copy" and "copier" instead of "xerox" and "xerox machine"

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[interkin3tic]

Because hoards of Microsoft lawyers now have jobs with the Obama administration.

Former MS lawyers? Are these a special breed of lawyers who actually have loyalty to people who aren't currently giving them money?

I agree it's not ideal to have lawyers who have ever worked for MS, but it's not like they're definitely going to still do all they can for MS, and while we're wishing, why not wish the administration had no need to hire ANY lawyers?

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[shutdown -p now]

Heh. I should have continued. A similar search on live.com yields *no* results for Google. None.

Oh really?

It seems to be specifically looking for pages that describe themselves as "search engines", which Google doesn't do (but e.g. Yahoo does). If you just search for "search", you'll see Google above Live Search (but below Yahoo).

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[The_Quinn]

Your attitude of hatred of Microsoft's success is not uncommon.

But consider this: millions of people like Microsoft products. Businesses make billions using Microsoft products. Microsoft makes products that are of enormous value to many people.

There are plenty of people, like myself, who are very familiar with many different operating systems, yet choose, and are happy with, Microsoft products (Ok the Ribbon interface in Office 2007 pissed me off for awhile, but I still CHOSE to purchase the software, because I like their Office software that much.)

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[The_Quinn]

That's like saying: Microsoft could never have brought so much value into people's lives without already having brought so much value into people's lives.

Microsoft cannot (and never could) force anyone to do anything against their will

Many people get great value from MS products, and businesses make billions using MS products - who are you to say there is something wrong with that?

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[The_Quinn]

That is why we need the separation of State and Economics, just as we have the separation of Church and State.

The only way to avoid the purchasing of government favoritism is to eliminate the power of the government to grant favors.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[noidentity]

Please notice that I did not use "M$" in the body of this post. The use of "M$" inflaes the paid Microsoft shills that seem to hang out here.

You did too, twice!

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[644bd346996]

I was using the XBox more as an example of the power Microsoft has as a result of their ill-gotten gains elsewhere. But by no means was the XBox a clean deal. For example, since the XBox used what was essentially DirectX as it's apis, Microsoft had something of an advantage over other console manufacturers when it comes to attracting third-party developers, since PC game devs could more easily port their stuff to the XBox. Then there's the fact that the video game division that makes the XBox didn't turn a profit until after the release of Halo 3. That's even counting all the XBox related software and licensing fee income. Selling your stuff at a steep loss in order to suffocate smaller competitors is frequently illegal - eg. Intel is currently in hot (er, tepid) water for, among other things, selling some of their chips below cost.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[drsmithy]

Please notice that I did not use "M$" in the body of this post. The use of "M$" inflaes the paid Microsoft shills that seem to hang out here.

If you act like a child, you should not be surprised when you get treated like one.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[drsmithy]

10 or 20 browsers, on top of 10 or 20 O/Ses running on 5 or 10 hardware architectures would make for an extremely hostile (to) web malware environment *and* those who try to buck established standards.

Not to mention anyone trying to write software for more than a tiny minority of the marketplace.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[SL Baur]

Why is there no competition for MS Outlook? It's a mail program that appears designed to make its users look like drooling idiots.

There is competition for Outlook, it's just not good enough.

The prosecution rests, Your Honor.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[rackserverdeals]

Very true.

The first browser I ever used was Mosaic on a Solaris workstation. I used it to preview the first site I ever built. After that, on Windows, Netscape Navigator became my browser of choice until about 4.6? It's been a while so I may be off on the version number.

I remember the day I switched my default browser to IE. I felt very sad and let down. It was probably in early to mid '99. It didn't have anything to do with web standards though. The problem for me was that it would crash or hang frequently. Sometimes requiring a reboot. For someone who likes to leave there desktop up for days at a time to preserve my workspace, it was deal breaker.

I don't know if the Netscape developers/qa team got sloppy or if MS was messing with the API to create the instability, all I knew is my preference for NN died.

Thankfully, the long delay after open sourcing the code didn't prevent Mozilla Firefox from being released and it's now my default browser again.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[RiotingPacifist]

Apple have no monopolies atm but their locking of everything to itunes should be kept an eye on, if iphones get an effective monopoly on the smartphone market then DOJ should step in and force apple to allow other software to update & interact with unjailbroken iphones/ipod touches.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[JAlexoi]

IBM is a monopoly in certain markets. And still going strong in handling rogue clients.

Re:What about the root of all evil, Microsoft?

[nxtw]

I don't know if the Netscape developers/qa team got sloppy or if MS was messing with the API to create the instability, all I knew is my preference for NN died.

I don't think MS undertook any action to make Netscape unstable on Windows. I recall Navigator being unstable on any platform on which I used it, at least when accessing pages that were likely to make it crash.
Around 1999-2001, I occasionally used Navigator 4 on systems running Windows 95 - before Microsoft had integrated IE. I don't remember being impressed with Navigator on Mac OS or Linux, either.

Enough of "Too Big to Fail"!

[cduffy]

I remember gobs of people complaining about letting businesses get to be "too big to fail" back when the last administration started the process of bailing out financial companies. I'm curious as to just how many of those same folks will be showing up lauding this move -- and of those who don't, how they expect to prevent businesses from growing that large without regulatory action.

Re:Enough of "Too Big to Fail"!

[hedwards]

I for one laud the move, assuming they actually do it rather than say that they're going to do it.

But to be fair, when the government said that they were too big to fail, they were implying that they'd do something about the credit default swaps. To this day, I don't believe anybody has actually addressed those in any sort of direct way.

We could have bailed out all of the mortgage problems for around 3-4 trillion whereas the real problem was many times larger than that due to companies buying insurance on bonds they hadn't bought.

Re:Enough of "Too Big to Fail"!

[timmarhy]

the problem is too big to fail was a bullshit notion to begin with. they just had trouble saying "old boys club".

Re:Enough of "Too Big to Fail"!

[east coast]

What do you mean "had"? This problem hasn't gone away. In fact, no one is addressing it at all. At least no one who can make a difference given the current political landscape.

Re:Enough of "Too Big to Fail"!

[DaveAtFraud]

The current mess with certain banks and the car makers is a good argument for injecting a "too big to fail" criteria into the existing anti-trust criteria. Sure Chase and Citibank and BofA all compete but if they've gotten "too big to fail", is there really competition? The same applies to GM and Chrysler plus some other companies that aren't in trouble at the moment (e.g., what happens to commercial aviation if Boeing goes belly up? There used to be a competitor called McDonnell-Douglas until Boeing bought them).

Capitalism only works if today's dinosaurs can be recycled. When a company becomes "too big to fail" that recycling stops. Had any of the banks that are the focus of TARP been smaller, the FDIC would have seized them and sold off the assets to "healthy" banks. That this solution wasn't possible says that we've let these banks and certain other businesses (e.g., AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, etc.) become too big and deluded ourselves that there is any true competition.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Enough of "Too Big to Fail"!

[mgblst]

The problem is you can't just implement this size limit to US companies, or you will be unfairly discriminating against them, in favour of the rest of the world, which doesn't have this rule. US companies would not be able to compete under these unfair rules.

HELLO! Microsoft anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

This really annoys me as they aren't prosecuting the biggest offender of them all. Microsoft needs to be eliminated entirely.

Re:Three little words

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

I don't get it either, but:

Honestly, I would not doubt these guys invent something, let alone if they do come up with anything based on current trends will Obama go on TV and vilify people who working legally?

1. Be honest.
2. Someone is supposed to invent something that is based on current trends.
3. ???
4. Profit!!!

Re:Hurdle/Hurtle

[Smallpond]

Can it really be that hard to get hurdle/hurtle right, when you've got an article that uses it correctly right in front of you, which you're copy/pasting into your own submission?

    To hurtle is to travel at great speed through the air. A hurdle is a jump, or an obstacle to be jumped.

When people that do it don't even get it right?

Re:Why those corporations?

[WindBourne]

Because AT&T, Apple, Intel and MS pay LOTS of money to congressmen, as well as hire lots of ppl that worked in DOJ later on.

It's all in the $

[hax0r_this]

Doubtful

About those codecs...

[Rob Y.]

>Apple now has made iTunes DRM free, uses open (if not patented) standards for audio codecs, etc.

If the AAC codec is as open as, say, WMA, how come other audio players don't include it? I was looking at an ad for a cheap player from Coby that had OGG fer Chrissake. ...and WMA. How come no AAC? With all those iPod users out there and all their ready-to-go AAC files, why wouldn't all iPod competitors support AAC?

Is Microsoft just giving away their WMA 'intellectual property'. Or is Apple (or whoever holds the rights to AAC) overcharging?

Re:Three little words

[Thinboy00]

Woosh! (I don't get it either :P )

Cable Companies

[DJRumpy]

I'd rather see them pursue and split the cable company Television division from the telcomm. This has more impact on my usage than MS's operating system.

Re:Welcome big brother

[jvollmer]

> To all the people that voted him in, reap what you sow.
> It all sounds good until the come for the company that you 'like'. Then what are you going to do?

I'm going to point them towards your house! "Do it to Julia!"

Another set of excuses for our Kleptocracy.

[tjstork]

Seriously, which one of these findings were so objectionable. Was it:

"No single test for determining whether conduct is anticompetitive such as the effects-balancing, profit-sacrifice, no-economic-sense, equally efficient competitor, or disproportionality tests works well in all cases. The Department encourages the continuing development of conduct-specific tests and safe harbors;"

or

"Remedies for conduct that is found to violate Section 2 should re-establish the opportunity for competition without unnecessarily chilling competitive practices or undermining incentives to invest and innovate;"

Monopolies aren't illegal

[BearRanger]

However exploiting them is. For those of you asking why Google and not Apple, perhaps that's why. I'd be hard pressed to say Apple has a monopoly in any of its markets anyway.

What is the government's intent in pursuing anti-trust action? If it's to make markets more competitive there are better industries to target than microchips, software and computer manufacturing. The barrier to entry for the software market is very low. In my opinion any emphasis here should be on limiting mergers and acquisitions that stifle innovation.

However if their goal is to limit the exploitation of consumers they need to revisit telecommunications. Start with the government-granted monopolies given to the cable companies. Then take a look at the oligarchy that the wireless phone market has become. AT&T may not be the "Ma Bell" of yore but they seem to be heading that way.

There's no such thing as too big to fail..

[tjstork]

Seriously, if we would have let Citibank or AIG go down the shitter, what would have happened? Let's see, we would have had a month where we lost 600,000 jobs.

Oh, jeez, we get those every month now.

TARP is hands down the dumbest bipartisan thing ever done. Right about now the House Republicans that opposed TARP are starting to look really good. TARP was a trillion dollar waste of money.

And of course, we followed that up with another trillion dollar waste of money in the stimulus. Our latest moron in chief could conceivably go and blow that on another stimulus that has 0 impact on GDP... as for some reason our retards in Washington think that we just need to get consumers borrowing more when the problem with the USA is that everyone has borrowed too much.

Re:There's no such thing as too big to fail..

[ArsonSmith]

Obama's going to loan us enough money to get us completely out of debt. It'll be great.

Google has the least to worrie about.

[miffo.swe]

I would not think Google have anything to worry about legally since they dont use their monopoly in the search market to push out competitors in other markets. The complaints agains Google has been laughable so far and initiated by Microsoft or proxy.

Microsoft, Intel and HP on the other hand should be very afraid. If any serious scrutinize is put on them they are going down and fast.

Re:Welcome big brother

[shentino]

Would McCain have done any better?

Seriously, both parties suck so bad I almost don't even bother voting anymore.

Re:Why those corporations?

[The_Quinn]

The original purpose of the government was to protect you - the individual. The most radical idea in the Constitution was the idea that you, the individual, mattered.

Today, the government has gone from "protector" of individual rights, to "infringer" of individual rights. It is a culture of thuggery whose modus operandi is "Can I get away with it?"

The only way to get business out of government is to get government out of business, i.e. to return the government to it's sole function of protecting you - the individual.

Makes Perfect Sense...

[Stormy Dragon]

So, on one hand, the Treasury Department is spending billions of dollars to keep massive corporations from breaking up and, on the other hand, the Justice Department will be spending billions of dollars to make sure they do.

Against Monopoly

[Lorien_the_first_one]

If the Obama administration really wants to go after monopoly, the best place to start is to weaken copyright and patent laws and make the RIAA guys they hired earn their money. For some very interesting reading, they should start here.

I'm in chapter 5 of this book, and I'm already convinced that patents should be abolished, completely. I'm also forming the opinion that the success of the malware industry is exactly because they seek no protection or rents from patents, copyrights or other monopoly protection.

I'm not so sure about abolishing copyrights yet, but I haven't finished the book. Maybe a much shorter term is in order, perhaps 3-10 years.

Re:Why those corporations?

[WindBourne]

Odd. I can google it and find definitions for it. Kind of like ain't. I was taught that it was not a word and I was not to use it. BUT, you find it in ALL DICTIONARIES.
Likewise, before me, the word cool referred ONLY to temperature. Now, a new definition of "Very Good" has been added.
The reason is that SOCIETY outweighed word Nazi's like yourself. The short text ppl has been around since at least the 60's, which is most likely older than you. More importantly, EVERYBODY who hits this site KNOWS what it means. Lack of knowledge does not equate to lack of intelligence. Sadly, from your single sentence, you appear to lack any real intelligence. My sig IS for ppl like u. Coward.

open up old windows versions

[parshimers]

it would be nice if the DOJ forced MS to open the source code to all previous versions of windows up to maybe windows 2k. that would stop them from having such a monopoly on all software made for windows in the past 20+ years, and would let the wine devs focus on getting support for new windows api stuff instead of trying to get all the old stuff working first.

Just as well

[Amazing Quantum Man]

I never fly out of LAX anyways....

how about looking first at...

[DragonTHC]

AT&T and then comcast.

They are in serious need of some trust-busting.