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Why Microsoft's EU Ballot Screen Doesn't Measure Up

Posted by Soulskill on from the clever-lawyers-clueless-regulators dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A lengthy interview on Groklaw discusses the EU's case against Microsoft. The case is supported by Opera, Google, Mozilla, ECIS, and the Free Software Foundation Europe. The EU has demanded that users be offered a 'ballot screen' to make it easier for users to select other browsers. Microsoft has responded by implementing the ballot screen as a web page inside IE. While this may nominally satisfy EU's demand, it is unlikely to satisfy users who prefer other browsers. In order to select another browser, users must be running IE. Also, users will be shown security warnings when choosing from the ballot. Microsoft's ability to charge patent fees in Europe is also discussed: why are they allowed to charge patent fees where software patents are not recognized?"

12 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. I don't care about the screen... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I just want to be able to DELETE IE completely.

    So far the best you can do is break it so it doesnt ever work.

    1. Re:I don't care about the screen... by piero.grimo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Th only relevant answer to that is to use the IE awareness initiative, so that users can see another ballot screen every time they go to a website ;-) All jokes aside, IE8 is not that bad of a browser when you compare it to IE6 that is. Sure, it lacks most modern HTML5 & CSS3 stuff that makes life so simple with the competition...

    2. Re:I don't care about the screen... by piero.grimo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Bring them to websites using the IE awareness initiative! People need to know!

    3. Re:I don't care about the screen... by xouumalperxe · · Score: 2, Informative

      Honestly, It sounds to me like everyone is over-engineering this to to death.

      I'm yet to be convinced that a modern desktop-oriented operating system should be crippled by being forbidden from preinstalling a browser. At the very least, it makes zero sense to not provide an html renderer with the OS. It has become one of the most basic functionalities you can ask for.

      This said, and accepting you have a browser pre-installed, it takes about half an hour to come up with a mock-up of a page with a decent presentation and a listing of all the browsers they could ask for. The bit of code that's dedicated to this functionality is also a lot less error-prone than an application written from scratch. Given a solution that takes less dedicated code, is quicker to implement, and is less buggy, how is picking that solution "over-engineering" exactly?

    4. Re:I don't care about the screen... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 2, Informative

      Or perhaps you know, Microsoft could better design their OS to not break when one component is removed.

      EVERY OS relies on an HTML rendering component. This isn't unique to Windows, it's just that Windows is the only OS that people get pissy about.

      They seem to have taken IE, tied it into everything and they decided that they better make it into a library for convenience sake, rather than build a library and use it.

      The built the library (that's what MSHTML is) and IE at the same time. The library for all applications to use, that was the point of it.

      I'm designing a library at the moment that requires another library to function. I've designed it in such a way that if there's a better library option in the future I can remove a single file (that contains the code for interacting with the dependency) and replace it with another.

      MSHTML is designed that way, too. It's no secret what it's doing, or how to replicate it's interface.

      One of the first things I learned about designing software well was that coupling is a Bad Thing and should be avoided. It's a shame that some people in Microsoft can't seem to get this through their heads.

      So far, you haven't shown that Microsoft's done anything different than you would do/are doing. On the contrary, you seem to be utterly clueless of how Windows and MSHTML work, but you're OK posting here and just spewing your ignorance all over the web... kudos for that, I guess.

      Yes there is but it will take Microsoft to do the work, which is the way around it should be.

      Why should Microsoft do the work? They've already provided all the tools required, it's up to some other browser maker to use them. It's not Microsoft's fault that nobody's bothered.

      They have many smart people that could pick apart the mess and write a layer that would allow for different engines to be written while allowing 3rd party apps to continue to function as they have been doing.

      Oh yeah, imagine the headline on this site... "Microsoft engineers steal Mozilla rendering engine! Horrible plot to murder all open source supporters!!!"

      Again, the layer is already there. And you're completely clueless.

      This would required management to step out of the way though and allow developers to write the code they (probably) wanted to write in the first place.

      The code is already fucking written! Jesus Christ! It has been for a decade!!

      People like you piss me off. You make some idiotic assumption about Microsoft, which isn't even close to true, then you post this long rant where you keep drawing all these *other* conclusions based on your wrong assumption. Would it be so hard to add in a "I think that" or "if this is the case" or SOMETHING in your post to indicate that you're just spewing bullshit all over?

      Believe me, there's enough bullshit on the web already. Please don't add your own to the pile, if you're not sure DON'T POST.

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  2. Re:No more Outsuck Express by bheer · · Score: 3, Informative

    Even better: Windows 7 doesn't come with a mail client.

    --
    Go somewhere random
  3. Re:No more Outsuck Express by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Windows 7 no longer includes Windows Mail (the program that replaced Outlook Express in Vista).

    If you want a mail client, you have to download Windows Live Mail or your choice of client.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  4. Re:Enough is enough by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 3, Informative

    You really need to think your troll/ridiculously stupid posts through. It would be trivial to have an MSXML/text/MSSQL file contain a list of browsers,icons,download locations and then have an app show that list (in a nice GUI with icons and all), complete with misleading warnings.

    or to put it another way "I'd create a GUI interface using visual basic to see if I can install the browser people want"

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    IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
  5. Re:Enough is enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    That's exactly right. and when they piss off enough people, competitors will arise, and will run the monopolist into the ground. Unfortunately gov. won't let that happen in almost every case of monopolies, because of regulations that the monopolist lobbied for to stop competitors.

    It's clear that the problem here is the existence of governments. They attempt to fix the problems with monopolies "to protect people" instead of letting them destroy themselves and letting competitors start. Get rid of the state.

  6. Re:Enough is enough by icebraining · · Score: 2, Informative

    What part of Windows being a monopoly don't you get?

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  7. Re:No more Outsuck Express by fast+turtle · · Score: 2, Informative

    and to get the damn Live-Mail, you almost have to use IE and jump through a lot of hoops just to get it. Went through that the other day and it was a real PITA as the Live Downloaded wanted to install a whole rash of other crap, just like all the other freebies out there. Of course instead of adding the Ask Toolbar, it wanted to add in Messenger, the damn Blogger accelerator for IE and sign you up for both a Live Id and a damn hotmail account.

    Damn MS for making it even harder on people to simply get a copy of Outlook Express and don't even get me started on the Student and Teacher Edition of Office from which they've dropped Outlook in favor of One Note. They could at least include a copy of OE/Live Mail on the disk with the rest of Office so people who are using Win7 get a working mail client.

    I've got a friend who's told me in no uncertain terms that she's getting a new lappy with Win7 on it. Current one is a 7+ yr old Dell running XP so she's making a big jump. Thankfully, I've already grabbed Live-Mail so it's not neccessary to go through all the agravation to get it once again if her new system isn't preloaded with it.

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  8. Re:No more Outsuck Express by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.pmail.com/index2.htm

    Clean, simple, free - I found it years ago, and the wife learned to use it in just a couple days. And, she's no computer whiz. It runs beautifully on WinXP, and my search for Win7 on the forum suggests that it runs just fine on Win7.

    I searched this out specifically because OE was being targeted by worms, and it was installed on all of my machines until I decided to move to Google mail.

    They are seeing financial hard times (who isn't?) so a little donation would be even more appreciated than ever, but it is still free as I write this.

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    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br