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DOJ considering source-licensing punishment
Mike McCune writes
"News.com is reporting
that a committee advising the Department of Justice is
considering
forcing Microsoft to license the source code to
it's operating systems." Another alternative is to block
Microsoft from adding features to the OS. In related news,
Frédéric writes
"Maybe you know Microsoft is trying to use Be to prove
it does not have a monopoly on OS's. The SJ Mercury news speculates
that Be's CEO
Jean-Louis Gassée may join the antitrust suit
against Microsoft Corp.". This transcript
of this interview with JLG
gives his position."
Give MS a taste of their own medicine, the bastards.
Not an AC, just forgot my password.
Kyobu
Depending on how all of this plays out..
-Source being Released or Liscnsed, Maybe there can be hope for windows... But then again.. Even if the Source to MS products were avialable... would Developers want to Work on it?
-Yes, I Know my spelling sucks
I'd rather see Microsoft prevented from adding new features myself, but I doubt it will happen
Fix the URL that refers to the news.com page.
url is wrong
Since splitting up MS would be unlikely and making them pay for "damages" would probably be useless, I think forcing them to lisence Windows is the only solution. They should also have to license it for free if the product is not sold for profit. This way it would be possible to make open source Windows clones, and MS couldn't charge ridiculous fees to make licensing not cost-effective enough. And then you'd have to find some way to enforce the way they license the technology, and make sure they don't hide any APIs that only MS programs use, something we know they have done in the past.
I think the best way to level the playing field is by letting other OSes have access to Windows programs.
MS has demonstrated in the past that they lie to the government, and just barely follow government orders, if at all. Why would anyone believe that the gov't could *force* them to do anything? What's to stop them from deliberately crippling the source before releasing it?
Of course, if it became a true open source project, then hackerdom would rapidly set it straight. But I don't think the government would be able to make the case to take MS's cash cow away from it (just like they'd never get away with saying "You can't add features" - that's the heart of MS's defense).
d
i am as against MS as anyone else, but forcing MS to do such things would start a bad precedent which might open the door to the government put it hands to deep into other companies software as well....
You can't compare the two OSes in terms of the 'integration' thing. Netpositive is not integrated, it's bundled. Big difference here. One can be removed and replaced without adverse OS reaction, the other can't.
Will justice previal? In this country.... probably not! Just look at how far the empire has gotten already. They'll come out with not much more than a few harsh words (off the record of course). Just like the other Bill earlier today. Maybe we aren't so much better off than those in Iraq after all.
The antitrust suit is DOJ vs MS. How can Be "join" it?
I would hate to take a look at that crap. Talk about spagetti code, sheesh.
I say the government takes all of Bill Gates' money away (stocks and all), deports anyone that that has a business interest with him (on the basis of: if you are in business with Microsoft then you are evil), and steps back and sees if he can build another empire. Since he was simply a very lucky bastard in the first place, I doubt he could pull it off again.
The trial is showing to the world how corrupt Microsoft really is, but to force the company to release it's intellectual property is equally corrupt.
OSS and the Marketplace will eventually kill MS. In the long term the Market is exactingly just, but to force even it's own natural progression is an insult to choice and freedom of choice.
This is in no way a defense of Microsoft. They have caused me more headaches with their bloated bugware than I could possibly count. But my decision to find an alternative was entirely my own and because it was ME that made the decision I know it was right. I'll never have to second guess it.
Let Microsoft crack under it's own weight while faster, leaner, more responsive niche alternatives rise. It's happening. Let it.
they spelled Lynix. I guess proofreading is not just Slashdot's problem. *)
They will simply "lose" the source code, just as they did with DOS when Caldera demanded sources.
Whether or not you think governments should be able to force software companies to open up their code (I don't), this is still a bad idea. Just remember who we're dealing with... "fair dealing" is not in Microsoft's lexicon.
well, used to at least until they realized companies like citrix could find and exploit a niche that MS wasn't dominating. or maybe it was when they realized that a company creating porting toolkits would make it too easy to port from windows to unix, causing a potential drain on market share.
so it's nothing new, unless they're forced to do it. i can't see a company using a license to the source to windows to create a competing product -- legally it would be death to that company. realistically, the only thing you could use it for is to compete on the application front, which is a good thing.
If you've followed wine-devel, you'll note that WINE does not attempt to be "mistake compatible" with MS as long as the behavior is the same. A good case in point is the ongoing work to make messaging multithreaded - the easy solution would be exactly how MS does it in Win9x with the gigantic mutex, but the Wine developers are instead going to do it the Right Way. I think this is a great idea - it may take longer now, but it makes the code easier to maintain later.
I'm sorry and you can call me Bill Gates' bitch if it makes you feel better, but I think this is going too far. This would not level the playing field -- it would unilaterally stack it against MS. This type of recommendation is further reinforcement of the claim that the government has no fscking clue about high technology (as if the patent office needs help).
Word has a monopoly on the word processing market - should MS be forced to make the soruce code available? Apple has a monopoly on the Macintosh market - should MacOS X be made public?
If MS is shown in a court of law that it is indeed a monopoly and is forced to reveal its crown jewels, then it will open a flood gate of similar attempts of competitors against market leaders (e.g., Sybase against Oracle) and ruin the software market. There will be no economic incentive to develop software.
And get a load of this:
Have to say I disagree! I don't know all the facts of the case, but if this is the kind of 'evidence' the doj is putting on, I can't hope they win. What are the real facts of this case? What are the real illegal business practices?
Furthermore, shipping an html browser with the operating system doesn't seem like such a bad idea to me. Seems pretty sensible that one should be able to browse help files (shouldn't they be in hyperlinked text?) not to mention the browse the web, right away without having to ftp one first. I personally think Windows should come bundled with more stuff-- like tar, gzip, postscript viewer, dvi viewer, tex and latex, etc... It's a big weakness that out of the box, you can't really do anything with a windows machine.
Now, as I said before, I don't know all the facts. But if there are some, let's hear about them! The crap in these articles is, well, just that-- crap.
Open sourcing Windows code would have the ironic effect of keeping this horrible codebase alive -- though the market itself would kill it in a few years.
A better remedy would be to stop Microsoft's manipulation of the market through pricing and incentive/punishment deals (e.g. making an ISP use Internet Explorer exclusively lest it lose a spot on the Windows desktop).
What must be broken is Microsoft's stranglehold on the OEMs. OEMs should be able to buy Windows "blindly," at a fixed OEM price, regardless of what other operating systems they may or may not offer on their hardware.
Finally, I wish the governement at all levels would encourage standards-based computing by insisting on standards such as Posix in their purchasing policy.
Suppose Microsoft is actually forced to license their source code. They could do so at prices which make the Open Group's Motif and CDE look cheap by comparison.
Just because source code is "open" doesn't mean it's available for anyone to look at.
You are just a fscking idiot and a fascist! Contrary to popular belief, MS is not as autocratic as the bandwagon believes. They control the desktop and office automation markets. Not the server market. Not the database market.
You must be a typical pimply-faced Linux hacker wanna-be who knows very little, if anything, about software development.
Hey... if that's punishment, then why have
all the Open Sourcers been punishing THEMSELVES?
Ok, my apologies to the Linux hacker wanna-be community at large. You guys are pretty cool. I just blew it after reading that post.
Maybe Linux hacker wanna-be wanna-be.
So basically the Windows source code would be like the original March release of the Mozilla code. ;-) I think I got it to compile once out of the 8 times I tried it using various versions of motif and lesstif. Windows must be much much much worse to compile. Bring new meaning to the joke phrase "It compiled? Ship it!"
As much as I loathe MS and their products, what amounts to nationalization of Microsoft's property is a VERY misguided notion. Does RMS have blackmail material on Janet Reno or something? :-)
Why have they been trying to preload a pre-1.0 product? Sounds like BS to me. I'll all about making MS play fair but not if it involves lying of golddiggers. Be doesn't support enough hardware or run enough apps to be preloaded.
I think 0.8 probability of high-quality support on Linux is optimistic considering the high degree of variance in each distribution.
Maybe the companies who provide Linux support should seriously consider having their own distribution.
Quick answers for simple problems is harder on Linux, than an off-the shelf Windows NT installation.
On the other hand, a lot of answers on NT is 'wait for the next fix-pack', so at least support on Linux is possible - but not fast or cheap.
For many companies Linux should not be considered a low-cost alternative.
It should be considered an "Essential Service" and treated as such. Open sourcing Windows would be the ultimate playing-field leveler.
all MSFT has to prove is that other OS's use the browser for functions that classically were handled by other apps.
in BeOS, the help system is all HTML... therefore, without the browser, you couldn't use help (a 'system' function in the market sense -- all commercially viable OS's need an integrated help system)
Real punishment would be to split OS/apps and force the Microsoft maffia to disvest from all infotech investments besides one of the above.
And it would be so nice to see the masses
that bought stock to see it plummet..
It's the way Word handles these file formats that makes it difficult for 100% conversion. It's like lesstif's effort at mimicking OSF/Motif. It's not in getting things right, but getting them to behave as the "industry leader" would.
Funny such problems rarely happen in the Free Software community. Go GNU!
Limiting what MS can do to it has some appeal but I don't like the precedent, of course this was practically done to IBM in the 50's.
I honestly think the best thing would be to split MS up with the intention of making their OS gruop support some open standards and the app group support some other platforms. I would think that it would do the most to benefit the consumer and the industry as a whole without setting a scary legal precedence for becoming too successful and being forced to open you code. MS Office on Linux would sell, I wouldn't want it but it would sell. Likewise, I can see some appeal in being able to run a windows based client for some things. Their company is just too integrated, they make the best tools for programming their OS, they make the most popular word processor and spreadsheet and everybody uses it, it's all designed to keep you buying from MS. If you break that bond then there would be more competition.
It's the way Word handles these file formats that makes it difficult for 100% conversion. It's like lesstif's effort at mimicking OSF/Motif. It's not in getting things right, but getting them to behave as the "industry leader" would.
These problems rarely happen in the Free Software community, where sources are there for all to see.
Amen to that brother
That's proof? I would still pronounce 'Lynix' as lih-nucks.
Someone with a lot of money should license it and should leak the code out somewhere. When that slip is finished, then we should get Wine working hellu nice...
The only problem with your argument is so far their isn't any choice for web broswers on BeOS. NetPositive is the only one. If you remove it you can open the local text editor, Pe, I think. Opera and Netscape are working on ports.
So what you want Be to do is to make a wierd ass file format just for the help files and create a view for it. Thats just stupid. Windows has a browser choice and their new html help format can be viewed by other browsers, if the OS lets them.
Maybe the government should just force people to install Linux.
If I thought that my personal whims should shape the industry... then better yet, I'd force everyone to use OS/2.
After all... haven't we all accepted that force is the most expedient way of getting what we want? A lot easier than say... establishing an alternative that can compete on its own merits? Can MS stop you?
Lets say some company called Sony made all the tvs, well nearly all the tvs. Just because they are HQ in a different company makes them free of US law. It means they can't be huirt as bad but they can still be hurt or even banned.
Word is crap. Word 2.0 was good but now everything is big and slow.
A mac is still a pc, although you won't get a apple fan to admit it. so they control 3% of the PC market, oh thats a monopoly. Hell I even have a copy of Windows NT that runs on a Mac.
On the make there is Virtual pc. It runs slow and not everything works on its emulation. But now if the source code is release every OS could run Windows programs equally well. Then you see which OS is better.
That was sure a winner. Now instead of AT&T being the local telephone monopoly I have to deal with Ameritech as the local telephone monopoly. Nothing has changed, just the players. I want decent choices not politics.
It will be nirvana! The world we be flooded with free software! RMS will be knighted for his valiant deeds of freeing the world from the tyranny of the software monopolies!
I don't feel it is necessary for all these companies and the government to gang up on a company that will eventually lose in the end anyway. Linux and other open source OS's are already taking Microsoft's ground.
People should be fighting the battle legitimately, not this sueing shit. It's getting old really fast. We already KNOW that Linux/Unix is a better operating system!
And this bullshit with the government trying to limit Microsoft on features, or make them license their source code is complete and utter trash. If they did that then EVERY company who writes software would have to license their code too.
Might as well..if something can be "stolen," it can be taxed just as well. If you don't pay taxes on your house, it gets confiscated..why not do the same with IP?
So anyone who thinks differently than you
is an "insect". How enlightened you are!
You ask, "Will justice prevail?" Shall we look at recent history to find a precedent? First, O.J., now Clinton. If both of them can escape justice, why should we have any faith that M$ will not? I fear all hope is lost...
The current interpretation really says that they must show that the integration achieves an effect which could not be (reasonably easily) gained if the two products were acquired separately.
Sort of, but not really. MS tends to release information on the API late, but eventually. What it is very good about is leaking information to its own developers over the Chinese wall so that they can take advantage of the those APIs (or vice versa!) in time for an impending release.
...
So if you working on WordPerfect you don't find out about the new nifty features until Windows 2004 is _released_ and you are now a release behind MS
Let's face it, the average computer user in this country pretty much is the average person in this country---STUPID. MS rules to them because it's so easy. They don't mind that it crashes once a day, they're used to it. Point and click is the extent of how much they can think.
Big companies stay big because of advertising and marketing. Because they could afford to do both. Also, with business deals which affectively limit the competition by having their OS as the default OS on practically every home computer on the planet.
I've been in the computer industry for awhile now and I've never even seen BeOS. I heard it's pretty stable and really cool for games. That's about all I know.
I think the only chance we have to be able to compete against Micro$oft is if the DOJ forces retailers to offer a choice of OS's. That's what needs to be done. You go into the store and by law, you are given a choice when you buy a computer of two operating systems or more. That includes Apple computers too.
Actually, on face this idea sounds pretty logical. The argument David Gould makes actually sounds very logical. Microsoft can continue to sell and support Windows under their brand name, but other developers would be able to integrate the software into their own products.
If this were to happen, Microsoft would want to keep other products OUT of the O.S. If Microsoft made Office 2000 part of the operating system, then Office 2000 would fall under the GPL as well. Only by drawing a clear line between apps and the OS can Microsoft keep their application code proprietary. (And I'm under the assumption that's still a GOOD thing.)
Imagine the WINE group being able to integrate (and clean/fix up) ACTUAL Windows sources! A Linux guru's pipe dream, I'm sure...
Hahaha!! That's punishment for the licensee, not Microsoft! Unless they're required to support the licensee who is trying to work with that crap they dare call software. You think Netscape had some ugly crap in Navigator? Wait till you see what has been done in the name of back-ass compatibility from MS-Loss and Winblowz 3.x!!! That's got to be a rat's nest I would only wish my worst enemy (Micro$oft) have to deal with:)
I think that your solution is flawed, for the following reasons. Intellectual property is owned by whoever created the work in question, unless of course it was created as a work for hire (i.e., employees working for MS). Great, no problem. But that property cannot be taken from the "author" of the work (Bill Gates) unless he expressly gives it (read sells it) to somebody else, according to current copyright laws (to the best of my knowledge).
For the DOJ to follow your suggestion would indeed be cruel and unusual punishment. Moreover, it would set a precedent which could expand into other fields as well. For example, if a really sucessful artist committed a heinous crime (such as murder), does the government have the right to confiscate his intellectual property (art) "as punishment"?
If that were the case, you probably would never have heard of someone like, say, Johnny Cash. I see no difference here between source code and art, because they both fall neatly within the category of "intellectual property"; therefore, the source code should not belong to the public.
Instead, let's make the public aware of better OS options.
Adrian
They're not talking about making the source public. They're talking about allowing for source licensing, a practice already followed by Apple and Sun and HP and IBM. In fact, it's even followed by Microsoft, though Microsoft has the bad habit of withdrawing the license when the licensee sells a product that Microsoft wants to produce as well (just ask Citrix).
That doesn't sound right. Something smells very bad about the karma being generated in the bowels of THIS proposal.... can't tell what it is but it is foul indeed.
I'd rather Linux eat MicroSoft alive on its own. Anyone see Deep Rising?
Hmm ... I'm guessing that you're part of MicroSoft's paid "grassroots" effort.
..." Jeez, don't you think that's laying it on a bit thick?
Why the hell else would anyone like MS?
"MS has always been a company of the people
The fact that that would be considered is not good. Regardless of their past actions, progress should always be the goal, its sad it isnt even the goal of most linux developers anymore...
The FCC charges a "universal fee" on all phone customers to provide wiring and service to all areas of the US. Why not do the same with operating systems? Take the existing OS licensing fees on OEM PC's and regulate them -- then split them across all active OS companies. Red Hat, Apple, Be, Microsoft and others would get a percentage from the sale of every PC.
Advantages:
1. Microsoft gets to keep their buggy code to themselves.
2. The DOJ can punish MS's crime economically: make their percentage of the OS fee smaller. Drop their current 90% percent of the market down to, say, 30% of the OS fee.
3. The smaller OS manufacturers (Be, Red Hat) can start getting more capital. Using the previous example, 70% of the OS fee would be available for everyone else to work with.
4. New OS's can be given incentives to grow -- a slightly larger cut of the market for the first two years or so.
5. Since customers are paying the same amount for every OS, there's no reason why we won't be able to switch OS's for little or no cost.
The big disadvantages are that this becomes a tax on new PC's, and some kind of gov't comission would be needed.
... see partially some of the code!
If you have Visual C++, you can read the declarations of many classes, and you will
surely say it looks like Spaghetti code.
That's more like it.
Licensing the source code
Almost certainly there would be howls about theft of Intellectual Property, it would drag thru the courts for years, and there would be bills in Congress. This wouldn't do anything except employ lawyers.
Depends on the license terms. Microsoft broke the law. Since Microsoft is a corporation, Bill won't be doing any jailtime. But there should be a punishment for breaking the law. That punishment should fit the crime. In this case, Microsoft used Windows as a weapon against its competitors. It seems reasonable that since we can't actually take the weapon away from them, we should at least give the same weapon to others so that they need not fear Microsoft because it will no longer have sole control of such a weapon.
Publish the API :-).
Who would verify this? M$ has lied about separation of OS and apps divisions before, and everyone knows they still threw undocumented API over the transom. Any complaints would be hard to prove and involve long drawn out court battles, appeals, every delay known to mankind (and then some
You're right about this I think, and it made me think about a problem with my solution above. How would we know they were releasing all the code, or the correct version of the code? The only thing I can think of is to have a team of people to hold over Microsoft's head. If they give the team a reason to believe that the source they are licensing is not the same as the version they are distributing, then they could be subjected to a code audit of some sort.
Hmm.. class is over. I'll have to finish this when I get home. :)
Not an AC
Danse
danse@intx.net
If the government nationalizes Windoze, it will be the most horrible
event in computer history. Right now, Windoze is at best a defacto
"standard" hanging from a thread. If it is taken by force by government
thugs, it will then become a _real_ mandated standard all the more.
What little OS development is currently taking place will be completely
wiped out. The only further development that will be happened will all
be based on the most technically inept foundation that exists.
You Linux hackers may think Open Source is cool now, but only because
you have some decent starting places. How many of you would still bother
with it, if the 'Doze source were all you had to start with?
Treating Windoze as a legitimate standard and an essential public resource
will damn us all. It's a proprietary product, and all developers who
expect to be able to sell programs for it (like web browsers) had better
face the fact that they are owed NOTHING by MS, and if MS doesn't want them
to support their platform, then MS doesn't have to help them.
Those Netscape crybabies and the DoJ are going to force Doze to be
perpetuated forever, if they get their way. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? The
sooner people drop Doze support, the sooner the way will be opened for
Real Progress.
Don't you meen "LEE-nucks"?
The DOJ doesn't need to prevent MS from putting :)
new features into windows. MS does a good job of
not adding any real new features on their own!
...partially see the code!
If you have Visual C++, you can read the MFC classes declarations. Tell me that it doesn't look like spaghetti code?
The problem with this is that it favours companies with large markets (they can recover their development costs over more purchases, reducing the unit cost to them of developing a new product) and that it favours old products over new ones (MS spent hundreds of millions on Win95, but they've now sold so many copies that they've recovered their investment and the unit cost is probably on the order of $2-$5).
A new entrant, like Be, has to invest a large amount in R&D which they then have to recover by selling boxes; if they are aiming at a niche market *and* they intend to recover their investment in a reasonable time then their unit cost will be much, much higher. Even if they are aiming at a mass market they still have to sell a substantial number of boxes just to stay in business, which is tricky with an established competitor with a cheap product that dominates the market.
John P.
MS or the rest of us? I don't know about you, but ;)
diving into the Win95 source code isn't something
I would enjoy!
Has slashdot become MOSR Jr. in the cool sites gone lame category?
'til dawn...
Silver Surfer
It would really be even more awesome of the win32 api's ans the gui are thrown onto the kernel and since the kernel is based on linux, you can still run standard unix apps and have all the other api's. IT WOULD BE COOL TO RUN REDHAT WINDOWS AND REDHAT WORD AND EXCELL ON OUR KDE DESTOP WHILE WE HACK AWAY ON YOUR GNU TOOLS. OUR BOSSES WOULDN"T CARE AND WE BE FREEE! YAAA! NO bussiness is going to go with linux because it supports wine. However if its a windows machine, then your in your in luck. OH, better yet us tech support guys can install redhat windows on all pc's with our linuxscripts and never have to worry about a system crash. NOOO! WE WOULD LOSSE OUR JOBS:-(. uh BAN LINUX!!
hopefully I will be promoted from tech support job the time this happens. Kind of wierd that someone always gets screwed. REDHAT WINDOWS WOULD BE A SALVATION. I CAN FINALLY RUN OFFICE AND BLOW AWAY ALL MY VIDEO GAMES WITH NATIVE SUPPORT.
ISVs deserve a lot of blame for the monopoly, because so many of them put their eggs in just one basket, which strangled other platforms.
In light of which, the best solution would be to regulate the development of software. The government can decide what gets developed, and make sure it gets developed for every platform of a potential user. Unlicensed software development must be outlawed, and punishable by imprisonment.
The free market has failed, and computers are too important to be entrusted to selfish private interests.
IBM pretty much lives off of support. At a time, they "gave away" all of the software to help get a machine up and running. They do make a whole lot off of selling software (more than MS) these days, though.
How grand, the Windows source code. Some reason I just don't care. I could care less about the whole DoJ thing, I figure penalize them for specific actions, let the market take care of the rest. I guess hating MS is high fashion right now, I could really care less. When am I going to see more articles on whats good in this industry, instead of hearing every single fucking thing from this stupidass trial. Oh well, off to spend $10k for my Redhat Certification. Maybe the post office will give me a job.
Jail the directors, executives and shareholders. Banish the employees and contractors to Tierra del Fuego. Fine all Microsoft distributors, OEM's, resellers and customers for gross stupidity. Burn the buildings to the ground and sow their fields with salt.
Now, that's appropriate!
SQL Error
Microsoft isn't doing anything wrong. They're building software. They're pretty good at marketing it, too. Unfortunately, they're a bit stingy with their success, and don't provide source to measly users such as myself. That sucks. Having MS license source at a reasonable rice will help them in the long run. Their still making money, and hey, guess what? Getting alot more people involved in their project. Neato. We all win. I'm definately down with access to the source. Anyone trying to rip off MS would be sued anyway.
Go MS. They're good kids, they just need perspective.
The hope that licensing the source code might encourage compatible clones won't be born out: the problem with cloning Win32 is not that people can't find out what it does, but that it keeps changing (Microsoft policy).
Fortunately, this probably won't work: I suspect Microsoft couldn't produce a consistent set of sources to their operating systems if their life depended on it (they do hand out bits and pieces of Windows NT sources to universitites and research labs on occasion). For some components of Win95, the sources seem to have been lost years ago, and I many Microsoft groups probably develop against older, binary distributions of libraries.
In fact, widespread source licensing would probably be so much in Microsoft's advantage that they would already have done it if they could.
I propose that a possible solution to the M$ monopoly is to make the source code for the current release of the operating system available under a BSD like licensing agreement.
But, this idea has problems that are associated with it, in that this is stealing M$ intellectual property. And if M$ is giving away its livelyhood, then they have no incentive to improve it.
Therefore, I propose that any new OS that Microsoft comes out with will have 18 months where they are allowed to use whatever license that they want to use on the software.
So, in essence Microsoft would have 18 months where they could roll in the dough. Then after 18 months, they can continue to make money the same way RedHat makes money. . . By selling a CD, and technical support.
I really like this plan, because it allows Microsoft to make a ton of money IF they can actually innovate the way that they claim they can innovate. For instance, if Microsoft makes a new operating system, and it is great, it has so many cool widgets that everyone MUST upgrade, or remain in the dark ages, if Microsoft can do this, then they will be able to make a lot of money off from it.
But if they bring out a marginally satisfactory upgrade, then we can wait 18 months, have someone fix what is broken and upgrade then. (Most people will still pay the upgrade price anyway. Just look at RedHat.)
Now the part that I really like. Take a look at it from an OEM's point of view.
In the past an OEM has had to do exactly as Microsoft has told them, because if they didn't, then Microsoft could litterally wipe out their business. But now consider the role that my plan in this scenario. Under my plan, this is the worst case scenario for a OEM:
Microsoft creates a new version of the operating system. It is the coolest operating system that has ever existed. Now consider an OEM that goes against Microsoft's wishes. Microsoft retaliates by not letting the OEM license the new OS. The OEM would really like to license the OS, but it doesn't have to, because they can just go back to a version that is more than 18 months old. So, Micosoft does not have a strangle hold on the OEM's any more.
That is cool.
Once this has happened, then we can actually believe the OEM's when they say "Microsoft has ne ver bullied us."
Another benefit is that it is now possible to fix what Microsoft has broken. For instance, if Microsoft puts out an OS that has something in the kernel that doesn't belong there (say a web server for instance), then a team of Open Source specialists can extract the wrong and stupid code just as soon as the 18 months have past.
And, it would now be actually possible to compete with Microsoft. Take Win95, and Win98 for instance. Win95 was released in Oct of 1995. 18 months later was April of 1997. Suppose that a company thought up the coolest widget imaginable and grabbed the Windows95 source code, and added their cool widget. They could then market the new OS. Win98 came out in June(?) of 1998. So, the new company would have roughly 1 year of time to come out with a OS that would have competed with Win98.
This would take care of the DOJ's problem. It would make it so that Microsoft couldn't bully the OEM's. They just wouldn't stand for it. They would just wait the 18 months. It insures that Microsoft's second rate programs will eventually have the potential of being fixed. It make it so the consumer has some choice (If Microsoft doesn't innovate, then someone else will.) And lastly it allows Microsoft to make a big load of money . . . if they really do innovate.
This brings me to a little dilemna that I am not sure how the DOJ should handle. Specifically, WindowsNT. If Windows 2000 competes with the server market, and the desktop market, then I believe that this OS should be subject to the 18 month rule. But, if it only competes in the Server market, then I am not sure whether I should allow my 18 month rule to apply, because right now, there is competition in the Server market. So, there is a place that I am not sure about.
And lastly, I would like a to say a word to all of the whiners who will criticize my post.
I am simply making a suggestion that could make things work out for Microsoft, and the DOJ. I believe that my plan is a fair and reasonable consession for both parties to make.
My personal opinion is that Microsoft makes crummy software, but since they own the desktop, they can force their crummy software on us. (I mean for instance that I have never used the accessiblity options in Windows, why should I have to pay an extra 5 cents for junk that I don't use.)
But I also believe that Microsoft has the right to make money.
Sun wanted this to happen a few years ago and
were lobbying for the Win32 API to be controlled
by a standards group. MS of course said this would
stop them "innovating". Funny when Sun wants to
make Java an ISO standard MS jump up and down about it. Hypocrits. Deserve all they get.
The interface to the OS should NOT be controlled
by any single commercial entity. Imagine if GM
owned the roads. Same shit would happen. GM cars
would go faster, use less fuel, etc, etc... Ford
cars would sometimes not run for no logical reason.
I think the general idea is that new features should always be provided by third party developers instead of being integrated into Windows. Doesn't sound bad to me, Windows hasn't
exactly been getting cheaper (or more stable) over the years.
As for using the right tool for the right job, I agree that not everyone should blindly switch to
Linux. I'm not just as convinced as you that Windows is the ideal platform for people who don't want to get technical. Consider Be for example, it's got a much simpler interface, doesn't crash and it's almost fool proof to install (contrary to the common belief, installing Windows can get pretty ugly sometimes).
Why not just ban bundling of OS with computers. Make all the end users purchase their OS from retailers. Require MS to public list the price they charge retailers for the OS, and retailers to all charge the same price.
Best (and only) thing US Govt can do is to fine Microsoft dearly and use this money to finance OSS development. That would speed things up, and would not involve Govt overregulation and involvment. It's a shame that Linus (and RMS and others) do not have grants, for all the positive impact their work has on US economy.
Test
Test
No. Charge him with treason for deliberatly
promoting s/w that does not secure the country
against softwar. The insecure OS that is Win9x
(and to some extent NT) leaves the USA's economy
ripe for attack by other countries. Terrorists
could do a lot of harm with a well placed virus.
Linus is pronunced Lee-Nuss, I know since I
come from the country where the name Linus was made up.
So Linux is pronunced Lee-Nucks, period.
I think Microsoft should lose all their intelectual properties.
There's several degrees of "joining in". They can file a separate suit, for damages as a result of anticomptetitive behaviour. This wouldn't really be joining in, though, since it would be a separate case. Or they can file a document with the court where they state their support for the DoJs position, and document their account of MS's actions. They can also approach the court together with DoJ and file a motion to be included in the current cases as a plaintiff, allthough I'm not sure if the judge has the authority to accept another plaintiff so far out in the case.
The issue here is that Microsoft are illegally using their monopoly situation to uphold their monopoly in desktop OSs by unfair business practices, and illegally using their monopoly to extend their market domination into new markets.
Since they demonstrate that they are unable and/or unwilling to accept the antitrust laws, it would be logical that the court took steps to ensure that Microsoft are unable to continue their illegal practices. The most effective would be to break up their monopoly.
Forcing Microsoft to license their OS source would be a fairly non-invasive method. Microsoft would still get money for each copy sold, but they would now longer alone be able to control further development, which would cause a push for open standards:
After all, there would be an incentive for Microsofts main competitors to buy a Windows source license to be able to make it interoperate better with their own OSs and systems, and if that happens, Microsoft will have to follow up, or be rendered irrelevant.
Imake Sun as a Windows licensee? Oracle? AOL/Netscape?
Oracle alone would be a nightmare for Microsoft, since Ellison doesn't exactly like Microsoft... I'm sure he'd find creative uses for Windows...
And it would mean that Microsoft would loose all power over the OEMs overnight, which in itself would be a deathblow to Microsoft, given the current groundswell for Linux.
But actually I believe that the worst that could happen for Microsoft would be having the antitrust suit dragging out with appeals etc., because it forces Microsoft to behave. This was what dethronized IBM: They had to behave, because they feared the effects of any actions on the decade long antitrust battle.
If the suit drags out, it won't matter if Microsoft ultimately prevail - they'll still lose their position.
Their best bet would have been to appeal (if they lose), and start negotiating with the DoJ about remedies that would be as non-invasive as possible.
If you don't like that they sue, work to get the antitrust laws removed. But I doubt you'd like the consequences when prices go through the roof as companies get strangleholds in market after market.
As for your ignorance regarding the proposed remedies: If Microsoft repeatedly demonstrates that they can't and won't follow the laws, the DoJ and the courts have a duty to punish them and ensure that they don't keep breaking the laws. The suggested remedies are a few ways of making it harder for them to do so. If Microsoft had stayed within the bounds of the antitrust laws, none of it would have been necessary.
As for licensing their source: Everyone else doesn't have a monopoly, and abuse their monopoly powers. If there are more than Microsoft that do so, sure, force them too to license their code.
But you don't usually punish someone who haven't done anything wrong, so forcing everyone to license everything would be punishing everyone for something Microsoft did.
(Normally not ac, but i don't want my employer
:=) Are we supposed to be support-at-day, programmer-at-night?
to see this)
I can understand the necessity of having an OS
GPL/OSS, but what about applications in userland?
I work in a small ISV, making tools
for projectmanagers. Our apps are relatively
easy to use, and usually requires little support
apart from the odd tricky install and the small bug that pops up from time to time.
If we GPL/OSS'd our apps, how are we supposed to
a. Make money so we programmers can get paid
b. Make money so the marketing people can do
their voodoo?
Why on earth would someone buy (could we even sell it?) our application if they can get it free
everywhere else?
Shall we live on support alone? It seems that
some of the AC-slashdotters shout "Support
is big bucks! Support is big bucks!" all the time
. I really have doubts about that. Licenses are
very important to us. Money *is* a motivation for
programmers. Some would even say necessity.
Any pointers to successstories? Information?
--
LAB
Instance price and feature competition.
The DOJ can propose whatever remedies they believe will be an appropriate punishment for the crimes committed, and that will prevent Microsoft from repeating them. But it will be up to the court what remedies are accepted.
The point here is that the antitrust laws give great freedom to the courts regarding remedies, since antitrust cases by their very nature will be very different in nature, and the intention is to be as non-invasive as possible, while ensuring increased competition.
You don't understand monopolies do you? Why don't you go to your local library, and borrow a few books covering economic theory in general, and monopolies and trust in particular, and maybe you'll eventually understand why Microsofts position has nothing to do with who is making better software.
Bullshit. It only needs to support the machine that it is to be preloaded on. It doesn't need to support every
machine in existence for it to be preloaded on a few
machines.
To do this MS would need to base themselves in a first world country which had local laws which were more favourable to them. Such a place is unlikely to exist.
The idea of MS setting up it's own nation and making it's own laws utterly daft unless they can afford a half decent military in the bargin.
Also a non US software company would not get any sort of privileged position is supplying software to the US government (with the same applying to the governments of US allies) national security concerns would see to that.
Ever heard of "lying"? That could turn up rather mafiosi: ISP x said he would not do y, but look what happened to him. It was a tragic loss. You cannot assume that telling a bully off will work. Only taking away his means of being a bully might help.
I just don't get it. M$'s strenght, besides the fact that it is a motivated, paranoid and exagerately competitive company (ok, and it can turn on a dime, the only *BIG* company that can do this), is the fact that it can leverage its market share in OS, applications and other markets to get into new markets.
By splitting M$, one would reduce its capability to leverage its strenghts in various markets... and maybe motivate its developpers to be more compatible: i.e., suddenly more applications would run better on WinXX, and its applications would run on more OSes...
Both the WinXX app market and other OSes would benefit... er, though the question is, how do you get alternative OSes (Linux, BeOS, etc.) onto pre-loads? Because I'm sure the OS baby-bill would still act like a bully towards OEM, I think one way of doing this is to say "no more pre-loads for XX years!".
But, anyway, back to the original topic: why is it improbable to split M$? If AT&T can be split (and under Reagan on top of that!), why can't the DOJ touch M$?
I don't get it.
The level of stupidity on /. never ceases to amaze me.
First of all, some consumer group came up with that figure so we should just accept it, right? What about the cost of free software? Sure, it doesn't cost the user, but what about the lost wages? What about a rise in unemployment levels because companies don't exist anymore since there is no profit and any attempt to make money is met with lawsuits? What about the recession we would inevitably go into since technology companies make up an overwhelming component of the stock market these days? This may sound alarmist and not feasibly realistic, but I contend neither is the claim that OSS is going to save the world from ourselves. 99.99999% of computer users could care less about not have source code. They want something that works and helps them to be productive and MS delivers that, Linux, for the mainstream, does not.
would be to prohibit them from ever seeing or using free/open-source software.
.
Cool. When you get to be 90 years old and are still working as a contracting wage slave, give me a call; I might have some gardening you can do for me.
The University of Washington has an NT source license. So do other Universities.
At least 15 companies have NT source licenses.
Splitting up MS is quite likely. The government could split the company into, say, three pieces, and give each one rights to all the existing OS code. That way, if one of the new companies tries to bloat up the code, the others can offer an unbloated substitute.
Fines: the government case will enable private lawsuits, since the plaintiffs will not have to prove that MS is a monopoly or did illegal things, they will only have to prove that these actions caused economic harm. And remember, in antitrust damages are tripled.
You tell 'em, Hank!
When the government starts trying to force the trains to be on time, it's
time to get a new government. YOUR railroad might be next.
There's better ways to get MS that don't involve sacrificing freedom.
I think the real issues have been lost here. There are things which MS is doing which are not ok, and there are some which are ok, and make sence fomr some points of view.
I disagree with the givernmetn doing the folowing:
1) Try to force MS into giving its code out. If we force MS into giving out thier code, no matter how much we dislike the company, we are violating thier rights to thier own code. I cannot justify this solution, if you can call it that.
2) Arguing about browsers....who gives a fuck? IE/NS, they both suck in thier own rights. Now, MS forcing people to put thier browser on instead of NS is not ok, but foring MS to integrate someone else browser is not any kind of answer. And the fact that IE runs natively (uses system libraries as point of definition) just makes sence to me. But IE is NOT integrated...I have removed it, win95 runs fine without it.....MS holding to this falacy is just plain stupid.
3) Forcing MS to integrate ANYONE elses code/utilities into thier system. Once again, this is thier system and they should be free to develop it on thier own, or in concert...who's software are we to force them to integrate?? What will this solve?...nothing.
4) Hardly even bringing up the real issues here.... MS's strongarm tactics go much further then browsers, which seems to be the main focus of these lawsuits. They also try to crush oposition by changing internet standards so that they will not perfom well or at all on other systems. In this area I DO feel that MS should be required to adjust thier stategy. Doing these kinds of things in essence forces the public into using thier software in some form when they really want the alternative....this is not ok, and should be the main focus of this lawsuit.
I do believe that MS should be required to fully document the system libraries and every other thing needed to develop software on the system,...and release this documentation for free to the public (including file formats and communication issues). I think the DOJ should intervene on the issues of them buying out, and forcing certain parts of the market....And I think they should be required to adhere to the current internet standards which exist in the areas they wish to persue. And they should be required to remove the Java trademark from thier IE browser and J++ compiler and pay restitution because they have blatantly violated the licence....they are in violation of Intelectual Property laws at the most basic level.
or whatever . . .
microsoft has been called . . . its "true name" is now known . . . its power is broken
ignore them and they will go away
Or just another greedy a****e in denial who has a lot of microsoft stock?
And that's a fact you just don't want to acknowledge, Mr. Bartko.
I guess on your planet, OS/2, Caldera and Linux have never existed.
I've looked ath their sample code in the DDK. The minport architecture is the perfect example of spaghetti. And there's plenty of indirect evidence that the rest is just as bad. I haven't seen the source of the rest, but I have traced the binary code with a debugger. It's pretty bad.
I don't mind typos or misspellings - I make them myself. But this finger-wagging MS shill is lying about the facts, and I can't stomach that. He's worse than a politician - of either party.
He'd have to make it good, and apologize repeatedly, though he wouldn't necessarily have to fully admit just how badly he's lied and cheated. Enough half-assed apologies will add up to the effect of a real one.
Then the American people will love him, and the DOJ will look like the bad guys.
Hell, it worked for Clinton.
There's a fine line between forgiveness and gullibility. The American people have sailed right across this line, and into full-blown codependency.
There is no "Help System" in BeOS. Just documentation provided via HTML-formatted texts.
Windows HTML Help is NOT the same. It is a compiled/compressed/proprietary format. It CAN be done with standard HTML (still compiled), but M'Soft isn't doing their own that way.
I'd like to see a real help system in BeOS. HTML docs are nice, but there's no searching and no context sensetivity.
Who the hell took all my Nicknames!?!?!?!?!
I'm all for punishing Microsoft, believe me, but I think this isn't really much of a punishment.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Since splitting up MS would be unlikely and making them pay for "damages" would probably be useless, I think forcing them to lisence Windows is the only solution.
Why not? If damages will be more than what Mcirsosft can pay, Microsoft, Gates and all that stuff will be gone forever.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Another solution would be to set a cap on how much a company can charge for an operating system, like is done with the telco industry. Regulate the prices so that no matter what, you will always be able to buy Linux -or- Windows -or- BeOS for exactly the same price. (Say, $25)
That way, OS growth is based on features and value to the end-consumer in terms of service, rather than being based on which company can make the best deals with distribution agreements, etc.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I'm having difficulty understanding what you're trying to say.
First, the problem is not that Windows leads the market. It's that product tying and bundling are preventing underdogs (Not just Linux but Rhapsody, OS/2 and Be... Solaris on the desktop? Naah) from entering getting OEMs to pre-install their software.
Even if Windows were a true monopoly, this would not be a problem were they not exercising monopoly power. Even if Be had 90% of the market, they'd not be at risk unless their marketing turned far meaner.
Anyhow, should Windows fall, I'd say Linux is presently the most likely replacement, Be coming in second. Why can folks only recognize a superior non-commercial product in "hippie love-fest sharing-and-caring open-source Linux land"?
Word has its monopoly because it's good.
Windows has its monopoly because of illigal bundling and tying practices.
There's a BIIIIG difference there.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
I hope we'll get to see the windows source code at some point.
- Linux cannot add features beyond kernel 3.3
- Java remains Java3
- etc...
You know what this means - AIX will become the dominant architecture.Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
Ahem. Sorry to rain on your parade dude, but according to recent reports in the press ( "The Australian", February 9th, 1999 ), there appears to have been a snag with Microsofts "integration" argument.
Specifically, Microsoft has presented video "testimony" of a Windows 95 machine's performance with IE and without IE ( ie, a "before and after" IE comparison ). This "presentation" clearly shows a signifigant run-time degredation in the machine after IE has been removed.
The problem with this is that one of the members of the DOJ team noticed that the "before" and "after" machines were different. In short - they were two different machines, so the comparison appears to have been ruled as invalid.
Considering what the media are like, this story could turn out to be total BS. Then again, if it is true, it kind of puts the whole "Windows IE integration" argument in the garbage bin.
Just my 0.02c worth dude.
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
This is the whole point of the MS anti-trust trial. The last time they were in court, they were told to back-of and play be the rules.
They didn't. That's why the DOJ has hauled them back into court.
The last time around, Bill ( "I did not have sex with Ms Lewinski" ) Clinton intervened on Microsofts behalf. Because of that, the DOJ had to water down it's judgement. Because of that, Microsoft got a slap on the wrist and were told to behave, purely as a face saving act ( without any teeth to back it up ).
Microsoft didn't behave. More importantly, since Bill ( "I did not have sex with Ms Lewinski" ) Clinton has his own problems at the moment, the DOJ has a lot more scope this time around.
Now this is just my personel opinion ( and therefore highly biased ) but I suspect that the DOJ is going to knock a few of Bill Gates's teeth out ( just so that he knows who the *boss* is ). The DOJ ( and the twenty odd state goverments who have forced the issue ) will probably be satisfied with that much. At the moment, they can't go much furthur than that, since to do so would provoke a storm of protest from all of the Pointy Haired Imbecile's who think that Windows is actually an OS.
Of course, if I'm correct in this regard, then if Microsoft doesn't play by the rules that the DOJ defines, then things could get very nasty. If they have to drag Microsoft back into court for a third time, then it will be a matter of necessity for them to nail Bill Gates up to a tree ( or run the risk of loosing their credibility with the public ).
This brings me full circle. You like OS/2? Well, that's up to you. It's certainly preferable to Windows. One of the points that IBM has made during the current trial is that as big and experienced as IBM is, Microsoft's marketing strangelhold over OEM's is such that even IBM can't get it's foot in the door of the desktop market.
As to "force is the most expedient way", sorry, but their is something that is even more powerful - consumer backlash.
It's 1999 and MS has already admitted that it has a number of Y2K "issues" ( ie, bugs ) to resolve. When we hit 01/01/2000, just watch as every incompetent idiot blames Y2K for everything that they can't explain. In this kind of a situation, there is a very real posibility that Windows will go from the OS that makes PHI's productive to the OS that's the cause of every problem in the world from green-house gas warming to the high price of fish.
Now we could argue about this, but what's the point? One way or another, we will know the answer very, very soon.
Just my 0.02c worth dude.
Posted by Ogemaniac:
I have to agree that forcing MS to give away its
source code sets a bad precedent. Proprietary
information is the heart of any business endeavor.
If a company can be forced to give away the
information it created, why have an R&D division?
Say goodbye to most scientific and engineering
jobs - whose purpose is to create information.
Just wait for someone else to create it, then
steal it! Oh wait - who is going to create it,
then? A few enthusiastic people in their spare
time, perhaps? Yeah, but they are probably dead
tired after 10 hours working at McDonald's because
they lost their R&D job.
So forcing MS to license Windows would mean nothing new at all.
Unless, that is, the ruling says that MS would have to give code to *anyone* who can scrape up the money, and MS can't pick-and-choose who to allow to see the code. That's what makes their current licensing next to useless - not the price but the fact that they can pull the rug out from under you if they change their mind or don't like what you're doing with it (Citrix Winframe).
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
>How can you accuse MS of poor coding if you havn't even seen their code before?
MFC and the macro mess created by the Visual C++ wizards should give a decent idea of what Microsoft code is like...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
What the DoJ should request is that if MS, or any company, wishes to produce both the operating System and the applications that they allow competition equal access to the API. Full licensing of source code seems a tad bit extreme.
I think I agree with you.. mostly. I believe that if there is to be true competition, an OS company should allow others to have full access to all APIs and the OS maker should not be allowed to make any application unremoveable. We would also need to define what an OS is and what it is not. IE is not an OS. It is an application or shell for the OS. There is no reason it should be permanently integrated into the OS. We may need to update the antitrust laws to account for the capabilities of software companies to obfuscate their actions with technical jargon so the courts can stop trying to use stupid metaphors to explain what is going on.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I believe it was one of Microsoft's witnesses that said that the only real way to compete with an OS like Windows was to be compatible with it. Since they are the ones who have admitted this, I say that they should have to open up the code so that other OSes can make themselves as compatible as they like. It would help the Wine team immensely I'm sure.
Suddenly the application barrier would be virtually eliminated and there could be open competition among the various OSes. Sure, native versions would still be needed eventually, but at least people could switch to the OS of their choice immediately and developers could see where the market is and produce applications for that market.
This may or may not work as well as I hope it would, because developers may just figure that since every OS can run Windows programs, that's all they should make. But I think that if they saw that 50% of users were running Linux or BeOS, they might be inclined to write native versions that take advantage of the strengths of that OS.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Be could send someone to be a rebuttal witness for the DOJ. They could discredit Microsoft's claims that NetPositive is integrated, and as an OS maker, they could offer up evidence that there is no real reason to integrate a browser in the manner in which Microsoft has done other than to prevent competition. Perhaps they could help on other issues where Microsoft is claiming technical victories because the DOJ doesn't have the best grasp of the technology. In other words, Be could have someone act as another computer science expert that also works for an OS maker and is therefore familiar with the issues being discussed.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
As was discussed several years ago when M$ began to expand beyond OS products into office products, MS should be broken up into an OS company and a Applications company. The OS company would be forbidden from developing Application products.
This idea is very old. But MS contends that IE is not an application. Is Notepad an application? Would MS-OS be able to sell Win9A with Notepad included? Or would Notepad become owned by MS-APP? How about Write or HyperTerminal or Solitaire? Is character map an application?
How about the Telnet client? Is it part of the OS or an application?
Is COM part of the OS? It relies on the registry to work, but you could probably replace it with a different ORB if Explorer didn't use it.
Is the Explorer shell part of the OS? Is the start menu part of the OS?
I agree that MS should be two separate companies, but I do not think it would be easy to decide how they are broken up. I would be a huge trial and it would be hard to find many people who agreed with which Windows component goes where.
Microsoft made it simply because it was the first microcomputer player to be taken seriously. THAT was primarily due to the IBM trademark. The rest is the resulting marketing inertia. People have bought into Microsoft not because of any of it's other attributes but merely because it was the percieved 'market leader'.
Others HAVE done better. Network effects, side effects of the need for compatibility between applications and hardware kept them all from gaining on the MS Inertia.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
All right, we are going to get spaghetti code from Windooze. At one point, Windows 3.1 and NT may (read may) have had an interesting source code, but with so much shit added to it, and flat uncoherent apis (win32s, win32 and NT), that code would have to be horrible to look at.
http://slashdot.org/www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,323 61,00.html
should be http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,3 2361,00.html
da w00t. mtfnpy?
Maybe people should learn about US legal system before posting about it.
IP rights are upheld by courts, not DoJ. DoJ is executive branch, courts are not. If you break the law, MS will sue you in court, DoJ has nothing to do with it.
Criminal cases are another story, but that's irrelevant.
--
Wrongo. That's when the fun begins. As soon as Microsoft is declared to be at fault (no matter what the penalty) lawsuits will immediately be filed. Netscape, Apple, Sun, and Caldera are definites; AOL, Intel, and Be are likely; and you'll probably see some come in from PC makers and lots of other little companies who got squashed along the way.
This is why Microsoft is screaming its innocence before an onslaught of incriminating evidence: from a legal defense standpoint, it has to. If it weakens its stance for even a moment, if it even hints that it recognizes it might have used poor judgement or behaved inappropriately, that's all it takes to legitimize a wrongful-damages lawsuit against Microsoft.
I guarantee you that Microsoft's legal woes are far, far from over. Give it at least three or four years before the end is even in sight.
> Word has a monopoly on the word processing
> market - should MS be forced to make the source
> code available?
Absolutely! Given their inability to debug their own software, they have to let the rest of us fix things on our own schedule and our own budget.
"Property rights," including those to "intellectual property," are by no means absolute or inviolate in any civil society.
> Apple has a monopoly on the Macintosh market -
> should MacOS X be made public?
Yes. Security considerations alone demand that the source be available.
> If MS is shown in a court of law that it is
> indeed a monopoly and is forced to reveal its
> crown jewels, then it will open a flood gate
> of similar attempts of competitors against
> market leaders (e.g., Sybase against Oracle)
> and ruin the software market.
What mountain were you standing on when you had the divine revelation that companies or individuals have a "right" to keep their software proprietary? The big bucks are in support anyway.
> There will be no economic incentive to develop
> software.
What the heck have you been smoking? Proprietary
software is not by any means the only, or even the
most profitable, way to make money in the industry.
You're also assuming, contrary to the existence of top-quality, category-killing free software, that economic incentives are important to developing good software.
What part of "A well regulated militia" do you not understand?
That's what MS does. But shutting out all supply channels to competitors, they effectively force people to buy Windows with every PC purchased. It worked for IE, it worked for MS-Office, and it will work for any other "innovative" (meaning, innovatively filling MS-Coffers) product.
I don't want the government to stifle innovation. But, by the same token, I don't want Microsoft stifling innovation, either-- and Microsoft has a history of doing just that. The government hasn't done much bad, except cryptography, patents, CDA and CDA-- The Sequel. As far as I know, they have never purchased and gutted a company simply to stop an innovative product (like Microsoft has).
You, Sir, are either very ignorant, or insane.
To call MS visionary is silly. They haven't been visionary at any point-- every major advance MS made was based on some other company's research. And Microsoft's biggest strength has not been its vision-- it's been the ablility to change direction on a dime. Consider the Internet: MS had no intention of entering the Internet market. Bill Gates publicly scoffed the internet (in his first edition of the ghost-written "The Road Ahead"). It took the threat of a web-based desktop replacing MS-Windows as the dominant desktop to force them into the arena. And once they were there, they did nothing half-heartedly.
Why would someone writing a novel care about the underlying OS? Because they don't want to lose an hour's work. How many working hours have been lost to blue screens of death? Hmm? For me, it could be reckoned in days. That was back before I discovered OS/2 and Linux. With Linux, I have never lost a single word. (I write technical articles and SF short stories.)
MS has never been a company of the people. They have been a company of the profits. They have just been in the right place at the right time, with the right contacts. They have used their early, dominant position to maintain a dominant postion; and a monopoly power has to follow different rules of conduct than a non-monopoly power. That is why this trial has focused on Microsoft's dominant position (is it a monopoly or not) as much as specific instances of penis-waving and muscle-flexing.
Other companies have given better, more stable, easier-to-use products. (NeXT, anyone?) So that argument does not hold.
However, I do agree with you. Blocking even Microsoft from adding to their own product is insanely stupid. Stopping them from tieing the browser or a commercial-grade database to the system is one thing; to stop them from producing a truly feature-rich product is another. Not that I think Microsoft is capable of producing any good code. (MS is too big and too paranoid to produce anything good anymore. And they haven't had a good product in about 3 years. Well, maybe MS-SQL Server 7.0, but I've not used it myself.)
1) Force them to License source code. Not a free source license or public domain, but a commercial license, and with no NDA's.
2) Publish the Win32 API.
3) Break them up inbetween logical divisions. For example, Instead of a single OS division, you'd have 3 or 4 OS divisions, all starting out with the same source code. That way, no IP is lost, but competition is created, and there is a big incentive to conform to a standard, since no one company will be able to "embrace and extend".
--
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
As far as the licensing goes, MS already licenses their code, the DOJ would just set a price.
As for the API, it would be possible to verify that the API is accurate if the source didn't cost an arm and a leg to license.
Read my split up scenario a little bit more carefully. I think you misinterpreted it. The split that I called for was inbetween logical divisions, not necessarily along logical divisions. With this type of split, you wouldn't have to determine what came with the OS and what didn't, since everybody would get everything. It's trivial to make copies of the source.
--
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
Yeah.. Billy and all his cronies the chair! Fry his sorry ass! Make him suffer!!!!
--
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
All it says is licensing the code. It doesn't say how the code will be licensed. Perhaps it will be OSS-style, or perhaps it will have to be sold, or something else.
Also, consider the potential impact this may or may not have on other operating systems, and eventually the software industry in general. This may or may not be a Good Thing. Only time will tell.
Just for reference, the ZDNet article is:
, 1013867,00.html
http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153
1) Total asset forfeiture - just like a drug case.
2) All M$ patents and copyrights transferred to public domain.
3) All M$ executives of VP and above banned from conducting business anywhere forever. This would include board membership in any company.
4) Permit civil legal actions against M$ executives (VP and above) by corporations and individuals to drain the remaining cash that is in the hands of the M$ millionares.
5) Require the children of VP and above to attend public schools.
All of this is necessary to prevent other corporations from even trying the kinds of evil mis-deeds that M$ has perpetrated on society.
Just more blatant M$ astroturf (i.e. fake grass-roots) to tell our grandchildren about.
You cant blame the M$ people for trying the same tricks that what worked against OS/2 in the past. It won't work against GNU/Linux/Apache/XFree86 and the rest because they are _free_.
Sorry Bill, only the best tasting software gets to be free.
I really don't care what happens to Microsoft as long as the market has something to fall back. Releasing the source to windows would give any Microsoft competitor a fair advantage. Including Linux with WINE! I say this is a good well rounded punishment.
---------
---------
This space for rent. Call 1-800-SIGADVT to place your ad.
in my opinion is to split them up into 2 or more
companies. Suppose we say "applications" and
"operating systems" - ok, now you are a member
of the applications group, all you care about is
selling as many copies of your app as possible
(rather than trying to protect the windows monopoly) do you have any objection to porting to linux (if you believe there is money to be made)? Nope no objection. Are you interested in tying
your application so completely to one os that porting becomes impossible? Not hardly. Now if you are in the os group, are you interested in providing special secret information to one particular application vendor? Are you interested in moving things into the kernel that really don't belong there to improve the performance of another company's app? Nope. Would you be willing to port your os to say, sparc? maybe. Would you be interested in making sure your os was very well documented and standards compliant so that everyone would want to write apps for it? Definitely. I'm happy to entertain criticisms
of this line of reasoning, but I do think it is
by far the most compelling option.
there are two kinds of people in this world - those who divide people into two groups and those who don't
Well - you may be right but there is actually
some precedent for this. When the government
actually does step in to break up a company
(as they did with standard oil) they don't just
say "ok, you guys be sure and compete now" they
actually put regulators on the premises for a
period of years, monitor communication, stock
transactions, etc. All of this under a "sudden
death" rule whereby if the company is caught
attempting to collude with one of their newly
split off "competitors" the company is terminated.
I certainly share your doubts as to MS's desire
to voluntarily comply with something like this,
I'm just saying that historically the government
has (oddly enough) actually had some sense when
it comes to these sorts of matters.
there are two kinds of people in this world - those who divide people into two groups and those who don't
cool my submission got published, second time i am on slashdot :o))), i submitted maybe 10 stories, so it's 20% of my news that are keep by Rob & co :)
--
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Unless the per-processor, per-series, or per-anything but per-unit licensing goes away, nothing will have been accomplished. And, in the face of the demonstrated lack of integrity of the people who run MS, only fines that seem monstrous to the average person would have the desired effect.
I think a large fine is in order in any case. I'm not into vengeance, and I think that the interests of MS employees and stockholders must be respected, but there's nothing quite like a big fine to change a corporate culture.
Another remedy which might help is to require MS to leave the browser market. Their market share was mostly gained illegally, and forcing one of the monopolists out of the Internet picture would give freedom on the Internet a better chance (which would make the Internet more valuable in the long run, for other Internet companies, and for democracy).
The only possible way to correctly "document" the WIN32 api is to release the source code. I am sure that there is no other accurate documentation, even at MicroSoft.
We do not want a "test suite" or a Windows Standards board. These could very well legislate an even worse interface (and quite likely incompatable with Windows programs) than already exists.
Source code is the only way. The DOJ should also test the code: it must be compiled by a disinterested party, installed on a blank machine, and tested to accurately run EVERY MicroSoft software product (and some large selection of third-party products). In addition, all future MicroSoft products must be demonstrated to run on a system made only from the published source code.
If MicroSoft adds something to the system they must provide source for this. However, they can provide a "reference" implementation, if they wish they can make an internal optimized version using secret faster algorithims. Software must be proven to work with the "reference" implementation.
I agree with you. Letting the government fool with the inner workings of M$ is a bad idea. Ideally the DOJ case would drag on for a very long time, never resulting in a verdict. A long string of convictions and resulting appeals would allow the smaller players in the industry to compete without the threat of being squashed. Then the market could rise to the occation of creating supperior software to run many circles around M$es junky 9x kernel. We already see the market creating better software, with better long term viability.
Any situation dependant, government created, compition will not create a big enough window for other OSes to break through M$es iron curtain around the OEM's. If the DOJ wins the market will not be ready and OSS will be accused of having success that depends solely on govenment intervention.
I hope Judge Jackson's gaval does not squash the good reputation of OSS forever.
Directions to eventually demolish M$es unfair atvantages
step 1. Try 'em.
step 2. Convict 'em.
step 3. let 'em appeal.
step 4. let 'em win the appeal.
step 5. repeat steps.
If the government convicts, and all appeals are exausted, they should release all OS code under the WINE licence. May it never get to that step!
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
If you have access to running water, electricity, or medical care; if your most pressing concern is whether or not Microsoft loses a lawsuit, and you have to CONSIDER whether or not you are better off than those in Iraq...
sheesh.
And not just any "license" -- GPL. Not only that, appoint an Architectural Review Board (like there is with OpenGL) to be in charge of maintaining the source tree. Microsoft may be a member of this ARB, but it should also include the likes of IBM, Sun, HP, SGI, Apple, etc. Microsoft should not be permitted to distribute any version of the operating system that is not approved by the ARB, nor in any binary-only form -- the source must be supplied.
Why do I say this is perfectly reasonable? Isn't it "cruel and unusual", or something like that? Not at all. Think about exactly what it would mean: the government would simply be confiscating their intellectual property. Some would say that intellectual property should not exist at all. I'm staying away from that one, but it is certainly not any more "special" than any other kind of property -- you don't have any more right to own your code than your car or your house. Those can be seized if you use them to commit a crime, right? Hence, if a company uses its intellectual property to engage in anticompetitive behavior that violates antitrust law, that property can be confiscated and "donated" to the injured parties by means of putting it under the GPL. Remember, this is not just to "see that it doesn't happen again" -- it is punishment for crimes committed.
Of course, some of us (myself included) might object that this is not good enough because Windows remains a contender in the OS world. However, it's not really reasonable to demand that it be completely purged. Also, how strong of a contender will it be, when forced to compete fairly? As someone pointed out, who would want to contribute to its development? Microsoft could, but their motivation would shrink; it seems unlikely that anything like the Linux development community would spring up, because there aren't enough people who want to contribute to it, but if they do, then the people will have spoken, and it will compete against other open OSes. It would have the advantage of a bigger user and application base, but the disadvantage of being extremely poorly written (so we believe). All in all, it would seem to be as fair a fight as possible.
David Gould
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
Just a thought. :-)
I just don't get it - it seems like meddling by lawyers who really don't understand what this is all about.
:-)
If Microsoft engages in non-competitive practices, (and I personally believe that they do)- fine. Prosecute them with the existing laws that suffice for other industries.
What's all this noise about how long it takes to connect to the Internet, browser bundling, licensing source code, no new features... It just seems like they're making this up as they go along! It makes me nervous. "Can't add new features to the OS" - what a ridiculous thing to dictate. (Granted, if they just got the bugs out of the existing features, it'd be a good thing) but WHY would the DOJ stipulate that as a solution to a monopoly?
Fine 'em, break 'em up, whatever, but don't micro-manage what they can and can't code. Just seems like a ridiculous solution, to me. Why not simply enforce the monopoly laws? Oh well, IANAL.
Ok, I'm done ranting.
If the source code is released I am going to hack a PERL Script to diff the MS Source Code and GPLed apps and make it freely available.
:-)
I'm going to encourage licensees to use it, so they can try and get their licensing fee back when it is revealed they had to pay for a GPLed product and everyone else...
I am sure that many overworked MS programmers, under pressure may have cribbed little bits of GPLed code to save time, safe in the knowledge that no one will ever know their secret.
Only way to be sure would be to check
What d'you think???
Some of the statements made by them may be considered a little bit harsh (Especially the claim that linux office productivity applications are a poor substitute for their M$ counterparts). But the Gartner Group isn't supposed to advocate linux but is supposed to tell MSEs whether to junk their NT or commercial UNIX setup and go with linux or not.
/. where bosses didn't even know that their file server ran on linux except that they suddenly was a lot more stable than the previous NT file server setup ... These bosses would have reacted quite differently if they suddenly couldn't run PowerPoint on their desktops any more (no matter how bad it is).
.."
And their answer is clear: If you make widgets, have no idea about computers and it doesn't matter to you if your computer crashes frequently, stay away from linux. If you are a somewhat technical company where employees stopped using the CD ROM drive as cup holder last year, then watch linux because it may be the next great thing waiting around the corner. And if you are willing to take the risk of a platform change (and that's always a risk!), and trust your folks to do it, go for it.
And then they give step by step instructions how to slowly and sneekingly convert your company to a linux shop, without alerting PHBs and MicroZombies. I was rolling when I read:'...aging NetWare versions, "orphaned" Unix variants, unreliable Windows servers...' Face it, folks: these are the three core targets for linux in the server market right now!
And they are also right if they say that it's risky to junk all your current computer systems and switch to linux at once. I just keep reading success stories here on
All together, this article sounds a lot better than this collection of FUD and BS in that IEEE magazine and I don't see a point in writing a fierce rebuttal. In fact, a fierce rebuttal would probably hurt the cause more than it would help. The Gartner Group seems to have actually looked into the matter (there may be some small factual errors, but I'm sure I could find some in the Linux Gazette, too), and they assessed quite well and without unnecessary hype, how linux will enter the MSE market in the next two years and where its current limitations are. We don't need yet another hype article from Jesse Berst, who "always knew that linux is going to make major inroads
1) OS group should be separated from browser group - break up MS.
2) Every customer who do not want to purchase Windows with computer should have the refund with the amount of RETAIL price. That ensure that MS keep retail prices low and equal to volume prices for selected OEM.
The price discount for good guys is the most anti-competitive hammer of Microsoft. Stop it!
Andrew
I don't think that you understand the basis for why there is an anti-trust case against Microsoft.
Being an monopoly does not automatically invoke anti-trust proceedings. However, using monopoly power in one realm (i.e., desktop OS) to stiffle competition in another (applications) is illegal. Frankly, Microsoft could (and should) have been procecuted on additional charges besides Netscape.
Hence (and I am only assuming this), the DoJ is considering the release/licensing of the OS as a means limiting this type of abuse of their desktop OS monopoly.
Um... Wait. Because Be's browser can be easily
decoupled, and M$'s can't, that's good.
Wait, isn't that a cornerstone of the case
against M$?
He's hoping that the near future
is more evenly, um, coupled.
-j
I forget what 8 was for.
While it sounds crazy/sarcastic, I beileve that the perfect punishment for MS should be to GPL their operating system and release the source code. They should still have the entire freedom to develop and pursue it however they chose, as well as develop applications for it which are NOT restricted. This way they can still make billions and billions off of Office, etc, and their monopoly can be totally eliminated.
Yes that is the actual name of it.
;-)
Two of my employees are former Microsoft employees who worked on the original 95 release "Chicago", and according to them, all the real coders an M$ work for a company called Volt Scientific and M$ takes the credit. The project managers are hired right into M$ but many of the coders etc. come from Volt.
And yes it is a bunch of crappy code. In fact much of the code had comments going back as far as 1986 in Win95, (one assumes to kludge around DOS)
Anyway, I wouldn't want their code. In fact because Microsoft is not Linux compatable it should not be a choice of business that needs a reliable, supported product.
Sorry guys but I don't call the 18 year old kid at Soft Bank, technical support. By the way Soft Bank (whose owners are personal friends with Bill Gates) owns ZD-Net. Hell they own Comdex for that matter
Cheers,
Nick
LSG
Preventative remedy: APIs must become public domain, for the good of all. An API is a necessary resource, the same way that water is a necessary resource for a farmer. To deny access to APIs is to imply that you should be able to deny access to farmers selectively based on whether you approve what they're growing or not. If all APIs on all platforms are public domain, conditions can only improve because no hidden traps (like the anti-DRDOS bug in Windows 3.1) can be used to prevent competition. It also would mean that unintentional bugs and inconsistencies due to management or programmer error would be weeded out faster. Only a monopolist would hate this. Product tying by means of APIs would disappear as well, since all products could 'tie' equally, no matter who developed them.
Another ZDNet reader expanded on this idea by saying something along the lines of, "Let's do it like so:I think this is an insanely great idea -- the playing field is levelled, because Microsoft can't pull a fast one on non-MS developers writing apps for Windows, and Microsoft even gets to keep its Sacred Windows Source Code(TM) under wraps.
Sounds like a plan to me... Anybody else see anything wrong with this? ;-)
P.S. Rob -- Can you fix the BLOCKQUOTE and P tags sometime? Thanks.
*The preceding makes use of StyleSheet Technology(tm) unlisenced from Microsoft or anybody else to the full extent permitted by the /. posting software.*
Zontar
(somewhere in tenn.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Microsoft knows that Windows 9x's days as
a revenue-maker will soon be over. Client
side software will soon be free of cost -
not just for free Unix users but for
everyone. Releasing source is hip today,
and Microsoft might do this anyway to
make some shareholders happy by looking
like they are keeping up with the times
(at least for their workstation class OS
products.) The DoJ would only be doing
them a favor: Microsoft would look like a
martyr and get a better OS out of
the bargain. I just don't see how this
amounts to punishment; unfortunately, I do
not know what one can possibly do instead.
this one (the interview with the Be guy) wins the award for the most messed up misspelling of Linux: Lynix.
I am still a bit astonished that the DoJ is still not considering the ultimate solution to the whole Windows monopoly thing short of breaking up the company: forcing everyone to buy the operating system as a separate cost item.
That way, the "Windows refund" crowd here will be happy (because they can install whatever OS they want on the computer), and every OS maker will have an equal chance of getting their market share.
IMHO, the DoJ is trying to do things the hard way; what I suggested is the best solution of all. Of course, that means Mac users will have to buy the MacOS as a separate cost item, but that means future Macs will allow you to install a version of Linux that takes advantage of the G3 processor.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Hmm ... this would allow a clean-room effort to proceed to make wine a true windows emulator.
I wonder how many "interesting" comments are in the source code regarding such things as wine and DR DOS. Might be some monopolistic smoking guns there. Hopefully the DOJ will force the release of the source code unmodified.
- John
The DoJ seems to be besides itself figuring out what to do if (when) they win the Anti-trust case. As far as I can tell, here's their options:
(A) They could lay down a bunch of marketing restrictions, but as you correctly said, MS has never paid any attention to consent degrees and fair marketing practices. That just leads to 20 more years of lawsuits arguing who did what when, etc.
(B) They could break up Microsoft into "OS" and "Application" groups. Harder than it might seem -- IIS (OS?) is intimately tied into IE (app). Likewise, Office 2000 (app) will have an "Office Server" (OS) tied into NT and IIS. Besides - a split-in-half Microsoft is two giant monopolies rather than one.
(C) They could force Microsoft to give the source code away. I'm sure all of you Unix hackers would love to go fix Win98. What would be more likely to happen would that the hardware vendors and third parties would patch it together to work with their stuff. Imagine an "IBM Windows" or "Compaq Windows" or "RedHat Windows with Gnome", all slightly incompatible. Er, wait, that's just like Linux. Bottom line is that current MS customers wouldn't be too happy with this option.
(D) The DoJ can wage a war of attrition. Microsoft is basically a big Ponzi scheme that can afford (through paper stock options) to make very smart people work real hard for them. If the stock starts dropping, so will the intelligent people that keep MS on top. Much like the IBM case, by the time it's all over, it might be a moot point.
(There is a very interesting article over on PC week talking about how the various mid-level millionares over at Microsoft are basically unmanagible, and this is one of the reasons for the lateness of Windows 2000.)
If anyone else has some interesting ideas on what the government should do to stop Microsoft, I'd like to read them. None of the above seems all that great to me.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
No, I do not think forcing MS to reveal their source entirely is a good idea. However, your perception of business is just wrong. MS is a monopoly, there are few companies which hold similar market shares in other large markets. Do you really honestly believe that MS has what they have simply because their coding and marketing is better. I say no way in hell. I happen to know for a fact MS has done ever worse things than what has been published thus far.
As for their 'quality'. MS software is buggy, and everyone who knows software knows this. There are two reasons for this. The first being that MS is a marketing company. Part of the way they market is by adding bloated GUIs and animation and the like. This naturally makes the OS less reliable. The truth is users really don't need these features. A dancing paper clip may comfort Joe Schmoe with 2 hours of computer experience, but it certainly does not help him use it. The second reason for their poor quality is simply that they are a monopoly. No one is going to oust MS any time soon, thus they are afforded the luxary of not patching bugs as they are discovered. For most of the people in this world there is a simple equation when it comes to MS. You can either put up with MS's lack of reliability. Or you can try to change operating systems. Changing OS's and your applications is very time consuming...not to mention hardware issues. Most people would rather grin and bear MS's crappy product, than spend more time changing their Operating System and applications.
This does not mean what MS does is ok. What they do is wrong, and it should be stopped. I doubt that any decision in favor of the DoJ will ever hurt the consumer. Allowing competitors the same kind of access to the OS's API, as what their own application developers have is only fair. This will benefit the consumer as MS will no longer be able to rest on their laurels when competition can compete on more even ground. This still doesn't address the OEM issue. However, the solution of the OEMs is pretty straight forward. Just force MS to sell to all OEMs at the same price, the economies of scale argument simply doesnt work for this kind of software distribution. End of Story.
The problem isn't that Microsoft has a big marketshare in the OS market, but if their commercial practices are legal or illegal. And I think DOJ just should proof ( if they can ) weather Microsoft is making illegal practices to broaden their marketshare ( and act accordingly ) or not ( and in that case leave them alone ).
DOJ shouldn't destroy or at least weaken Microsoft ( as IBM, Oracle, Sun, etc. would like ) forcing them to give away their source code or anything equally stupid ( Don't saying that giving away code it's stupid, don't think so, just forcing someone do it with not any fair reason it's ).
The right thing to do is avoiding that Microsoft ( or anyone else ) use monopolic practices. DOJ shouldn't 'shutdown' Microsoft ( as I read here once ) just because they are succesful.
Let's not fight unfairness with more unfairness.
Besides, do you thing that Microsoft is evil and the others companies involved in this trial wouldn't like to take all the cake for them?
Come on!
Seldon
I think that a much better idea then making Microsoft give away their source code (especially since I know I wouldn't want to have to sift through all of it, including the bugs, to figure out what's going on) would be to make them turn over the Win32 API (as well as all other relevant API's in Windows) to ANSI or ISO. That way everyone would know how everything in the OS works (including all the "hidden" functions in Win32). That would make it possible to not only create a 100% compatible OS which could compete head on with Windows, but would also allow the WINE group and anyone else who wanted to do so to port the Win32 API to other platforms (Half-Life on Linux anyone, or maybe even an OSS Windows?).
Making Win32 a standard would also take away Microsoft's edge in the Applications market. They would lose the ability to use functions that no one else knows about to create a product that has better (well maybe not better but you know what i mean) functionality then competing products (such as Office 97, 2000, whatever vs. Corel Office). For example, this would make it possible for Mozilla to replace IE as the default shell in Win98.
Now I'm not saying this is the best option, and I'm sure that I've overlooked all the bad things that doing this could cause, or maybe I'm just plain wrong...it's just my 2 cents, so no flames please.
rhavyn
rhavyn@syru148-28.syr.edu
And just how do you think the DOJ would justify prejudicial treatment of M$? The purpose of the DOJ is to see that JUSTICE is done, and that even criminals are treated fairly. So, even if M$ doesn't play by the rules, the DOJ - by it's very existence, has to.
If the DOJ were to refuse to hear any and all cases dealing with piracy and the protection of intellectual property, that's another story. But in that scenario, the one with the most buck$$ would win. Guess who that is.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
M$ is simply following the rules because it is more convenient to do so.
What is to stop M$ from dissolving itself as a US firm, re-establishing itself in a country where the laws are more favorable, and simply importing it's product back to the US? It can set up the Redmond campus as a development sub-contractor, but 'officially' be located on Christmas Island, or in the UK, or wherever. In fact, M$ can buy a small Carribean island nation, and make it's own laws. Wm. Gibson had it right!
Then, the US would have to sanction that country to control M$.. Not likely.
As for M$ going OpenSource, I'd love to see the sh*t hit the fan if the DOJ even suggested that a company must reveal trade secrets. Pratt&Whitney, Pfizer, Ford... They'd all start screaming at that precedent. Again, as you say, it's not likely.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
As was discussed several years ago when M$ began to expand beyond OS products into office products, MS should be broken up into an OS company and a Applications company. The OS company would be forbidden from developing Application products.
My Computer. My Way. Linux
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
Ouch! You cut me to the quick.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
Spagetti code??? How can you accuse MS of poor coding if you havn't even seen their code before?
What kind of solution is that? I don't think I have to explain what's wrong with that.
The problem with too many of you people is that you think you can do better. Don't acuse MS of having too many bugs in their software. Almost all software has bugs, that's life. And if there's a better company, it would beat them. MS is simply one of the smartest and most appealing companies in American history. Ever wonder why? Not because they are evil. Because they give the people something useful that makes them more productive. They have visions of future software years before it's released and plan their current software around those visions. I have no doubt they have used some business practices that may seem pretty harsh, but its nothing uncommon to most other companies. Due to MS's huge size, these practices are becoming more apparant than those of other companies. Maybe if the other companies start giving the consumers what they want instead of what some programmer or techie wants, there would be greater competition then there is today. Consumers don't care how the internals of an OS works. They also hate unnecssary confusion. Why would someone trying to write a novel on a computer care if thier OS has a better kernal or whatever? They don't and never will. I know most of the people coming to this site seem to be highly technical people, but the vast majority of computer users are not. That consideration is what seems to be missing from a lot of technical people's visions of the future. MS has always been a company of the people, and that's why they succeed.
Everyone thinks that the company should be seperate. (imho to atleast 4 companies)
But I think that the company run by BillGates himself will eventualy kill the other.
So, Bill Gates should give away its shares of MS to the US.
Also they must remove all their patents and copyrights from anything and be forced to use
only standard protocols and file formats (without "improving" them).
And another suggestion would be that they must not produce "their version" of other popular products.
---
I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
IMHO making them reveal their source code, while it would be suitably humiliating for them, isn't the best punishment. More appropriate would be to force their application divisions to use nothing in the OS that wasn't equally available to any other company, and to go through the same support lines as everyone else to get questions answered and bugs fixed. They could integrate their browser, for instance, but only if they had an interface that would let Netscape integrate Navigator in the same way and to the same degree. This'd level the playing field without giving MS an excuse to complain that lawyers are dictating OS design, and you can check compliance by checking the source code against the published interfaces without having to resort to opinion.
What is to stop M$ from dissolving itself as a US firm, re-establishing itself in a country where the laws are more favorable ?
In short the goverment would call it treason and do its best to make an example out of microsoft. to prevent other corporations from "defecting" to dodge united states tax's and laws. Microsoft would be labled yellow bellied anti-american scum. No goverment body or contractor would be allowed to license microsoft products. as foreign company they would not be allowed to trade on the NASDAQ. There would be large tarifs on software and all products that did not meet the Terms set by the courts would be baned from import.
It's my opinon that the goverment would do every thing in it power to hurt microsoft for defecting.Microsoft would live on though after all the world is a very large place.
I am who I am and that is who I am
joew
MS has been making apps for a pretty long time. The original version of Word was out for the Mac in 1984/1985. The first noise about splitting the company up was around 1990/1991, when Win3.1 came out.
Back then, Microsoft claimed there was a "Chinese wall" between OS and Apps; no actual collaboration, except on the odd occasion when an engineer from OS and one from Office would sit down together for a personal lunch...
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Okay, I'm not an MS pusher, but I just want to know why everyone thinks integration is bad? I use Winblows 98, an I LOVE the bug (oh, wait, it is documented, so I guess it's a feature) that puts a location bar on your desktop (or more correctly, on the task bar.) While I greatly prefer Netscape Navigator over IE, I use the location bar all the time.
I wish one of the X window managers had this! (Specifically if it loaded Netscape.) I still use Win98 for two things, games (I like my flight simulators, and there are no good ones for Linux) and doing work that I can't do without proprietary custom Windows programs.
When I want to use the internet, I use windows if I was already there, or Linux if the computer was off (or in Linux)
As bad as most Microsoft products (and ideas) are, I have to admit, web integration is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
IMHO, the best remedy is probably to break up Microsoft. DOJ should force Microsoft to setup 3 (or more) separate companies with complete ownership of the MS-Windows operating system as it exists today (the engineers who know the operating system should also be distributed amongst these new companies). These companies will then start out on equal footing, be enjoined from merging back together, and would then be free to compete in the open market as they see fit. As an example, one company might choose to align itself with Linux/*BSD/UNIX and provide solid MS-Windows emulation at the kernel level. Another might port the MS-Windows OS to a wider variety of hardware. Since all but one of these companies would no longer be owned by MS and yet have a copy of MS's crown jewels, MS would no longer have an OS monopoly.
Yea, but what's to prevent M$ from transfering the patents to Microsoft Canada Lmt.?
Canada\British Colm. would LOVE the tax revenue and the DOJ would be obligated to pursue anti-piracy claims under NAFTA.
Or heck, even moving their headquarters 45 miles north to Vancouver? SO they pay extra mileage to their developers and are out of DOJ jurisdiction.
For those who know me, I have been hoping that forcing MS to GPL all of their OS code would be atleast considered as a just punishment. I still believe that this will effectively remove MS's leverage, and restore some level of fairness in the market. Hell, I doubt I'll even look at it, since it is probubally in the top ten worst written pieces of software ever (Lotus Notes takes top honors). But people working on other projects like wine and OS's that emulate Windows will find the code very usefull. One thing I'm also hoping is that they force MS to allow IBM to release the code to OS/2. I believe IBM would do that if they knew MS wouldn't take them to court.
Anyhow, it's nice to see the DOJ attornies are thinking on their feet, and not just considering breaking MS up since that hasn't worked very well in any of the previous monopolies.
There're a bunch of commies in power in CA anyway.... look at Boxer and Feinstein. We DON'T need that mentality spreading all the way to the federal level.
The only thing worse than a monopolistic Microsoft
is the force of the government. Maybe we then
will get the ultimate socialistic "leveling of the
field" - involuntary requirement to render
source to the tyrant in charge.