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Microsoft Trial Resumes Today
paitre wrote in to remind us that the little trial thing
between Microsoft and the DOJ is back in session today after
a lengthy recess.
News.com has a summary of
whats going on over there. Fun stuff coming up includes
economics wiz's claiming that MS is a monopoly, and MS will
try to prove that IE can be seperated from Win98. I'm sure
we're all wetting ourselves.
...based on my assessment of the performance of assorted parties at the trial:
- Judge asks SEC (or is it someone else?) to investigate whether current Microsoft management are fit to hold positions in a public company.
- Judge asks bar association to investigate behaviour of Microsoft lawyers.
Now *that* should send a message, surely?
Alas, just a dream I'm sure...
That quote is funny, because of course it flies in the face of what the government's lead economic witness openly admitted on the witness stand... that any consumer harm caused by Microsoft is in the future (and thus purely hypothetical).
Each side gets three rebuttal witnesses when the trial resumes. It was not surprising that the government decided to recall its economist, Frank Fisher, since unless they get him to credibly recant or otherwise modify that testimony, they know their case is dead in the water. As it should be.
Look at all of MS' "partners" that have gone against MS' wishes while the trial has been going on: Dell & Intel are two biggies, but there are many others. MS doesn't dare exert force while the trial is still going on, so every delay is a loss for MS.
Surprise documents ? Whatever happened to the discovery process.
Most of you slashdot "libertarians" (who are really just "cool Republicans") are scared to death that the government would actually enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. You are afraid that the government would actually stop somebody from squashing all competition by taking monopoly profits in one business and subsidizing the take over of another. (I suppose it offends your "Ayn Rand" vision of the world where elite individuals will crush the sycophantic mobs.) Breaking up Microsoft is the solution. America has been through this before: the robber-baron era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries when maniacs crushed hard working middle class folks. People like Rockefeller, Pew, Duke, Hearst used their money to stifle competition and extract monopoly rents. Bill Gates is just another one of these evil monopolists. Breaking up Microsoft, like Teddy Roosevelt broke up the big monopolies 100 years ago, is the solution.
No, those aren't the sort of "harms" that are actionable under the antitrust laws. Making bad products is not yet illegal, though I suspect many of the OSS boosters and pro-regulation types around here would like it to be.
By "consumer harm" the DoJ means "economic inefficiency." Economic inefficiency, in a nutshell, is the situation that exists where consumers would be willing to buy a product if the price weren't so high because of monopoly power (or some other extra-market factor), or where they are TOO willing to buy a product because the price is too low and does not reflect the seller's actual cost of production.
Since MS prices have dropped over the past several years, and prices in MS-contested markets tend to be lower than in markets where they do not offer a product, the DoJ is stuck with arguing that MS's practices will allow it to EVENTUALLY raise its prices, thereby sustaining the first definition of economic inefficiency above.
SAMBA is not an open-source 'clone' of NT Server. SAMBA is a daemon. NT Server is an operating system. The SAMBA developers had to reverse engineer some of the SMB functionality in NT Server. And the purpose in doing this was/is to allow connectivity between Unix servers and SMB clients, which are Microsoft OSed boxes, for the most part. Which, needless to say, adds more value to Microsoft OSes on the desktop. I happen to like that, but know there are zealouts out there who should really dislike SAMBA for that reason.
It's an off-topic side arguement, to be certain, but Linux won't be ready for the desktop so long as all it is is a Server OS with a desktop pasted on top. There's too much archaic croft out there, and it seems to not be going away.
A friend of mine (a relative Linux newbie) was trawling around on the web for weeks before I discovered (and she hopes I was the ONLY one to discover) that she hadn't given the root account a password. I discovered it by telnetting in and scaring the hell out of her with the talk command. Stuff like that, all the loose ends and possible (and probable) security holes inherent in a multi-user OS is a disaster waiting to happen. When it's happened a few times IS managers at major companies will BAN Linux on the desktop. It certainly won't foster user confidence in the OS for general use. Of course, crackers are gonna LOVE linux on the desktop. It gives them a bigger, more powerful playground, than they've ever had before.
This isn't FUD. It's Fear, but it's very certain fear, and there's no doubt about it.
Not only isn't it going to keep people from buying Windows, it draws further attention to Windows, probably promoting it in certain people's eyes.
I bought the full retail version (not the Upgrade version) of Windows 98 a few weeks ago. I did that because I felt like being all legal and legitimate about it (I have another machine running my copy of Windows 95, plus Linux and BSD machines at home) and besides I felt like Microsoft had earned a little renumeration from me. I am glad I bought it, and I've since bought two pieces of Microsoft hardware besides (a wheelmouse- which makes scrolling through text on sites like Slashdot MUCH nicer, and a USB Speaker System- it rocks, I ripped that cruddy sound card outta the machine. A USB scanner is next, so I can scrap SCSI completely- it's 80's technology) Linux will continue to thrive on a second desktop in my house, but when I want to have fun and not murk around in Makefiles and sourcecode, and lucky-if-it's-even-beta apps which work but never, EVER shine, I boot up the Windows 98 machine.
It's because I'm stoooopid and don't know any better, by the way.
No. To meet the definition of integration that you propose would be trivial. In both your installation routine and your OS kernel put a check for the component you wish to "integrate" as follows:
There, you've now met your definition of integrated. Unless the component is (getting) installed, the install won't work. And if the component is not installed, then the system is not usable. Yet, I doubt that anyone (other than the MS lawyers) would find that truly acceptable. Obviously MS "integration" of IE into Windows is more involved, but it could be substantively similar.
If I want to send email, use IRC, send files, non-MS OS's interoperate well enough with MS OS's.
If that's really all you use your computer for, you're living a pretty limited life.
I want to compose music, watch videos, scan documents, publish documents in PDF format (I can already hear the rumble of the Stal[in|lman]ists..), connect a palm-pilot, attach my parallel port zip drive, a digital camera, a stuffed Barney doll (granted I'm stretching it here...) and write the occasional application by "painting the interface ahead of time" (I.e. VB or Delphi). I want to do all that stuff without having to climb into the greasepit and get dirt under my nails. You're never going to convince Joe Public to be willing to muck around in ASCII to get his machine to work. The average user treats his/her computer like an appliance. And should be able to.
It's nice to be able to read the latest Office documents, too.
This is not correct. Merely having a monopoly is not sufficient to be illegal -- so long as it was obtained and is maintained without using monoopoly powers. Of course, the accusation is that MS has abused its monopoly powers.
Okay, lets get some things straight. The gov. durin the last decades has arrested criminals for provable crimes. Remember Al Capone got jailed for failin to pay his taxes. Bill Gates is a mafia godfather, and since the gov. cant prove this and shut him in prison, they 're tryin to prove that it's illegal to sell ie-fixed-w9x.
smile, the polls suxx.
On the other hand, the DOJ has its own MIT professor testifying against M$.
A lot of 3rd party development tools and libraries work only with VC++, and some people explicitly
ask partners to develop in VC++!
Now look at this:
VC++ Standard Academic:
US $49
Switzerland 148CHF (> $100)
^^[Usual M$ `Euro doubling']
VC++ Professional Academic:
US $99
Switzerland 539CHF (~$400)
They are right to think that people using
their stuff is stupid, BUT THAT MUCH???
If I take a handful of black marbles and mix them into a bin of white marbles, that doesn't make the black marbles inseperable from the white ones.
If, however, I take a handful of black sand from the island of Hawaii, take it to the beaches of Cozumel, and throw it into the wind, it is very difficult to seperate and remove that black sand.
I think Microsoft's problem here is that MS doesn't know what has been put into code...this is why we have a flight sim in Excel. Granted, MS's problem lies within their OWN process, but either they cannot - or, as an entity, choose not to - monitor their own code.
Making retribution is hard, and painful, but it is possible, and is necessary - that's the point of enforcing consequences in the first place.
First of all, low prices are NOT a "barrier to entry" by any sensible definition. If that were the case then Red Hat along with every other Linux distributor would be guilty of violating the antitrust laws. Even "integration" is questionable as a barrier to entry, since it affects consumer demand but not competitors' production costs. That distinction may not comfort people who have to pay more to cater to their customers' preference for integrated products, but in economic and legal terms it matters quite a bit.
Second, barriers to entry are a necessary but only in rare cases sufficient condition for monopoly power. It doesn't follow from their existence that anyone is a monopoly.
Third, you are wrong to say that monopolies are "inherently illegal." Quite the contrary -- the U.S. case law states that ABUSING a monopoly, not having one, is illegal. That's why the DoJ is concerned with the consumer harm in the first place... it is trying to argue that MS's practices constitute abuse of an existing monopoly.
You are right to say that sticker prices do not convey actual value, but if a product's quality declines at a slower rate than its price does, the value is still going up. Additionally, it is very hard to argue that ALL of MS's products have depreciated in quality. Certainly Internet Explorer, the product which (one might argue) started all of this mess, has gotten much better with each successive version. And even if MS's products are giving lower overall value despite lower sticker prices, that doesn't explain why sticker prices remain high in markets where MS does not offer a competing product.
There are some interesting debates going on at a very technical level that may have a large impact not only on the trial, but also on the way the public (i.e. newsmedia) think about the software.
Microsoft and the DOJ are having a debate over what defines a browser. Is it a set of code or a set of functions? If it's a set of code, then Microsoft can say that IE is not removable from Win98 because the code is mixed together. Furthermore, they will forever be able to mix together code from whatever they want and claim integration. On the other hand, if the browser is a set of functions/APIs/interfaces, then just hiding the interfaces (i.e. removing the icon) is equivalent to removing the browser. Thus Microsoft's claims of integration are a sham. In that case, Microsoft will have to legally justify what it does at the API level, where API is defined in its broadest sense. Microsoft loses big time in this scenario.
As far as I'm concerned, remove the access to a piece of code, and it becomes a bunch of random bits on a hard drive. You can write "Hello, World" in a few lines of code or you can write it in a hundred megabytes of code with no interface to 99.99% of those megabytes. So I think that the government's definition is by far the more natural one.
Ed Felten is the point-man for the DOJ on this one.
I don't think that is right...
Although it doesn't help microsoft that they couldn't prove that it can't be remove,I belive that under US law the prosecutor or plantiff bears the burden of proof. I think that the government in this case must show that it can be separtated. I belive this is the whole "innocent until proven guilty." ("Unless your name is Louis 'Louis the Squid' Calimari." -Dave Barry)
Isn't this like arguing that the CPU is not integrated with the computer because you can take it out? So what if they are shipped seperately, if you HAVE to install it to get the rest of the software to install, that sounds like the first half of integration to me. If in the process of removing it you render the system unusable, then you qualify for the second half of the definition. Isn't this what the DOJ proved?
I read the internet for the articles.
Posted by d106ene5:
None of this is going to stop people from buying Windows. This whole case is a day late and a dollar short.
Microsoft employees are voting, tax paying Americans. Hence some effort will be made to appease them in any ruling. The company will not be broken up, so you can forget that right now.
As for any ruling making Windows "open source" - big deal. Unless you have ten years to spare, the source isn't going to help you much.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
Ma Bell employees are voting, tax paying Americans. Hence some effort will be made to appease them in any ruling. The company will not be broken up, so you can forget that right now.
--
"Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
There are two pieces:
1) MS may have raised barriers to entry (low prices, integration, etc) into various fields (OS and browsers in particular) for the express puposes of causing rival companies (particularly startups like Netscape) would have a disproportionately hard time, so that
2) MS could exploit consumers by raising their prices. And note that "raising prices" doesn't necessarily mean "charging more money". It can also mean "getting less value". I think we can all agree that $1.98 spent on Linux has more value than $100 spent on Win98.
All Justice has to prove is that #1 has already taken place to show that MS is a monopoly. It doesn't matter if #2 has or ever will, because monopolies are inherently illegal.
Now, many of you are going to respond that there are monopolies in many other fields that aren't be prosecuted. True. There are also speeders who don't get caught or do get caught but not ticketed. Usually the judge likes to see that some harm has been done beyond just plain "you broke the letter of the law".
In the case of MS, though, their past behavior shows pretty clearly that they will do some harm when they get the chance. (DR-DOS anyone?)
--
"Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
Posted by Lothario:
Judge Pennfield Jackson doesn't have to understand that open standards are the key. He would only have to understand that due to the penetration of MS technology it could be declared an essential facility. Microsoft's marketing lit should provide enough detail to get this to happen. If this is done, the opening of standards and source code is the logical remedy. This is how the DOJ got Ma Bell years ago.
Of course, this actually presents what MS has been searching for which is a new revenue source of not inconsiderable size. You see, they would probably get to charge for access.
Believe me, MS will win no matter what the outcome. AT&T is stronger than ever today.
Posted by ^Pip:
Did anyone catch this?
"Richard Schmalensee, dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management"
Looks like Microsoft lined MIT's pockets to get an expert to testify on their behalf. (The new building.)
>>Microsoft has lost, folks.
>>The rest of this trial will consist of posturing on the part of Microsoft to get the best deal.
Remember, M$ lost the last one too. (1995?) The posturing they do is very important. If they lose but get another slap on the wrist, who has really won?
Cal
If you wanted me to agree with you, you shouldn't have given me Mod points.
Not always, at my current jobsite, we have Word 6.0 documents that open just fine in Word 6.0, but cause Word 8.0 to crash. We are unable to completely upgrade to Office 97 because of this.
Also I attempted to load a Word 4.0 for Mac file into Word 6.0 for Windows to no avail.
As always, if you need supreme portability, there's always ASCII formats like *TeX or HTML, and don't forget PDF.
Yes, but I get tired of continually having to upgrade my Apps (Until February I was still using Word 1.1 on a 386, now I am using Word 6.0 on a Pentium 133) or telling my clients that I am unable to read their document (usually in Word 8.0 format) and that they need to re-send it. This is the upgrade cycle I am complaining about.
Hal Duston
Boring is good.
This entire case misses the _real_ Microsoft monopoly. The Office applications are the real monopoly. If I want to send email, use IRC, send files, non-MS OS's interoperate well enough with MS OS's. It is the _content_ of the files, i.e. Word/Excel that is where the real problem is. Not only do you have to have the same application, but you also need the same version. If someone sends me a document chances are that I cannot read/view it unless I match application/version. This forces me to upgrade the application, which in turn forces me to upgrade the OS, which in turn forces me to upgrade the HW.
Hal Duston
Boring is good
To further strengthen that argument, that the browser is the unctionality, not the code, look at Windows NT 4.0. NT4 Workstation and Server consist of the same code. The only thing that's different is the functionality, which is set by some registry entries. Remember to O'Reilly hack to turn NT Workstation into NT Server?
Didn't MS prove that IE can be separated from Win98 by failing to prove that it couldn't?
Wasn't this what the whole forged ("simulated" according to the MS lexicon) video was about?
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
What do you mean by "require open standards" ? I don't see why MS shouldn't be allowed to invent their own networking protocols, etc. On the other hand, asking them to document their networking protocols is more reasonable. Forcing them to let other people see their source code is essential. I don't think others should develop "windows clones", but what is more important is that they don't hide their APIs.
Another important issue raised has been discriminatory licensing practices ( such as with IBM ) . The government needs to crack down on this, because it gives MS too much control over the industry.
Requiring open standards would effectively de-claw what, so far as I can tell, is the only weapon Microsoft can use against the open source community: closing or "decomoditizing" (sp?) standards.
Sure, and forcing them to release all their products under the GPL will also make it easier for the open source community to compete. I think a lot of slashdot readers aren't really interested in a fair outcome- they are more interested in propping up open source. Personally, I'd rather see open source win on its merits.
America has been through this before: the robber-baron era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries when maniacs crushed hard working middle class folks. People like Rockefeller, Pew, Duke, Hearst used their money to stifle competition and extract monopoly rents.
:)
I don't think this is in fact correct. Rockefeller got his market share by continually imporving his production methods and lowering his prices. This sucked for his competitors, but only because they simply could not keep up. The consumers benefitted enourmously from this. Remember also that the oil industry in the late 19th century was still young, and it was both much smaller and much more rapidly changing than today. So Rockefeller's "monopoly" (he never quite achieved a monopoly) likely would not have lasted once the industry matured and people started figuring out how things worked.
In any event, the important point is that Rockefeller became wealthy by producing oil more efficiently than his competitors. He was punished not because he was evil, but because he was productive. And yes, this is an "Ayn Rand" vision of the world.
While the trial goes on, MS cannot try their usual arm-twisting. Even after the trial, even if MS wins, they won't be able to go back to the way things were a year ago without triggering major outrage and probable legal problems.
/.ers, I don't think that this situation is a good thing. Law should be objective and clearly defined. If Microsoft has done something immoral, it should be prosecuted. If there is no law under which to prosecute them, then we should consider writing one. But "public outrage" and "possible legal action" should have no bearing in a court. Doing things that are legal but look bad should not trigger another trial.
As much as this might please most
Doing so gives the DOJ nearly unlimited power. When Microsoft is prosecuted not for specific actions that are considered illegal, but for patterns of behavior and general meanness, that is a bad thing. And as far as I'm concerned, antitrust law is so vague as to be meaningless. What Microsoft is alleged to have done under the Sherman Act is engaged in "combinations in restraint of trade" and "monopolistic practices." The DOJ can (and does) reinterpret that standard based upon their current target, and can harass pretty much anyone with a majority market share in pretty much any industry.
If a company's prices are "too high" that's gouging. If they are "too low" that is predatory pricing. If they are the same as everyone else, then that's collusion. If they sell to many products together, then that is "bundling." They are not allowed to set certain types of conditions in their OEM liscences. Some of these practices perhaps should be illegal. But if so, they should be made illegal explicitly and directly. Companies should not have to wait until after the fact to discover which practices are illegal under antitrust law.
As I have said before, if Microsoft is guilty of specific crimes--fraud, breach of contract, theft of intellectual property, or whatever--they should be prosecuted for those crimes. But they should not be prosecuted for competing too successfully by means that would otherwise be legal. They should not be forced to play by a whole new set of rules simply because their market share is above 80%.
If in fact the outcome of the trial of is irrelevant, I would argue that proves that Microsoft is being unjustly prosecuted. They should have just as much right to prove their innocence as anyone else. And if they are forced to change their behavior even if they win the case then that tells me that they are being prosecuted not for specific lawbreaking, but simply because their actions are unpopular.
While the trial goes on, MS cannot try their usual arm-twisting. Even after the trial, even if MS wins, they won't be able to go back to the way things were a year ago without triggering major outrage and probable legal problems.
/.ers, I don't think that this situation is a good thing. Law should be objective and clearly defined. If Microsoft has done something immoral, it should be prosecuted. If there is no law under which to prosecute them, then we should consider writing one. But "public outrage" and "possible legal action" should have no bearing in a court. Doing things that are legal but look bad should not trigger another trial.
As much as this might please most
Doing so gives the DOJ nearly unlimited power. When Microsoft is prosecuted not for specific actions that are considered illegal, but for patterns of behavior and general meanness, that is a bad thing. And as far as I'm concerned, antitrust law is so vague as to be meaningless. What Microsoft is alleged to have done under the Sherman Act is engaged in "combinations in restraint of trade" and "monopolistic practices." The DOJ can (and does) reinterpret that standard based upon their current target, and can harass pretty much anyone with a majority market share in pretty much any industry.
If a company's prices are "too high" that's gouging. If they are "too low" that is predatory pricing. If they are the same as everyone else, then that's collusion. If they sell to many products together, then that is "bundling." They are not allowed to set certain types of conditions in their OEM liscences. Some of these practices perhaps should be illegal. But if so, they should be made illegal explicitly and directly. Companies should not have to wait until after the fact to discover which practices are illegal under antitrust law.
As I have said before, if Microsoft is guilty of specific crimes--fraud, breach of contract, theft of intellectual property, or whatever--they should be prosecuted for those crimes. But they should not be prosecuted for competing too successfully by means that would otherwise be legal. They should not be forced to play by a whole new set of rules simply because their market share is above 80%.
I love this quote:
"The government is going forward in its rebuttal case with an eye toward the relief that it is going to seek,...As a consequence, it is focusing on the consumer harm that they believe has flowed from Microsoft's business practices."
For all the people out there who try to defend MS, saying that their actions are just good business practice, look at this quote. Microsoft has actually caused consumer harm (in lost productivity, unfair business practices, etc). I get the feeling that not a lot of people fully understand that.
I got a bunch of software bundled with my modem, it doesn't make it 'integrated' with the modem drivers. All MS did was take the check box out of the custom install that let's you choose not to install IE.
There are times when it is necessary to speak.
Bite the hand.
Actually NT Workstation has an artifical limit of 256 network connections, which makes it pretty useless as an application server (by design).
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
What I'd like to see come of this is (if a judgement is ever enforced against Microsoft) complete documentation of File formats and Network Protocols and anything else that would at least allow other OSs and Office suites to play nice with those who insist on keeping Microsoft products.
It's a free country and there are lots of MS stock holders who think it's the greatest thing running on silicon. A dear friend of mine holds several shares of MS and is blinded by his own financial well being. He can't understand why I run Linux (at home at least, I'm currently stuck on NT here at work) when everybody on the planet, or in the universe/cosmos runs MS products.
In summary, MS will survive the trial, but I'll continue the crusade against Bill Gates and MS. "The best revenge is living well." No, the best revenge is suffering zero down time.
-----Don't Take life seriously, you'll never make it out alive.
Several points:
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
There are several people I've spoken to who work or recently worked for Micros~1. The most common reason for working there? Who else is left to pay them to program? (And many of them hadn't heard of Linux at the time - circa early 1998.)
I think my favorite phrase I saw on a Micros~1 site... "Many people with the company have never written a line of code." My thoughts... And it shows!
I don't think the DOJ needs to worry about appeasing the employees. The ones who'll truly earn a living would look forward to the end of M$ domination.
Digital Wokan, Tribal mage of the electronics age
Star Office running under Linux does a perfectly fine job of reading MS Office documents for me.
"Linux wasn't even on the general public's radar when this started. It might be on everybody's desktop by the time it's done."
Your words to my boss's ears!
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
The ruling may wind up being irrelevant to the outcome. The big problem with MS has been that they have used their market share to bully everyone else, threatening to pull the Windows rug completely out from under anyone who even thinks about offering an alternative. The trial has changed that. While the trial goes on, MS cannot try their usual arm-twisting. Even after the trial, even if MS wins, they won't be able to go back to the way things were a year ago without triggering major outrage and probable legal problems. Whether the DOJ wins or loses, MS lost this one when the trial started.
I can't speak for win98, but I am running win95 osr2 (basically the same thing w/out the color-shifting title bars and the defrag/scandisk wizard), and there is no way that a "normal" consumer can completely remove IE from their machine. It is possible to uninstall IE4, (which unfortunately removes all of the desktop update, but guess what it replaces it with?? IE3. That is, if you haven't deleted a bunch of previously non-enssential files. The same goes for IE5. you can uninstall it if you leave certain files there, otherwise you're SOL. --And it restores IE4. As far as I can figure out, the only way to remove IE3 after an IE4 uninstall is to manually delete all found traces of it from the file system and from the registry.
...
Anyone know why Micro$oft removed the Spanish language pack for IE5 from Windows Update a day or two after release??
"I want peace on earth and good will toward men." "We're the U.S. government. We don't do that sort of thing!!"
Kinda ironic that Notepad is mostly a wrapper around the standard OS edit control such that if you did remove that code the machine (probably) wouldn't boot
Alas, the problem with that is how to enforce it. Suppose Microsoft violates the ruling, and adds some new private behavior in for their own good? What then? First you have to figure out that something's going on, and what it is. Then you need to drag MS back into court, which'll take another year or two, and by the time it gets resolved, it's already going to be a moot point.
If there is a good way to adjudicate this so that it is a feasible solution, please let me know. I have yet to see an explanation that really covers this in any detail...
-Snibor Eoj
Since when did process matter to Microsoft?
I seem to recall an incident earlier in the trial in which a videotape - purported by Microsoft to be a genuine demonstration of something - turned out to be staged and spliced together out of several different tapes.
If Microsoft is going to submit false evidence to the court and then lie about it, I don't really see much hope that they're going to follow standard evidenciary channels (even granting that 'evidenciary' probably isn't a real word).
I oppose government intervention in most things as well, but let us not forget, copyrights and patents really can't exist without governments. They aren't like a gadget that you can hire security to keep someone from stealing. You need a government to say "You have exclusive rights to use these ideas." If you invite government protection, you authorize government control.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
no one has ever complained that MS bundled notepad with their OS -- the only reason IE became an issue was because bundling IE killed Netscape -- an up and coming company relying on their browser as pretty much their only product.
MS should never have said that IE was an integral part of their OS -- it's not, any more than notepad is. Heck, all a web-browser is is a fancy text-viewer. You can't argue that an OS won't boot or run without one, unless you include "read HTML" in the definition of "run."
People generally don't purchase NT Server to run apps; if they wanted that, they'd save money by buying NT Workstation instead.
Take NT Server and boil away all the OS stuff, leaving the features that people buy NT Server for. *THAT* is what Samba is a clone of. Remove these features from NT Server, and you're left with NT Workstation. Samba is a slimmed-down, versatile, modular (daemonic), open-source clone of NT Server.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
elflord> What do you mean by "require open
elflord> standards" ? I don't see why MS shouldn't
elflord> be allowed to invent their own
elflord> networking protocols, etc. On the other
elflord> hand, asking them to document their
elflord> networking protocols is more reasonable.
I interpret it as the latter.
What is needed is not the crippling of Microsoft, either by breaking them up or by forcing them to comply with some arbitrary protocols. What is needed is the opening-up of Microsoft's code *just enough* to allow competition.
elflord> Sure, and forcing them to release all
elflord> their products under the GPL will also
elflord> make it easier for the open source
elflord> community to compete. I think a lot of
elflord> slashdot readers aren't really interested
elflord> in a fair outcome- they are more
elflord> interested in propping up open source.
elflord> Personally, I'd rather see open source
elflord> win on its merits.
I think most of them are interested in allowing competition, open-sourced or otherwise. Also, keep in mind that there already is an open-source clone of NT Server. It's called "Samba". The Samba developers have had to reverse-engineer a lot of the more well-guarded NT Server APIs. Opening up NT's APIs would level the playing field between NT Server and Samba (and also the million closed-source SMB server programs out there). It would force NT Server to win or lose "on its merits", not the obscurity of its protocols.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
you can't jail a company.
Sure you can, take away their buisness license. While such an action is VERY extreme, it certainly would in effect jail the company.
I wouldn't quite jump to that conclusion. In fact, I'd be inclined to say that the Judge's comment of "Use your time wisely" prior to the recess was actually directed at the DOJ.
The DOJ demonstrated a number of issues, such as Microsoft's rather aggresive business tactics. All of which, should it be determined that Microsoft is a monopoly, weigh heavily against it.
But that's the true key issue. *HAS* the DOJ proven that no one can succeed against Microsoft? Netscape's final sales valuation of 10 Billion dollars is a major point showing that one CAN take a small business and make it worth billions -- something that's not supposed to be able to occur in a monopolistic environment.
The judge also has to view certain convienent manuvers (such as the timing of the AOL/Netscape deal and when testimony occurred) with just as much skepticism as the Microsoft claims.
I suspect the Ju8dge would certainly like a settlement, rather than a ruling that's bound to be unpopular or potentially overturned.
I recall getting into this argument with somebody once. I oppose government intervention, they argued that the market will take too long to correct Microsoft's undue dominance, and that we need the government to speed things up.
So, what are we, a year and a half into this? The judge is expected to issue his decision NEXT YEAR? And then appeals? Then maybe a delay for settlement talks?
If you want something to cost less or get done faster, how often do you turn to a lawyer? Linux wasn't even on the general public's radar when this started. It might be on everybody's desktop by the time it's done.
I agree. I also think a big fine (in the billions) is in order with the threat of more fines if Microsoft balks at compliance. The judge also needs to appoint somebody neutral who is technical enough to check compliance.
Note that NT Server is purchased just as frequently as an application server (e.g. Exchange, IIS [yes, I know most people don't like it, but hey], SQL Server) as it is for file and print services.
Cheers
Alastair
-- "I believe the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully." - George W. Bush, 29 September 2000
Microsoft has lost, folks.
The rest of this trial will consist of posturing on the part of Microsoft to get the best deal.
To that extent, the story is dead. What remains to be seen is just how intelligently the Judge will curtail the monopoly that we know and love to hate as "microsoft".
Hopefully, the Judge will see that breaking Microsoft up is no solution.
As has been argued quite effectively in a number of places, the key is requiring open standards (API/Networking/etc). But will the Judge appreciate this fact?
Let's hope so. Requiring open standards would effectively de-claw what, so far as I can tell, is the only weapon Microsoft can use against the open source community: closing or "decomoditizing" (sp?) standards.
Hang on! Didn't Micro$oft say that IE was an integral part of Win9x and couldn't be separated from the OS without severely affecting the OS? Is this another one of Bor^H^H^HBill Gates backsteps?
*COUGH* StarOffice x.x can read/write/print MS Office documents rather handily, and that sucker works under Linux.... The price for StarOffice is much less than that for MS Office, as well.
As for the Word/Excel/Powerpoint file formats being nasty, M$ is trying. Not trying very hard, but trying, as at the moment, the .xls/.doc/.ppt files are interchangable among Mac/IBM platforms AFAIK. This didn't used to be the case.
As for interversion combatibility being a problem, the "latest and greatest" Office versions have always been able to read files from previous versions, going back at least 8 years. (Word 97 is happy reading Word 4.0 for Mac files, and Word 4.0 dates to 1989...)
It doesn't work the other way, of course, because of all the new crap^H^H^H^H features that get put into every new release. (This is one of the Big Problems in software design, and I don't think it's going away anytime soon.) As always, if you need supreme portability, there's always ASCII formats like *TeX or HTML, and don't forget PDF.
Maybe what we really need is a document standard for word-processing documents kind of like the [C,C++,Java] source code standards. Of course, that'd open a whole NEW can 'o worms...
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.
The government will try to prove that IE can be separated from 98, and M$ will try to prove it can't. If IE is a separate product that M$ merely bundled - as it appears is the case - then the government's case gets a lot stronger.
Personally, I've always thought it at least disingenuous for M$ to claim that IE is an integral part of 98, while still providing it as an independent product for the few other platforms it supports.
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
Let us all hope that MS gets what is coming to it!
Go back in time - to World War 2. There was a German dictator who wanted to take over the world. He was quickly stopped. But now there is a new dictator - Bill Gates! The dictator of the computer software industry! Let us hope that the DoJ can stop them!
Note: Microsoft does not kills jews - it does worse - it kills other software companies!