Slashdot Mirror
Everything Microsoft
As you might expect, the whole freakin' internet is abuzz with news about Microsoft. Now personally I'm pretty sick of reading about it, so I've decided to combine a bunch of relevant stories and post 'em
quickie style now:
Yahoo is running a story about the
Wave of Lawsuits following Jacksons ruling.
The Drudge Report is saying the prosecution won't settle unless Microsoft is broken up.
Byte has Jerry Pournelle's take (he's against it).
The NY Times has story talking about a breakup, as well as a forced source code release.
Where do I want to go today!
I, too, am heartily sick of all the pseudo-reportage and punditry that's abound over the last week.
It all boils down to the same thing.
The judge is {right|wrong}
This isn't over.
Nobody knows what microsoft or the DoJ will do next.
Print this comment out, and the next time you're tempted to read some cogno-intellectual claptrap masquerading as insight, just glue it to the monitor.
I love it that MS is going to get sued out of the ying-yang! I hope to find a class action suit so I can jump on the bandwagon. I won't be greedy. A couple thousand (with requisite treble damages, of course) should do it.
Thanks MS, for you infinite stupidity!
P.S. Make sure to thank your legal team, also. they were the best!
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
A lot of people don't seem to get the point about how Microsoft is a monopoly that controls the computer market and how it is bad for them that it is so.
Here it is. If Microsoft wasn't a monopoly and had a large amount of big competitors who could take customers away from them, their legacy OS would cost a mere fraction of what it does. MS only charges $180 for Windows 98 CDs because they can. Why? No competition. If MS took the price up to $500 for Windows 98, everyone would get madly screwed, because, where else would you turn for what Windows has to offer to home users? Nowhere! So that is why it is bad. They could charge $50 for a full Windows 98 CD, and that is way too much! But without competition, they can charge you however much they want, and that is how they like it.
And that's that.
yeah
Favorite Quote:
"Bill Gates has been called many things, but nobody has ever called him stupid."
--
to me, is how eager many people (particularly here on Slashdot) are to see the government seize the assets of private citizens (aka "breaking them up").
The government's lawsuit is totally bogus. The only reason Microsoft has achieved dominance is through the incompetence of its competitors.
IBM OS/2? Dead, the minute they decided not to support Win32. If their marketing slogan had been "absolutely, positively 100% Windows compatible, only better!", they would have won.
Apple? The true monopoly. People dumped them because they tried to hold onto too much power.
Netscape? They lost because their browser sucked. The only reason they survived as long as they did is momentum and anti-Microsoft sentiment.
Jerry spends a great deal of time (and space) ranting about how the Finding of Fact got the history of the failure Apple and IBM OS/2 wrong. The problem that Jerry missed is that Microsoft had every opportunity to presesent these facts to the judge. It's very apparent from reading the ongoing stories about the trial the Microsoft legal team shot themselves in the foot repeatedly, and ruined their credibility with the judge.
If the failure of the Finding of Fact is it's inaccuracy, the failure is of Microsoft failing to have presented the proper fact to the judge and not make themselves look foolish by being arrogant.
Q: What's the government's theory in the Microsoft case? A: California has a lot more electoral votes than Washington state.
I think that it'd be really neat to see MS be forced to release their source. It'd take some control from MS and give it to users, which is really what should be done - and is the point of this trial, is it not? I think that source code release and license loosening would really be the best solution - better than breaking the company up even.
If OS2 was doomed due to bad marketing by IBM why did MS so actively prevent major computer OEM's from shipping it. I will agree that IBM fumbled a very big football but MS's illegel action still stand and need to be addressed.
Does Linux become less important? Will developers flee Linux for OpenWindows? Or will everyone keep on going with Linux and *BSD. My personal bet is that a lot of developers will switch over and make OpenWindows better... --- "Progress is the God of the Machine"
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
Ok, I do agree that the media is talking to much. But this is one of the most important things to happen in our industry in a long time.
And there is something that you can do to block out all the noise. Don't watch TV or read the paper. If it really bothers you that much you should at least be willing to do that. And yes this is what I do.
My view is if you want something close to the truth then you are going to have to read the facts of everyone involved and make your own conclusions.
If you do nothing about it then you lose the right to complain.
If you truely love the memory, you must set it free().
Much as I despise Microsoft software, I have to say that the kind of things the government are talking about are probably even worse. The government created Microsoft's supposed monopoly with their copyright and patent laws, and all they have to do to eliminated it is change those laws to recognize the true nature of digital data. But instead, they're going to force the company to break up or give away all its source code...
I thought this was pretty funny. I found the results of the MSNBC and CNN polls on the DoJ case.... Heh.
:) No ballot stuffing there...
The CNN poll: vot e or just the results
The MSNBC poll: click here to give MS some advertising dollars and see their poll for yourself, or take my word for it (results as of a yesterday):
Who should prevail in the Microsoft case?
* 23036 responses
The government. Microsoft has abused its market power.
24%
Microsoft. The government is trying to block innovation.
63%
Split the difference. Each side can win certain points.
11%
I can't figure out who's right.
2%
How's that for objective reporting?
even if I've never actually PAID for any of the M$FT products I use? I even have a Certificate of Authenticity for one version of Windoze.
We'd either cry for what we have to see or are laughing our butts of...
Anyone who has been paying close attention to this industry for awhile must agree. Microsoft's competitors have done more harm to themselves than Microsoft ever did.
I wouldn't break up MicroSoft. I wouldn't impose restrictions and stuff on the way they do business.
I would just make MicroSoft change the name of the company. I would make them call it "The Monkey Pumping Software Prostitution Company." Then ban the use of "MS" or "MicroSoft."
He's one of the original M$FT lemmings. He is a master of the type of review that goes something like this:
Micro$oft product XYZ crashed my machine (again), it is really a piece of shit, the competition is much better, but you'd better buy XYZ because, well, because it's from M$, and everyone else will buy it.
I think he's missing an important revenue stream by not taking money from M$.
I'd actually like to see a judgement mandate that IE builds be released for *nix and Mac platforms no later than 6 weeks after the Win32 build for major versions and at the same price(free or not). No later than a week for minor versions/patches under a meaningful penalty.
Wouldn't this do much to reverse their high-handed works against Netscape and let me, say, bank on the Web with my OS? Is this within the powers of the judiciary resolution?
We'd probably see a lot of different projects start up _real_ quick. Initially, the biggest benefit would be to the various whine-like projects...
:) )
Longer term, I don't know if the Windows source
was dragged through the coals like Linux has been, it could be a system worth using....
(Personally, I think I'd stick with Linux because
the Unix world makes a little too much sense to me....
Myddrin
From the Yahoo! article:
"`But from what we hear it appears to be a groundless lawsuit, especially when the Windows operating system is priced less than our competitors,' said the spokesman, Jim Cullinan."
Which competitor is that? Linux? BSD? It can't be Macintosh since their OS doesn't run on Intel PCs and, therefore, does not compete. If this is their whole defense, they're gonna loose hard. The Findings of Fact has already found that they are a monopoly (i.e. they *don't have* competitors).
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
"... the Windows operating system is priced less than our competitors,'' said the [Microsoft] spokesman, Jim Cullinan."
What? Which competitors are they talking about? They can't be refering to Linux so they're talking about what? MacOS?
I wish this was a fairy tale but that is precisely what happened at my last job. A brilliant programmer was reprimanded by management because he couldn't make a NT/Access-based application work with the UNIX/Informix Sgi server. He quit. Then I had the pleasure of having to deal with management spending $50,000 on a BETA NT-based media search engine and was told to "make it work" with the UNIX/sgi web servers. The software was buggy and futile and was not designed to do what we wanted it to nevermind how inefficient it is to have a search engine outside of the database from which the web sites were driven. I told my manager that and he told me that wasn't acceptable and I had to make it work or he would look bad and get in trouble for pushing for the software purchase. I wasted more time on it as people continued to scream at me for a functional search engine that didn't crash. I ended up building a search engine into the Informix database on my own that worked great and then got reprimanded by my manager for not keeping him in the loop. Needless to say, I don't work there anymore, the NT-based search engine is no longer being used and my database search engine is still online.
Moral: non-tech people should not be making tech purchasing decisions.
- tokengeekgrrl
The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
And so are you!
MS has gored my very own personal ox in more
ways than one. Since I do not work for MS, nor
do any of my friends and family, and my Van Kampen
fund is only 3% into MS, my particular vote,
as a taxpaying US citizen, is to hammer MS hard.
As such, Barbara Boxer will be sure to hear my
side of the story if necessary. She represents
my interests, which, as I have just mentioned,
MS takes little regard for.
Governments grant joint stock companies the
privilege to do business as they see fit, and
protect individual businessmen by and largely
from personal liability. The government gives,
it takes away.
So, friend, our two votes cancel out... but we
aren't the only two voting, so the future remains
interesting!
Under current laws, MS certainly has a monopoly and has abused that monopoly power. I do not feel there is any argument left to that.
Where there still is potential for argument is: Are these current laws fair and right?
It is obvious that the Microsoft case is vastly different than the Standard Oil and AT&T anti-trust cases.
The market is vastly different, and changing so rapidly. As someone worded earlier, the punishment has to be dealt soon, because in 5 years, Microsoft may no longer have a true monopoly. Well, isn't this a stronger case to leave this market alone... and that it will eventually situate itself for the better?
Close to the same thing happened with IBM. The trial of IBM lasted for over a decade!! In the end, what they were fighting about was next to a moot point and the case was essentially thrown out by Reagan. Why was the case a moot point? Well, because of a pesky little company by the name of Microsoft to name a big reason.
It can be argued that this is merely the cycle of business. IBM is still doing well, but they do not have the absolute control they were feared to have in the (then) future.
I would argue that Microsoft actually has made a good case that competition has been rearing its ugly head in recent times. Do we need the government to essentially "bust the kneecaps" of Microsoft, or can we sit back and see what becomes of this competition without the government's intervention?
Personally, I am in favor of breaking up the company. I think that this will benefit every party involved (except for the zealots that want to see the company ran out of business). But, I am not sure if the laws (and again, current laws certainly do) *should* mandate that Microsoft needs to be punished.
See, if MS had listened to the OS community all along, they'd have side-stepped all this. :) Seriously, though. This could be a GREAT opportunity for the OSS movement: What if MS publishes the source to Windows (imagine how HEINOUUS that must be!) and the OSS community jumps all over it and makes it more stable, smaller, faster. What a coup!
This is a big case, with at least the potential for some rather interesting techie tectonic shifting :)
Anyway, The San Jose Merc also has a story on this. Interesting take on the gov't interference angle, tho:
"Forcing the breakup of a company is a tactic that has fallen out of favor with the courts in recent years because of a reluctance to disturb free market forces. But the Justice Department is prepared to argue that a structural remedy is actually less intrusive than a conduct remedy, sources say.
The Justice Department wants Jackson to consider alternatives to reconfiguring the market that do not require constant government oversight -- or intrusive interference -- in the free-wheeling high technology sector."
Kind neat pre-emptive strike there re. ms and supporters claming unfair gov't intrusion into a highly volatile market.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
I think break up isn't such a great idea, or perhaps I should say break up along product lines. Microsoft is guilty of preventing other people from developing products or technologies that hurt their products. If we break MS by product lines, NOTHING will change. Each will still use predetory practices with it's OWN little slice of monopoly (Office App monopoly, OS monopoly, etc.). Breaking MS up by product lines is just breaking a monopoly into its composite monopolies. That won't work.
/wants/ it because to succeed, one has to integrate and assimilate into the OS monopoly MS has. When the monopoly goes, nobody will give a damn about MS code.
/behavior/ that needs to be remedied. I'm not sure how to do about this though.
I think source code release isn't such a great idea either. Who the hell wants their crappy source? The only reason anybody
Somehow Microsoft needs to be forced from conducting itself in a predatory way...from using its monopolies to force OEMS to do things, from unfairly entering other markets, etc. It's the
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Micros~1. The borg one, eehhhmm has some problems
that I cannot reconcile.
For instance,
Unlike the BORG microso~1 has NO technology in their possession
Copyrights and software patents are the real evil here. Personnally, I'd like to see the action against MS be invalidating all of their patents -- especially with the threat they have to the Open Source movement (as revealed in the Halloween documents). Of course, I'm biased given that MS software patents could be a problem for ReactOS =) Don't get me wrong -- I'd like to see ALL software patents abolished. But this could be a very good first step.
How does this sound as a resolution. All of the government departments and sub-contractors have a choice. They can either use Microsoft's operating system or they can use Microsoft's application - they can't use both. This would encourage Microsoft to develop more cross platform products and give other applications a chance on the desktop. I suppose there should also be some definition set as to seperation between operating system and application to stop Micro$oft from adding Office/Explorer etc. in as an "integral" part of the operating system.
Arrrgh! Release millions of line of obfuscated bloatware?!?!
Force Microsoft to document all their APIs, external and internal. All new APIs must be documented and released within, say, 5 business days. So competitors can write to a documented spec.
Much better than source code release.
// TODO: fix sig
> You can't opt out of it. It is there.
Show me the law that REQUIRES a person to have a Social Security Number?
Here is one link that shows you can work WITHOUT one.
http://www.coolmedia.net/ice/tacobe~1.htm
You CAN revoke it. I have, and many other sovereigns have too.
http://www.noneusa.org/questions.html
"I am not a number, I am a free man."
- The Prisoner
Please do some research before spreading FUD.
Cheers
What about other browser companies? The ones who never started because Microsoft killed the market? That's the real issue, not Netscape. You've only mentioned big companies. Even slashdotters have now accepted the media's belief that only huge companies matter. But it's the smaller companies that were hurt most by Microsoft.
Microsoft's predatory behaviour killed dozens of browser companies you've never heard of. It killed all the small competition, and let it compete with one or two big companies. It stole the air from any company thinking of competing. Imagine if Opera could actually make money off its browser. Remember in the beginning, there were more than two browsers. How many bright developers wanted to make a better browser, but gave up because Microsoft had already killed them?
That's the point. The missing companies that never even tried. The great ideas we've never seen. That's what competition would have created.
Scott Ferguson
Scott Ferguson
Caucho Technology
What if MS was forced to release the code?
What if it's so poorly written that nobody would
want to try to fix it?
I really don't think people would flee Linux for Open Windows. Think about it: doesn't it seem like all the 'next generation' OSs are somehow based on UNIX? We have Linux, we have MacOS X, *BSD, all growing in popularity. Then with a standard like POSIX developers only have to write one app and run it anywhere.
I also assume that if Windows was GPL'ed, everyone would find out that the code sucks like the Mozilla people found out.
Peace
1) I can see Microsoft putting up strong arguments against the release of source code to Windows etc. For one thing they could argue that their security model is different from Open Source operating systems such as Linux and that releasing the source would expose Windows to a huge number of virus attacks, which could have a negative impact on the US (and even the worlds economy). [whether the argument is true or not is another matter]
:-).
2) My personal view is that a breakup is much more likely, and that Bill and MS shareholders would actually profit from this event. All that assumes that Microsofts lawyers don't get their act together and appeal successfully. I suggest that Bills lawyers talk to those of tobacco companies about successful litigation
3) IMHO, I don't see the possibility of damages/ Windows rebates either..at the speed of computer progress, a lot of the damage which it is claimed Microsoft has caused is "water under the bridge" and cannot really be remedied - the best hope would be to look to the future.
4) I doubt I can see the claim that Microsoft overcharged for its Operating system staying up - after all, lots of competitive operating systems cost a LOT more.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Lets define a few things...
. tar.gz)
FACT n 1: a piece of information about circumstances that exist or events that have occurred; "first you must collect all the facts of the case" 2: a statement or assertion of verified information about something that is the case or has happened; "he supported his argument with an impressive array of facts" 3: an event known to have happened or something known to have existed; "your fears have no basis in fact" "how much of the story is fact and how much fiction is hard to tell" 4: a concept whose truth can be proved; "scientific hypotheses are not facts"
(from ftp://clarity.princeton.edu/pub/wordnet/wn1.6unix
The term "Finding of Fact" (FoF) means that what is stated is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (so help it....).
This means a few things.
#1. Microsoft can not argue the facts (i.e. continue to plead the case). They have been stated and found. These facts are admissable in higher courts of law. Any judgements will be based off of the facts given and maybe some additional facts if a higher judge is feeling nice. Microsoft may only appeal the decision the judge makes (calling it unfair), they cannot change the facts.
the FoF is to the Ken Star report as (I predict) the ruling will be to the impeachment decision. The appeals will act just like the Senate. If the appeal is worthy, then Microsoft will be known as the monopoly that got away, just like Clinton is known as the guy who got impeached but got away with it. If Microsoft does not escape the appeals process, then whatever...
So what does this ramble say?
If you disagree with the verdict, you are wrong. There has been no verdict! You can speculate now, you can dream, but there are no more arguements to make until a verdict is rendered. Period.
So, hypothosize as to whether Microsoft will be broken up, think about whether they should be fined or slaped or chained in a basement. Regardless - these are the facts, these cannot be disagreed with.
You say you want a revolution?
Again I apologize for being stuck in the Micro$soft rut. Someday I'll get out of it. (Does it help that games are basically my only use for that %^$#? =)
__________________________
Mello like the Yello, but without the fizz.
_______
I just wish I could c:\format Internet
Found this while checking out Linux Today:
TLS: Arne W. Flones - Findings of Fact, A Two-Themed Opus
I found that this article focused on the areas of the findings where, if you believe the e-mail which was brought into evidence, Microsoft damned themselves.
---- Politics: Kissing ass and pointing blames.
It's actually already a different name?
It's called Microsoft. The S hasn't been capitalized for 20+ years now...
After a quick side-by-side (well, window-over-window) comparison between Communicator 4.7 and IE5, both running on NT, I don't see what the problem is. (Apart from the browser-specific text slapped onto the top of the Netscape page, of course.)
We can believe in you for 3 minutes, but beyond that, even the King of All Cosmos can't be expected to wait.
Well, they could force Mr. Gates to sell all his shares in the company and submit his resignation. His task would then be to create a new startup that would write a new operating system to compete with Windows. Given all the experience he has, and being no dummy, I'm sure he could come up with something much better. And his startup would certainly have plenty of capital. Microsoft, sans Bill, would be allowed to continue conducting business as it has in the past, and may the best OS prevail!
I personally believe, only an opinion mind you, that preventing MS from getting into new markers would be the best solution.
Make them stay only on the desktop, and possibly server. Don't let them on Palms, WebTVs, or anything else like that.
Here is my latest idea, which does not require a MS breakup, source code release, or a reduction in MS "Innovation", and would greatly increase competition.
MS should not be allowed to SELL/LICENSE it's OS's directly to consumers or OEM's.
What do I mean? MS should license the OS to distributors, who would sell to consumers and OEM's. Distributor would be allowed to bundle whatever applications they wanted.
MS would get what it wants:
* It would still control the "innovation" of the OS.
* It would still get licensing fees.
* It would still be a whole company
Consumers get:
* Competition between distributors
The DOJ would inspect the licenseing of the OS to be sure things are on the up and up (no exclusive, MS OS only contracts). When in doubt, all licensing to all distributors is suspended.
OEM's would not be allowed to own a controling interest in any distributors. And could be required to ship a pre-loaded OS, any OS with thier computers. No contracts could have % of any OS installed required, or restrict what OS can be installed.
Pournelle's argument is, basically, 'MS competitors made mistakes, so MS isn't a monopoly, they lost through their own stupidity.' Along
with claims the MS has always forseen the market better, basically. Does not address threatened revokations of licenses, does not address the loss of NSP technology, makes the assumption that we get IE 'free' when, clearly, MS revenues paid for the development of IE, revenues mostly from Windows and Office. Very one-sided argument, mildly interesting points about the early history of OS/2.
The Drudge Report: Sensationalism at it's worst. 'DoJ demands breakup of MS'
NY Times: More complete version of the DR story. DoJ demands breakup -or- restrictions preventing MS from exercising monopoly power. Well, no kidding, what else would they demand, jail time for Bill Gates? This isn't a criminal court.
Yahoo/Wave of Lawsuits: One (1) class action suit filed in NY state. Bit premature, I would think, but okay, it was expected. No details.
Arguments under this story: Pro-MS arguments from people who clearly haven't read the FoF through; anti-MS flames from people who clearly haven't read the FoF through. If you're going to troll me on this article, address the issues, don't give me an unsubstantiated anti-gov't rant.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
Freeing the Microsoft source would be an extremely dangerous precedent. Essentially, that would be a government 'takings' of Microsoft's property. Suppose in the Standard Oil case, the government had seized the company's oil rights and drilling equipment and put them up for auction. That would be the same as seizing Microsoft's source.
Scott Ferguson
Scott Ferguson
Caucho Technology
I agree that MS should be either broken up or have their Win/XX source code released. However, it is ignorance and jealousy that seems to drive some of the slashdot readers. Linux IS a good OS, but think about this. If Linux were to someday become the most used OS on every machine, there would be a new bunch of people using an entirely new OS that would have the same attitudes that a lot of the Linux users have now for Windows. Don't read this wrong, Linux is a great thing to have around, and I'm all for it, but most of the comments on slashdot nowdays always seem to have this hate/jealousy thing going on. Post some comments that have substance to it, not just the typical "I have Linux", "I hate Windoze", "Sorry, I'm running Linux", etc etc yada yada. It's becoming too generic and really making slashdot topics covering MS issues as one to just skip over. Post some comments with meaning and please don't BS about things as well. I've seen some people posting the pro-Linux type of comments when I know for a fact that they only are running Windows. Thanks.
I think this is shortsighted. Microsoft is buying their way into every market they can. Cable systems, long distance, online music, etc. etc. etc.
They already have a lock on the office app market (witness the exorbitant prices they're charging, the 90+% market share, and the fact that you simply can't buy most of the apps unbundled from Office), which hasn't even been mentioned in most of this coverage. They've won the so-called browser war. (Netscape/Mozilla are in stasis - they won't die, but are unlikely to increase their market share significantly, unless AOL ditches IE.)
And online music - just read today about the RioPort/MS joint venture. Best quote in the article:
Make no mistake about it - Microsoft is doing everything they can to ensure that they become the toll-collector of the digital age. They want a piece of everything; its executives have made public statements to this effect. 5 years down the road, Microsoft's Windows monopoly will be nearly irrelevant (but will probably still exist, barring an implemented remedy) because they will have already established themselves as the gatekeeper in a dozen other markets. THAT, I believe, is the reason why swift action is imperative.
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Microsoft is a monopoly, and they have abused their power. The author doesn't seem to refute this. He seems to think the status quo is optimal because he can't personally identify specific harm to the consumer. That does not mean it doesn't happen. He completely neglects the fact that, amongst other things, given the economics of MS's position and rate their rate of innovation, prices and stability should IMPROVE. Not remain the same. MS doesn't enjoy any real competition in Win95/98, and they have a virtual monopoly on applications. They use these two footholds to gain leverage into one another, which allows them to play them to set whatever pace they wish on the aggregate. Competition would keep them honest. Their applications, operating systems, and services should compete on their own merits; not on the fact that they're tied together.
Thus a three way breakup(e.g., Apps, OS, Services) of MS is optimal to the consumer, and in the short run for the MS shareholder (long term value would be hurt by losing of a monopoly position). That being said, I don't advocate regulation of prices and other such similar actions. They are fundamentally different propostions.
Well, as far as being forced to release their source code goes... I think that it is more what we are looking for than anything as open source people. I mean, what is breakin them up going to do? what does that mean? can billy still own a big percentage of each of the resultant companies? if he can, then whats the point? He'll still try to make them follow his 'vision'. Besides, if they split the company into divisions like, OS products, productivity stuff, etc etc... then the productivity division is not going to start trying to make OS software, cuz thats not their neiche. its going to stay sorta the same.
:)
I agree that MS would not like this and try to argue against it (and i agree that a lot of their security is thru obscurity) So, I duno if they'd ever let their code be released.
Just how far can the ruling go? I mean, they cant exactly rule something against the constitution can they?
What i meant tho.. was that the ruling should be to help consumers and users, not fulfil the revenge of disgruntled users/etc
If Microsoft is found guilty the DoJ should take no action at all; free market forces will change MS forever after that. This is because:
1. Share prices will fall upon the news.
2. Civil cases will come out of the yinyang against microsoft from class actions and the 'wronged' corporations.
3. Share prices will plumment further.
4. Some of the cases will be won with some crazy damages awarded (look at that Toshiba case).
5. Microsoft will be contained enough.
I sure hope they don't settle!
The trouble that I have always had with MicroSoft is not their software... rather, their attempt to control the flow of information. That end is too Orwellian for me... and one that a lot of MicroSoft supporters don't seem to grasp.
-Phenym
You guys should all know MSFT is not a monopoly. Not with Mac os, linux, unix, Sun, blah, blah, blah all around. And what they did wasn't illegal but just good tough business. Plus they took their product (faulty if you wish)and gave people what they wanted. Don't believe me? How come everyone has Windoze it while Apple which is easier and more intuitive to use has less than 10% market share. Damn, sometimes you guys are just knuckleheads.
Companies, especially small companies, need cash flow to survive and grow. Microsoft's bundling, like IIS/ASP, can kill all server products until it achieves market dominance. Microsoft has the cash to lose money for years until it achieves dominance over the server market.
If Microsoft is split into OS, Office and Internet, then the IE and IIS/ASP company must charge for its products. Then you would have competition. Little companies like Opera or Spyglass or Caucho could compete with the browser or the server. It's very hard to compete against "free" software.
Only huge companies like IBM, Sun and Netscape can wait out Microsoft. And, frankly, Microsoft is more competent than the other big boys. What it really fears are the little companies no one has heard of. And a breakup would change that competitive market drastically.
Scott Ferguson
Scott Ferguson
Caucho Technology
To see a bizarre exercise in journalistic "objectivity," check out Slate's take on the ruling.
The only reason corporations exist is that they're an effective way of organizing commerce and production. The law maintains their legal existence for the benefit of the people and the nation. If a corporation becomes harmful, there are no fundamental limits to which of its legal rights can be altered or removed to remedy the situation.
If it seems Microsoft needs to be fitted with a bit and harness to make it a more constructive force, then so be it.
This company proceeded to "enjoy" a tight working relationship with Microsoft for nearly half a decade. During this time, Microsoft stole source code (and settled out of court), threatened to withdraw support, threatened lawsuits (they said they were going to sue us for a trademark their own lawyers had helped us get a year earlier) and in one amusing incident, Bill Gates himself screamed at our CEO and COO like a 12-year-old having a tantrum.
Better products? Yeah, right. To wit:
- If [OS/2] had been "absolutely, positively 100% Windows compatible, only better!", [IBM] would have won.
Uh huh. It must be Linux's "absolutely, positively 100% Windows" compatability that's driving its current popularity. Right?Microsoft have been found to be felons in a court of law. I don't have any pity when the government "seize[s] the assets" of criminals.
Pournelle argues MS became a monopoly by being making better business decision than IBM and Apple. Well, duh - that's not the point. The point is, NOW they are a monopoly, and there're are laws governing how monopolies operate. Question - did they break those laws?
Innovation.
Incorporating software that mimics what third party software does into the OS is NOT innovative. innovation is what we call it when someone develops something new. Making it easier for a consumer to have a calculator on the system is not new, it's a marketing strategy and a way of shutting out a competitor. It's a fine tactic, even legal, unless you're a monopoly.
And it does hurt consumers in the long run, because no competition is possible in these areas, thus little reason to improve these systems. Do remember the browser wars? Do you remember how FAST the browsers were improving? How fast are they improving now? Oh, and BTW, how do you like that crappy little calculator that does come with windows? I use it all the time, but I sure wish there was an exponential function, etc, etc.
This is not innovation, and it is clearly using their monopoly in one area to dominate another area (a clear violation of the anti-trust laws if I understand them correctly).
To summarize, I think Pournelle's full of crap.
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
If you don't want to hear it, then why has Slashdot become more bashing Microsoft, and less News For Nerds?
Not that I was a part of previous rounds, of course, but hey. I read a lot. Anyway..
Isn't the prime minister a member of the political party named by that last keyword? Not that I keep up with current events in Canadian politics, mind you..
~ Kish
Innovation seems to be the tricky word in use in both your column, and the FoF as a whole. Is "Innovation" adding something new to the market? Or just adding something "new" to Windows, which isn't new to the world.
MS's "innovations" to Windows or its applications have almost always (especially with each product's 3.0 and higher versions) been clones of software that is already out there, or purchased from the companies that really did the development and research. Yes, the "Browser" was an "innovation" to "Windows", as was peer to peer networking, secure server to client file/print services , PPP dialing software, but they were all hardly "innovations" to the market as a whole. Some things are things perhaps the OS should handle, some not.
I personally can't think of anything that is in Windows or any other MS product that someone else didn't come up with the idea for in the first place. Only the "innovation" of integration so tight you have to buy them all to get just one thing is MS's style (and they even stole _THAT_ from IBM's mainframe world).
Now does this harm "customers"? perhaps not. It does harm ME because I generally don't use MS products because they are often just plain bad (my opinion, of course). I use Linux not because its better NOW (in many cases, Linux tools aren't), but because they can and will improve, and I have the ability through the source codes to improve them myself. I trust linux because I can find out what went wrong. Albeit i'm the exception. It harms me when services that people provide can only be utilized by software that only runs on Windows platforms, especially if that software is made by Microsoft (meaning a port to my choice of OS is completely out of the question).
E.g., the MS streaming media software. Many music groups I like have chosen MS's products for their streaming media (concerts, or studio demos, etc). I will never hear or see what they are like. MS will NEVER develop clients for non-windows systems, with exception to the Mac. Even if they do build a mac version, it will always be a generation behind in quality and robustness (compare Office 98's lack of improvement for the Mac, compared to the progress in Office 2000 for Wintel).
So I have to make the choice. Do without things I would really like to have (although, admittedly, i don't _need_ them), or buy an MS operating system so that I can run the MS applications (which I may also have to buy) because MS has the (root of it all) monopoly on so many oft-used file formats and network streams?
Right now, I sadly choose to live without; I make my complaints known to each company that chooses to disregard my opinions as a member of their buying public and restrict me from enjoying their product because I choose to exercise a little more control over what software I trust on my system. That's a big thing to me -- I don't TRUST MS products to do what they should and not what they shouldn't.
In the future, I may have to choose the (non-)alternative. I may have to use a product I don't trust, and face the consequences when it does the wrong thing.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
You can bet your ass on this, day after day I watching bugtraq and see BLATANT holes found by people who spend their time analyzing ms-windows.
I wonder if they have ever missed an possibility to allow a stupid buffer overflow.
More serios, yes I think the recent holes (jetdirect, rfpoison, phrack article) show sadly how their developers hide behind the closed source wall.
Jerry Pournelle confuses feature creep with innovation. Then he concludes that the findings of fact contradict themselves: How can Microsoft suppress innovation, yet innovate it's own products too aggressively? Because that conclusion is wrong, Jerry. Piling features into a product is not equivalent to creating innovation.
Innovation implies the creation of something new or some technological advance in a product. Microsoft has simply crammed in everyone else's products and innovations and then claimed that "it's part of the Operating System." I suppose you could claim this is an innovative method for killing off your competition.
Time and again companies have created good products for Windows only to be purchased by MS or find their products duplicated and included in the OS. This is exactly what is meant by the surpressing innovation. Releasing bug fixes and calling them a new Operating System release has nothing whatsoever to do with innovation.
Jerry Pournelle confuses feature creep with innovation. Then he concludes that the findings of fact contradict themselves: How can Microsoft suppress innovation, yet innovate it's own products too aggressively? Because that conclusion is wrong, Jerry. Piling features into a product is not equivalent to creating innovation.
Innovation implies the creation of something new or some technological advance in a product. Microsoft has simply crammed in everyone else's products and innovations and then claimed that "it's part of the Operating System." I suppose you could claim this is an innovative method for killing off your competition.
Time and again companies have created good products for Windows only to be purchased by MS or find their products duplicated and included in the OS. This is exactly what is meant by the surpressing innovation. Releasing bug fixes and calling them a new Operating System release has nothing whatsoever to do with innovation.
AT&T, during the time that it was a monopoly, was trying to wire all of the US into a common telephone system. Once they achieved that, they were itching to branch out into other services, but they didn't want to get into antitrust trouble for doing so. By the time they settled with the DOJ, they practically wanted to be broken up, because every Baby Bell could sell products and services that a monopolistic AT&T couldn't get away with.
I don't know about Standard Oil. In the long run, certainly, the post-split companies have done very well, but how well would Standard Oil have done, by comparison (in terms of cumulative stock growth and dividends), if it had never been split up?
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
Probably not true, and beside the point anyway. But to belabor the non-point: everybody makes mistakes sometimes, and Microsoft is no exception.
If Microsoft hadn't had their monopoly, they would have been hurt badly by their miscalculation wrt the Internet. But because they have a durable monopoly, and illegally used it to destroy Netscape's market share, they were able to recover without a blip.
(The true irony is, Netscape had at least a near-monopoly in the browser market, which should have been able to withstand Microsoft's assault even if their browser was/is technically superior. But because Microsoft used Windows as a weapon, they were able to trump Netscape with a bigger monopoly.)
Netscape's, IBM's, and even Apple's mistakes are not the legal issue. Microsoft's illegal abuse of their monopoly is.
Jerry got 30 free copies of the WinSDK? I remember paying $200 for MS C/C++ and had to pay an extra $250 to get the SDK(and it didn't include the DDK!) Yeah, IBM blew it with small developers, but MS was just as guilty in viewing development tools as profit-makers(and while their SDK/DDK are free now, I believe they still seriously view developers as customers instead of partners.)
I think that if the Government just keeps the Microsoft case in the open for five years, that will be enough to break the monopoly and restore a sembalance of competition. In that respect, the government wouldn't actually do anything and the market would correct itself. Too bad it takes Uncle Sam playing nanny...
Right now, even without the impact of the anti-trust case... new systems have emerged! People are getting fed up with Microsoft's shoddy products, and are moving to Linux, BSD, Mac and others. This is going to force them to better their products... or they will continue to lose more. Isn't that competition? The market is working through its cycle, one could argue.
If you think about it... the government was really too late! Microsoft had very damaging monopoly power a couple of years ago, as Netscape was being run into the ground and their other offenses were happening. Now, their hold simply is not as strong. But my point is, is that this has come about without the intervention of the government (though, you are right that a lot of the very recent progress was probably because of the government essentially putting a tether on MS with this case going on)... maybe they could cause it to happen faster, but is it necesary? Is it necesary for the public to allow the government to step in when the possiblity of things working themselves out in the market exist?
I am not so sure myself.
Why break them up?
To me that's the worst you can do...
Right now MS is a big vicious bloated beast.
Break it up you get a bunch of little beasts that can focus on what they do more, and be just as vicious...
Why are the Federal and State Governments spending all this money on lawsuits and such when all they have to do is change their procurement guidelines? What a waste of money! They are Microsoft's biggest customers, therefore they have helped create Microsofts monopoly with their buying practices.
"What happens to if [sic] the Windows source is opened? Does Linux become less important? Will developers flee Linux for OpenWindows? Or will everyone keep on going with Linux and *BSD.
:)
My personal bet is that a lot of developers will switch over and make OpenWindows better..."
Well I can't at all imagine Linux/*BSD developers leaving their current platform for an open source Windows. As probably every Windows users ever has noticed, Windows [referring to the kernel and all attatched drivers and whatnot] is a sloppy, memory leaking, buffer overflowing mess. Moving from Linux/*BSD to Windows would be a giant step down in stability. I don't know how this could seem like a good idea to anyone.
The most likely and probably only outcome for the open source community would be the study and incorporation of proprietary Microsoft code into the Linux/*BSD codebase (eg. drivers (!!), new more efficient methods of coding routines, etc.).
P.S. OpenWindows is a trademark of Sun Microsystens, Inc.
"Perspective is lost in the spirit of the chase." -[I have no clue who said this]
I'd agree with you, if I felt there was any likelihood that Windows could be repaired.
Look at the history of Windows. It was born when Microsoft realized, correctly, that consumers were not ready for systems with the hardware requirements of OS/2. As a result, the mandate was to keep them down to a bare minimum.
What is the biggest problem with Windows? In my opinion, it's the difficulty of dealing with naming conflicts. Create a file called GRAPH.DLL and you can write an installation program that will overwrite a file used by many other programs in the system. Save a Microsoft-provided OLE DLL as part of your installation program, and it can overwrite and crush a newer or older version needed by some other program.
Now, you might ask, why was this done? Why are DLLs and such in the WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory? Because MS didn't want to store more than 8+3 character file names in the internal listings. For instance, if my program in \PROG1 had a file called GRAPH.DLL in the prog1 directory, and another program in the \PROG2 directory had a different file called GRAPH.DLL, Windows would load and retain in memory the first one loaded. Run prog1, things work great. Run prog2, it finds the old graph.dll already loaded and collapses because it's the wrong file. This problem could have been easily solved by including the path in the in-memory file description, but nobody thought of that on time.
Unix avoids conflicts like that by including the version number in the file name, so you have graph.1.1.so and graph.2.0.so . Your program can then specifically request graph.1.1 or graph.2.0.
Eventually, Microsoft added a new mechanism called the Registry, but they made it so complex and convoluted that many stuck with the old ways. And, of course, with the same\windows\system directory still existing, DLLs continue to be loaded into it and the original problem is not solved. Instead of actually fixing the problem by insisting on use of conventions (such as beginning the name of your DLL with the manufacturer's name), they created an insane pastiche of unique but impossible to remember or type IDs. Despite this, the core OLE system still uses the old way, so OLE modules are constantly interfering with each other. I suspect lack of core operating system support for long file names is a good part of the reason for this.
It is my contention that these problems with Windows simply cannot be fixed. You can attempt to paper over them, but at base, they are unsolvable without breaking all existing code and starting with a clean sweep. I don't need to tell you how likely that would be to happen - the clean sweep would wipe out the only advantage Windows has over other platforms.
Generally, most programmers don't find fixing a fundementally broken system to be much fun. In my experience, you have to pay them big money to go out fixing broken systems.
Because of this, I think any open sourcing of Microsoft code would echo the Mozilla experience - loads of people would download, few would dig in in any detail and even fewer would help.
D
----
Yes, the most disturbing thing would be the government seizing the assets of private citizens... but that is not inherent in this case, as others have pointed out.
However, it is patr of the Clinton plan to invest Social Security into the stock market. My God, what a nightmare it would be to know that the government actually DID have a nice chunk of a company like Microsoft. You wanna talk about scary!
...that people post their opinions of the case without doing their home work. That results in posts where writers make fools of themselves. For example:
The government's lawsuit is totally bogus. The only reason Microsoft has achieved dominance is through the incompetence of its competitors.
If Tim would have read the FoF-document, he would have found tens of pages of ugly monopolistic actions by Microsoft.
Netscape? They lost because their browser sucked. The only reason they survived as long as they did is momentum and anti-Microsoft sentiment.
Well here Tim got 50% right. They really survived thanks to it's momentum and anti-Microsoft sentiment. But if Tim would have read the FoF, he would have learned how Microsoft did everything short of manslaughter to kill Netscape. After that document nobody should say that Netscape lost because of worse quality. Even Microsoft admitted it in their numerous internal e-mails.
People, please read the document. It's worth the time.
Hey look around a bit. Click view and select Scientific. There's your exp, hex to binary converter, etc.
And no, he didn't know what remedies the DoJ would be seeking, either. He wasn't (apparently) involved in discussions on that.
He came across as a patient, intelligent man who actually has significant respect for those on the other side ("even though they were in the wrong").
--
--
The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
Does this mean that the Qt people would be able to make kde feel as crap as kde looks ? Fairly, the windows code should be placed in a bucket of cement and dumped in the atlantic.
Let's play with words a little, shall we? One of the pro-Microsoft arguments in all of these threads has been that "nobody forced anybody to buy Windows." Now, I would hope that we can agree that if I have to buy a copy of Windows or pay a hefty fine, lose my job and maybe go to jail, that's essentially being "forced" to buy Windows. On those grounds, let's look at the situation. Say I'm the CEO of Compaq, a publically-owned company. From what I understand of corporate law, I have a legal obligation to make money, if possible, for my shareholders. So let's say Microsoft comes to me and says "If you want to put Windows on your machines, include Explorer, don't include Communicator, and, what the hell, do a little dance for me." "Gosh heck no!" I say. "That would stifle competition, annoy our customers, and cause my shorts to ride up!" "Your funeral," says Microsoft. At the next board meeting, I announce to the shareholders that Compaq is going from a leading computer company to a third-tier flowerpot design company because we can't sell Windows anymore. (Or, for literalists, I announce that from now on we will be exclusively serving the Linux market.) I futher explain that I COULD have made a deal with Windows, but it would have required distributing their browser and that chafed my hide. My shareholders revolt, I'm hit by twelve simultaneous class-action suits, I lose my job, and maybe (I'm unclear on the law here) I go to jail. Microsoft, on the other hand, announces that they're not licensing Windows to Compaq, but that they're going to make up for it by charging all other OEMs an extra fifty cents a copy. Their stock goes up. In other words, what I'm arguing here is that Compaq, as an entity, is in fact forced to agree to nearly any demands made by Microsoft, on penalty of law.
MS have till January to contest what the judge has written, until then you can take it as Fact.
And if this is the case MS have been very very naughty. I don't know how you got a score of 3 as you seem to be a borderline Troll post.
Drudge has no idea what he's talking about. David Boies said very clearly and very credibly on the Charlie Rose show last night that the remedy team is still in the very early stages of discussion.
And Pournelle's credibility is little better. His pseudo-Libertarian prejudices have caused him to embarrass the entire clan of nerds by making even more mistakes than the judge. The judge at least has an excuse (he never used a computer before the trial and was supposed to limit his findings to the evidence presented him). Pournelle has none, but this is not the first time he has betrayed the cause of freedom in serving his own little brand of Libertarianism.
There is much I disagree with in the judge's decision, but we need an geek evaluation which is more accurate than what Pournelle offers.
Pournelle claims the history of OS/2 is misrepresented by the judge. But Jerry's rant is much further from the mark than the judge's. Pournelle claims that OS/2 was done in when developers wouldn't pay the fee for the kit. This is a gross misreading of history. Maybe developers should have refused to pay, but they didn't. They all assumed IBM would lead the way and paid for their developer's kits.
Just look at the major vendors of DOS/Windows apps from the year before OS/2 was released. Name me one who didn't release their next upgrade for OS/2 before they came out with a Windows release.
Indeed, Microsoft told all the members of its MSDN that they should go for OS/2. They even suggested that that was the direction MS itself was pursuing. Of course, we know today that this was a lie. But, whether it was illegal monopolistic practice or not, it was crucial to their current dominance in the word processing space at the very least -- and probably much more.
The original OS/2 failed not because developers failed to adopt it, but because it was limited to the PS/2, which corporate America refused to buy, especially when Intel, Compaq and others resisted the march toward a proprietary hardware standard. For Pournelle to claim otherwise is to ignore all those developers who were left standing there with unsold OS/2 program disks in their hands as Microsoft claimed their former markets.
Of course, the judge was never talking about the original release of OS/2 at all. And he was absolutely clear that he was discussing the release of OS/2 for the open Intel standard which came later -- Warp. Throughout the decision he repeated makes it clear exactly what platform he was talking. And it was the one which OS/2 didn't run on until Warp.
The judge is very careful about his findings of harm to consumers -- the one area in which I agree with him almost completely. For Pournelle to deride the judge, suggesting the only damage found was the $30 overcharge for each copy of Windows, can only be characterized as the kind of dishonesty that got Bill Gates in trouble. The judge was very specific and found a number of damages which went beyond the loss of consumer choice.
And another one just popped up today in the form of BubbleBoy.
Remember that Microsoft built its empire by charging $15 for each copy of DOS on a $3,000 IBM machine. Now, they get $65-$95 for each copy on an $800 machine. Monopolistic pricing is always considered crucial in an antitrust case.
The neo-classical economics Jerry uses to justify his pseudo-Libertarian arguments against government "price-setting" all predict that the price of operating systems would have dropped to $2 by now. But, like many Libertarians, Pournelle is so afraid of government chains that he willingly puts his hands to the chains of outrageously more despotic corporations.
All threats to freedom are dangerous -- public or private.
Jim Allchin admitted 19 times in his testimony that his previous claims about IE being bundled into Win98 were lies. The judge correctly found the "integration" was done for MS's benefit, not the consumers. And he documented numerous disadvantages to the bundling.
It is truly embarrassing when a neophyte like Judge Jackson puts a pundit like Jerry Pournelle to shame.
All of this is not to say that I don't believe some of what Jackson says is wrong. But, remember, he is constrained by the evidence put before him. And that evidence showed -- over and over again -- that Microsoft was lying through its teeth (and often being very arrogant about it when caught).
My prediction is that he will lean as far toward Microsoft in his findings of law as he did towards the government in his findings of fact. The result will be a balanced decision which will be unassailable at appeal.
Incidentally, this will provide a strong Libertarian precedent, which will set a very high factual standard for the remedies he eventually prescribes. The handwringing of Pournelle and others over the precedent being set here ignores the fact that findings of fact set no precedent. Precedents are set by findings of law. Oops, another big error for Pournelle, but at least this one's not on his home turf.
This judge's Libertarian credentials far outweigh Pournelle's. He was the first appointment at this level by Ronald Reagan. In the end we will see that he serves freedom to the same degree that pseudo-Libertarians like Pournelle betray it.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
then there is no need to capture it, as eventually the tiger will be full or all the people will be eaten, right? The problem will resolve itself, just as it would if you left Microsoft alone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
NOT!
Jerry Pournelle is, IMHO, a has-been. Little more than a mouth-piece for "Microsoft everywhere." Why anybody gives a hoot what Pournelle has to say about anything computers is beyond me.
Bitter? You bet I'm bitter. I watched what was once a great magazine (Byte) turn itself into "Yet Another Me Too PeeCee/Micro$oft" rag. And watched Pournelle (whose columns I used to enjoy tremendously) go right along with it.
So Pournelle's opposed to imposing penalties on Microsoft, is he? Little wonder, for IMO Pournelle and Byte magazine were as much to blame for the unjustified dominance of Microsoft-infected PCs as anybody else. I was glad to see Byte bite the dust. With any luck, Pournelle will fade away in a like manner.
Though some potential for abuse remains it is still relatively small. I believe it is difficult to really control the technology industry unless you control two elements(e.g., hardware and OS; OS and apps; etc). MS-OS would be prompted to open their APIs up greatly if they had to compete strictly on the merits of their OS. It would only make sense, baring a pact between the two, for MS-Apps to port their applications to other OSes--where there is a profit to be had, they have an obligation to go.
MS-OS may still be able to vocalize threats to, say, an OEM--but it would be a shallow threat. They would make enemies quickly. MS-OS would be marganalized by the increased availability of applications on other OSes.
It comes down to numbers and intution, but I sincerely believe that a horizontal split would be highly effective. On the other hand, I think a vertical split would create too much market confusion too quickly. If there are 5 MS-OS companies, who do you support? What happens when all 5 try to develop independently? Porting would be a mess, each would be pressing its own hardware-software-interlock with new propietary modifications. I believe, that MS/IBM did one very important thing for the industry, that is, they created a standard overnight; a vertical split would effectively knock it back just as quickly--no standards.
Perhaps, the markets would rally around the company with Bill Gates at the helm...but then that would result in similar problems again I suspect...
Maybe this whole thread about Navigator crashing won't matter much if Netscape really releases 5.0 trial version at the end of this month and the final by February?
BetaNews.Com Article: Netscape 5.0 Too Little Too Late?
It would be far more amusing to be beaten to death with a piece of aluminum siding!
Jerry set up the "real" problems os OS/2 and Apple as strawmen while completely failing to mention that both companies tried to bring to market products that competed against MS. Microsoft threatned to with hold the rights to use the ROM on the Apple ][ if Apple didn't turn over a new app that was years ahead of Visual Basic (it was called Mac Basic and was oop). Apple turned it over and MS claimed they had a brand new product that would revolutionize programing. MS called there "new" program VB. Apple shopped a version of the Mac OS that would run on the Intel platform but none of the OEMs would istall it unless it was free (The OEMs still had to pay MS a fee whether a PC shipped with Windows or not. Some of the OEMs wouldn't ship it at all because they were afraid MS would retaliate and refuse them access to WIndows. Jerry might not have any stock in MS but he does have Bill's dick firmly in his mouth!
Yes, I noticed this recently, and it was a significant revelation to me.
I was helping a Windows user with her computer. She didn't multitask. Instead, when she wanted to do something different, she would shut down her program and start up another (in this case an image editing program). Because these things are monolithic it takes a while. So long that these programs even have little "title screen" windows that show up in the middle of the screen while the program loads. Once the program was loaded, she made a few small changes to an image, saved, and exited. Most of the time was spent waiting for the program to load. Then, she restarted the program she was working on before, which also took several seconds to start.
The right thing to do would be to leave your programs open and just switch between windows. But these things are so bloated, they take too much memory to leave them open.
As you noted, this is all caused by the way "commercial, off the shelf" (sometimes called "COTS") software is designed. It is the desktop PC paradigm.
When you have to spend $$$ on a program, you want to get the most for your $$$, so you get some monolithic thing with features you will probably never use but want anyway just in case you do need them later. After all, if you buy the program without that little feature, and later discover that you need that feature, you'd have to buy a whole new program just for that one little feature.
This all means that the software manufacturers have to build extra bloat in their programs. The side-by-side feature comparison really does control the industry. And with the pressure for new features, reliability and efficiency fall by the wayside. They aren't things that can be easily quantified for placement in an advertisment.
And worst of all, people think it's all great, because the only alternative they have ever known is not using a computer at all. This is why MS can call themselves "innovative" and have people actually believe them.
Free Software == Real Computing
Remember how Jerry kept beating the s100/Compupro horse long after it was dead? How he absolutely hated the IBM PC? Well - he changed his tune, just 4-5 years late, that's all. Jerry often takes a long time to "get it". This could of course be damaging to whatever happens to be cutting edge at the time - like Linux, for example - except that there aren't really that many folks who pay a lot of attention to Jerry any more. At least to his computer writings. (I'll always be a fan of his SF.) The reason for this is that the industry moved on, and his favorite soapbox, Byte mag, didn't. Or it moved, but it went in the wrong direction. Remember when Byte was chock full of good technical info? Then they tried to emulate the success of PC Mag, by getting more product reviews, surveys, etc. It didn't work. Because people were reading the mag for the tech info and not for product roundups. If it had worked, Jerry would still have a lot of influence, but as it is we mainly listen to what he has to say out of nostalgia. Or whatever.
Anyway, let's not get too excited about what Jerry has to say, he just didn't do his research, obviously. And his opinion doesn't matter much more than yours or mine, and probably reaches about the same number of people.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Would you like my autograph?
Or atleast that is what my experience has been.
I fail to see any relevant point to this post as to the subject at hand.
No one creates a monopoly through "business stupidity"... where the hell are you coming from!?
Is this the new Politically Correct Slashdot!?
The real remedy: Award 250 billion dollars of Microsoft money to class action lawsuits will weaken Microsoft's ability to buy technologies or build barrier to entry, force Microsoft to sell its divisions and maybe even API. This requires NO govn't intervention or inspection or any obviously non-working measures alike.
And we can use that 250 billion dollars to build nation-wide terabit fiber network. build computers in inner city schools. This will make ALL of us to start loving Microsoft. --- not that i care, i'm typing this in a dorm cell.
David Boies did not say that. He said he's not in that part of the team so he does not know the discussion! I watched the same show last night and very specifically that part.
I agree. M$ should release the source code. With it out in the open, Windows might actually be worth using (after a few years of open source upgrades of course). With a breakup/red tape scenario, the problem of horribly written software doesn't get solved, if M$ is so bad for consumers, try to make it better instead of applying a band-aid to a severed leg. In fact, opening the code might actually help M$ AS WELL as the consumers, and that's what the free market is all about!
not that close to first post!!!!
Possible solution:
The desktop PC needs a standard API, both into and
out of the operating system. Hardware vendors should be on the OS to hardware level and software vendores on the OS to application level.
With a standard OS interface anyone is free to develop the OS. Anyone is free to develop the applications and anyone is free to develop the hardware.
Establish a desktop PC API standard. Any Microsoft OS must conform to the API. All inter-application communication must be through the OS API or through open file or data formats.
Microsoft must get their OS and applications certified by the independent PC API standard body.
Microsoft is free to "innovate" applications but must publish all their file and data formats. Publication does not hurt innovation.
Microsoft is free to "innovate" with the OS but is required to be certified to the OS API standard. Thus any "innovations" must be made part of the OS API standard before they can be incorporated into the OS. (Come on Microsoft lets see your superior programming skills provide superior implementations of open standards.)
What made the PC so popular was the open hardware standard. Making the OS an open standard should lead to another boom in software (like before Microsoft started down the Windows one true way monopoly path).
In addition there can be no sales tying of hardware to OS or OS to application.
Bundling of applications is allowed but any individually available part of a bundle must communicate with the rest using open standards.
What this does not fix is the possibility of a bare bones OS and a super desktop application incorporating everything from Windows, VB, Office, IE with nothing available separatly.
Anyone got ideas on how to fix it or is this ok.
...we go on for years about how badly Microsoft sucks...and then when we finally get a judge who agrees with us, we're hesitant or even fearful about what he might do to the company/industry as restitution.
This is a momentous moment in history. As one of my college instructors said today, it will probably have repercussions that our children and our children's children have to live with. It could affect the industry, politics, life as we know it in utterly unguessable ways, especially now that we're on the cusp of a new electronic/Internet revolution.
Of all the possible outcomes, the one I most hope for is that Microsoft has to open their source. That could finally mean the end of some of those annoying proprietary formats they use, let the WINE people make their product even better, and just generally help things all over. I'm not terribly sanguine about the prospect of splitting the company up, as that would probably only mean instead of one monopolistic Microsoft, we'd soon be dealing with several of them.
What will happen? We'll just have to wait and see...
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
dude, you gotta stop smoking that kitty litter
But then, you're an AC, so what do I expect.
Frac
As far as antitrust goes, yes it is valid. Try buying a PC and saying, "Oh, I don't want Windows... I'd rather have Redhat Linux. You won't leave with a PC unless you leave with Windows, too. Ignoring the fact that you Can still build your own PC and buy redhat sperately and you CAN have a PC with a non MS OS quite easily if you don't go to dell-gateway. It's amazing how this constitutes a monopoly in your mind but.... Apple? The true monopoly. People dumped them because they tried to hold onto too much power. No comment. I don't know enough about Apple. There are definitely no alternative OS's, but then again, its also unique architecture... So it is and isn't a monopoly, since apple user's could always buy a PC instead. Down here you use market choice to choose something that isn't even a mac to justify macintoshes monopoly. Only apple can make operating systems for a Macintosh computer. They jack up the prices beyond the market rate because they can, to maintain their 50 50 50 margins. I am amazed at the doublethink you use straight from 1984. One company keeps competing and acting like a startup while the other keeps sitting on its laurels and jacking up prices on their exclusive market. Somehow you managed to get the nems wrong.
As far as antitrust goes, yes it is valid. Try buying a PC and saying, "Oh, I don't want Windows... I'd rather have Redhat Linux. You won't leave with a PC unless you leave with Windows, too. Ignoring the fact that you Can still build your own PC and buy redhat sperately and you CAN have a PC with a non MS OS quite easily if you don't go to dell-gateway. It's amazing how this constitutes a monopoly in your mind but.... Apple? The true monopoly. People dumped them because they tried to hold onto too much power. No comment. I don't know enough about Apple. There are definitely no alternative OS's, but then again, its also unique architecture... So it is and isn't a monopoly, since apple user's could always buy a PC instead. Down here you use market choice to choose something that isn't even a mac to justify macintoshes monopoly. Only apple can make operating systems for a Macintosh computer. They jack up the prices beyond the market rate because they can, to maintain their 50 50 50 margins. I am amazed at the doublethink you use straight from 1984. One company keeps competing and acting like a startup while the other keeps sitting on its laurels and jacking up prices on their exclusive market. Somehow you managed to get the nems wrong. Remind me to preview next time :P
From TidBits :
"As Stacker for DOS became popular, Mr. Bill became interested in the technology and asked the president of Stac to contact Microsoft about including it in DOS. Keep in mind that DOS's main competitor, DR-DOS from Novell, already includes compression capabilities. "
{Hmmm, M$ behind again! Gotta start 'innovating' haha!}
"Stac and Microsoft negotiated licensing issues, and Microsoft refused to pay any royalty to Stac for the license, making it clear that if they didn't use Stac's technology, they would use someone else's, and even at one point showing Stac a spreadsheet outlining the adverse impact on Stacker's sales if this happened. "
{Cooperate, or we will squash you like an insect with our powerful DOS monopoly; Hahaha - amazing that we have it with bozo's like DR and Novell adding features we don't have, those LOSERS!}
"As negotiations continued, it became clear that Microsoft wanted Stac's technology but didn't want to pay for it. Irritated, Stac broke off the talks. Finally, Microsoft called Stac again, because they determined that their own compression code infringed on at least one of Stac's patents. Microsoft promised to send Stac a licensing proposal and a beta of DOS 6.0. A month or so later, in January of 1993, Microsoft sent the beta, but included a note saying essentially "Don't worry about the patent stuff. We are just going to keep our changed code which does not infringe."
"All fine and nice, but when Stac examined the beta, they determined that it infringed on two of Stac's patents. That's not the end of the story though. Microsoft sent Stac a preliminary press release that Microsoft plans to license, for free, the compression code in DoubleSpace, to all comers to create an opportunity for third parties to enhance DOS 6.0's compression features with add-on boards, chips, and software. Needless to say, Stac was not pleased, and brought in the legal howitzers.
{Anyway, disk compression is no big deal - but this is just one example of 'business as usual' at the helm of a company pushing the envelope of 'competition' which more than once croses the line into bullying and predation.}
Have a nice day!
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Hmm...the webpages I've visited all spell it seperatist. It may be one of our silly Canadian ways of spelling things.
(We pronounce Z differently, too)
Dana
Try Risc OS it's not a unix a like system but it's not meant to be.
Read the FoF. Concentrate when you see the phrase "applications barrier to entry". Once you understand that, come back, get an ID and we can talk.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
umm... why? the key term in monopoly is MONO. if there are 3 sellers...
So, hypothosize as to whether Microsoft will be broken up, think about whether they should be fined or slaped or chained in a basement. Regardless - these are the facts, these cannot be disagreed with.
/dev/hda1'. You got it, incoherent bits and pieces of junk. I think that I'm going into Emacs and typing M-x doctor now.
I find it hard not to laugh. I cannot count how many people have disagreed with the facts, and you're saying that they cannot be disagreed with. LOL squared.
In people's minds there is a verdict. If my idea of how the public works is anywhere near true, the real verdict will be exactly what everyone has been thinking. So although there has been no verdict yet, it's pretty clear in most people's minds what that will be, so when people disagree with the verdict, they are not being totally stupid as you would have us think.
Okay, back to contesting the finding of facts... if you read the Byte article and accepted more than about 5 percent of it, than you are saying that the Finding of Fact is not factual. In fact (no pun intended), by your definition of "fact" the Finding of Facts has a lot of stuff that is not a fact. Back to the Byte article. About the OS/2 thing and the "facts" given about that: BS for the FoF. The author of that commentary gives us some facts - things that can be "verified" and "proved."
Some schoolchildren have learned about the difference between fact and opinion and BS today. Some definitions of 'fact', in fact, one I was given not so long ago, emphasizes that a FACT can be wrong and still be a FACT. The qualifying condition is whether or not it can be proved. I have heard a lot of Facts recently.
Some schoolchildren have learned about the difference between fact and opinion and BS today. So have many adults.
I'm confused. The first day I heard about this, I thought, "Hey, cool, they've busted MS!". Today I'm thinking, "Pick on Microsoft again. This is getting boring." Now, as I write this comment, I'm thinking the same stuff I get when I type 'cat
I don't think mentally insane people should post comments to Slashdot. Ergo, I should shut up before I become mentally insane. But then I shouldn't post to Slashdot, which means that you wouldn't see this comment, which means that I wouldn't be posting to Slashdot, which means that I wouldn't be shutting up because I never started, which means that I wouldn't be mentally insane, which means...
Call them softroMic.
Arnold Kenneth (or the other way around, I forget)
PS - I wonder if there has ever been anyone before me who has become crazy during the course of writing a comment and thus was crazy enough to submit his blabber? You are not getting what I am saying. I know it.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said through a spokesman that it hadn't seen the Seastrom suit.
``But from what we hear it appears to be a groundless lawsuit, especially when the Windows
operating system is priced less than our competitors,'' said the spokesman, Jim Cullinan.
And those would be?
hi, suppose windows source code is released, how many of you would being working/modifying it? Would any of the people working on making linux better switch over to work on windows? -doug
The whole point of the judge's finding of fact is that Microsoft supposedly possesses monopoly powers that prevent competitors from moving in on its turf. And yet...competitors are moving in on its turf. So, the claim that Microsoft had those monopoly powers is dubious at best.
To correct your example:
"Your honor, my client has been accused of stealing a $1,000 bill from Mr. Jones. However, Mr. Jones, after getting up off his...chair, realized he had been sitting on the $1,000 bill all this time. Therefore, may we dismiss this case?"
...compared to Win/98. That should be obvious, but for some reason it never is.
Why don't you read the ruling? You'll notice that it's loaded with "coulds" and "mays", but precious few "dids" and "haves". The judge was ignorant of the industry, and unfortunately bought into the emotional hysteria.
What a selective memory! Pournelle doesn't mention that MS was charging $2600 for the OS/2 SDK and then simply dropped it, leaving those who had ponied up the big bucks out of luck.
OS/2 would've been fine if it was offered pre-loaded because it WAS hard to setup; Windows 3.0 was easy only because it was just a DOS-wrapper, not a real system. OS/2 is better compared to NT in that regard. Most people couldn't install any system on a blank PC, even now.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Jerry points out, rightly enough, the IBM and Apple screwed themselves royally. This does not logically preclude Microsoft from taking illegal monopolistic action against them -- in fact the contrary is the case. It's better to use underhanded techniques against a weak opponent than a strong one.
In the end, though, I think Microsoft too will be judged as its own worst enemy. It probably would still have won the OS wars, maybe a OS/2 would have hung on for a few more years before it expired. Like the ambitious nephew who is written into the will an pushes his elderly aunt down a flight of stairs, they resorted to crime where they could have let nature take its course.
In literature this kind of behavior is attributed to a "tragic flaw", a trait which in small quantities may even be beneficial, but when it becomes a driving force is ultimately destructive. In Microsoft's case, they let competitiveness reach a point where it became paranoia, or perhaps a morbid fear that somebody else might succeed at something that they themselves could have done.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Even if the court case drags on for years and years, MS had a monopoly and was able to extract much more money from consumers, for many years. Even if Linux, BSD, Be, et all largely replace Windows, Gates and crew have the world's largest bank account, filled with money illegally obtained (presuming that the finding of law will follow in the footsteps of the FoF).
If in fact it is ultimately found that they illegally (monopoly overcharges) obtained all that money, the right thing to do is take it away from them. It's not theirs, after all. Perhaps it is returned to everyone who bought dos or windows, and perhaps linux users finally get a windows refund, or perhaps the money pays down national debt, bails out the social security program, who knows.
Of course, there's the issue of punishment, or just preventing them from continuing, if that is an issue at the time. Regardless of MS's market position, they have a massive pile of money, which they don't deserve to keep.
OK, I have a few questions.
I have seen a couple points made numerous times that I need help with, they are (in no particular order and badly paraphrased):
1) Microsoft has not "innovated" they have just taken what someone else has done and put it into the OS.
What has Linux "Innovated"? (I am a Linux user primarily, but use WINxx for some apps that have no Linux alternative - so put the flamethrower back on "safe")
2) Break them up!
Do all of you really want multiple "baby bills"?
3) Monopoly!Monopoly!Monopoly!
This is a case of common sense vs legalese. A lot of use use an alternative OS. I'm sure that a lot of us are counted as windows users if we use it or not. Think about it, if every computer in the world had both Windows AND Linux, MS would still have 100% market share, but not really a monopoly would they? Equating market share > 85% with a monopoly is, IMHO wrong. There are choices, one just works better for the majority of non-technical users. Another case of legalese vs common sense are findings of fact, yes they are the "Facts" in the courtroom, out here in the real world, I don't take them as gospel. If I remember correctly, a court found O.J. Simpson NOT GUILTY of killing his ex-wife and her friend, yet another court found him responsible for their deaths. Don't try and reconcile those "facts", you'll just get a headache.
4) They were evil to give away IE for free, now opera can't make any money selling a browser!
Uh, excuse me I can't stop laughing...... Hello? Hypocrisy alert! They are evil for charging too much for WINxx, and evil for charging too little for IE? Linux is free, apache is free, php is free, bind is free... are they evil because no-one can charge for a DNS/OS/ScriptLang now? Of course I left out hundreds of other free apps.
I will stop there, not because I have run out of things to say, but because I have probably already said too much and no-one will read this far down, they will be busy writing the flames.
I posted AC because I can't get a dang account set up (I'm just stupid I guess).
Lenny Brown
mrtaz@tazman.com
You made a bad decision. Maybe you should have read your warranty better... Oh wait, there isn't one! ... maybe for a reason?
Here's another example of Microsoft "innovation" I hadn't heard about before.
This is what happens when people aren't compelled to study the humanities in college.
Government is not a set of laws handed down to humanity from god. Government is an agreement between people that, on balance, if they all follow the laws, if they allow only the state to use violence to punish those who break the laws, and so on, then we'll be better off than living like animals, in fear every minute of the day that someone stronger will come along and take away what we have.
Microsoft is only wealthy because of a very artificial legal situation created by the government, the existence of copyright/patent laws. The government does this because of the belief that, on balance this is good for society.
Microsoft is now in trouble because of a likewise artificial legal situation, that monopoly's are compelled to follow certain rules in their business dealings. This is likewise the law because of the belief than on balance this is best for society.
The MS supporters here seem to feel that it is "unnatural" for the govt to intervene in cases of monopoly, but have no complaints about the govt's intervention wrt enforcing IP laws. Give me a break.
There may perhaps be coherent intellectual arguments for leaving MS alone, but the mere claim that it is unnatural for the govt to seize the property of the company, property that only belongs to the firm in the first place because of IP law, is not one of them.
The letter "Z" is pronounced "zed" up here in the Great White North.
Honour and Colour are both supposed to be spelled with the letter "U" (although I prefer color without the "U")
The word "Lieutenant" is pronounced "Leff-tenant" for some bizarre reason. I prefer "Lew-tenant", which makes sense. "Lew" is an anglicized version of the french word "Lieu", but "Leff"???
The MS JVM was more compatible than Netscape's.
In my opinion, Java is stuck in 2nd gear because
1. performancewise it is still uncompetitive with native code
2. its cross-platform strategy tends to produce apps that are inferior to (uncompetitive with) apps customized to the specific platform
3. it does not play as well with customer's existing investments in non-Java solutions
4. how many revs of AWT/Swing have there been now?
Microsoft's JVM extensions to also target Windows APIs are not the reason there's so little Java in Linux, for instance.
Back to the FoF: (Paraphrasing:) "No, Java hasn't caught on because of Big Bad Microsoft. To apparent consumer harm." Right.
Sun: (Paraphrasing:) "Boo hoo hoo!"
In my opinion, no restraint of Microsoft can fix the above problems inherent in the Java Strategy.
(I think Sun will regret their lawsuit. Java would be more popular if you could also use it to author nice Win32 apps. Then there would be much more money in Java programming, in third party Java libraries, etc. So long as it is awkward to use Java to write high quality Windows apps it will be language non grata to a lot of software vendors.)
Open source projects would benefit from the competition too. Apache is doing well on Unix in part because commercial servers cost money. It's doing less well on NT because IIS it free. If IE had to charge $20-30 per copy, Mozilla would have an advantage because it's free. It's hard for even an open source project like Mozilla to compete when the competition is free and funded by a large corp.
As to the theory of entrenched competitors discouraging new competition by taking away cash flow. That's not a new theory. It's not even my theory. Intel specifically adopted that approach in early 90's competition with AMD. They had allowed a gap in the product line that allowed AMD to earn enough money to really compete with x86. They filled the gaps in the product line so AMD wouldn't have any solid support base. And it worked throughout most of the '90s. That's not speculation.
The difference, of course, is that Intel didn't engage in predatory pricing. There's nothing wrong with having a strong product line. Microsoft's Word competes on its own merits, but IE and IIS don't.
Scott Ferguson
Scott Ferguson
Caucho Technology
When are they going to make any of this crap simple? Microsoft is a pain in the buy, yes, Microsoft has over priced products, yes, so what is all this leagal junk going to do other than make tons of headaches and bother the living heck out of all of us bc they are all moaning and complaining about Microsoft being a Monopoly, If they are a Monopoly why do other operating systems exist, just buy less microsoft products and all this just would be fixed, oh wait microsoft only makes programs that are totally idiot proof what whould 75% of the world do with a computer w/o Microsoft?
I hate that calculator too, but it is more powerful than it would first appear. Go to the "View" menu, and select "Scientific". You'll get a bunch more buttons to use.
its also unique architecture...
One reason there's a dearth of alternative software for Apple is that some years ago they launched the "look and feel" suit, trying to stretch copyright to cover their user interface by equating it to a "performance", like a play.
This threatened software developers in general, and mightily tweaked off some of the people behind GNU. (I recall Gilmore passing out protest buttons with the apple as the home of an ugly toothed worm. Legend: "Keep your lawyers off my computer!")
So the Gnuthians dropped support for Apple. For a long time, even GCC releases for apple were done by independents, and came out (if at all) months after the release for other platforms. It was even worse for GNU make. And a lot of independent software developers bit the bullet and hacked on the horribly-asymmetric Wintel architecture rather than the Motorola 68xxx-based Apples.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That was the most insightful AC post I've read all day. All of the knee-jerk "free market" arguments ignore your points.
I would also like to add that corporations themselves are not natural entities. The concept is a legal fiction -- a group of people treated as a single "person", but without the direct accountability of a person. Too many "free market" advocates are quick to condemn government punishment of misbehaving corporations because it somehow interferes with the free market. They conveniently overlook the government interference which protects corporate shareholders from direct liability for their misdeeds.
A true "free market" would hold each member of a company's Board of Directors (and possibly the shareholders) personally liable when the company breaks the law or loses a civil suit. We may not have a true free market, but I doubt we really want one.
I really hate all the pieces popping up around now containing MS. Seems like they have really mobilized their resources to get the astroturf-campaign going. Many articles are totally biased against the DOJ and quotes lots of pro-MS people and nobody on the other side. Most of the writers havent even read the Judges findings, which were really good and would explain a lot. When most of these wrters dont even have an email adress so you can send a comment, it really makes me annoyed. But I guess they get good money for it, though (though I do suppose many of them do it just because they own a couple of the 5 bil MSFT stock that are in the market).
The CNN poll was repeatedly pointed out by /. readers and heavily voted on by them. This is the first time the MSNBC poll has been mentioned here.
This country makes me sick, so does slashdot. This whole affair is simply unreasonable. Take this firm that's suing - _why_ did they need to upgrade? Who forced them to pay what some pinhead judge randomly decided is $40 too much for an upgrade? How can a company be a Monopoly when there are dozens of alternatives - who says an Alternative to an OS has to be Identical? It makes no sense. They're blaming MS because software developers have flocked to them and made them number one. Sad.
I think all the anti M$ sentiment is out of hand and the DOJ FoF is a very bad precedent. You guys really want to see government regulation of a major software company. I think thats NUTS. Pournelle is right about alot in his article. About the fact that most of the competition shot them selves in the feet and legs and THEIR remedy is to breakup M$. There has been huge advancements in the PC software arena throughout the history of the PC. All of it because there is was and is competition. You guys are being very hypocritical saying M$ is a monopoly and they have NO competition and at the same time saying that Linux is the best ever OS and the one true thing and NT and Win 98 suck etc.. so on and so forth. You can't have it both ways. Either Linux IS a good OS and IS competition for NT and Win98 and M$ is not a monopoly or Linux IS a no count OS and IS only for nerds that prefer the Unix command line and M$ is a monopoly oh and the iMac and Be don't exist either. And Apple didn't sell like 1 million iMacs last year right? I used to run an Amiga they were in fact competition for M$ in many ways. I LOVED my Amiga. But the fact is they went under due to management ineptitude period. Not because M$ was big and mean and took their lunch money. I believe the year they tanked they sold 900,000 machines. That was more than Compaq in the same year. And they went bankrupt how the f*ck do you explain that except management ineptitude. And all of my old Amiga friends are still running around blaming there woes on M$. That's just stupid they should blame the jackass Iranian that managed Amiga into the ground. Similar situation with IBM and OS/2. Pournelle is right about IBM being bigger than M$ at the time. If they REALLY wanted to they could have competed and won the desktop. They didn't and don't care about the desktop. Someone in this thread said IBM is a very different company today. perhaps in some ways but not many. The fact is they still make their money selling MainFrames, AS400s, and RS600s. Not PCs the PC market has always been chump change to them. In fact they recently ditched retail PC sales but believe me they are not hurting as a result. They screwed up on a pretty fair playing field with OS/2. I mean if you left the inovation part up to IBM, Novell, and Netscape you wouldn't have all the cool features that are default in PC OSes today like built in networking (This seems so obvious now but it wasn't so 10 years ago), built in SMP, built in security, clustering etc.. IBM would be selling you a stripped down copy of OS/2 with no SMP you could then buy a seperate NOS from Novell or buy IBM Lan Server (YUCK), Then by an expensive SMP addon or perhaps a whole differnt version of OS/2 and Novell then pay 40 bucks for a copy of Netscape. And an aditional fee for Trupet Winsock or something similar. Do you realize that they are saying M$ inovated too much! Thats insane! They included too much with the OS hurting the smaller companies like Netscape f*ck Netsape they should have looked for a merger with IBM so IBM could bundle Navigator with OS/2 and compete with Windows. But let's not forget IBM didn't and doesn't give a crap about OS/2 and the desktop or bundling Navigator. They DID have their chance THEY BLEW IT. Now will have some bullshit regulatory committee (deparment of bendoverMS) telling them the MINIMUM they can charge for new technologies and products that they would have otherwise integrated with the OS. This is what you guys want? Its feakin insanity. I say compete with M$ in the marketplace of ideas an win IT CAN BE DONE. Or shut up about it. If they are a monopoly and hurt consumers as a result. Then consumers will look for alternatives and thats where Open Source comes in. It is that simple we don't need the Department of software bundling to even things out. More Government involvement and regulation rarely solves anything. It usually has quite the opposite effect if any.
You say you are sick of it, and yet I recall you having quite a few articles about the judgement. You seem to feel free to color the "news" you post here any way you feel, so why not just stop posting about MS at all?
Oh wait, I forgot. If you did that, then you wouldn't have anything to bitch about, and you wouldn't be able to stomp around singing to the heavens that linux is better.
Hypocrites.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
By the time this gets out of appeals, RedHat will have put Microsoft out of business ;-)
Seriously...
It would be nice if Microsoft could have been defeated in the marketplace rather than in the courts. However, that doesn't seem to be happening. What about a counterattack by Microsoft's competitors by actually offering competitive pricing for superior products? What about working with software vendors to make it profitable for them to develop for alternate platforms?
I think Microsoft has competed unfairly in the marketplace, but on the other hand, I also think a lot of their competitors have competed stupidly in the marketplace... the two combined gave M$ a doubly unfair advantage, but it was only half their fault...
I'm all for antitrust action against M$, but that doesn't mean that I don't consider many of their competitors to have done a lousy job of trying to win away their customers...
o/~ we are pissed, we are pissed, we have to resist... o/~ - ec8or
A monopoly has no significant competition and barriers to entry for new competitors. Why is Microsoft not a monopoly? Because Linux becomes more significant with every passing day and every passing sale of Redhat (or choose-your-own-distro) to a corporate customer, and every installation by a do-it-yourselfer who puts a distro on her home PC. MS started grabbing server market share largely because they already had a large mindshare on the desktop. True, management tends to turn a deaf ear to the techies, but even managers own home PCs, and those PC's mostly had Windows on them, so NT Server became an easy sale. So shall it also be with Linux, and therefore Linux is a significant competitor to Windows. So is MacOS. Even BeOS is making a few converts. And all of these operating systems are available in stores near you (if they aren't, indeed, available as free downloads on the web). Also: The judge mentions significant barriers to entry. This is not Ma Bell, where in order to be a competitor you would have had to build a multibillion dollar telephone infrastructure of your own, and in order to use a competitor you would have had to move to another country. Barriers to entry? Linus wrote Linux on, I presume, a text editor. The barrier to entry in the OS market is therefore the cost of one college student and one text editor, and maybe a hard disk to hold your sources and your free compiler. Even if you wanted to get a serious product to market in a year or two, the barriers to entry would be the cost of a small business, which can hire the talent it needs by hiring disgruntled MacOS programmers (as BeOS did). In conclusion, Microsoft, while certainly unethical and guilty of many despicable anti-competitive acts, is not a monopoly. Don't call it one, because by doing so you're also calling Linux insignificant.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Obviously I know what a seperatist is, or else I wouldn't have made the query in the first place. =P
I take it Jean Chretien [sic?] isn't the Prime Minister anymore? Yeah, like I said, I don't keep pace, but that doesn't mean I'm completely oblivious, Dana. :)
~ Kish
There are estimated 10-20 Million Linux installs. If that figure is accurate (and at that wide range, it probably is), then Linux is easily as "popular" as Apple's "popular" iMac.
Remember, the iMac set PC sales records. Similarly, IBM's OS/2 was the #1 selling piece of software for months after its release. That's pretty popular.
Also, keep in mind that "popular" also means "of interest." I know a lot of people who don't use Linux -- and maybe never will -- who talk about it, know about... have an interest in it.
So, yes Virginia, Linux may be popular and pose no threat to Microsoft at the same time depending on how you use the rather subjective term "popular."
- That should be obvious...
Indeed it is frustrating when you find yourself having to explain the fucking obvious.Instead of rehashing what's already been written in so many comments I thought I'd write a drama. ACT 1: Somewhere. Judge Jackson - You are not innovative. Bill Gates - You are the government you don't understand innovation Steve Ballmer - You tell him Bill. Judge Jackson - Whether I do or not is immaterial, this is a loaded gun. Bill Gates - We will continue to innovate. Judge Jackson - As a Judge I have the right to shoot you. Bill Gates - We will continue to innovate. (Raises the weapon) Judge Jackson - This will kill you. Bill Gates - No matter, we will triumph we are creative. Steve Ballmer - So innovative it doesn't matter what you do. Judge Jackson - I'll show you innovation. Bill Gates - We innovate, we do things that no one else has ever done to the software industry. Judge Jackson - I currently also have the ability to spur similar innovation. Bill Gates - What you do matters little, we will continue to innovate. Ed Muth - we are creative. Steve Ballmer - Even if you order us not to innovate we will innovate. Bill Gates - We cannot stifle our creative genius. Ed Muth - Oh Yeah. Steve Ballmer - Oh Baby. Ed Muth - Alright. Judge Jackson - You have never been innovative or creative. Bill Gates - We will continue to innovate Judge Jackson - Innovate this . . . Ed Muth - Oh boy Stevie, I guess the gun was loaded. Steve Ballmer - Gee, I never imagined a result like this. Ed Muth - Me neither. Steve Ballmer - What do we do now? Ed Muth - I don't know. Steve Ballmer - uhhhh.....? Judge Jackson - Dance! (Commences Firing) ! ! ! ! ! (Watching Eddie and Stevie under Fire) Judge Jackson - Now that's what I call innovation. THE END
I have e-mailed my Senator about my feelings, I urge you all to do the same whether you agree or not: Sen. John Ashcroft ***************************** Copy of message text follows: ***************************** Sir, While I do not support a Microsoft breakup I also think the government deserves to win. I feel that a 500 Billion dollar corporation disappearing would be bad for our economy, especially considering the uncertainty of going into the next millennium. I have two ideas either of which would bring about a positive way for all sides. Plan A ------ Microsoft is scaled down to the size of Apple Computer Inc. as of June 30, 1998 over a period of 5 years by removing exact percentages of sales, ventures, and other revenue. Then said percentages go to constituent aid and non-profit organizations. Complete Internet Explorer source code, all versions shipped with Windows 9x, be given to the public in a royalty free manner. Held patents over said software are separated into necessary for Microsoft's survival and unnecessary groups. Unnecessary are given to Netscape for its damages. Netscape may not sue for punitive damages afterwards. Plan B ------ All plaintiffs receive damages and all source code be released for DOS, shipping version of Windows OS, and Internet Explorer. All law suits brought thereafter become based on Stare Decisis. Consumers then receive refunds for all purchased software within the periods Microsoft had been found to discourage competition through a monopolistic strategy. Please consider these ideas and narrow them upon what you and your colleagues agree would be most beneficial. Thank you for your support in representing us, we all appreciate it. Jimmy Smith Waynesville, Missouri
/* Signature goes here I am not a lawyer, but I play one in school */
To be specific, Apple has a monopoly on the production of Apple computer systems. As noted in the FoF, the market for Apple computer systems is separate from the market for Intel-based computer operating systems, and Apple has an absolute lock on that market.
However, being a monopoly is not in and of itself illegal. Apple maintains its monopoly through its use of patent and copyright law and its refusal to sell MacOS separately from its hardware. These are legally sanctioned ways for a monopoly to maintain itself.
The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that, to quote Judge Jackson, "[Apple does] not share Microsoft's interest in protecting the applications barrier to entry." (para. 229) For example, Apple was willing to give its dealers much greater freedom in what was preinstalled on the desktop than Microsoft was, and preinstalled Navigator as the default browsing software for Macs until Microsoft "convinced" them to do otherwise.
In contrast, Microsoft spent considerable amounts of money and gave up several potential sources of revenue for the purpose of increasing IE's market share and reducing Navigator's market share. These actions would have been OK had Microsoft been satisfied with giving IE away for free, advertising IE as a feature of Windows, and making IE as simple to remove or replace as Notepad. However, the lengths to which Microsoft went cannot be explained in any way other than that they were attempting to remove the threat that Navigator posed to the applications barrier to entry.
Funny that, all the apps just mentioned also came on the Suse disk I bought just last month. If Linus had written them all I might be just a little worried...
Let's play with words a little, shall we? One of the pro-Microsoft arguments in all of these threads has been that "nobody forced anybody to buy Windows." Now, I would hope that we can agree that if I have to buy a copy of Windows or pay a hefty fine, lose my job and maybe go to jail, that's essentially being "forced" to buy Windows.
On those grounds, let's look at the situation. Say I'm the CEO of Compaq, a publicly-owned company. From what I understand of corporate law, I have a legal obligation to make money, if possible, for my shareholders. So let's say Microsoft comes to me and says "If you want to put Windows on your machines, include Explorer, don't include Communicator, and, what the hell, do a little dance for me."
"Gosh heck no!" I say. "That would stifle competition, annoy our customers, and cause my shorts to ride up!"
"Your funeral," says Microsoft.
At the next board meeting, I announce to the shareholders that Compaq is going from a leading computer company to a third-tier flowerpot design company because we can't sell Windows anymore.
(Or, for literalists, I announce that from now on we will be exclusively serving the Linux market.)
I futher explain that I COULD have made a deal with Windows, but it would have required distributing their browser and that chafed my hide. My shareholders revolt, I'm hit by twelve simultaneous class-action suits, I lose my job, and maybe (I'm unclear on the law here) I go to jail.
Microsoft, on the other hand, announces that they're not licensing Windows to Compaq, but that they're going to make up for it by charging all other OEMs an extra fifty cents a copy. Their stock goes up.
In other words, what I'm arguing here is that Compaq, as an entity, is in fact forced to agree to nearly any demands made by Microsoft, on penalty of law.
...All controlling a bit less than 25% of the PC OS market, there would still be an "applications barrier to entry". Every new OS that isn't a workalike of another OS has to struggle to get applications, since they must be written for or ported to that OS. This is not somehow unique to the existence of Microsoft or Windows.
I dislike MS business practices.-- I do not use their products.-- However, --Two wrongs do not make a right. --For the Uncle Sam to FORCE a company to do this is stripping MS of their rights. --I would think that the average Slashdot paranoid, would understand the thin line between government intervention and government abuse. --I am not sure on how Microsoft should be punished (they DEFINITELY should be). --But alowing the government to steamroll over someones rights is NOT the answere. --Sure, maybe MS deserves it. MAYBE *this* time its a good call. --BUT WHAT ABOUT NEXT TIME???? --When it is not MICROSOFT, but some company that *someone* in the *system* with a little pull, decides to exercise his/her powers on for their own political agenda? --I love my country (but fear my government). --We should not alow them too much power in the private enterprise this time...or ever. --We are liable to get more than we bargained for.
nuff said...
;-)
Let the DoJ and Microsoft duke it out on Springer! :)
It was Netscape that killed off the browser market. HTML was a nice, simple standard that Netscape Embraced and Extended to death. Netscape made no attempt to conform to standards; once they got out front they smothered competition because the lavaflow functionality of Netscape is nearly impossible to reproduce and the web designers were lazy enough to just make things work with the most popular browser. Only MS was sufficiently powerful and evil to outdo them at their own game.
You still can only view some websites properly with Netscape.
Have no sympathy for a lesser demon even if Satan himself stomped him.
Certainly it could have been Apple or IBM in this monopoly position today if they had made better decisions (and they might be the ones in court today), but they didn't, and thus they didn't even have a chance to be as monopolistic as microsoft is today. This failure of theirs is irrelevant to the case. What is relevant is how microsoft has acted in the past few years while in their monopolistic position.
Looking at the history of the personal computer industry, it's clear that there was much more change in the 1979-1990 period when microsoft still had little market power. There was a large variety of personal computers running a variety of operating systems, a number of different productivity applications, and new products cropping up everywhere. The level of growth in diversity has since dropped in areas that microsoft has controlled:
In operating systems, we're down to just a few with small numbers of users, unix is re-consolidating back into a single OS. In spreadsheets, what is there anymore but MS Excel? How many people use a word processor other than MS Word? And MS internet explorer has a large majority of the web browser market today, and there are no longer the variety of web browsers as there were before (I remember on my old Mac during college i was running Mosaic, Netscape, WebShark (Tenon's web browser), Macweb, Cyberdog, and a few more web browsers, all with interesting unique features that have now disappeared).
What happens when the market is left with only one supplier is that the supplier will only improve the product as it will help them earn money. So, Microsoft will add a few new features to Excel every once in a while to get users to pay for an upgrade, but this pace of product improvement is much slower than that of a competitive market, where Microsoft has to add new features to Excel to compete with Lotus 1-2-3 (As a heavy spreadsheet user, i think there's still a ton of innovation which could be put into improving them, but there's no one around to implement it, and the barriers for new entrants are high). In the markets Microsoft dominates, this slowdown is quite apparent.
Microsoft is still upgrading products and making them better and benefitting consumers. The reason consumers are being hurt is that they could be receiving a much greater benefit if the markets were competitive. The benefit to consumers of competition is not just a $30 cheaper copy of windows; it is the ability for consumers to have the best product that the industry can produce--not windows, not linux, not mac--we haven't seen it yet, because it can only be produced in a competitive environment.
I knew that Microsoft was crooked, but Judge Jackson's appalling Findings have left me in a state of shock. It has finally dawned on me that Bill Gates is a textbook sociopath who'd do _anything_ for money and power.
Now I understand why IBM and others have decided to emphatically support Linux in the future. Anything must be better than dealing with Microsoft. I've also come to sympathize with the guy who threw a tart in Gates' face, althoug in light of the Facts, a bullet between the eyes might have been a better choice.
No matter how the US government decides to resolve the issue, I'll never buy another Microsoft product again.
along with this guy
Both Dvorak and I pointed out in the early 80s that copy protection was a quick way to sure death in the mass market.
Citing Dvorak as a like minded thinker is not good for credibility, IMHO.
Everything he takes exception to is based on the Rise of M$, not once it was in control. They used to be a good company, in that they didn't abuse their power, but at that point they didn't have that power. Later, when they did, they acted like any other corporation should act and capitalized on that dominance. How they got thier Monopoly is immaterial to the fact that they used it to harm the public, which leads us to my next exception for this rebuttall.
The real joke in this decision is the section on harm to consumers.
I'm sorry but there is no question that what I have experienced using M$ software has caused me EXTENSIVE MENTAL ANGUISH. And this is AFTER I learned how to use it. Were it not for the shackling EULA that I have clicked through sooo many times, they could be held liable (and no doubt some lawyer somewhere is thinking the same thing).
Last friday was a good day for everyone who ever has, but more importantly for everone who EVER WILL, use a Personal Computer.
(yes my grammer sucks, but then, I don't have an editor..)
+&x
Anyone else thing this "Everything Microsoft" has a certain ring to it? Like, Bush's "Everything Zen?"
Is everything zen, e-very-thing-ZEN, E-VERY-THING-ZEN; I don't THINK so.
I think this whole case just found it's theme song...
Hmm, IBM didn't produce a competitor to MS Office? Ummm, yeah....
I mean, how does one miss it. It has been in (and continues to be in) computer stores everywhere. I bought a computer and has a nice little CD with the Windows version on it.
It's called Lotus Smartsuite. I have two versions of it on a shelf on my left. I preferred it to Office, though I now tend to use KLyX (sweet) and StarOffice alternately.
Note to Jerry: Recalling from dim memory is not research. There were lots of other errors, but they've been covered here.
The whole case hangs on (a) whether Microsoft has preponderant market power in the market of Intel-based operating systems and (b) whether it used this power anticompetitively. What IBM and Apple did (especially what they did befofe Microsoft acquired its monopoly) is irrelevant, except for purposes of comparison with Microsoft's behavior.
Let me put this another way. IBM screwed up in the early '90s, which resulted in Microsoft's acquisition of preponderant market power in the Intel-based computer operating system market. Nothing wrong with that, as far as anti-trust law goes. Microsoft then used the market power it acquired to reward OEMs who sold computers with Windows products only and punish those who sold OS/2 or Lotus Smartsuite. That is anticompetitive behavior, and the law has a big problem with that.
I would like to add to the discussion the fact that Jerry completely glossed over the main contention in the case (that is, Microsoft pushed IE to protect the applications barrier to entry). In fact, Apple, IBM, Real, Intel, and other companies were mentioned in the judges opinion mainly to support his findings on what Microsoft did to Netscape and Sun. Any attempt to argue against the judge's findings based upon what Apple and IBM did misses the point by a mile.
"TODAY'S POLL
Microsoft Monopoly
A federal judge may have come down hard on Microsoft as an abusive monopoly, but the American public seems to be on the company's side. Two-thirds of people surveyed for a new Gallup poll see the software giant in a favorable light; more than half don't want the company broken up.
Break it up 24%
Leave it alone 76%"
Go help even this obviously weighted poll at http://www.kfi640.com/
If I bash you in the head several times I will turn out to be smarter than you. Everyone will look at me and say boy is that guy smart.
If there where more people like you demand for aspirin would go down. But sadly given economic IQ in the world aspirin companies can charge high prices due to a lack of elasticity for pain relief remedies . The true elasticity of Windows is difficult to judge by merely looking at what Microsoft is charging for it also has the DOJ looking over it. The elasticity of Windows can be debated till the moon turns blue but would MS push the limit with the political climate at this time?
They used their monopoly maliciously
I looked into Windows programming not long after win3 came out. If I remember correctly, MS' and IBM's SDKs were in the hundreds of dollars (one SDK at the time ran $2k, but I can't remember what it was). I never heard of MS giving away their SDK for free to developers (a nice way to brib^H^H^H^H seed the marketplace at the expense of competitors). I guess I should go to these big conferences instead of staying home. No big loss though. A friend of mine discovered that MS C at the time didn't free up memory properly, so he replace the MS malloc/free with the ones from the K&R book. I figured that if something simple like that was screwed up, who knows what else was fscked up. I've never regretted sticking to just Unix.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
"Zed" is actually the correct pronunciation. It's only 'Merkins that have a "Zee" in their alphabet :-)
The thing I want fixed the most is this:
1. M$ Makes windows only run on Intel compatable PC's
2. They make office only run on windows.
3. To get any part of that functionality you basically have to buy into it all.
This means that anyone wanting to use office needs to have windows, and that means throwing out anything that is not a PC (or mac maybe). No matter how effective your computing solution is, there will be enormous pressure to get rid of it so that you can communicate with the other windows users. Basically this forces the technical computer users and administrators to buy in because of the intergration of office and windows.
How many companies run windows without office? I would be willing to wager that almost none of the larger ones do this.
What if office would run on other platforms? How many of those decisions to throw out platform X would have been made? Think about the advantages X servers and clients have for casual users and licensing. Clever utilization of compute resources and applications could really lower overall computing costs. Instead everybody gets a box, and it just happens to be a pretty good one because of the top-heavy software.
The intergration of applications and the OS is wrong. I am happy that Netscape was featured in the fact finding, but really the core of the problem is Office. It removes the question of choice from the equation because a machine can realistically only run one operating system at a time. (I know about VMWare and it rocks, but is not for everyone.)
I think that the DOJ should enforce this seperation to some degree. I don't want people telling us that certian applications need to be ported to certian other operating systems. That would result in some pretty stupid combinations, but there should be something in place to allow this to happen if the market wants it. Engineers, creative artists, industrial designers, and other technical professionals have spent the last few years paying to "upgrade" from whatever OS they were using (IRIX! among others...) to windows because they were unable to communicate with their peers in the office who were just running windows. Somehow this strikes me as really wrong. PC hardware is just now catching up to the level of performance that other hardware/OS combinations have had for a while now. They might cost more, but maybe that would not be true if they were able to move more boxes.
Should everybody be using a PC? Probably not. Because of windows intergration, creative hardware is discouraged. One OS does not fit all, and neither does one piece of hardware.
Blogging because I can...
I used to work for a company that has two versions of its data encapsulation platform, one in COM/ODBC, the other for portability in Java/JDBC.
.... and found it was FASTER.
A developer recently ported the back-end, number crunching engine of his app from C++/COM to pure Java to run on the Java platform, and tested it on NT
With all the layers of API's and multi-tier stuff in modern apps, the emulation/JIT overhead of Java gets lost in the noise. With an hour of developer labour costing the price of a 500MHz Pentium, it's doubly less of an issue every day.
I guess you can't trust everything you hear. If what you say is accurate then I was victimized by bad information a couple years ago (one year? who knows) when I was last in Canada. I feel so.. dirty. :)
~ Kish
I did paraphrase what Boies said. What he said did include the statement that he was not part of the the discussions. But it did also include other statements which clearly contradict the "Drudge Report" and its invention.
And he said that even those who are involved in the discussions have not reached a conclusion, as was clearly stated by Drudge.
Here is what was said:
CHARLIE ROSE: So, what should be done, if that's true, in remedy?
DAVID BOIES: Now, that's the hard question. OK? And that's something I just don't have a view on.
CHARLIE ROSE: You don't have a view.
DAVID BOIES: I just don't--
CHARLIE ROSE: You have a view, but don't want to tell me? Or you don't have a view?
DAVID BOIES: No, I don't have a view. I don't have a view. Part of that is that I've not been involved directly in the remedy discussions. Part of it is that I think, even for the people who are involved in those discussions, those are still ongoing.
And, although I've not talked to them in detail, I don't think people have a concrete, finite view as to exactly what the right remedy is. If they do, I don't know 'em.
That really wasn't what my function was.
Sometimes what we remember is not exactly what we heard. Perhaps this would explain Gates' problems with evidence clearly contradicting what he testified.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
I remember, prior to the breakup of AT&T, how it cost extra to have a touch-tone phone, there were only 2 long-distance service providers (AT&T and MCI) and there were extra charges for using a modem on a private phone line. After the breakup, all of a sudden, companies started coming out with new technology!! Now, we have 56k modems, instead of 1200bps, we have a multiplicity of long distance providers, and a whole plethora of technology that never would have come about, if there had not been competition to AT&T. What is going to happen, if competition is allowed in the software industry??? Will we suddenly get better browsers, or better word processors?? Maybe we could even get a Windoze compatible OS that does NOT crash every other day?? Who knows....but it WILL be interesting to find out!!!
....Is there a problem, Dave? asked HAL....
Case 1:
3-Com built Lan Manager (SMB v 2), based on Microsoft's MS-NET (SMB v 1). Microsoft jointly marketed it, and had rights to all the code. Novell kicked their asses, so Microsoft bundled LAN manager into NT (SMB v 3). 3-Com lost.
Case 2:
MS marketed DCA's Com Server SNA Gateway under the Microsoft brand name on OS/2. When NT came out, they released a Microsoft product with Com Manager compatible interfaces: SNA Server. DCA lost.
Wake up, Jerry. This is one tough, smart business we are talking about. You can be sure that OS/2 vs. Windows NT was the same. Don't forget, Windows NT started out its life as OS/2 version 3, and Win16 on NT as the "PortHole" environment to let user's run their crufty old Windows 3.0 binaries on OS/2.
Changes aren't permanent, but change is.
Can anyone here name the anticompetitive tactics that IBM was being sued for? (Well, this is slashdot, so probably yes. But rhetorically speaking...) Of course not, because that's all in the past. If the person on the street has even heard of the IBM antitrust action, they know maybe three things: The government sued IBM, the trial took a long time, the government lost. Ergo, it was a waste of money. If that happens twice, it's a pattern, and it'll take a braver attorney general than we're likely to get to start gunning for the next Microsoft. No one will care that the increased scrutiny of the lawsuit made room for Linux or whatever.
Of course, the case, and the remedy, should be decided on merits, not on what sends the right political message. But I hope that the justice system can remember that this is a case about actions situated in a historical time. If the case drags on past Microsoft's actual monopoly, I'd still want to see them get the punishment they deserved when they took those actions.
Preferential Voting: easy as 1-2-3
It is irrelevant how Microsoft got to its current monopoly position in the market. On that topic, Jerry is seen rambling on and on. His main point is: how the competition made tactical or strategic mistakes in spite of having superior products. That version of history does have a little truth factor to it, but is totally beside the point today.
What affects the consumers today (and gets DoJ's "bad" attention)is more recent history: Having acquired that monopoly position, the illegal strong arm tactics that Microsoft is using to protect that position.
So Jerry's ramblings, though interesting to read due to all the trivia and anecdotes, doesn't change my thinking about this even a twiddle bit.
I urge readers to take the Jerry Pournelle's of the world with many pinches of salt... and yes, I think the world has too many of them for its well being.
There is the civil forfieture scam.. Any lucrative object found or used in the use of a crime can be ``forfieted'' (not stolen, you see) by the police.
:)
More than a few police departments are a little, um, aggressive with this.. Small towns, interstate highways, and travelers who carry around several hundred bucks, and such NICE policemen don't mix well.
Then of course, the government grabs ~30% of your income.. Its not theft, its taxes!
I sailed across the seas, and came to a remote island. I rowed ashore, and took a path near the beach where i'd landed.
After awhile, I came across a town. I spied a young lady, and asked her, "Miss, could you tell me where I could buy some fruit?" She replied that I need only to travel a block further and turn left.
Following her instructions, I turned on the street, and sure enough there was a vendor with his cart. I bought a bunch of grapes -- not the best I'd seen in my life, but adequate. A few were rotten, and I spit them out. I also bought a couple peaches; some were bruised -- I mentioned it to the vendor, and he just shrugged -- "Perhaps next years crop will be better".
I returned to the young lady who had helped me find the fruit vendor, and asked if she knew where I could get my boots repaired. She gave me directions, and off I went.
As I traveled down the street, my stomach became upset. Suddenly, my bowels began growling, and I became faint. I barely made it behind some bushes and dropped my trousers as terrible bout of the runs errupted from my anus. "That fruit selling vermin!" I thought to myself.
After cleaning up after myself, I forged on the cobblers. As I turned the corner, I was shocked to see a row of cobblers lining the street -- I looked in the windows, comparing both product and price. I even stopped and talked to a few vendors. Finally, one (a sailing man like myself) seemed to have the product and price that matched my desires. As I handed him my boots, I asked about the fruit vendor, mentioning how I'd gotten ill.
"Oh!" he said, "you've bought some fruit from 'ol Bill have you? Well, I have to say I'm sorry to hear that. It's terrible what he's done to the fruit market, no one seems to be able to get a leg up on him. For fiften years now, he's driven all the other fruit carts off the street.
"Some have tried to open their own markets, but within days people stop buying -- seems someone has spread nasty rumors about their product. And 'ol Bill, he so filthy rich, he just buys their orchard, or their cart, and runs them out of town.
"Just between me and you, I've heard tales of secret agreements -- made, then broken -- by Bill, but as soon as the magistrate gets involved, all the witnesses suddenly disappear. Not dead, but they just won't talk. "We've settled" they all say. But at least they seem a lot richer now. I don't know when things will change, but it would be nice to get some decent fruit again.
I thanked the old man for his words, and walked back the way I came.
As I passed the streets, I saw a clothing district, full of people trying on clothes of all colors, with the vendors fighting and arguing about who had the bast quality or the best price.
On another block, a magnificent row of stables, with delightful horses of every breed -- one stable had sickly horses, they almost seemed half dead. Needless to say, he had almost no customers, and his competitors were doing quite well that day!
Finally, I passed the street where the fruit market had once thrived. I approached "Bill" and asked "Who do you think you are, selling me rotton fruit and giving me the trots! I am the customer, the person with the pocketbook, I should have more say in my purchase!"
From out of nowhere, his bodyguards appeared, pinning me to the ground. Bill snarled at me, and lowered his face to mine, growling that he was the richest man in the land, that he had fought his way to the top, that he was a "great innovator", thus all his competitors had faded away. "I have a right to this!" he bellowed.
I stood and dusted myself off. As I walked back to the cobbler's to fetch my boots, I could not understand how things could become so wrong. There was so much happiness and quality to be had in the other markets of the town, yet the fruit market was somehow ill, sickeningly ill.
After fetching my boots, I made back to my craft, eager to continue on with my voyage. You see, I was in search of the land of freedom, an area named "Redmond, Washington" that I had heard of on the west coast of the USA.
"Ha", I thought to myself, "Imagine the fruit I'll be able to get in this new world -- vendors galore! All eager to haggle for their fresh-grown wonders -- I'll never get the damn trots again!"
...and I sailed into the sunset.
Well I can't at all imagine Linux/*BSD developers leaving their current platform for an open source Windows. As probably every Windows users ever has noticed, Windows [referring to the kernel and all attatched drivers and whatnot] is a sloppy, memory leaking, buffer overflowing mess.
You'd simply end up with a Mozilla type situation...
There are some amusing points not highlighted here. In response to the Byte article, I think we need to remind ol' Jerry there that we are discussing right and wrong, legal and illegal. Not industry trends, and or how nice Microsoft may have played in the early days(if they ever did). Accusing Judge Jackson of being ignorant of the industry is a red herring. Whether or not Jerry is a Microsoft cheerleader, to refute the findings based on the actions of others is wrong.
Basically, Judge Jackson stated he found Microsoft had violate monopoly and anti-trust laws. He is not concerned with industry trends or corparate behavior but industry and consumer impact. He does not care if IBM was stupid, but whether Microsoft took advantage of this stupidity in an ILLEGEAL MANNER. His conclusions are not just based on the high profile case points but the smaller ones as well. His concern is how Microsoft continued to negatively impact the market place, by improperly using its industry power to retain its position.
In a case like this, it does not matter what the other companies are doing, but what Microsoft did to further its own position. And Judge Jackson in his FOF states that Microsoft did harm. That can not be rationalized away with the feeble arguments of; well IBM was stupid, and Apple should have known better, and Netscape should have played ball better. It is like software piracy, people rationalize how they need it, Lotus does not need the cash, our compay can not afford it, etc. It still does not change the fact that you are stealing, no matter how you spin it. The same holds true for Microsoft with this finding.
Next, all Judge Jackson can do is take existing laws, case law, and existing definitions and vocabulary to determine his findings. The finding of fact, according to Judge Jackson, is that Microsoft is a monopoly by the existing standards. Perhaps there should be a new Utilities classification for OS manufacturers(this is a course of action I do not approve of). But until there is, the Judge is constrained to only use the guides at hand.
The fact that other companies acted stupidly does not absolve Microsoft of wrong doing. That is on trial. Saying that poor industry knowledge or a lack of awareness of how things work in the technology area is just a red herring.
Lastly, we are still a long way off from a conclusion. Spin-off law suits, breaking up Microsoft, etc. has several long roads to travel yet. All the other articles do is speculate as to the conclusion. And the conclusion may take several long twists before over. And with Microsoft involve I would not doubt it. There is an article(just what we need another article)on cnnfn.com about Microsoft's annual stockholders meeting that should prove an interesting read. If I read this right Bill has already conceded defeat, but asserts a tough stance on the settlement.
http://cnnfn.com/1999/11/10/technology/microsoft/
I personally do not think Microsoft will be broken up. The economic fall out will be too large. I think spin-off law suits will continue. And I think CmdrTaco will have plenty more articles he will be forced to read. Much to his apparent displeasure. Sorry Cmdr.
If you are searching for a good Calculator, check out http://www.yi.com/home/TeskeDaniel/
Click on the UK-flag, click on Calc 1.2 and download.
You'd simply end up with a Mozilla type situation...
I disagree, Mozilla and an open source Windows are two very different situations. In Mozilla's case, everyone jumped in the boat because there were no alternatives. There aren't any widely popular (or at all for that matter) mature browser projects so everyone pitched in to fix Mozilla. In the case of open source Windows, we alread have a few very popular and almost completely superior alternatives and so there is no reason to dive into the sludge that must be the Windows code base when we can just pick out the good parts.
"Perspective is lost in the spirit of the chase." -[I have no clue who said this]
It's those mind control freaks at Sesame Street, I tells ya! :-)
This message brought to you by the letters M, S and the number 2000.
Ah, the magic word. IANAL, but it seems that there is a legal problem with contracts made under duress. If the Disclaimer of Warranty and Limitation of Liability are voided, things get very interesting.
OS/2 could not provide support for what IBM did not know. When IBM finally did know they put in support.
It is almost trivial to change APIs so that they selectively break support for certain applications.
I think this M$ shit has gone a little too far when people are demanding source code be released. If Coca-cola were deemed a monopoly would they have to give up the recipe to Coke? No they wouldn't, a company is allowed to own as personal property anything it creates or buys. If it were any other company in any other market no one would give a crap but because it's Microsoft in the computer industry they are trying to take things way too far. I might support a breakup of Microsoft if it was done intelligently and didn't require a bending of rules. Microsoft has a two forms of monopolies currently, both vertical and horizontal which gives them tremendous power in the industry and preventing them from revoking OEM price discounts if an OEM wanted to preintall a different operation system would lessen the horizontal monopoly. The vertical monopoly could only be broken if the company was broken into several different parts but because not all software in produced by Microsoft it isn't a complete monopoly and can't be broken legally. Lets just work on the OEM part and the rest will eventually take care of itself. If Microsoft keeps the OEM discount and can't threaten them with it, more will use linux/freebsd/be. If they just get rid of the OEM discount then the OEMs will start using the alternative OSes that cost much less.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I disagree, Mozilla and an open source Windows are two very different situations. In Mozilla's case, everyone jumped in the boat because there were no alternatives. There aren't any widely popular (or at all for that matter) mature browser projects so everyone pitched in to fix Mozilla. In the case of open source Windows, we alread have a few very popular and almost completely superior alternatives and so there is no reason to dive into the sludge that must be the Windows code base when we can just pick out the good parts.
What I ment is that you'd get a lot of initial interest, until people actually saw the code. Then anything would drag on for ages, with major parts ending up being re-written.