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")
The issue here is that Microsoft is going around yapping about 'freedom to innovate' when in fact they have innovated nothing, and have in fact acted in a manner to reduce innovation in the industry. The complaints about Microsoft in this regard have to do with their blatant manipulation and hypocrisy surronding their repetitive use of the term innovation.
I don't think anybody in the Linux community has stated the Linux is particularly innovative. It's basically a UNIX clone, after all.
Do all of you really want multiple "baby bills"?
No. We don't want Bill in any form. Unfortunately this appears unrealistic at the moment, so we will apparently have to settle for a lesser remedy. Requiring that Microsoft publish their API's other necessary technical information available to permit Win Clones would be a good step. Imagine - not having to boot into Win anymore - Wine could run all Windows applications perfectly.
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?
Did you read the finding of fact? Judge Jackson's ONE positive statement about Microsoft had to do with the effects of Microsoft giving IE away for free. Also, don't confuse the motives with the actions. Microsoft made IE free in order to 'cut off Netscape's oxygen supply' (direct quotation from internal Microsoft memo). Linux and other similar software is free because this is part of method used to attract contributers to the open source development process. One is motivated by sheer greed and a desire to maintain a monopoly, the other is motivated by a desire to develop a high quality OS that is free (in multiple meanings of the word free, too).
You didn't touch on the vast bulk of Microsoft's anti-competitive actions - extorting vendors to drop software (Intel and Apple), imposing price differentials depending on how 'cooperative' a vendor was, threatening to cancel a Windows license because somebody wanted to include non-Windows software on a shipping machine, and so on and so on.
In general terms, it would be an awful precedent to give the government the power to dictate what software companies can do as a whole.
How would such a precedent affect the other software companies such as Sun, for example, and OSS movement?
I've seen this kind of sentiment expresssed many times here. To begin with this is not a new area of the law. The Sherman Anti-trust act has been around for over 100 years. It is unlikely that any significant new precidents would be set here.
In fact, this law is USUALLY applied to companies that are in new technology areas as is the case with Microsoft. It is not unusual for a company in a new technology area to gain an upper hand for one reason ore another. Prior cases like IBM, AT&T, Alcoa, etc. are in fact monopolies that arose out of the development of new technologies.
After a technology matures a bit it is much harder to gain monopoly power through organic growth. More likely you run into the first part of the Sherman act which makes price fixing illegal, or the FTC which prevents the formation of monopolies through a company buying up its competitors.
Unless Sun develops a stranglehold on some part of the market AND starts using it's monopoly power to control the market it doesn't have anything to worry about. And it looks pretty unlikely that Sun is going to gain any sort of monopoly any time soon given it's competition from HP, Linux, MS and so on. OSS is even a less likely situation. How can you have a monopoly on something that is freely available?
Remedies are a very tricky question. After thinking about it the answer seems to me that we need a way to break MS's stranglehold on the OS. Sun has suggested that a complete public disclosure of the APIs is an appropriate remedy. I kind of like that idea, because it would make Windows clones likely. Wine could become a perfect emulator. This would free people to use whatever OS AND the vast array of Windows specific applications. Shattering the interlocking of the Windows API and Windows applications may in fact be the trigger that is needed.
If no one wanted microsoft products, no one is forced to buy them.
Hog manure. Microsoft has had exclusionary contracts with PC vendors for many years. Microsoft has in the past been able to FORCE vendors to pay for licenses for machines shipped regardless of whether or not the machine was shipped with Windows on it. Microsoft used tie-ins to FORCE vendors to ship IE with every machine loaded with Windows, whether or not they wanted it.
Even today it is essentially impossible to buy an Intel laptop computer without also getting a copy of Windows. Recent efforts by unwilling Windows owners to return Windows and get a refund were laughed at in Redmond, despite the wording of their own shrink wrap license.
Microsoft uses exclusionary contracts with businesses as well. The company I work for has a discount on Win/Office licenses PROVIDED that Win/Office is loaded on EVERY computer in the company. I had to buy a copy of Soft PC for my Mac to comply with this.
The fact is that it is nearly impossible to avoid ending up paying for Win/Office the way Microsoft runs it's licensing operations.
In my opinion Judge Jackson was far too kind in his ruling, and the government lawyers only scratched the surface investigating the rampant abuses Microsoft makes of it's monopoly power.
While the Supreme Court is quite conservative, the appeals court above Judge Jackson is even more conservative. This appeals court has already reversed Jackson at least once on a prior Netscape related issue. Avoiding this appeals court is decidedly favors the DoJ.
It's about crybaby's who have crap to offer as alternatives, are lousy in buisness and want the government to step in and make it easier to sell their crappy worthless products.
Tell that to Stac. Microsoft had to pay a $100 Million fine for outright technology theft.
Microsoft out performed everyone else. They won.
Microsoft did win. However they have also shown that they did not play by the rules. There is a difference between winning at any cost, and winning within the legal boundaries of a society.
But he is in fact responsible for the fact that the computer and internet industry as a whole is so vibrant and competitive.
I think that the facts show otherwise. The computer industry is most vibrant and competitive in areas where Microsoft has no influence at all. Take a look at how competitive the box makers are. Contrast that to the Office suite market. Compare the price trends in the hardware segment vs. the Office suite segment. Now tell me that the influence of Microsoft has led to the Office suite market to be vibrant and competitive.
The fact is that the computer industry is least vibrant and competitive where Microsoft is strongest.
Microsoft had very little influence on the genesis of the Internet and it's rapid growth. Even Microsoft itself admits that they were very late to appeciate the importance of the internet.
Microsoft is not on trial. They are being sued. By your own government.
In the US civil penalties in the law are common. In order to enforce these laws the government must be able to bring civil actions.
Common law countries like the US do not have the clear distinction between private and public law that civil law countries like France do. All in all I would rather live in a common law country because of the emphasis on precedence rather than having everything rigidly codified.
Microsoft has been a great success story. I am not criticizing them for their success. The problem I have with Microsoft is that they are using their success as a weapon to stifle the free market system and crush those who would compete against them. Microsoft is not unique or the first in US history to achieve this level of control. Many such companies have. In many cases companies have used their market power to try to raise barriers against competiton and thus harm consumers. This is what Microsoft did. This sort of behaviour is illegal, and should be so. It is not the free market in action.
Microsoft is not being punished for their success. They are being punished for their abuse of the power that their success has given them.
Yesterday. It wasn't just yesterday but some time ago, the government gained access to our civil courts as plaintiffs. The result is manifest as rapacious tragedy.
Let me ask you how laws can be enforced if the government does not have access to the judicial system as a plaintiff? Without such access there is no way the government can enforce the laws of the nation. Do you propose that only individual citizens be able to bring suits? What would happen in the case of a murder? Who would bring the complaint? How could traffic laws be enforced?
The standing of the state in court is a lot older than the history of our Republic, my friend. Take a look at the Magna Carta (dated 1215 AD) for some interesting history on the topic. This was when the concept and right of trial by jury first became fully a part of English Common Law, which the legal system of the US evolved from.
"I think apple got paid to set IE as the default browser".
Here is what it says about this issue in the FOF:
Apple increased its distribution and promotion of Internet Explorer not because of a conviction that the quality of Microsoft s product was superior to Navigator s, or that consumer demand for it was greater, but rather because of the in terrorem effect of the prospect of the loss of Mac Office. To be blunt, Microsoft threatened to refuse to sell a profitable product to Apple, a product in whose development Microsoft had invested substantial resources, and which was virtually ready for shipment. Not only would this ploy have wasted sunk costs and sacrificed substantial profit, it also would have damaged Microsoft s goodwill among Apples customers, whom Microsoft had led to expect a new version of Mac Office. The predominant reason Microsoft was prepared to make this sacrifice, and the sole reason that it required Apple to make Internet Explorer its default browser and restricted Apples freedom to feature and promote non-Microsoft browsing software, was to protect the applications barrier to entry.
Apple had IE crammed down it's throat The facts are there.
I'm sorry but Microsoft does innovate. Their products are better than the competition.
I am sorry, but I disagree with the first part of your statement. Why?
1. Innovation in it's highest form is breaking new ground, delivering a new type of product. Not incremental improvement. Where is Microsoft's Visicalc?
2. Look at the following web site. 'Innovations' often attributed to MS are easily debunked.
3. Many people never see anything but Microsoft products, so they think that features like 'Intellisense' are Microsoft innovations. Well, sorry, but I have seen similar software functionality for years. C programming environemnts with syntax completetion date back to the mid 80's. Pandora, a Mac database had auto completion since 1988 or so. So did Apple's Filemaker. There is nothing innovative about Intellisense. Ditto mouse/key cording. Apple has been doing mouse-key cording since 1984 - it is how they got by with a single mouse button. It just is not a Microsoft idea at all. The fact is that what passes for innovations by Microsoft are generally features stolen or purchased from somebody else.
Regardless of the source of the ideas, Microsoft does have products that are often best of their type. How they got there is perhaps something that should not be looked at too carefully. Like sausage, you don't want to know how it is made.
It certainly was not by innovation.
No one is shoving MS (Office) down people's throats
Nonsense. My company shoved it down my throat. MS cut them a deal - to get a discount they had to agree to install Windows and Office on every PC in the company. I had to buy SoftWindows for my Mac to comply with the resulting company policy. MS forced IE onto every computer that had Windows preinstalled. MS forced computer vendors to pay a windows license for every machine they shipped, regardless if the user wanted it or not. MS forced Apple to drop Netscape and set up IE as their primary browser. It's all there in Judge Jackson's finding of fact.
And I do believe he has good intentions.
If you believe that you have not read Judge Jackson's Finding of Fact. Bill Gates is a preditor with no concept of business ethics.
If you don't believe me after the FOF, go and look up what has been published about the DR DOS case.
408 gives them the possibility of arguing that consumers were not sufficiently harmed by their actions for the courts to deliver a draconian punishment (splitting up the company, multiple 'baby bills'). I assume that is why they are focusing on it.
I think that Microsoft is focusing on this because it is the only positive statement in the conclusions. The rest of section VII is a horror show of how their abuses stifled competition and innovation in the computer industry - which of course makes a compelling case for severe penalties. For example, look at how section 409 starts:
To the detriment of consumers, however, Microsoft has done much more than develop innovative browsing software of commendable quality and offer it bundled with Windows at no additional charge.
Right there he is stating that the positive benefits to consumers of free software per section 408 are far outweighed by Microsoft's other negative activities.
When their buddies take over the administration, the suit will be dropped or settled to Microsoft's satisfaction
Nah. Take a look at the first page of the case document. There are state's attorneys general and civil suits brought by individual states involved here as well. The Feds don't have the power to dismiss the state suits, and cannot settle without the approval of the states. In addition the Finding of Fact may provide the basis for lots of private tort actions.
Doesn't anyone realize that the camel's nose is in the tent now?
Aren't you forgetting the IBM anti-trust action and settlements? Or various actions of the FTC going after companies making false market practices? Or what has been going on with the FTC and data communications?
This is not the first case where the government has gotten involved in the computer industry by a long shot.
Microsoft of course will try to do whatever than can in terms of damage control. Including saying that they disagree with the judge's findings. That however does not change the fact that:
1.) These findings of facts are in general not possible to appeal. This means that the document that was released yesterday is firmly implanted in the law as a basis for futher action. Much like an axe right between the eyes. Microsoft can disagree all they want, but that is worth about as much as a can of barbeque starter in Hell.
2.) Judge Jackson is now moving on to examine the facts in view of the law in the US. If he rules against Microsoft in any substantial way I am sure Microsoft will appeal etc. etc. At this point it is almost irrelevant. Microsoft's butt is in the crack, and every attorney general, tort specialist, ambulance chaser and half-assed trial lawyer in North America is staying up nights trying to think of ways he can get his hands on the $500 Billion Dollars that represents Microsoft's market capitalization. It will be just as bad in every country in the world that Microsoft does business.
3. The part I like - The FOF will encourage many many competitors to take on Microsoft's market domination. No longer will people be afraid that they will be crushed when the elephant goes for a walk. Dell has already stated publically that the reason they offer Linux pre-installed is that they are no longer afraid that Microsoft will saw them off at the knees for offering choice and innovation.
A thousand flowers will bloom where there was once only desert.
4.) As a side note, Microsoft is in big doo-doo for ignoring court orders associated with the 1995 browser case. Sun is going after their butt for further Java atrocities. Microsoft in going to trial for the defensetration of DR DOS.
I don't know the details of what you are talking about, but if it is like the ATM stuff I see elsewhere, it seems to me that there is price fixing going on. However I think that long term ATMs will get straightened out.
I know the credit unions are trying to do something about it, and eventually I think that Internet Banks will work out a solution. A number of Internet Banks already offer rebates for ATM fees up to a certain number of uses per month.
Same end result, two different mechanisms. One of which you favor.
Building added functionality into the operating system is not the issue. The issue is Microsoft coming out with their own version of a proxy server and then threatening Dell that they are going to withold their Windows license if they don't preload their server and only their server along with Windows. Or if they call up Apple and say "we'll cancel Mac Office if you don't preload our Mac proxy server, and deep six your own version for Windows."
If all Microsoft did was product innovation The Judge would have not ruled that Microsoft engaged in predatory practices.
paragraph 93... "It is Microsoft's corporate practice to pressure other firms to halt software development that either shows the potential to weaken the applications barrier to entry or competes directly with Microsoft's most cherished software products."
This has nothing to do with Microsoft developing better products and everything with Microsoft hurting the computer industry and consumers by trying to restrain innovation for their own benefit.
It's high time someone put an end to this charade and put a little more competition back into the PC market.
breaking up Microsoft into different companies may not be punishment on the long term
I agree. Microsoft or it's spawn is going to continue to be big. Contrary to most people's thinking, their stockholders are not going to lose a penny. BUT MS WON'T BE AS BIG AS THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN OTHERWISE.
AT&T doesn't have the market share they used to have. MCI Worldcom is a worthy foe and may become more so if the FTC lets them acquire Sprint. IBM is huge, but they have a small fraction of the PC business. The Standard Oil companies have competitors like Shell and BP, as well as infighting amoung the 34 units the original was broken into.
What is going to happen is that whatever remidy happens Microsoft will gain serious competitors. One way or another. Which will be great for all of us.
"It is unlikely, though, that a sufficient number of open-source developers will commit to developing and continually updating the large variety of applications that an operating system would need to attract in order to present a significant number of users with a viable alternative to Windows."
It seems to me that the utter lack of Open Source business applications makes this fact self-evident.
The one thing that bothers me though, is that free entreprise and Capitalism are supposed to be a system where anybody can make as much money as they want, if their product is superior.
This suit is not about Microsoft making too much money, or having a monopoly per se. There is no legal restriction on either in the US.
This suit is about Microsoft leveraging its monopoly and money to restrain competition in other areas, in other words to prevent better products from reaching the market. This has been, for good reason, illegal in the US for the last 100 years. It's a policy founded by Teddy Roosevelt when JP Morgan had built a banking, oil and steel monopoly that was so large and powerful that it threatened to supplant the very government. During TR's term in office JP Morgan actually invited TR to discuss how his cartel and the government should share the control of the country. TR fortunately would have none of it, and led a long and bloody fight to protect the free market system from cartels.
Testimony from people like Steve Jobs and Avie Tenavian stating that Microsoft asked Apple to cease developement of Quicktime for Windows on the threat of delaying development of Office for the Mac has nothing to do with Microsoft having a better product, and everything to do with Microsoft using their market position to in fact keep competing and often better products off the market. Who here on/. can forget the Halloween memos? Was there anything in those memos about competing by offering a better product? Not hardly. Microsoft already lost suit regarding their efforts to embrace and extend Java (where was their better product here?). Today another judge ruled against moves for summary judgement in the Caldera DR-DOS case as well. Was Microsoft competing with DR-DOS by offering a better product? Or were they using their monopoly position to force DR DOS out of the market? I think the facts are obvious.
People who are familiar with the Microsoft's rleationship with other technology companies realize that Microsoft has systematically and repeatedly used it's monopoly position in the market to force their customers into all sorts of extremely detrimental business dealings that would have never occurred without a monopoly.
Personally I am greatly in favor of this. I think that Microsoft's position is detrimental to the consumer by keeping innovation out of the market, by promulgating of Microsoft specific standards that choke off open standards and by keeping prices way too high.
I am sure Microsoft is going to fight this tooth and nail - and they should, because it is the way our legal system works best. But in the long run there will be restraints on the way Microsoft manages their monopoly power, regardless of the legal outcome. And those restraints -either government mandated or self-imposed are going to encourage investors to fund a myriad of new ventures, some of which will blossom out of where Microsoft formerly cast its long shadow.
I think that this is excellent news. And more so for Linux than any other system.
It is crucially important that a community project like Linux have good debugging tools, both from the perspective of quality control, and to encourage others to get involved in the community.
Other systems that are open but don't actively encourage contributions, or worse yet are closed - well, these debuggers are usefull in the sense that it helps pin point a problem. But in many cases you don't have control of the source code, so there isn't much you can do except mail it to the developers. If they even have a place to mail it to.
Well, I can tell you some of the things that I have used or seen high-end graphics used for.
1. Visualization of the 3d structure of molecules. Many chemical reactions require an understanding of the fit between say a molecule and a zeolite in 3d. In order to visualize this in 3d I used an evans-and-sutherland graphics workstation with a mechanical shutter and jittering display image to project a 3d image into the space in front of my eyes. This type of application is big big big in the pharmacueticals industry. SGI has a very strong market share here.
2. Visualization of CFD simulations. Real-world work often requires a multi-dimensional projection of data onto a 2-d surface of large data sets - say flow fields obtained from computational fluid dynamics. Ideally you would like the ability to view the 3d time dependent result and rotate or pan the 3d field in real time. Most of the CFD work I have seen is done on HP or Sun workstations these days. Important in all sorts of places - example - modelling flows in an oil field, or in a tornado.
3. CAD/CAM. Computer aided design on a large scale. My brother is a wing designer for Boeing on the Joint Strike Fighter project. Boeing is doing all their airframe design in the digital domain now. This means preparing 3d models showing the actaul placement of every component in the airframe and determining it's mechanical performance.
Obviously this is important stuff - it's where the action is in the transferrence of science to every day life. I suppose the NVidia card may fit in the low end of some of these applications.
You completely forgot several important factors such as compression, color bit depth and so on.
Current TV is sampled at about 1000x1024x24. All you need is another layer or a two sided player or a slightly better compression scheme to get 1600 x 1200 x 24.
The reason that I do not plan to buy a DVD player before Christmas is the technical problems that have not been ironed out with the format. There are just too many complaints of DVD's that don't play properly - lip sync is off, or skipping, or certain discs won't play in certain recorders.
The explination that I have heard is that the standards are murky in a lot of areas, and the interpitation is giving rise to incompatability.
I am sure that this will be worked out in the next few months. But until it is, I'm keeping my money in my pocket.
As I understand it, the supposedly-so-great thing about FORTRAN is that it allows you to ocntrol floating-point precision better than C.
One of the reasons for the continuing use of FORTRAN (I won't say popularity) is infrastructure. FORTRAN optimizing compilers are really really good. FORTRAN is available in a lot of parallel computing forms and for a lot of arrary processors that have no C. The collection math libraries for FORTRAN is peerless.
The main reason that FORTRAN was unsuitable for OS programming in the past was lack of pointers. Anonymous storage is a very powerful tool. But I believe that this is not a limitation with HPF, so it is quite feasible now to write an OS in FORTRAN.
DVD-R copiers are available from Panasonic etc. $5k or so. I don't know about media. But that is not important. Almost all of the disks I have ordered from Cheapbytes have been done by a mass duplication system, not one at a time in a CD-R drive.
Slashdot Mirror
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")
The issue here is that Microsoft is going around yapping about 'freedom to innovate' when in fact they have innovated nothing, and have in fact acted in a manner to reduce innovation in the industry. The complaints about Microsoft in this regard have to do with their blatant manipulation and hypocrisy surronding their repetitive use of the term innovation.
I don't think anybody in the Linux community has stated the Linux is particularly innovative. It's basically a UNIX clone, after all.
Do all of you really want multiple "baby bills"?
No. We don't want Bill in any form. Unfortunately this appears unrealistic at the moment, so we will apparently have to settle for a lesser remedy. Requiring that Microsoft publish their API's other necessary technical information available to permit Win Clones would be a good step. Imagine - not having to boot into Win anymore - Wine could run all Windows applications perfectly.
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?
Did you read the finding of fact? Judge Jackson's ONE positive statement about Microsoft had to do with the effects of Microsoft giving IE away for free. Also, don't confuse the motives with the actions. Microsoft made IE free in order to 'cut off Netscape's oxygen supply' (direct quotation from internal Microsoft memo). Linux and other similar software is free because this is part of method used to attract contributers to the open source development process. One is motivated by sheer greed and a desire to maintain a monopoly, the other is motivated by a desire to develop a high quality OS that is free (in multiple meanings of the word free, too).
You didn't touch on the vast bulk of Microsoft's anti-competitive actions - extorting vendors to drop software (Intel and Apple), imposing price differentials depending on how 'cooperative' a vendor was, threatening to cancel a Windows license because somebody wanted to include non-Windows software on a shipping machine, and so on and so on.
In general terms, it would be an awful precedent to give the government the power to dictate what software companies can do as a whole.
How would such a precedent affect the other software companies such as Sun, for example, and OSS movement?
I've seen this kind of sentiment expresssed many times here. To begin with this is not a new area of the law. The Sherman Anti-trust act has been around for over 100 years. It is unlikely that any significant new precidents would be set here.
In fact, this law is USUALLY applied to companies that are in new technology areas as is the case with Microsoft. It is not unusual for a company in a new technology area to gain an upper hand for one reason ore another. Prior cases like IBM, AT&T, Alcoa, etc. are in fact monopolies that arose out of the development of new technologies.
After a technology matures a bit it is much harder to gain monopoly power through organic growth. More likely you run into the first part of the Sherman act which makes price fixing illegal, or the FTC which prevents the formation of monopolies through a company buying up its competitors.
Unless Sun develops a stranglehold on some part of the market AND starts using it's monopoly power to control the market it doesn't have anything to worry about. And it looks pretty unlikely that Sun is going to gain any sort of monopoly any time soon given it's competition from HP, Linux, MS and so on. OSS is even a less likely situation. How can you have a monopoly on something that is freely available?
Remedies are a very tricky question. After thinking about it the answer seems to me that we need a way to break MS's stranglehold on the OS. Sun has suggested that a complete public disclosure of the APIs is an appropriate remedy. I kind of like that idea, because it would make Windows clones likely. Wine could become a perfect emulator. This would free people to use whatever OS AND the vast array of Windows specific applications. Shattering the interlocking of the Windows API and Windows applications may in fact be the trigger that is needed.
If no one wanted microsoft products, no one is forced to buy them.
Hog manure. Microsoft has had exclusionary contracts with PC vendors for many years. Microsoft has in the past been able to FORCE vendors to pay for licenses for machines shipped regardless of whether or not the machine was shipped with Windows on it. Microsoft used tie-ins to FORCE vendors to ship IE with every machine loaded with Windows, whether or not they wanted it.
Even today it is essentially impossible to buy an Intel laptop computer without also getting a copy of Windows. Recent efforts by unwilling Windows owners to return Windows and get a refund were laughed at in Redmond, despite the wording of their own shrink wrap license.
Microsoft uses exclusionary contracts with businesses as well. The company I work for has a discount on Win/Office licenses PROVIDED that Win/Office is loaded on EVERY computer in the company. I had to buy a copy of Soft PC for my Mac to comply with this.
The fact is that it is nearly impossible to avoid ending up paying for Win/Office the way Microsoft runs it's licensing operations.
In my opinion Judge Jackson was far too kind in his ruling, and the government lawyers only scratched the surface investigating the rampant abuses Microsoft makes of it's monopoly power.
While the Supreme Court is quite conservative, the appeals court above Judge Jackson is even more conservative. This appeals court has already reversed Jackson at least once on a prior Netscape related issue. Avoiding this appeals court is decidedly favors the DoJ.
It's about crybaby's who have crap to offer as alternatives, are lousy in buisness and want the
government to step in and make it easier to sell their crappy worthless products.
Tell that to Stac. Microsoft had to pay a $100 Million fine for outright technology theft.
Microsoft out performed everyone else. They won.
Microsoft did win. However they have also shown that they did not play by the rules. There is a difference between winning at any cost, and winning within the legal boundaries of a society.
But he is in fact responsible for the fact that the computer and internet industry as a whole is so vibrant and competitive.
I think that the facts show otherwise. The computer industry is most vibrant and competitive in areas where Microsoft has no influence at all. Take a look at how competitive the box makers are. Contrast that to the Office suite market. Compare the price trends in the hardware segment vs. the Office suite segment. Now tell me that the influence of Microsoft has led to the Office suite market to be vibrant and competitive.
The fact is that the computer industry is least vibrant and competitive where Microsoft is strongest.
Microsoft had very little influence on the genesis of the Internet and it's rapid growth. Even Microsoft itself admits that they were very late to appeciate the importance of the internet.
Microsoft is not on trial. They are being sued. By your own government.
In the US civil penalties in the law are common. In order to enforce these laws the government must be able to bring civil actions.
Common law countries like the US do not have the clear distinction between private and public law that civil law countries like France do. All in all I would rather live in a common law country because of the emphasis on precedence rather than having everything rigidly codified.
Microsoft has been a great success story. I am not criticizing them for their success. The problem I have with Microsoft is that they are using their success as a weapon to stifle the free market system and crush those who would compete against them. Microsoft is not unique or the first in US history to achieve this level of control. Many such companies have. In many cases companies have used their market power to try to raise barriers against competiton and thus harm consumers. This is what Microsoft did. This sort of behaviour is illegal, and should be so. It is not the free market in action.
Microsoft is not being punished for their success. They are being punished for their abuse of the power that their success has given them.
Yesterday. It wasn't just yesterday but some time ago, the government gained access to our civil courts as plaintiffs. The result is manifest as rapacious tragedy.
Let me ask you how laws can be enforced if the government does not have access to the judicial system as a plaintiff? Without such access there is no way the government can enforce the laws of the nation. Do you propose that only individual citizens be able to bring suits? What would happen in the case of a murder? Who would bring the complaint? How could traffic laws be enforced?
The standing of the state in court is a lot older than the history of our Republic, my friend. Take a look at the Magna Carta (dated 1215 AD) for some interesting history on the topic. This was when the concept and right of trial by jury first became fully a part of English Common Law, which the legal system of the US evolved from.
"I think apple got paid to set IE as the default browser".
Here is what it says about this issue in the FOF:
Apple increased its distribution and promotion of Internet Explorer not because of a conviction that the quality of Microsoft s product was superior to Navigator s, or that consumer demand for it was greater, but rather because of the in terrorem effect of the prospect of the loss of Mac Office. To be blunt, Microsoft threatened to refuse to sell a profitable product to Apple, a product in whose development Microsoft had invested
substantial resources, and which was virtually ready for shipment. Not only would this ploy
have wasted sunk costs and sacrificed substantial profit, it also would have damaged Microsoft s goodwill among Apples customers, whom Microsoft had led to expect a new version of Mac Office. The predominant reason Microsoft was prepared to make this sacrifice, and the sole reason that it required Apple to make Internet Explorer its default browser and restricted Apples freedom to feature and promote non-Microsoft browsing
software, was to protect the applications barrier to entry.
Apple had IE crammed down it's throat The facts are there.
I'm sorry but Microsoft does innovate. Their products are better than the competition.
. shtml
I am sorry, but I disagree with the first part of your statement. Why?
1. Innovation in it's highest form is breaking new ground, delivering a new type of product. Not incremental improvement. Where is Microsoft's Visicalc?
2. Look at the following web site. 'Innovations' often attributed to MS are easily debunked.
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation
3. Many people never see anything but Microsoft products, so they think that features like 'Intellisense' are Microsoft innovations. Well, sorry, but I have seen similar software functionality for years. C programming environemnts with syntax completetion date back to the mid 80's. Pandora, a Mac database had auto completion since 1988 or so. So did Apple's Filemaker. There is nothing innovative about Intellisense. Ditto mouse/key cording. Apple has been doing mouse-key cording since 1984 - it is how they got by with a single mouse button. It just is not a Microsoft idea at all. The fact is that what passes for innovations by Microsoft are generally features stolen or purchased from somebody else.
Regardless of the source of the ideas, Microsoft does have products that are often best of their type. How they got there is perhaps something that should not be looked at too carefully. Like sausage, you don't want to know how it is made.
It certainly was not by innovation.
No one is shoving MS (Office) down people's throats
Nonsense. My company shoved it down my throat. MS cut them a deal - to get a discount they had to agree to install Windows and Office on every PC in the company. I had to buy SoftWindows for my Mac to comply with the resulting company policy. MS forced IE onto every computer that had Windows preinstalled. MS forced computer vendors to pay a windows license for every machine they shipped, regardless if the user wanted it or not. MS forced Apple to drop Netscape and set up IE as their primary browser. It's all there in Judge Jackson's finding of fact.
And I do believe he has good intentions.
If you believe that you have not read Judge Jackson's Finding of Fact. Bill Gates is a preditor with no concept of business ethics.
If you don't believe me after the FOF, go and look up what has been published about the DR DOS case.
Uh - the term monopoly under the Sherman Anti-Trust act has a very specific legal meaning.
Clue: It isn't about whether or not there are no choices - it's whether the company has a dominant market share, which Microsoft clearly does.
408 gives them the possibility of arguing that consumers were not sufficiently harmed by their actions for the courts to deliver a draconian punishment (splitting up the company, multiple 'baby bills'). I assume that is why they are focusing on it.
I think that Microsoft is focusing on this because it is the only positive statement in the conclusions. The rest of section VII is a horror show of how their abuses stifled competition and innovation in the computer industry - which of course makes a compelling case for severe penalties. For example, look at how section 409 starts:
To the detriment of consumers, however, Microsoft has done much more than develop innovative browsing software of commendable quality and offer it bundled with Windows at no additional charge.
Right there he is stating that the positive benefits to consumers of free software per section 408 are far outweighed by Microsoft's other negative activities.
When their buddies take over the administration, the suit will be dropped or settled to Microsoft's satisfaction
Nah. Take a look at the first page of the case document. There are state's attorneys general and civil suits brought by individual states involved here as well. The Feds don't have the power to dismiss the state suits, and cannot settle without the approval of the states. In addition the Finding of Fact may provide the basis for lots of private tort actions.
Once you open a can of worms, its all over.
Doesn't anyone realize that the camel's nose is in the tent now?
Aren't you forgetting the IBM anti-trust action and settlements? Or various actions of the FTC going after companies making false market practices? Or what has been going on with the FTC and data communications?
This is not the first case where the government has gotten involved in the computer industry by a long shot.
Microsoft of course will try to do whatever than can in terms of damage control. Including saying that they disagree with the judge's findings. That however does not change the fact that:
1.) These findings of facts are in general not possible to appeal. This means that the document that was released yesterday is firmly implanted in the law as a basis for futher action. Much like an axe right between the eyes. Microsoft can disagree all they want, but that is worth about as much as a can of barbeque starter in Hell.
2.) Judge Jackson is now moving on to examine the facts in view of the law in the US. If he rules against Microsoft in any substantial way I am sure Microsoft will appeal etc. etc. At this point it is almost irrelevant. Microsoft's butt is in the crack, and every attorney general, tort specialist, ambulance chaser and half-assed trial lawyer in North America is staying up nights trying to think of ways he can get his hands on the $500 Billion Dollars that represents Microsoft's market capitalization. It will be just as bad in every country in the world that Microsoft does business.
3. The part I like - The FOF will encourage many many competitors to take on Microsoft's market domination. No longer will people be afraid that they will be crushed when the elephant goes for a walk. Dell has already stated publically that the reason they offer Linux pre-installed is that they are no longer afraid that Microsoft will saw them off at the knees for offering choice and innovation.
A thousand flowers will bloom where there was once only desert.
4.) As a side note, Microsoft is in big doo-doo for ignoring court orders associated with the 1995 browser case. Sun is going after their butt for further Java atrocities. Microsoft in going to trial for the defensetration of DR DOS.
I don't know the details of what you are talking about, but if it is like the ATM stuff I see elsewhere, it seems to me that there is price fixing going on. However I think that long term ATMs will get straightened out.
I know the credit unions are trying to do something about it, and eventually I think that Internet Banks will work out a solution. A number of Internet Banks already offer rebates for ATM fees up to a certain number of uses per month.
Same end result, two different mechanisms. One of which you favor.
... "It is Microsoft's corporate practice to pressure other firms to halt software development that either shows the potential to weaken the applications barrier to entry or competes directly with Microsoft's most cherished software products."
Building added functionality into the operating system is not the issue. The issue is Microsoft coming out with their own version of a proxy server and then threatening Dell that they are going to withold their Windows license if they don't preload their server and only their server along with Windows. Or if they call up Apple and say "we'll cancel Mac Office if you don't preload our Mac proxy server, and deep six your own version for Windows."
If all Microsoft did was product innovation The Judge would have not ruled that Microsoft engaged in predatory practices.
paragraph 93
This has nothing to do with Microsoft developing better products and everything with Microsoft hurting the computer industry and consumers by trying to restrain innovation for their own benefit.
It's high time someone put an end to this charade and put a little more competition back into the PC market.
breaking up Microsoft into different companies may not be punishment on the long term
I agree. Microsoft or it's spawn is going to continue to be big. Contrary to most people's thinking, their stockholders are not going to lose a penny. BUT MS WON'T BE AS BIG AS THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN OTHERWISE.
AT&T doesn't have the market share they used to have. MCI Worldcom is a worthy foe and may become more so if the FTC lets them acquire Sprint. IBM is huge, but they have a small fraction of the PC business. The Standard Oil companies have competitors like Shell and BP, as well as infighting amoung the 34 units the original was broken into.
What is going to happen is that whatever remidy happens Microsoft will gain serious competitors. One way or another. Which will be great for all of us.
"It is unlikely, though, that a sufficient number of open-source developers will commit to developing and continually updating the large variety of applications that an operating system would need to attract in order to present a significant number of users with a viable alternative to Windows."
It seems to me that the utter lack of Open Source business applications makes this fact self-evident.
The one thing that bothers me though, is that free entreprise and Capitalism are supposed to be a system where anybody can make as much money as they want, if their product is superior.
/. can forget the Halloween memos? Was there anything in those memos about competing by offering a better product? Not hardly. Microsoft already lost suit regarding their efforts to embrace and extend Java (where was their better product here?). Today another judge ruled against moves for summary judgement in the Caldera DR-DOS case as well. Was Microsoft competing with DR-DOS by offering a better product? Or were they using their monopoly position to force DR DOS out of the market? I think the facts are obvious.
This suit is not about Microsoft making too much money, or having a monopoly per se. There is no legal restriction on either in the US.
This suit is about Microsoft leveraging its monopoly and money to restrain competition in other areas, in other words to prevent better products from reaching the market. This has been, for good reason, illegal in the US for the last 100 years. It's a policy founded by Teddy Roosevelt when JP Morgan had built a banking, oil and steel monopoly that was so large and powerful that it threatened to supplant the very government. During TR's term in office JP Morgan actually invited TR to discuss how his cartel and the government should share the control of the country. TR fortunately would have none of it, and led a long and bloody fight to protect the free market system from cartels.
Testimony from people like Steve Jobs and Avie Tenavian stating that Microsoft asked Apple to cease developement of Quicktime for Windows on the threat of delaying development of Office for the Mac has nothing to do with Microsoft having a better product, and everything to do with Microsoft using their market position to in fact keep competing and often better products off the market. Who here on
People who are familiar with the Microsoft's rleationship with other technology companies realize that Microsoft has systematically and repeatedly used it's monopoly position in the market to force their customers into all sorts of extremely detrimental business dealings that would have never occurred without a monopoly.
Personally I am greatly in favor of this. I think that Microsoft's position is detrimental to the consumer by keeping innovation out of the market, by promulgating of Microsoft specific standards that choke off open standards and by keeping prices way too high.
I am sure Microsoft is going to fight this tooth and nail - and they should, because it is the way our legal system works best. But in the long run there will be restraints on the way Microsoft manages their monopoly power, regardless of the legal outcome. And those restraints -either government mandated or self-imposed are going to encourage investors to fund a myriad of new ventures, some of which will blossom out of where Microsoft formerly cast its long shadow.
And that will be to the benefit of all of us.
I think that this is excellent news. And more so for Linux than any other system.
It is crucially important that a community project like Linux have good debugging tools, both from the perspective of quality control, and to encourage others to get involved in the community.
Other systems that are open but don't actively encourage contributions, or worse yet are closed - well, these debuggers are usefull in the sense that it helps pin point a problem. But in many cases you don't have control of the source code, so there isn't much you can do except mail it to the developers. If they even have a place to mail it to.
Well, I can tell you some of the things that I have used or seen high-end graphics used for.
1. Visualization of the 3d structure of molecules. Many chemical reactions require an understanding of the fit between say a molecule and a zeolite in 3d. In order to visualize this in 3d I used an evans-and-sutherland graphics workstation with a mechanical shutter and jittering display image to project a 3d image into the space in front of my eyes. This type of application is big big big in the pharmacueticals industry. SGI has a very strong market share here.
2. Visualization of CFD simulations. Real-world work often requires a multi-dimensional projection of data onto a 2-d surface of large data sets - say flow fields obtained from computational fluid dynamics. Ideally you would like the ability to view the 3d time dependent result and rotate or pan the 3d field in real time. Most of the CFD work I have seen is done on HP or Sun workstations these days. Important in all sorts of places - example - modelling flows in an oil field, or in a tornado.
3. CAD/CAM. Computer aided design on a large scale. My brother is a wing designer for Boeing on the Joint Strike Fighter project. Boeing is doing all their airframe design in the digital domain now. This means preparing 3d models showing the actaul placement of every component in the airframe and determining it's mechanical performance.
Obviously this is important stuff - it's where the action is in the transferrence of science to every day life. I suppose the NVidia card may fit in the low end of some of these applications.
You completely forgot several important factors such as compression, color bit depth and so on.
Current TV is sampled at about 1000x1024x24. All you need is another layer or a two sided player or a slightly better compression scheme to get 1600 x 1200 x 24.
DVD can handle this easily.
The reason that I do not plan to buy a DVD player before Christmas is the technical problems that have not been ironed out with the format. There are just too many complaints of DVD's that don't play properly - lip sync is off, or skipping, or certain discs won't play in certain recorders.
The explination that I have heard is that the standards are murky in a lot of areas, and the interpitation is giving rise to incompatability.
I am sure that this will be worked out in the next few months. But until it is, I'm keeping my money in my pocket.
As I understand it, the supposedly-so-great thing about FORTRAN is that it allows you to ocntrol floating-point precision better than C.
One of the reasons for the continuing use of FORTRAN (I won't say popularity) is infrastructure. FORTRAN optimizing compilers are really really good. FORTRAN is available in a lot of parallel computing forms and for a lot of arrary processors that have no C. The collection math libraries for FORTRAN is peerless.
The main reason that FORTRAN was unsuitable for OS programming in the past was lack of pointers. Anonymous storage is a very powerful tool. But I believe that this is not a limitation with HPF, so it is quite feasible now to write an OS in FORTRAN.
DVD-R copiers are available from Panasonic etc. $5k or so. I don't know about media. But that is not important. Almost all of the disks I have ordered from Cheapbytes have been done by a mass duplication system, not one at a time in a CD-R drive.