Just because you haven't heard of two products that have been popular for the better part of the last decade, doesn't mean that they are not popular,
Yes it does, as knowing the IT market and providing user support is part of my job. I have seen plenty of demand for Real and WMP, but not at all for WinAMP and others.
If "Novice Users" don't want to have to install extra software or fiddle with their computers, then how they going to get the software when it's not bundled? Do you now want to take these poor "Novice Users" and put the burden on them to locate and download the software currently bundled in Windows? Even if you did force them to do this, the operating system is Microsoft Windows; where do you think they are going to look first for the video player they lack, or the browser?
Exactly the way things were done for years before Microsoft bundled things. Either a particular computer supplier can come to an agreement with a particular software vendor to bundle that particular product (Dell could come to an agreement to pre-install RealPlayer for example) without the pressure from Microsoft along the lines of 'you MUST include this - it is part of Windows', or each supplier could ship with the PC some auto-run CD-ROMs with alternate software products allowing the user to choose. No need for the user to have to hunt out alternatives or download.
This is the way things were handled successfully for years. No need for downloads or technical knowledge.
Something needs to be bundled, or this majority that you are so concerned about protecting will be very frustrated that they can't look at their pictures, movies or websites without having to go through the trouble of "fiddling" with their computers and locating/downloading software to fit their needs.
Exactly. You ship a set of alternatives, and not just Microsoft's.
Have you even looked at the sizes of alternatives to Microsoft products compared to their Microsoft versions? How big do you think Winamp is compared to WMP? Or even Videolan AND Winamp?
You are concentrating on a very few products. Look at the size of FireFox, or Adobe - products which don't force you to have to use Windows.
If you think that a busy parent or typical user is going to spend 1/2 hour of phone time on a modem (for VideoLan, for example) simply to download a slightly better video player...
Then care to explain why companies (like Ulead, AOL Winamp, Adobe etc) that competes against Microsoft can do so successfully agaisnt Micrsoft bundled offerings (even that they are not free)?
I haven't heard of the first two, which proves that they aren't competing well. Adobe is competing because there is no equivalent Microsoft product.
They doesn't seem to have problems with that so-called 'artificial and unfair advantage' you have been talking about.
Yes they do.
Once and for all, tell me what Microsoft has done to prevent people from switching? Natural reluctance of people to switch?
Exactly. Novice users don't want to have to install extra software or fiddle with their computers.
I already disputed that with Firefox case. Microsoft preventing people from installing competitors product? There are no such thing happening.
And I showed that you were wrong. Firefox has only succeeded because it was good enough to overcome the bundling barrier.
No, this is incorrect. All you have to do is to be better (no need to be THAT BETTER). You don't have to have products that are LIGHT YEARS better or FREE in cost to succeed against Microsoft. You can get away with it with being just a little bit better.
I'm sorry, but this is incorrect. The effects of bundling products is well-established in legal and economic theory. How much better you can get away with depends on a number of factors.
(1) The intertia of consumers. (can we be bothered to change?) (2) The cost of change (how much will we have to pay for alternative products?) (3) The effort of change (how much of my time will an change take?)
Even if you assume that WMP is free (so competing fairly on (2)), there is still inertia and effort to be overcome. Considering that a large number of users still don't even have broadband connectivity, the idea that they will take the time (and cost) to download substantially sized alternatives to Microsoft products is naive.
So far, all you have presented is a few examples about how the computer-literate minority (probably mostly working with high-speed connections) can easily install alternative software or help others to do so.
Can you actually show me how WMP is not free and have costs passed onto the unsuspecting public?
Can you show me it isn't? Of course the development costs of WMP are funded by other profitable MS products. So, Microsoft users are paying for WMP in indirect ways. They also have no choice but to pay for WMP in these ways, as WMP is not available on other platforms.
If you can do what EU can not do, I will salute you. But if you can't, then just shut up?
No, as I don't believe in censorship.
They have a monopoly is digital music services with DRM. The fact is you can only play their DRM'ed AAC files in i-Tunes, not other third-party software
But you can get digital music from places other than Apple. I repeat; they are not a monopoly.
Notice that I am being polite and not asking you to shut up, as you are doing with me! Polite debate is healthy.
And how Microsoft is guilty in this? Are they not allowed to ship QUALITY software? Are you saying that shipping quality has suddenly become a crime?
Of course I am not, and there was nothing I said that implied that. What Microsoft should be prevented from doing is bundling software with a monopoly platform, because doing so gives their software an artificial and unfair advantage. This is nothing to do with the quality or otherwise of their software, it is to do with equality.
If you are a competitor, there is an additional factor preventing take-up of your product in addition to quality.
You may think that is fair. I don't, and neither to major international legal organisations.
You might want to use the 'hidden costs' arguement here (like saying that WMP is not free but the cost is passed on Windows retail price), but such arguement is bollocks.
WMP obviously had development costs. If it is being bundled with Windows, then that cost is either hidden in the cost of Windows, or paid for by other profit-making products, and hidden there.
If you want to use this arguement, then you can simply dish out the proof that WMP has hidden costs. If you can't, then don't. If you can, the EU and DoJ (and numerous US states) will want to hear from you.
All products have development costs. Are you seriously suggesting that Microsoft did not fund WMP development? That volunteers at Microsoft produced it as a gift to Windows users?
Knowing that something has development costs, and being able to legally prove what those are, are completely different things.
I think what you say is already common sense. If you want to succeed, you simply has to be better than your competition.
You are yet again missing the obvious point. Because of bundling your product does not just have to be better than the competition - it has to be better than it would need to be otherwise.
If have a better understanding of the nature of business monopolies and the reasons why laws have been passed to protect competitors and consumers from such monopolies. the EU and the US governments would, I am sure, be interested in hearing from you.
And last time I checked, you doesn't need WMP to play WMA protected files with Janus technology. Winamp plays DRM'ed WMA files them with no problems whatsoever (and no need cracking). What kind of audio/video that only WMP can play but Winamp can not?
I have no idea. My desktop is Linux. I'm not interested in media formats that attempt to lock me into Windows.
IE is free, last time I downloaded it for Mac and Solaris that's it.
IE for those is not the same as the bundled IE for Windows - even Microsoft says so: the IE for Windows is a thin layer over a core Windows API.
This is proven by the fact that you can't get the same versions with equivalent functionality for those platforms.
Apple is locking you to iTunes!!! And no one is complaining.
And what advantage is that? Care to explain? At most this bundling will provide people with a media player they can play audio/video with.
The natural reluctance of a typical user to want to mess with their system. If you have a product pre-installed on your system, why would you bother to switch unless the competing product was MUCH better?
This case alone shows that if you have a better product (and not a big company), you can still win against Microsoft.
That does not indicate fair competition. Because of bundling you have to have a MUCH better product to win, and that product has to be effectively free. Because Microsoft hides IE costs in the price of Windows, bundled products appear to be free. This means that it is extremely hard for a commercial product to compete with bundled products unless it has a great advantage.
The case of Firefox shows that you are wrong. People are willing to switch from IE (or any other Microsoft-bundled software) to another competing product.
I did not say they would not switch. I said that there would be a barrier to switching. To overcome that barrier products have to be a lot better than the bundled products. Products of equal quality can't compete.
If what you have said is true, then the problem lies with third-party companies for producing shity programs. During the pre-Firefox era, there are no competing products for Internet Explorer that is just as good or better than IE. That's why IE market share is so big.
No, it is because with bundling warping the market, 'just as good' isn't good enough. With a fair market products which are equally as good should have an equal advantage. This is obviously not the case with bundling. Firefox had to be significantly better than IE. That requirement proves that the market is warped.
Despite WMP bundling, I doesn't see Microsoft dominates media format (WMA is still not widely acceptable like MP3). It's all still MP3s, which doesn't seem to make Thomson/Fraunhofer rich whatsoever.
Microsoft plans for the long term. I already come across many sites which only provide media through WMP.
And I bet you want to say that OE bundling has everything to do with Eudra decline then, am I right?
Not only do I want to say it - I will! With an adequate e-mail system pre-installed, why would a typical user bother to install anything else?
I don't seem to remember that Microsoft is forcing their Windows users to use WMP. Any evidence backing your theory?
No-one was saying that Microsoft is forcing users to use WMP. However, no-one can deny that bundling software gives that software an advantage, hence it is a crutch for that software.
If what you have said is true, then after all WMP is a high-quality piece of software.
No, just not sufficiently awful for users to switch.
Any proof you can give me that bundling WMP will cause people not to have freedom to download other media players?
That is, of course, not the point. It is not about absolute freedom, it is about bias. If software is bundled then users will tend to use it and not bother to switch. There is, therefore, an artificial barrier for competing products to overcome. Even if this is a very small barrier, we are dealing with millions of users, and can be a real problem for a company trying to compete with Microsoft.
people will download it via word-of-mouth, friends recommendations etc. Windows has IE, but Firefox is chunking its market share recently (no need EU for help).
And meanwhile, IE unfairly devastated competing products for years and corrupted web standards to the extent that there are now a significant number of websites that won't work with competing browsers. The only way that competition could start was when the quality of IE had dropped sufficiently below that of the competition that the bundling barrier was overcome.
Thanks for providing an example which clearly backs my point!
Windows (used to) have Microsoft Chat, but mIRC makers doesn't seem to be worried.
IRC is a very minor market, and tends to be used by a 'geekish' minority that are happy to download and install software. With media players we are talking about a mass market, which could give enormous financial rewards to a company that can dominate the media format.
Windows has Outlook Express, but usage of Thunderbird/Eudora/etc is growing and their developers are not complaining about the bundling.
Actually, use of them is relatively small. If anything, Eudora has declined over the years.
Why? They don't care! They hardly care what OS they have PERIOD. All they want is for their office applications to work, for their email application to work, and their web browser to work.
Not only do they not care, but the moment they try to listen to an audio file or watch a video, they're going to be pissed that their computer "can't do it" out of the box.
They can't use office applications 'out of the box' - they need to install an Office suite. They can't use games 'out of the box' - they need to install games. They can't use the web or e-mail 'out of the box' - the link to the ISP has to be set up.
So what is so hard about clicking on a link to download a media player, or inserting a CD-ROM with media player software on and running an install program? It has to be done only once, and it provides choice.
Let Microsoft go back to bundling their player - everyone has a music player for download these days so Real Player and all others should just do some real innovation if they want to stand out and not just rely on the government crutch to get them off their laurels
You don't support a 'government crutch' for Real Player, but you do support a 'Microsoft crutch' (bundling) for Windows Media Player.
Of course, there is no 'government crutch' for Real Player. No government is forcing Real Player on anyone. What the EU is doing is stopping Microsoft forcing Media Player on people.
The Internet is open and free - if people find something unlikeable about the MS player, they'll find it through their friends the same way they all did with Kazaa.
Bundling means that there has to be a lot unlikeable about the MS player to overcome the average user's tendency to leave things as they are on their PC. The dominance of one player lessens the openness and freedom the Internet.
There's a lesson to be learned there. There are alternatives, but people don't always want them if the alternatives aren really just doing the same old thing as the next dozen "alternatives".
With bundling, people often aren't even aware of the alternatives.
This is irrelevant. There are many parallel 'standards' for HTML. With XML, a dialect can have one precisely defined DTD (Document Type Definition). If an extended dialect does not conform to that DTD, it is not an extension - it is a different dialect. Extensions to RSS have to conform to the RSS standard, as defined by the DTD. If they don't, they aren't RSS!
Special features to interact with Exchange and/or Outlook.
That won't break the use of RSS with existing software. RSS is a dialect of XML. XML is designed to be extended without breaking existing uses. This is why XML can be so useful as a data format - software that uses an XML dialect will still work after the dialect is extended.
I'm not defending Microsoft here, but worries about incompatibilities are almost certainly unfounded because of the way XML works.
Tsunamis waves aren't that high. The damage done by Tsunamis is not primarily due to wave height, but wave length. A high wave without much length would break and crash on the shoreline, causing only localised damage. Tsunami waves hit the shore and keep on going.
In fact, but the standards of the past couple of millennia, this is quite a cool period. The early medieval period was warmer than this by some way, from about 1000-1300. In Roman times, the climate was much warmer - in fact, grapes were grown as far north as York in england. However, there was a cold snap from about 1600-1850, from which we are now recovering to much mroe historically normal levels.
No. These were not global effects. There have been local variations in climate over the past few millennia, but overall the planet has been warming over that period; fastest of all during the past century.
When people - few of whom seem to be "experts" at all but rather people with a political agenda and little knowledge of science or history - claim that we are absolutely and definitely sleepwalking into global disaster the likes of which the world has never sen before and omg it is all the fault of Mankind, it is time to get sceptical and call bullshit.
No. Sceptical does not mean calling 'bullshit'. Sceptical means saying 'I don't believe this so I will get myself educated in climatology and review the information myself'.
That doesnt mean they are actually any good or efficent at what they do.
But they are. A good example is Tomcat, Apache's Java application server. It has a reputation for very good performance and efficiency, and is widely used. It is so efficient it can come close to the Apache http server even for static page serving.
Today we have.net and other proprietary development models that make porting to the mac difficult if not all impossible.
Java is extremely widely used (much more than.NET) and makes porting code to the Mac very easy. The Java Swing GUI has extremely good integration with OS/X.
What's wrong with using FP for business coding? Surely you know there are quite a few situations when it's useful, regardless of the domain. Basic algorithms tend to be similar anywhere, you know...
Nothing particularly, but it just isn't the Java style. Java is a language based on C/C++, and in those languages recursion is generally avoided because in this type of language it is recursion is generally expected to result in high memory use. On the other hand if you use a language designed for functional program like LISP, this kind of practise is obviously expected. So use LISP! I don't think it is fair to blame the JVM for not supporting functional programming in a language not designed for functional programming.
I have had a look at this in more detail, and I think that the problems are being wildly exaggerated. Firstly, a lot of the 'sun' code is 'com.sun.star' - within the Open Office libraries available for any Java implementation to use. There are some 'sun.*' packages referred to, but not that often.
My impression is that many of these problems are to do with compiling OO, and not running it. However, it does look like someone has indeed been silly in using a few Sun-specific classes, so I now agree with it does limit to Sun JREs (not JVMs, by the way). I would imagine that it should be easily fixed.
No, there are a lot of situations when it does matter. It means that one simply can't write Java code functional-style, because even if his JVM supports optimization of tail-recursive calls, the others might not.
Which validates my point. Very few people indeed write Java functional-style, so to say there are a 'lot' of situations is exaggerating hugely. There may be a lot of situations for you personally, but not for developers in general.
Like it or not, Java is not intended for that sort of development. It is a general purpose language, used mostly for business coding. If you want to write functional-style use a functional language designed for it.
And anyway, exactly the same situation exists for similar languages like C++ - some compilers support tail recursion optimisation, some don't. Does this mean that C++ is not generally a portable language? Of course not!
But they made the mistake of looking at Sun's source code and signing a license agreement with Sun for said source code.
It is misleading to consider a huge company like IBM to be a single entity who as 'looked at Sun's source code'. They could always form a development team from people who haven't seen it.
You mean to say it's immaterial if one JVM supports tail-recursion and the other does not (just an example)?
Absolutely. There are very, very few practical situations where this matters.
However, if you search you'll read experts giving different versions of the story regarding JVM.
Why should the typical (or all but the most specialised) developer care? The details of VM implementation and optimisation techniques simply have no relevance for the vast majority of software written in the real world.
Which is a bit of a puzzle, because they don't need to campaign for it - they can simply write it. If any company has the resources to do this, it is IBM.
It is? Do you have proof? This is extremely bad coding practice if they are, as it could restrict the use of OOo 2 with only Sun JVMs, which is something that even a Java fan like me would object to.
What about platforms where Sun does not provide a JVM? Those people will never be able to tun the full OOo, and the more Java used, the less they will be able to use. Will it eventually be zero?
You simply use a JVM from someone else. Use Apple's VM, or IBM's, or HP's, or BEA's.
Although Sun largely controls Java, it is by no means the only supplier of Java.
No they didn't. Computing for the masses started way before MS-DOS, with systems like Tandy and Commodore computers in the 70s. MS-DOS was just one of several possibilities for an OS to run on the IBM PC in the 80s. The real step forward was in terms of hardware, with PC-clones like Amstrad and Compaq bringing cheap computers. The OS was secondary, as there were other alternatives shipped with these machines, such as DR-DOS and GEM.
which in turn drove costs of computing down so that assholes like you can keep your pissant job.
Microsoft keeping prices down? This is the company that has been subject to legal action about over-pricing.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because you haven't heard of two products that have been popular for the better part of the last decade, doesn't mean that they are not popular,
Yes it does, as knowing the IT market and providing user support is part of my job. I have seen plenty of demand for Real and WMP, but not at all for WinAMP and others.
If "Novice Users" don't want to have to install extra software or fiddle with their computers, then how they going to get the software when it's not bundled? Do you now want to take these poor "Novice Users" and put the burden on them to locate and download the software currently bundled in Windows? Even if you did force them to do this, the operating system is Microsoft Windows; where do you think they are going to look first for the video player they lack, or the browser?
Exactly the way things were done for years before Microsoft bundled things. Either a particular computer supplier can come to an agreement with a particular software vendor to bundle that particular product (Dell could come to an agreement to pre-install RealPlayer for example) without the pressure from Microsoft along the lines of 'you MUST include this - it is part of Windows', or each supplier could ship with the PC some auto-run CD-ROMs with alternate software products allowing the user to choose. No need for the user to have to hunt out alternatives or download.
This is the way things were handled successfully for years. No need for downloads or technical knowledge.
Something needs to be bundled, or this majority that you are so concerned about protecting will be very frustrated that they can't look at their pictures, movies or websites without having to go through the trouble of "fiddling" with their computers and locating/downloading software to fit their needs.
Exactly. You ship a set of alternatives, and not just Microsoft's.
Have you even looked at the sizes of alternatives to Microsoft products compared to their Microsoft versions? How big do you think Winamp is compared to WMP? Or even Videolan AND Winamp?
You are concentrating on a very few products. Look at the size of FireFox, or Adobe - products which don't force you to have to use Windows.
If you think that a busy parent or typical user is going to spend 1/2 hour of phone time on a modem (for VideoLan, for example) simply to download a slightly better video player...
3. Microsoft dominates the RSS market, RSS version 4 comes out.
4. Microsoft in a confortable monopoly doesn't update their RSS reader.
That shows how Microsoft can stifle innovation, but does not indicate how any existing standard is going to be broken.
Then care to explain why companies (like Ulead, AOL Winamp, Adobe etc) that competes against Microsoft can do so successfully agaisnt Micrsoft bundled offerings (even that they are not free)?
I haven't heard of the first two, which proves that they aren't competing well. Adobe is competing because there is no equivalent Microsoft product.
They doesn't seem to have problems with that so-called 'artificial and unfair advantage' you have been talking about.
Yes they do.
Once and for all, tell me what Microsoft has done to prevent people from switching?
Natural reluctance of people to switch?
Exactly. Novice users don't want to have to install extra software or fiddle with their computers.
I already disputed that with Firefox case.
Microsoft preventing people from installing competitors product? There are no such thing happening.
And I showed that you were wrong. Firefox has only succeeded because it was good enough to overcome the bundling barrier.
No, this is incorrect. All you have to do is to be better (no need to be THAT BETTER). You don't have to have products that are LIGHT YEARS better or FREE in cost to succeed against Microsoft. You can get away with it with being just a little bit better.
I'm sorry, but this is incorrect. The effects of bundling products is well-established in legal and economic theory. How much better you can get away with depends on a number of factors.
(1) The intertia of consumers. (can we be bothered to change?)
(2) The cost of change (how much will we have to pay for alternative products?)
(3) The effort of change (how much of my time will an change take?)
Even if you assume that WMP is free (so competing fairly on (2)), there is still inertia and effort to be overcome. Considering that a large number of users still don't even have broadband connectivity, the idea that they will take the time (and cost) to download substantially sized alternatives to Microsoft products is naive.
So far, all you have presented is a few examples about how the computer-literate minority (probably mostly working with high-speed connections) can easily install alternative software or help others to do so.
Can you actually show me how WMP is not free and have costs passed onto the unsuspecting public?
Can you show me it isn't? Of course the development costs of WMP are funded by other profitable MS products. So, Microsoft users are paying for WMP in indirect ways. They also have no choice but to pay for WMP in these ways, as WMP is not available on other platforms.
If you can do what EU can not do, I will salute you. But if you can't, then just shut up?
No, as I don't believe in censorship.
They have a monopoly is digital music services with DRM. The fact is you can only play their DRM'ed AAC files in i-Tunes, not other third-party software
But you can get digital music from places other than Apple. I repeat; they are not a monopoly.
Notice that I am being polite and not asking you to shut up, as you are doing with me! Polite debate is healthy.
And how Microsoft is guilty in this? Are they not allowed to ship QUALITY software? Are you saying that shipping quality has suddenly become a crime?
Of course I am not, and there was nothing I said that implied that. What Microsoft should be prevented from doing is bundling software with a monopoly platform, because doing so gives their software an artificial and unfair advantage. This is nothing to do with the quality or otherwise of their software, it is to do with equality.
If you are a competitor, there is an additional factor preventing take-up of your product in addition to quality.
You may think that is fair. I don't, and neither to major international legal organisations.
You might want to use the 'hidden costs' arguement here (like saying that WMP is not free but the cost is passed on Windows retail price), but such arguement is bollocks.
WMP obviously had development costs. If it is being bundled with Windows, then that cost is either hidden in the cost of Windows, or paid for by other profit-making products, and hidden there.
If you want to use this arguement, then you can simply dish out the proof that WMP has hidden costs. If you can't, then don't. If you can, the EU and DoJ (and numerous US states) will want to hear from you.
All products have development costs. Are you seriously suggesting that Microsoft did not fund WMP development? That volunteers at Microsoft produced it as a gift to Windows users?
Knowing that something has development costs, and being able to legally prove what those are, are completely different things.
I think what you say is already common sense. If you want to succeed, you simply has to be better than your competition.
You are yet again missing the obvious point. Because of bundling your product does not just have to be better than the competition - it has to be better than it would need to be otherwise.
If have a better understanding of the nature of business monopolies and the reasons why laws have been passed to protect competitors and consumers from such monopolies. the EU and the US governments would, I am sure, be interested in hearing from you.
And last time I checked, you doesn't need WMP to play WMA protected files with Janus technology. Winamp plays DRM'ed WMA files them with no problems whatsoever (and no need cracking). What kind of audio/video that only WMP can play but Winamp can not?
I have no idea. My desktop is Linux. I'm not interested in media formats that attempt to lock me into Windows.
IE is free, last time I downloaded it for Mac and Solaris that's it.
IE for those is not the same as the bundled IE for Windows - even Microsoft says so: the IE for Windows is a thin layer over a core Windows API.
This is proven by the fact that you can't get the same versions with equivalent functionality for those platforms.
Apple is locking you to iTunes!!! And no one is complaining.
Apple is not a monopoly.
And what advantage is that? Care to explain? At most this bundling will provide people with a media player they can play audio/video with.
The natural reluctance of a typical user to want to mess with their system. If you have a product pre-installed on your system, why would you bother to switch unless the competing product was MUCH better?
This case alone shows that if you have a better product (and not a big company), you can still win against Microsoft.
That does not indicate fair competition. Because of bundling you have to have a MUCH better product to win, and that product has to be effectively free. Because Microsoft hides IE costs in the price of Windows, bundled products appear to be free. This means that it is extremely hard for a commercial product to compete with bundled products unless it has a great advantage.
The case of Firefox shows that you are wrong. People are willing to switch from IE (or any other Microsoft-bundled software) to another competing product.
I did not say they would not switch. I said that there would be a barrier to switching. To overcome that barrier products have to be a lot better than the bundled products. Products of equal quality can't compete.
If what you have said is true, then the problem lies with third-party companies for producing shity programs. During the pre-Firefox era, there are no competing products for Internet Explorer that is just as good or better than IE. That's why IE market share is so big.
No, it is because with bundling warping the market, 'just as good' isn't good enough. With a fair market products which are equally as good should have an equal advantage. This is obviously not the case with bundling. Firefox had to be significantly better than IE. That requirement proves that the market is warped.
Despite WMP bundling, I doesn't see Microsoft dominates media format (WMA is still not widely acceptable like MP3). It's all still MP3s, which doesn't seem to make Thomson/Fraunhofer rich whatsoever.
Microsoft plans for the long term. I already come across many sites which only provide media through WMP.
And I bet you want to say that OE bundling has everything to do with Eudra decline then, am I right?
Not only do I want to say it - I will! With an adequate e-mail system pre-installed, why would a typical user bother to install anything else?
Of course they should be allowed to. Mere inclusion isnt a problem.
Actually, it is. Products which are bundled have an automatic advantage due to the reluctance of typical users to change things.
I don't seem to remember that Microsoft is forcing their Windows users to use WMP. Any evidence backing your theory?
No-one was saying that Microsoft is forcing users to use WMP. However, no-one can deny that bundling software gives that software an advantage, hence it is a crutch for that software.
If what you have said is true, then after all WMP is a high-quality piece of software.
No, just not sufficiently awful for users to switch.
Any proof you can give me that bundling WMP will cause people not to have freedom to download other media players?
That is, of course, not the point. It is not about absolute freedom, it is about bias. If software is bundled then users will tend to use it and not bother to switch. There is, therefore, an artificial barrier for competing products to overcome. Even if this is a very small barrier, we are dealing with millions of users, and can be a real problem for a company trying to compete with Microsoft.
people will download it via word-of-mouth, friends recommendations etc. Windows has IE, but Firefox is chunking its market share recently (no need EU for help).
And meanwhile, IE unfairly devastated competing products for years and corrupted web standards to the extent that there are now a significant number of websites that won't work with competing browsers. The only way that competition could start was when the quality of IE had dropped sufficiently below that of the competition that the bundling barrier was overcome.
Thanks for providing an example which clearly backs my point!
Windows (used to) have Microsoft Chat, but mIRC makers doesn't seem to be worried.
IRC is a very minor market, and tends to be used by a 'geekish' minority that are happy to download and install software. With media players we are talking about a mass market, which could give enormous financial rewards to a company that can dominate the media format.
Windows has Outlook Express, but usage of Thunderbird/Eudora/etc is growing and their developers are not complaining about the bundling.
Actually, use of them is relatively small. If anything, Eudora has declined over the years.
Why? They don't care! They hardly care what OS they have PERIOD. All they want is for their office applications to work, for their email application to work, and their web browser to work.
Not only do they not care, but the moment they try to listen to an audio file or watch a video, they're going to be pissed that their computer "can't do it" out of the box.
They can't use office applications 'out of the box' - they need to install an Office suite. They can't use games 'out of the box' - they need to install games. They can't use the web or e-mail 'out of the box' - the link to the ISP has to be set up.
So what is so hard about clicking on a link to download a media player, or inserting a CD-ROM with media player software on and running an install program? It has to be done only once, and it provides choice.
Let Microsoft go back to bundling their player - everyone has a music player for download these days so Real Player and all others should just do some real innovation if they want to stand out and not just rely on the government crutch to get them off their laurels
You don't support a 'government crutch' for Real Player, but you do support a 'Microsoft crutch' (bundling) for Windows Media Player.
Of course, there is no 'government crutch' for Real Player. No government is forcing Real Player on anyone. What the EU is doing is stopping Microsoft forcing Media Player on people.
The Internet is open and free - if people find something unlikeable about the MS player, they'll find it through their friends the same way they all did with Kazaa.
Bundling means that there has to be a lot unlikeable about the MS player to overcome the
average user's tendency to leave things as they are on their PC. The dominance of one player lessens the openness and freedom the Internet.
There's a lesson to be learned there. There are alternatives, but people don't always want them if the alternatives aren really just doing the same old thing as the next dozen "alternatives".
With bundling, people often aren't even aware of the alternatives.
Yes, and HTML should work in any browser.
This is irrelevant. There are many parallel 'standards' for HTML. With XML, a dialect can have one precisely defined DTD (Document Type Definition). If an extended dialect does not conform to that DTD, it is not an extension - it is a different dialect. Extensions to RSS have to conform to the RSS standard, as defined by the DTD. If they don't, they aren't RSS!
Special features to interact with Exchange and/or Outlook.
That won't break the use of RSS with existing software. RSS is a dialect of XML. XML is designed to be extended without breaking existing uses. This is why XML can be so useful as a data format - software that uses an XML dialect will still work after the dialect is extended.
I'm not defending Microsoft here, but worries about incompatibilities are almost certainly unfounded because of the way XML works.
How about the tsunami?
Tsunamis waves aren't that high. The damage done by Tsunamis is not primarily due to wave height, but wave length. A high wave without much length would break and crash on the shoreline, causing only localised damage. Tsunami waves hit the shore and keep on going.
In fact, but the standards of the past couple of millennia, this is quite a cool period. The early medieval period was warmer than this by some way, from about 1000-1300. In Roman times, the climate was much warmer - in fact, grapes were grown as far north as York in england. However, there was a cold snap from about 1600-1850, from which we are now recovering to much mroe historically normal levels.
No. These were not global effects. There have been local variations in climate over the past few millennia, but overall the planet has been warming over that period; fastest of all during the past century.
When people - few of whom seem to be "experts" at all but rather people with a political agenda and little knowledge of science or history - claim that we are absolutely and definitely sleepwalking into global disaster the likes of which the world has never sen before and omg it is all the fault of Mankind, it is time to get sceptical and call bullshit.
No. Sceptical does not mean calling 'bullshit'. Sceptical means saying 'I don't believe this so I will get myself educated in climatology and review the information myself'.
That doesnt mean they are actually any good or efficent at what they do.
But they are. A good example is Tomcat, Apache's Java application server. It has a reputation for very good performance and efficiency, and is widely used. It is so efficient it can come close to the Apache http server even for static page serving.
Java -IS- slower than C and C++.
Just not true anymore.
Today we have .net and other proprietary development models that make porting to the mac difficult if not all impossible.
.NET) and makes porting code to the Mac very easy. The Java Swing GUI has extremely good integration with OS/X.
Java is extremely widely used (much more than
What's wrong with using FP for business coding? Surely you know there are quite a few situations when it's useful, regardless of the domain. Basic algorithms tend to be similar anywhere, you know...
Nothing particularly, but it just isn't the Java style. Java is a language based on C/C++, and in those languages recursion is generally avoided because in this type of language it is recursion is generally expected to result in high memory use. On the other hand if you use a language designed for functional program like LISP, this kind of practise is obviously expected. So use LISP! I don't think it is fair to blame the JVM for not supporting functional programming in a language not designed for functional programming.
Part of the problem is that OOo depends on the Sun JVM.
It's not the JVM, it's some additional libraries supplied with the JRE. But, other than that, you are right, and I was wrong.
I have had a look at this in more detail, and I think that the problems are being wildly exaggerated. Firstly, a lot of the 'sun' code is 'com.sun.star' - within the Open Office libraries available for any Java implementation to use. There are some 'sun.*' packages referred to, but not that often.
My impression is that many of these problems are to do with compiling OO, and not running it. However, it does look like someone has indeed been silly in using a few Sun-specific classes, so I now agree with it does limit to Sun JREs (not JVMs, by the way). I would imagine that it should be easily fixed.
No, there are a lot of situations when it does matter. It means that one simply can't write Java code functional-style, because even if his JVM supports optimization of tail-recursive calls, the others might not.
Which validates my point. Very few people indeed write Java functional-style, so to say there are a 'lot' of situations is exaggerating hugely. There may be a lot of situations for you personally, but not for developers in general.
Like it or not, Java is not intended for that sort of development. It is a general purpose language, used mostly for business coding. If you want to write functional-style use a functional language designed for it.
And anyway, exactly the same situation exists for similar languages like C++ - some compilers support tail recursion optimisation, some don't. Does this mean that C++ is not generally a portable language? Of course not!
But they made the mistake of looking at Sun's source code and signing a license agreement with Sun for said source code.
It is misleading to consider a huge company like IBM to be a single entity who as 'looked at Sun's source code'. They could always form a development team from people who haven't seen it.
You mean to say it's immaterial if one JVM supports tail-recursion and the other does not (just an example)?
Absolutely. There are very, very few practical situations where this matters.
However, if you search you'll read experts giving different versions of the story regarding JVM.
Why should the typical (or all but the most specialised) developer care? The details of VM implementation and optimisation techniques simply have no relevance for the vast majority of software written in the real world.
IBM has campaining for open source J2SE
Which is a bit of a puzzle, because they don't need to campaign for it - they can simply write it. If any company has the resources to do this, it is IBM.
OOo 2 is directly using sun.*
It is? Do you have proof? This is extremely bad coding practice if they are, as it could restrict the use of OOo 2 with only Sun JVMs, which is something that even a Java fan like me would object to.
What about platforms where Sun does not provide a JVM? Those people will never be able to tun the full OOo, and the more Java used, the less they will be able to use. Will it eventually be zero?
You simply use a JVM from someone else. Use Apple's VM, or IBM's, or HP's, or BEA's.
Although Sun largely controls Java, it is by no means the only supplier of Java.
They brought computing to the mass market
No they didn't. Computing for the masses started way before MS-DOS, with systems like Tandy and Commodore computers in the 70s. MS-DOS was just one of several possibilities for an OS to run on the IBM PC in the 80s. The real step forward was in terms of hardware, with PC-clones like Amstrad and Compaq bringing cheap computers. The OS was secondary, as there were other alternatives shipped with these machines, such as DR-DOS and GEM.
which in turn drove costs of computing down so that assholes like you can keep your pissant job.
Microsoft keeping prices down? This is the company that has been subject to legal action about over-pricing.