This wasn't designed to lessen their monopoly on the desktop OS. That monopoly wasn't obtained through ill gotten gains. They were found guilty of trying to use that monopoly to muscle out all of the competition in the media player software market. Thus, the remedies involve trying to restore competition in the media player software market.
This, of course, will fail miserably, because the primary competition (RealPlayer) is a steaming pile of shit.
Hell, I think./ers hate Real even more than Microsoft...
You are abusing the moderation system if you mod someone down just because you "disagree" with them. Contrary viewpoints add to the value of the discussion; they don't detract from it. Without them, every post on here would be a "me too" post.
a) I never claimed I've been to Hong Kong lately, nor do I see the benefit of a single person owning multiple cell phones b) You can't get those phones here because the network infrastructure here doesn't support them. Economics of scale...Hong Kong=small; US=way bigger -- that technology doesn't come for free or deploy to rural areas by itself. It works in Hong Kong due to the population density. c) Cell phone companies don't control what price cell phone manufacturers charge for phones d) Contracts aren't manditory; people get them because they're a good deal e) I've never had a problem with available features or service
The way all these carriers compete is on call cost and service. It is very cheap to make calls in Hong Kong, free SMS, voicemail, call forwarding. Free calls within the network for designated numbers (Girl Friend to BF for instance) - and most crucially - you pay to both make AND receive calls on your mobile phone.
You pay for the convenience of receiving calls when you're out and about. Or to make calls when you're out. But interestingly land lines do NOT pay a toll to call a mobile.
Best yet is that you can call divert your phone to a landline and no one pays to make the call to your mobile number... unless the calling party uses a mobile.
What this does is encourage people to make lots of calls on their mobile and use it for their main number as no one cares that it is a mobile number - no cost to call it. Hong Kong was first to allow number transfer between carriers resulting in a market that is hugely competitive.
So we have low call costs, lots of value added services, everyone using mobile phones for most of their calls, many people have more than one phone (work, family and mistress:) and we get fancy phones with lots of features.
You haven't actually looked at cell phone plans in the US much lately have you?
The only difference with what you describe is that in the US is the contract bundle phones (if you go that route) aren't complete utter crap.
There is a difference between a codec and a piece of software that uses codecs. Office isn't using some codec interface to control the video stream; hell, it doesn't have any sort of native support for video at all. It does however have the ability to embed ActiveX controls into documents. In this case, someone has embedded a media file using the Windows Media Player ActiveX control.
Then they tried to open it on a machine without Windows Media Player on it. Guess what? Office can't create teh control; the control isn't registered (ie: information about it isn't in "the registry"). Trying to create the ActiveX object will fail, and you aren't going to be able to watch the video.
You can't just pull out a random component that a piece of software expects, and then expect that software to magically fill in the gap with code that doesn't exist.
The only trickery here is from the article authors.
Staffing companies don't act as "agents" to the companies they staff out employees to. They are providing a service to HP; the staffing company is an employer in its own right.
And where I have worked contractors are treated like second class employees, they're not invited to employee functions and other team building events which I disagree with as it hurts the group as a whole making your contractors feel like insiders. Companies that promote these actions should be compelled to invite their contractors to functions. You may end up with more satisfied workers as a whole.
Companies have to do this. Otherwise they're treating you like a full time employee and are opening themselves up to the very kind of litigation this article is talking about.
a) such a contract would be null in void as it violates minimum wage statues and a number of other employment practices b) if such a contact were not invalid, and someone was dumb enough to sign it, then yes, "tough noogies." Quit and find a job elsewhere, or renegotiate your contract.
if you had ever used itunes, you would know that 1. albums generally cost $9.99, not $1/song 2. most people don't want the entire album. this is the reason you would use itunes over just going to a store and purchasing the album.
The point is that an average person would buy 5 albums worth of content per month; his back of the envelope calculations are reasonable.
Let's say you've got 100 "features" you've developed and can deploy into variations of your products. You decide to come up with different editions of those products to satisfy different market demands.
So you create a variation with features you think that the typical home user will demand. We'll call that the "home" edition. The home edition obviously doesn't consume all 100 of those features -- let's say we put 80 of our available features into it. Let's charge $100 bucks for it.
Then we'll create a product with features we think a typical business user will demand. We'll call that the "pro" edition. We'll put 90 of our available features into it (most of what is in home, plus some other goodies). Let's charge $300 for it. But wait you say, that's 3x as much for something with only 10 extra features. However, you neglect to consider how much it cost to develop those particular features, nor did you take into consideration that you don't expect to sell as many of those copies.
Now, some time later, we'll create a 3rd product that we'll call the "starter" version. Let's say we put about 60 features into it.
Now, is it your arguement that the cost of the R&D that went into that product is greater than the cost of the R&D found in the other two products? Of course not, it's missing stuff.
Of course, this simply does not translate well to the software world, where it costs exactly as much for Microsoft to stamp out a "starter edition" CD as it does to stamp out an "XP Pro" cd
There may be a rather inexpensive fixed cost to stamp out the actual cds, but the cost to create the item you stamp on the cds is much greater (what, you think the cost of several thousand programmers over the course of a few years is cheap?).
The cost of the "starter" edition (in theory) reflects how much it cost to develop the content in that product; ie: they took out content that represented ~50% of the r&d that went into xp home.
So you're saying that the 95% piracy rate has nothing to do with it, and that Microsoft is instead attempting to sell a few extra copies to government agencies?
That has to be the first time I've seen your arguement made, and I'd be willing to bet I don't see it again for a long time.
This has nothing to do with MS feeling threatened by F/OSS; it has everything to do with someone being able to buy a pirated copy of XP for $5 on a street corner in those countries.
Actually the point is more that the patent should never have been granted to anyone.
That is EXACTLY my point. But it was granted! So you're going to blame Mirosoft because they applied for it? They're perfectly within their rights to APPLY for it. Anyone is perfectly within their rights to apply for a shit patent. They shouldn't be granted it! You can argue "they should know better than to apply for it", but the fact is, if they weren't granted it, someone else would have been (because the patent office gives out shit patents)-- and that someone else would have sued the living crap out of anyone with an XML document format.
The same "logic" would give a large number of crimianls a "get out of jail" free card.
What twisted universe do you live in? The system defines the rules of the game, not how you treat those who break the rules. And in this case, everyone is following the rules.
The fact of that matter is that the patent was granted! If MS didn't get that patent, someone else would have. And that someone else would have sued anyone with money for licensing fees (a certain suit regarding the use plug-ins that come up automatically comes to mind).
This has nothing to do with them trying to make it harder for competing software to be created (as evidenced by the fact that they have yet to use any of their patents in an offensive manner).
The SYSTEM that allows these patents to be granted and abused is to blame, not the entity trying to avoid getting creamed by the system.
If you live in Canada, but commit a crime in the US, you should be extradited.
If you live in Canada, but commit a crime in the China, you should be extradited.
If you live in Canada, but commit a crime in Canada, should should be tried in Canada.
In your China example, you won't be extradited. One of the general requirements for extradition is that the crime you commit is a crime in both countries. One of the other requirements is that you receive a fair trial in the country you are extradited to.
In this particular case, the guy being extradited was the leader of a large worldwide organization. Some of those members resided in the US. He instructed those members to violate US law. In other words, he directed the commision of a crime in the United States. Just because he did it over the internet doesn't mean he gets a jail out of free card.
You can commit crimes in another country without leaving your own country. This guy wasn't just distributing warez, he was the leader of a massive worldwide organization that focused on obtaining, cracking, and distributing warez. He instructed people to commit crimes in the US.
Just because he did it over the internet does not give him a get out of jail free card.
It also doesn't mean that Australia will hand over anyone the US asks for either. The US has to show that it has a case against the individual, that the crime is serious (generally this is defined by the punishment for the crime exceeding a certain threshold), the event is a crime in both countries, the individual can expect a fair trial in the other country, and that the pentalty will be proportianate to the crime.
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This wasn't designed to lessen their monopoly on the desktop OS. That monopoly wasn't obtained through ill gotten gains. They were found guilty of trying to use that monopoly to muscle out all of the competition in the media player software market. Thus, the remedies involve trying to restore competition in the media player software market.
./ers hate Real even more than Microsoft...
This, of course, will fail miserably, because the primary competition (RealPlayer) is a steaming pile of shit.
Hell, I think
I can see the cheesy ads now:
"Microsoft Windows XP, now without Media Player!"
Patents cover the invention, not the effect of the invention.
You are abusing the moderation system if you mod someone down just because you "disagree" with them. Contrary viewpoints add to the value of the discussion; they don't detract from it. Without them, every post on here would be a "me too" post.
I think they just miss the Iraqi Information Minister, and have decided to take his place in world politics...
a) I never claimed I've been to Hong Kong lately, nor do I see the benefit of a single person owning multiple cell phones
b) You can't get those phones here because the network infrastructure here doesn't support them. Economics of scale...Hong Kong=small; US=way bigger -- that technology doesn't come for free or deploy to rural areas by itself. It works in Hong Kong due to the population density.
c) Cell phone companies don't control what price cell phone manufacturers charge for phones
d) Contracts aren't manditory; people get them because they're a good deal
e) I've never had a problem with available features or service
The way all these carriers compete is on call cost and service. It is very cheap to make calls in Hong Kong, free SMS, voicemail, call forwarding. Free calls within the network for designated numbers (Girl Friend to BF for instance) - and most crucially - you pay to both make AND receive calls on your mobile phone.
:) and we get fancy phones with lots of features.
You pay for the convenience of receiving calls when you're out and about. Or to make calls when you're out. But interestingly land lines do NOT pay a toll to call a mobile.
Best yet is that you can call divert your phone to a landline and no one pays to make the call to your mobile number... unless the calling party uses a mobile.
What this does is encourage people to make lots of calls on their mobile and use it for their main number as no one cares that it is a mobile number - no cost to call it. Hong Kong was first to allow number transfer between carriers resulting in a market that is hugely competitive.
So we have low call costs, lots of value added services, everyone using mobile phones for most of their calls, many people have more than one phone (work, family and mistress
You haven't actually looked at cell phone plans in the US much lately have you?
The only difference with what you describe is that in the US is the contract bundle phones (if you go that route) aren't complete utter crap.
DirectShow wasn't removed.
All this bitching about "the registry being fucked up" is because the Windows Media Player activex control isn't registered.
There is a difference between a codec and a piece of software that uses codecs. Office isn't using some codec interface to control the video stream; hell, it doesn't have any sort of native support for video at all. It does however have the ability to embed ActiveX controls into documents. In this case, someone has embedded a media file using the Windows Media Player ActiveX control.
Then they tried to open it on a machine without Windows Media Player on it. Guess what? Office can't create teh control; the control isn't registered (ie: information about it isn't in "the registry"). Trying to create the ActiveX object will fail, and you aren't going to be able to watch the video.
You can't just pull out a random component that a piece of software expects, and then expect that software to magically fill in the gap with code that doesn't exist.
The only trickery here is from the article authors.
Because we all know that RealNetworks did more than delete C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\*.* and boot the OS...
Staffing companies don't act as "agents" to the companies they staff out employees to. They are providing a service to HP; the staffing company is an employer in its own right.
They didn't sign a contract with HP. They signed a contract with an employement agency.
And where I have worked contractors are treated like second class employees, they're not invited to employee functions and other team building events which I disagree with as it hurts the group as a whole making your contractors feel like insiders. Companies that promote these actions should be compelled to invite their contractors to functions. You may end up with more satisfied workers as a whole.
Companies have to do this. Otherwise they're treating you like a full time employee and are opening themselves up to the very kind of litigation this article is talking about.
a) such a contract would be null in void as it violates minimum wage statues and a number of other employment practices
b) if such a contact were not invalid, and someone was dumb enough to sign it, then yes, "tough noogies." Quit and find a job elsewhere, or renegotiate your contract.
if you had ever used itunes, you would know that
1. albums generally cost $9.99, not $1/song
2. most people don't want the entire album. this is the reason you would use itunes over just going to a store and purchasing the album.
The point is that an average person would buy 5 albums worth of content per month; his back of the envelope calculations are reasonable.
You aren't listening to what I'm saying.
Let's say you've got 100 "features" you've developed and can deploy into variations of your products. You decide to come up with different editions of those products to satisfy different market demands.
So you create a variation with features you think that the typical home user will demand. We'll call that the "home" edition. The home edition obviously doesn't consume all 100 of those features -- let's say we put 80 of our available features into it. Let's charge $100 bucks for it.
Then we'll create a product with features we think a typical business user will demand. We'll call that the "pro" edition. We'll put 90 of our available features into it (most of what is in home, plus some other goodies). Let's charge $300 for it. But wait you say, that's 3x as much for something with only 10 extra features. However, you neglect to consider how much it cost to develop those particular features, nor did you take into consideration that you don't expect to sell as many of those copies.
Now, some time later, we'll create a 3rd product that we'll call the "starter" version. Let's say we put about 60 features into it.
Now, is it your arguement that the cost of the R&D that went into that product is greater than the cost of the R&D found in the other two products? Of course not, it's missing stuff.
Of course, this simply does not translate well to the software world, where it costs exactly as much for Microsoft to stamp out a "starter edition" CD as it does to stamp out an "XP Pro" cd
There may be a rather inexpensive fixed cost to stamp out the actual cds, but the cost to create the item you stamp on the cds is much greater (what, you think the cost of several thousand programmers over the course of a few years is cheap?).
The cost of the "starter" edition (in theory) reflects how much it cost to develop the content in that product; ie: they took out content that represented ~50% of the r&d that went into xp home.
So you're saying that the 95% piracy rate has nothing to do with it, and that Microsoft is instead attempting to sell a few extra copies to government agencies?
That has to be the first time I've seen your arguement made, and I'd be willing to bet I don't see it again for a long time.
This has nothing to do with MS feeling threatened by F/OSS; it has everything to do with someone being able to buy a pirated copy of XP for $5 on a street corner in those countries.
Actually the point is more that the patent should never have been granted to anyone.
That is EXACTLY my point. But it was granted! So you're going to blame Mirosoft because they applied for it? They're perfectly within their rights to APPLY for it. Anyone is perfectly within their rights to apply for a shit patent. They shouldn't be granted it! You can argue "they should know better than to apply for it", but the fact is, if they weren't granted it, someone else would have been (because the patent office gives out shit patents)-- and that someone else would have sued the living crap out of anyone with an XML document format.
The same "logic" would give a large number of crimianls a "get out of jail" free card.
What twisted universe do you live in? The system defines the rules of the game, not how you treat those who break the rules. And in this case, everyone is following the rules.
The fact of that matter is that the patent was granted! If MS didn't get that patent, someone else would have. And that someone else would have sued anyone with money for licensing fees (a certain suit regarding the use plug-ins that come up automatically comes to mind).
This has nothing to do with them trying to make it harder for competing software to be created (as evidenced by the fact that they have yet to use any of their patents in an offensive manner).
The SYSTEM that allows these patents to be granted and abused is to blame, not the entity trying to avoid getting creamed by the system.
If you live in Canada, but commit a crime in the US, you should be extradited.
If you live in Canada, but commit a crime in the China, you should be extradited.
If you live in Canada, but commit a crime in Canada, should should be tried in Canada.
In your China example, you won't be extradited. One of the general requirements for extradition is that the crime you commit is a crime in both countries. One of the other requirements is that you receive a fair trial in the country you are extradited to.
In this particular case, the guy being extradited was the leader of a large worldwide organization. Some of those members resided in the US. He instructed those members to violate US law. In other words, he directed the commision of a crime in the United States. Just because he did it over the internet doesn't mean he gets a jail out of free card.
You can commit crimes in another country without leaving your own country. This guy wasn't just distributing warez, he was the leader of a massive worldwide organization that focused on obtaining, cracking, and distributing warez. He instructed people to commit crimes in the US.
Just because he did it over the internet does not give him a get out of jail free card.
It also doesn't mean that Australia will hand over anyone the US asks for either. The US has to show that it has a case against the individual, that the crime is serious (generally this is defined by the punishment for the crime exceeding a certain threshold), the event is a crime in both countries, the individual can expect a fair trial in the other country, and that the pentalty will be proportianate to the crime.
Apparently you don't remember much about it either, as the patents relate to long filenames only...
The build numbers are based off of the number of months/days that have elapsed from build 0.