"But, of course, Microsoft's applications do use these 'internal' calle directly, meaning that they're really part of the undocumented public API."
No, Microsoft's apps don't use "internal calls directly". Stop spreading idiocy. I'm not saying it never happened. Supposedly it happened in the pre-Win3.x days (when MS had no monopoly on anything, so who cared? MacPaint and MacWrite used Mac internal functions directly as well back in those days).
IMO, this is Apple returning to its heritage of catering to the rich. There are school children that trade iPods with their classmates for a week (or whatever time period they agree on). This is normally done with iPod shuffles, which are cheap enough that the parents aren't too concerned if the devices get broken or lost in such a trade. And the shuffle is the most purchased iPod by far, because it's the cheapest way to get into the "cool" iPod club.
But a $600 device is not going to sell to anyone but the rich. Give any kid $600 to buy a tech device, he'll pick the PS3 9 times out of 10. And no parent is going to buy this thing for his kid for $600, except very rich parents with very spoiled kids.
Hell, this doesn't do much more (and does some less) than a Motorola Q, which costs $200. This is a device for those that like "style" no matter what the cost. That's good for Apple; there's plenty of money to be made catering to the rich. But this won't take the world by storm, not even close.
I have no interest in this product, but Apple isn't "shoving extra features down our throats". Nobody is holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy this.
You refer to these as "10000 undocumented API calls". What you really mean, is that these were 10000 internal functions that would be required to implement the emulation layer. There's a difference between public API and internal functions. Internal functions are not meant for public use. When making a library, you have internal functions to handle the nitty-gritty stuff and provide a public API. This is programming 101, for crying out loud.
Last week's proceedings also included testimony by Ronald Alepin, a former CTO at Fujitsu Software Corp. and currently an adviser to the law firm Morrison Foerster LLP. He said that Lotus 1-2-3 was killed, in part, by Microsoft encouraging Lotus's programmers to use the Windows API even though Microsoft's own developers found it too complicated to use.
This is absurd. First, what does it have to do with antitrust? Microsoft had no monopoly when the above allegedly took place. Second, is this guy really saying that Lotus' devs were so incompetent that they couldn't decide for themselves what API to use? They just did whatever Microsoft told them to do? This means nothing in a court, since neither the judge nor the jury (if their is one) have the first clue about software development. But slashdotters, even hating MS as they do, should be knowledgable enough about software development to be above promoting this malarky.
What "killed" Lotus (Lotus 1-2-3 still exists, BTW), was that Lotus, thinking that Windows 3.0 would be a flop like the previous iterations, was slow to begin development of a Windows version of their app, and when they finally did, it sucked (look up the reviews). End of story.
I don't know about Lotus, but I remember about WordPerfect. When Windows 3.0 came out, WordPerfect thougt it would be a flop. But they did see that people were attracted to a GUI. So WordPerfect decided to remain a purely DOS app, but roll their own GUI in DOS "graphic mode". I can't remember if they shipped it. I saw screen shots, and the app was not attractive to the eye (compared to Windows apps). Maybe Lotus was considering shipping their own DOS app with their own homebrewed DOS GUI.
What really killed Lotus was that they were late on jumping on the Windows 3.x bandwagon, and their first Windows version of Lotus 123 (when it finally shipped) sucked. Go back and read the reviews, and you'll see that everyone ripped it. Which was sad, because Lotus already had an OS/2 1.x version, and the OS/2 api wasn't all that different from the Windows api (then again, maybe the OS/2 version sucked as well, but nobody cared because everyone used the DOS version (so the OS/2 version didn't get widely reviewed).
The Office team rolls its own UI widgets, and have done so for years. You refer to Office having icons next to the menu options; well the Office team did that on its own. They haven't used the OS-provided menus since at least Office 97 (their menus are simply toolbars, which is why they can be moved, detached, docked to any border, etc; they are just like any other of Office's toolbars). At the time Office 97 was made, the neither the system nor MS devtools provided toolbars (of the kind that Office uses). It's called "programming"; if neither the system nor the dev tools provide the widgets that you want, you program the widgets on your own!! *gasp*
The Office team did nothing that any other dev wouldn't be able to do. Are you really telling me that other devs are unable to roll their own UI unless the widgets are provided for them by the OS or the dev tools? Come on, now.
According to secunia.com, IIS6 is way more secure than Apache2.x. Hell, IIS 6 has a near-perfect security record. 3 flaws since it was released in Jan 2003, all fixed, none of them major. While Apache 2.x has had over 30 flaws, some critical, some unpatched or only partially fixed, during the same time period.
So I'm not sure what your point was. I don't know which of Apache and IIS is targetted more often. And I don't know which would be a more lucrative target (Apache serves more hosts, but IIS might serve "wealthier" hosts regarding commerce). But Apache is no more secure than IIS, so if IIS is targeted more often, it's not because it's less secure, but for some other reason (like maybe anti-MS fanboy hackers target IIS to make a political point of some sort).
You're quite correct that Firefox has security holes aplenty. Seems like the fix more and more holes each month. But IE is the main target for malware.
Microsoft should take the easy way out and just drop IE and bundle Firefox. Overnight, Firefox would become the prime target. Then it will be put to the test as to just how secure it is. If it is security as its advocates claim, then it's good for everyone, including Microsoft (since they no longer have to worry about browser security, and this scenario would actually eliminate one of the reasons people would have to move to a different OS). But if Firefox isn't all it's cracked up to be (and I don't assume that Firefox devs are any smarter than anyone else, and we *know* that the browser has security problems through empirical evidence of the frequent security patches), then it's still good for Microsoft, as they still don't have to worry about it as it wouldn't be their problem. They would just continue on their merry way while the press bashes Firefox instead of Microsoft.
Microsoft could instead drop IE for Opera; same thing. Except there's every possibility that Opera has more holes than IE and FF put together. Opera's user share is so tiny (Opera's share is ~0.9%) that it hasn't been put to the test at all by the bad guys. There's no way to tell how secure it is or not; it's simply not used enough (and Opera's fixing security flaws in secret doesn't help their credibility regarding their "perfect" security record).
The mainstream press has given Linux 10 full years of unqualified positive coverage, while giving Windows years of unqualified "Windows sucks" coverage. Where do you guys get the idea that the mainstream press favors Windows? They constantly bash it and Microsoft. Linux, on the other hand, they constantly praise (out of "the grass is greener on the other side" ignorance).
" He 'likes Apple's OS X' - well thats the CONCLUSION he gets when he stacks the points of his argument up, yes."
If you knew anyting about John Welch, you'd know that he reached his "CONCLUSION" long before he every saw Vista. Then he wrote his article accordingly. Hell, if he were to write an article comparing Apple's Pippin video game console to Xbox 360, he'd orgasm over the former while vomitting over the latter, simply because the former is from the company he idolizes while the latter is from a company he demonizes.
If you're looking for a fair comparison between any MS product and the corresponding Apple product, this is NOT the guy to look to.
I've seen John Welch ("John C. Welch")'s posts to various message boards and blogs, and he's an Apple fanboy to the core. Worships the toilet that Jobs craps in, and loathes all things Microsoft. He trolls Scoble's blog quite often.
To even things out, slashdot should have an article on Thurott's Vista review (which he just recently finished). It has 8 total parts. I noticed that slashdot did pick up the one negative portion of his review weeks ago ("what Vista is missing" or whatever it was called), but has dutifully ignored all the other parts. He's biased too, but no more than Welch (actually, nowhere near as much as Welch).
You do know that Microsoft made a version of Rotor (the.NET CLR/CLI open source impl) that runs on the Mac, do you not? It's the BSD version.
C# doesn't "lock developers into Windows". Maybe the.NET libs do (the portions that aren't ECMA'ed, like WinForms, that rely on Windows-specific stuff), but an Apple version would use libs tied to Mac-specific features.
C# is just a language that relies on CLR. The CLR is portable to any OS, and therefore C# is runnable on any OS. Apple could easily make C# bindings to its Cocoa lib. Hell, they already did it for Java (no longer supported, though), and are doing it for Python. The resulting source code wouldn't be usable on other OSes, but that's no different than ObjC, Java, and Python code that calls OSX-specific Cocoa api.
For many of the products you mentioned, Microsoft doesn't even have an answer for, at least not a Mac version. So Apple's motivation in making all of those products goes way beyond eliminating any dependency on Microsoft. The real motivation, and it's quite clear, is that Apple is increasingly moving the Mac to an all-Apple platform. Apple provides the hardware, the OS, and the apps too. Go to any Mac user, and look at the installed apps on his computer, and you'll see that nearly 100% of them are from Apple (not including freeware).
Could you do the same thing with Mac OSX (even though it is a *INX variant with a pretty shell)?
OSX isn't just a *NIX variant with a pretty shell. What makes OSX OSX is the platform built on top of the core: the Cocoa and Carbon APIs and the Aqua UI. The core is largely irrelevant (indeed NextStep had an both BSD and NT versions of Cocoa; Apple only chose the BSD version because they didn't want dependence on MS for their OS core). You belittle OSX to bring it down to the level of Linux. The Linux distros aren't in the same league as OSX, regardless of whether both use *nix cores or not.
But yeah, I think the ability to get a refund for OSX or to buy Mac's with no OS could be cool.
Sorry I guess you would be an expert on FUD tactics, hope you are enjoying your new laptop. Or are you just getting paid cash by Microsoft?
I'm not paid by MS, in cash, laptops, or anything else. I guess you're one of those that pulls the "astroturf" card when you've been beaten in debate.
But seeing as you're carrying IBM's water on FUD'ing OpenXML, I'll assume you're on IBM's tit. And your patron, IBM, is the one that invented FUD, BTW.
First, the GP says, "some standards' patent licensors forbid implementors to publish a partial implementation. I don't know if this applies to OOXML's license." A classic FUD tactic is to speculate about something "bad" then say, "I don't know if it applies here." Yeah, you don't know if it applies in this case, but that didn't stop you from putting forth the "Fear" and "Uncertainty" that it might. Classic.
Then, the parent post uses pharses like, "My understanding is...", "It seems that if...", ect. Again, phrases used to intentionally spread FUD without making explicit assertions. Classic.
BTW, there is NO "Full implementation requirement" for OpenXML. None.
"I think your logic is more than a little broken. Monopolies have a great deal of power that other's don't have. They can undermine capitalism in a market and destroy innovation in entire industries. They can spread causing that damage to other markets. Think of it like this, people piloting airplanes aren't allowed to drink or step outside for a cigar, while those behaviors are perfectly legal for people who aren't piloting planes. Isn't that crazy?"
A pilot knows that he's drinking at the time that he's doing it, and knows that it's against the law to do so while flying.
But a company doesn't know that it has a monopoly until some judge declares so. So while a company is engaging in normal business activity, some judge years later can rule that the company had a monopoly years ago, and rule that those normal business activies were therefore illegal. So, in order for a company to be sure to not run afoul of antitrust law, the company has to second guess every thing it does on the off-chance that at some point in the future, a judge *might* rule that the company had a monopoly at some point in the past. Well, you cannot run a company that way. It's best to engage in normal business practice, and if some judge rules in the future that it was illegal because he declares that you had a monopoly at the time, then deal with it at that point. And doing that would not be "evil". Second guessing whether you can engage in normal business practice or not in order to avoid what a judge might say in the future is not prudent.
Taking MS, specifically, at what point, what day and date, did they knowingly acheive monopoly status in the "desktop OSes for intel CPU" market? IBM was selling and heavily advertising OS/2 throughout the 90's. So when should MS have thought to itself, "OK, now I have a monopoly, so I'll no longer offer OEM discounts"? Even when OS/2 faltered, MS subsidized Apple, and many said that part of the motivation was to ensure that MS did NOT have a monopoly (everyone (certainly Mac advocates) assumed that Mac OS and Windows were competitors; MS didn't imagine that a judge would rule that Mac OS isn't even in the same market). So it would seem that MS never thought they had a monopoly, and even took steps to keep it that way.
Take Apple or Google, for other examples. Is it really so unimaginable that a judge could rule in the future that Apple or Google have monopolies *today* in mp3 players or online music (in the case of Apple) or web search advertising (in the case of Google)? In which case the same judge could rule that things Apple and Google are doing today are illegal? In such a case, would you demonize Apple or Google as "evil"? Should Apple and Google curtail their normal business activity because a judge in the future *might* rule this way? Do you see what I'm getting at?
BTW, this is why antitrust law is so screwed up. IMO, you should be able to engage in normal business activity until a judge officially rules you have a monopoly. Once that happens, then you can alter your business activities accordingly. But you should not be punished for things you did before you were officially declared to enjoy monopoly status in a particular market, nor should you be demonized for it. This is much cleaner since everyone would know upfront what standard they're being judged against. No second guessing what would be normal business practice, no subsidizing competitors to make sure they stay in business so that you don't get a monopoly, etc.
Sorry, but slashdot cult hero Judge Jackson determined in his infallible Findings of Fact that MS didn't violate antitrust laws to gain a monopoly.
Also, since Apple controls over 70% of the (legal) online music biz, and have made agreements with certain content providers to *exclusively* provide certain content only through iTMS, is not Apple restraining trade, and thus in violation of antitrust law? Even if there's some techincality that makes Apple's dealings legal (of course, we don't know if they're legal or not; any judge can rule anything), the spirit is the same. The point being, MS is no more evil than Apple or anyone else. Other companies in the same position as MS would have done the same or worse (Apple almost certainly would have been much more draconian).
Anyone notice the increasing number of anti-MS slashdotters accusing slashdotters that don't despise MS as "shills" so that they don't have to deal with the argument that those accused "shills" put forward?
Almost like the accusers ran out of arguments so they pull the "shill" card in an attempt to magically discredit any poster that goes against the "MS is evil" groupthink.
Your mistake is that you're looking at Microsoft as one monolithic entity. In reality, it's made up of different divisions, which have their own independence, more or less.
The Office division is one of, if not the, best division at MS (maybe their dev tools division rivals it), while the IE team is one of the worst. So the Office team would be much more likely to try things like this while the IE team makes excuses not to.
"4) Use IP laws to prevent FOSS competitors from cloning interface"
Maybe FOSS could come up with its own UI for once. FOSS is supposed to be such a fountain of innovation./sarcasm
Re:Install a fix not from Apple? Fat Chance
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Month of Apple Fixes
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But the source code is meaningless as a guarantee of nonmaliciousness (intentional or unintentional) unless you compile the code yourself. Because that's the only way to know that the "fix" you install matches the source code.
JoeBlow isn't going to be able to compile the code himself. So it doesn't really matter if JoeBlow sees that some guy claiming to be a software dev on the net reviewed and ok'ed the code.
Slashdot Mirror
"But, of course, Microsoft's applications do use these 'internal' calle directly, meaning that they're really part of the undocumented public API."
No, Microsoft's apps don't use "internal calls directly". Stop spreading idiocy.
I'm not saying it never happened. Supposedly it happened in the pre-Win3.x days (when MS had no monopoly on anything, so who cared? MacPaint and MacWrite used Mac internal functions directly as well back in those days).
IMO, this is Apple returning to its heritage of catering to the rich. There are school children that trade iPods with their classmates for a week (or whatever time period they agree on). This is normally done with iPod shuffles, which are cheap enough that the parents aren't too concerned if the devices get broken or lost in such a trade. And the shuffle is the most purchased iPod by far, because it's the cheapest way to get into the "cool" iPod club.
But a $600 device is not going to sell to anyone but the rich. Give any kid $600 to buy a tech device, he'll pick the PS3 9 times out of 10. And no parent is going to buy this thing for his kid for $600, except very rich parents with very spoiled kids.
Hell, this doesn't do much more (and does some less) than a Motorola Q, which costs $200. This is a device for those that like "style" no matter what the cost. That's good for Apple; there's plenty of money to be made catering to the rich. But this won't take the world by storm, not even close.
I have no interest in this product, but Apple isn't "shoving extra features down our throats". Nobody is holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy this.
You refer to these as "10000 undocumented API calls". What you really mean, is that these were 10000 internal functions that would be required to implement the emulation layer. There's a difference between public API and internal functions. Internal functions are not meant for public use. When making a library, you have internal functions to handle the nitty-gritty stuff and provide a public API. This is programming 101, for crying out loud.
And this differs from Mac, how?
This is absurd.
First, what does it have to do with antitrust? Microsoft had no monopoly when the above allegedly took place.
Second, is this guy really saying that Lotus' devs were so incompetent that they couldn't decide for themselves what API to use? They just did whatever Microsoft told them to do? This means nothing in a court, since neither the judge nor the jury (if their is one) have the first clue about software development. But slashdotters, even hating MS as they do, should be knowledgable enough about software development to be above promoting this malarky.
What "killed" Lotus (Lotus 1-2-3 still exists, BTW), was that Lotus, thinking that Windows 3.0 would be a flop like the previous iterations, was slow to begin development of a Windows version of their app, and when they finally did, it sucked (look up the reviews). End of story.
I don't know about Lotus, but I remember about WordPerfect.
When Windows 3.0 came out, WordPerfect thougt it would be a flop. But they did see that people were attracted to a GUI. So WordPerfect decided to remain a purely DOS app, but roll their own GUI in DOS "graphic mode". I can't remember if they shipped it. I saw screen shots, and the app was not attractive to the eye (compared to Windows apps).
Maybe Lotus was considering shipping their own DOS app with their own homebrewed DOS GUI.
What really killed Lotus was that they were late on jumping on the Windows 3.x bandwagon, and their first Windows version of Lotus 123 (when it finally shipped) sucked. Go back and read the reviews, and you'll see that everyone ripped it. Which was sad, because Lotus already had an OS/2 1.x version, and the OS/2 api wasn't all that different from the Windows api (then again, maybe the OS/2 version sucked as well, but nobody cared because everyone used the DOS version (so the OS/2 version didn't get widely reviewed).
The Office team rolls its own UI widgets, and have done so for years. You refer to Office having icons next to the menu options; well the Office team did that on its own. They haven't used the OS-provided menus since at least Office 97 (their menus are simply toolbars, which is why they can be moved, detached, docked to any border, etc; they are just like any other of Office's toolbars). At the time Office 97 was made, the neither the system nor MS devtools provided toolbars (of the kind that Office uses). It's called "programming"; if neither the system nor the dev tools provide the widgets that you want, you program the widgets on your own!! *gasp*
The Office team did nothing that any other dev wouldn't be able to do.
Are you really telling me that other devs are unable to roll their own UI unless the widgets are provided for them by the OS or the dev tools? Come on, now.
According to secunia.com, IIS6 is way more secure than Apache2.x. Hell, IIS 6 has a near-perfect security record. 3 flaws since it was released in Jan 2003, all fixed, none of them major. While Apache 2.x has had over 30 flaws, some critical, some unpatched or only partially fixed, during the same time period.
So I'm not sure what your point was. I don't know which of Apache and IIS is targetted more often. And I don't know which would be a more lucrative target (Apache serves more hosts, but IIS might serve "wealthier" hosts regarding commerce). But Apache is no more secure than IIS, so if IIS is targeted more often, it's not because it's less secure, but for some other reason (like maybe anti-MS fanboy hackers target IIS to make a political point of some sort).
You're quite correct that Firefox has security holes aplenty. Seems like the fix more and more holes each month. But IE is the main target for malware.
Microsoft should take the easy way out and just drop IE and bundle Firefox. Overnight, Firefox would become the prime target. Then it will be put to the test as to just how secure it is. If it is security as its advocates claim, then it's good for everyone, including Microsoft (since they no longer have to worry about browser security, and this scenario would actually eliminate one of the reasons people would have to move to a different OS). But if Firefox isn't all it's cracked up to be (and I don't assume that Firefox devs are any smarter than anyone else, and we *know* that the browser has security problems through empirical evidence of the frequent security patches), then it's still good for Microsoft, as they still don't have to worry about it as it wouldn't be their problem. They would just continue on their merry way while the press bashes Firefox instead of Microsoft.
Microsoft could instead drop IE for Opera; same thing. Except there's every possibility that Opera has more holes than IE and FF put together. Opera's user share is so tiny (Opera's share is ~0.9%) that it hasn't been put to the test at all by the bad guys. There's no way to tell how secure it is or not; it's simply not used enough (and Opera's fixing security flaws in secret doesn't help their credibility regarding their "perfect" security record).
The mainstream press has given Linux 10 full years of unqualified positive coverage, while giving Windows years of unqualified "Windows sucks" coverage. Where do you guys get the idea that the mainstream press favors Windows? They constantly bash it and Microsoft. Linux, on the other hand, they constantly praise (out of "the grass is greener on the other side" ignorance).
" He 'likes Apple's OS X' - well thats the CONCLUSION he gets when he stacks the points of his argument up, yes."
If you knew anyting about John Welch, you'd know that he reached his "CONCLUSION" long before he every saw Vista. Then he wrote his article accordingly.
Hell, if he were to write an article comparing Apple's Pippin video game console to Xbox 360, he'd orgasm over the former while vomitting over the latter, simply because the former is from the company he idolizes while the latter is from a company he demonizes.
If you're looking for a fair comparison between any MS product and the corresponding Apple product, this is NOT the guy to look to.
I've seen John Welch ("John C. Welch")'s posts to various message boards and blogs, and he's an Apple fanboy to the core. Worships the toilet that Jobs craps in, and loathes all things Microsoft. He trolls Scoble's blog quite often.
To even things out, slashdot should have an article on Thurott's Vista review (which he just recently finished). It has 8 total parts. I noticed that slashdot did pick up the one negative portion of his review weeks ago ("what Vista is missing" or whatever it was called), but has dutifully ignored all the other parts. He's biased too, but no more than Welch (actually, nowhere near as much as Welch).
You do know that Microsoft made a version of Rotor (the .NET CLR/CLI open source impl) that runs on the Mac, do you not? It's the BSD version.
.NET libs do (the portions that aren't ECMA'ed, like WinForms, that rely on Windows-specific stuff), but an Apple version would use libs tied to Mac-specific features.
C# doesn't "lock developers into Windows". Maybe the
C# is just a language that relies on CLR. The CLR is portable to any OS, and therefore C# is runnable on any OS.
Apple could easily make C# bindings to its Cocoa lib. Hell, they already did it for Java (no longer supported, though), and are doing it for Python. The resulting source code wouldn't be usable on other OSes, but that's no different than ObjC, Java, and Python code that calls OSX-specific Cocoa api.
For many of the products you mentioned, Microsoft doesn't even have an answer for, at least not a Mac version. So Apple's motivation in making all of those products goes way beyond eliminating any dependency on Microsoft. The real motivation, and it's quite clear, is that Apple is increasingly moving the Mac to an all-Apple platform. Apple provides the hardware, the OS, and the apps too. Go to any Mac user, and look at the installed apps on his computer, and you'll see that nearly 100% of them are from Apple (not including freeware).
Could you do the same thing with Mac OSX (even though it is a *INX variant with a pretty shell)?
OSX isn't just a *NIX variant with a pretty shell.
What makes OSX OSX is the platform built on top of the core: the Cocoa and Carbon APIs and the Aqua UI. The core is largely irrelevant (indeed NextStep had an both BSD and NT versions of Cocoa; Apple only chose the BSD version because they didn't want dependence on MS for their OS core). You belittle OSX to bring it down to the level of Linux. The Linux distros aren't in the same league as OSX, regardless of whether both use *nix cores or not.
But yeah, I think the ability to get a refund for OSX or to buy Mac's with no OS could be cool.
I'm not paid by MS, in cash, laptops, or anything else. I guess you're one of those that pulls the "astroturf" card when you've been beaten in debate.
But seeing as you're carrying IBM's water on FUD'ing OpenXML, I'll assume you're on IBM's tit. And your patron, IBM, is the one that invented FUD, BTW.
Wow, two FUD posts in a row.
...", ect. Again, phrases used to intentionally spread FUD without making explicit assertions. Classic.
First, the GP says, "some standards' patent licensors forbid implementors to publish a partial implementation. I don't know if this applies to OOXML's license." A classic FUD tactic is to speculate about something "bad" then say, "I don't know if it applies here." Yeah, you don't know if it applies in this case, but that didn't stop you from putting forth the "Fear" and "Uncertainty" that it might. Classic.
Then, the parent post uses pharses like, "My understanding is...", "It seems that if
BTW, there is NO "Full implementation requirement" for OpenXML. None.
"I think your logic is more than a little broken. Monopolies have a great deal of power that other's don't have. They can undermine capitalism in a market and destroy innovation in entire industries. They can spread causing that damage to other markets. Think of it like this, people piloting airplanes aren't allowed to drink or step outside for a cigar, while those behaviors are perfectly legal for people who aren't piloting planes. Isn't that crazy?"
A pilot knows that he's drinking at the time that he's doing it, and knows that it's against the law to do so while flying.
But a company doesn't know that it has a monopoly until some judge declares so. So while a company is engaging in normal business activity, some judge years later can rule that the company had a monopoly years ago, and rule that those normal business activies were therefore illegal. So, in order for a company to be sure to not run afoul of antitrust law, the company has to second guess every thing it does on the off-chance that at some point in the future, a judge *might* rule that the company had a monopoly at some point in the past. Well, you cannot run a company that way. It's best to engage in normal business practice, and if some judge rules in the future that it was illegal because he declares that you had a monopoly at the time, then deal with it at that point. And doing that would not be "evil". Second guessing whether you can engage in normal business practice or not in order to avoid what a judge might say in the future is not prudent.
Taking MS, specifically, at what point, what day and date, did they knowingly acheive monopoly status in the "desktop OSes for intel CPU" market? IBM was selling and heavily advertising OS/2 throughout the 90's. So when should MS have thought to itself, "OK, now I have a monopoly, so I'll no longer offer OEM discounts"? Even when OS/2 faltered, MS subsidized Apple, and many said that part of the motivation was to ensure that MS did NOT have a monopoly (everyone (certainly Mac advocates) assumed that Mac OS and Windows were competitors; MS didn't imagine that a judge would rule that Mac OS isn't even in the same market). So it would seem that MS never thought they had a monopoly, and even took steps to keep it that way.
Take Apple or Google, for other examples. Is it really so unimaginable that a judge could rule in the future that Apple or Google have monopolies *today* in mp3 players or online music (in the case of Apple) or web search advertising (in the case of Google)? In which case the same judge could rule that things Apple and Google are doing today are illegal? In such a case, would you demonize Apple or Google as "evil"? Should Apple and Google curtail their normal business activity because a judge in the future *might* rule this way? Do you see what I'm getting at?
BTW, this is why antitrust law is so screwed up. IMO, you should be able to engage in normal business activity until a judge officially rules you have a monopoly. Once that happens, then you can alter your business activities accordingly. But you should not be punished for things you did before you were officially declared to enjoy monopoly status in a particular market, nor should you be demonized for it. This is much cleaner since everyone would know upfront what standard they're being judged against. No second guessing what would be normal business practice, no subsidizing competitors to make sure they stay in business so that you don't get a monopoly, etc.
Sorry, but slashdot cult hero Judge Jackson determined in his infallible Findings of Fact that MS didn't violate antitrust laws to gain a monopoly.
Also, since Apple controls over 70% of the (legal) online music biz, and have made agreements with certain content providers to *exclusively* provide certain content only through iTMS, is not Apple restraining trade, and thus in violation of antitrust law? Even if there's some techincality that makes Apple's dealings legal (of course, we don't know if they're legal or not; any judge can rule anything), the spirit is the same. The point being, MS is no more evil than Apple or anyone else. Other companies in the same position as MS would have done the same or worse (Apple almost certainly would have been much more draconian).
Anyone notice the increasing number of anti-MS slashdotters accusing slashdotters that don't despise MS as "shills" so that they don't have to deal with the argument that those accused "shills" put forward?
Almost like the accusers ran out of arguments so they pull the "shill" card in an attempt to magically discredit any poster that goes against the "MS is evil" groupthink.
RTF can do all of the things that you mention. But not all apps support RTF as well as others. I think Word has the most complete impl of RTF.
Your mistake is that you're looking at Microsoft as one monolithic entity. In reality, it's made up of different divisions, which have their own independence, more or less.
The Office division is one of, if not the, best division at MS (maybe their dev tools division rivals it), while the IE team is one of the worst. So the Office team would be much more likely to try things like this while the IE team makes excuses not to.
"4) Use IP laws to prevent FOSS competitors from cloning interface"
/sarcasm
Maybe FOSS could come up with its own UI for once. FOSS is supposed to be such a fountain of innovation.
But the source code is meaningless as a guarantee of nonmaliciousness (intentional or unintentional) unless you compile the code yourself. Because that's the only way to know that the "fix" you install matches the source code.
JoeBlow isn't going to be able to compile the code himself. So it doesn't really matter if JoeBlow sees that some guy claiming to be a software dev on the net reviewed and ok'ed the code.