Apple is "proprietary+" but Apple fans think that was a feature.
Everything works well together and costs 30% more...
Apple does not offer people's PCs. It offers high price hardware from a single (+x) source.
Apple is known to make real interoperability a nightmare.
No, this was exaggarated, in fact produced by Microsoft PR itself.
The Commission was officially asked by MS whether they would also keep an eye on Vista and they confirmed that (otherwiese it would have be interpreted as a self-committment or agreement on non-investigation). Then Ms sent out the PR that Vista was threatened.
The goal is to depict EU antitrust officials as radicals bent to destroy Microsoft and defend the interests of European competitors. Now, this is not true.
You know, Comical Brad ruins the public affairs reputation of Microsoft by playing silly tricks, Microsoft is not SCO. We want it to keep alive.
The main problem of Microsoft's PR in Brussels is that they talk as if they were in the position to negotiate with the authorities. I call it deception of the stock market.
b) 'all infringements of an IPR' - Trips is worded different, it says criminal sanctions have to be there for PAtents and copyright. It does not say "infringement == crime". In reality criminal measures are hardly used. This would change.
So the DOJ was pleased with baseless committments which did not change anything. Didn't they want to break the company up? It was a horrible defeat of US competition policy due to political change.
I recommend to report abuses to your responsible antitrust agency in the future. The reason is that this is an instrument which educates them. Small steps.
At least for all the "missing features" Mozilla addons exist. FF told us the lesson not to overload your tools.
I am embarassed that too little happened with Sunbird development. Mozilla has a lot of money, so why didn't they cross-finance Sunbird properly. FF 1.5 is good enough for me. No need for urgent updates anymore. I am looking for another Phoenix.
But I mean, what are the real features we want to see? What does Vista offer me. Even the new nice Segoe font was ruled to be an illegal copy of Frutiger.
Most improvements of Windows XP I know are due to installation of third party software.
Install Firefox --> Better Browser Install iTunes --> proper media player Install Lame --> Ogg, mp3 Install Audacity --> proper semiprofessional audio recorder Install Nvidea drivers --> transparent windows Install Thunderbird --> You can trash outlook express Install Nero --> CD Burning Install...
etc.
Windows is just the basic. But is is broken. And if Windows was not broken, third party drivers will break it for you. Given that Vista is new, I wonder how long it will take to get it stable. I would not deploy it before early 2008.
Two years ago Linux could not compete with the market ruler but we are getting pretty close. And now it would be not to much difficult for Apple to supply their OS to other vendors despite that they would have to cope with driver hell.
"Microsoft will not retaliate against any computer manufacturer that supports non-Microsoft software. To provide transparency on this point, Microsoft will post a standard volume-based price list to a Web site that is accessible to computer manufacturers, as it has under the U.S. antitrust ruling."
I mean, should that not be taken for granted? Further there are other actions possible than just price driven approaches. E.g. you do not supply interoperability information or give better and earlier access to premium customers. You introduce new security schemes which break driver compatibility, warning signs etc. It breaks your software vendor the neck. Or you claim "no antivir installed" when users take Clamwin.
Many options left. Competition authorities will understand that the move is irrelevant.
I just know the desasterous communication from Brad Smith in Brussels. Surely this move is also related to antitrust policy and the EU competition orders. He is a guy who burns soil and funds unsound lobbyists. The other side of the medal is that their lobbying cowboys trash Microsoft's reputation because they do adapt.
It remains important to inform antitrust agencies about Microsoft's abuse so that they could react.
Then we will see search engine competition etc. etc. etc.
Good, then I suggest the authorities will be curious to know.
I mean, the antitrust struggle is about millions. Microsoft pays a 2 million fine a day because of continuous non-compliance. It shows what harm a antitrust authority can do.
All this because of lack of interoperability. I suggest they are very curious about the latest move...
And what you can win out of this is pressure from the authorities which then leads to a different code of conduct or perhaps better EULA.
Now, there is still hope to get competition authorities involved to stop the merger or reach better licensing conditions. Take Article 81 and Article 82:
Article 81 of the EC Treaty (ex Article 85)
1. The following shall be prohibited as incompatible with the common market: all agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which may affect trade between Member States and which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the common market, and in particular those which:
(a) directly or indirectly fix purchase or selling prices or any other trading conditions;
(b) limit or control production, markets, technical development, or investment;
(c) share markets or sources of supply;
(d) apply dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;
(e) make the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts.
2. Any agreements or decisions prohibited pursuant to this Article shall be automatically void.
3. The provisions of paragraph 1 may, however, be declared inapplicable in the case of:
- any agreement or category of agreements between undertakings;
- any decision or category of decisions by associations of undertakings;
- any concerted practice or category of concerted practices,
which contributes to improving the production or distribution of goods or to promoting technical or economic progress, while allowing consumers a fair share of the resulting benefit, and which does not:
(a) impose on the undertakings concerned restrictions which are not indispensable to the attainment of these objectives;
(b) afford such undertakings the possibility of eliminating competition in respect of a substantial part of the products in question.
Article 82 of the EC Treaty (ex Article 86)
Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the common market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the common market insofar as it may affect trade between Member States.
Such abuse may, in particular, consist in:
(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions;
(b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers;
(c) applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;
(d) making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts.
All you have to do is file a complaint under Article 82 or 81 EC Treaty:
European Commission Competition DG Antitrust Registry B-1049 Bruxelles
Or just mail to COMP-MARKET-INFORMATION@cec.eu.int
What you need to provide about yourself and your enterprise and how to write a complaint see here
This has to be seen in the context of anti-interoperability action of Microsoft and orders from the competition authorities e.g. in the European Union. Still Microsoft fails to comply with the documentation orders of the European Union.
Now Microsoft takes over tools which enable interoperability with its plattform and puts them under their licensing control. What we will see next is a restrictive Microsoft EULA for it which discourages use for reengineering or interoperability for Ms competitors etc.
Member States shall ensure that all intentional infringements of an intellectual property right on a commercial scale, and attempting, aiding or abetting and inciting such infringements, are treated as criminal offences....
Article 7 Joint investigation teams
The Member States must ensure that the holders of intellectual property rights concerned, or their representatives, and experts, are allowed to assist the investigations carried out by joint investigation teams into the offences referred to in Article 3.
Article 8: Initiation of criminal proceedings
Member States shall ensure that the possibility of initiating investigations into, or prosecution of, offences covered by Article 3 are not dependent on a report or accusation made by a person subjected to the offence, at least if the acts were committed in the territory of the Member State.
Here you find the list of responsible rapporteurs in parliament. If you think the formula infringement==crime is wrong it would be appropriate to take action now.
The source of IPRED2 is Jacqueline Minor from DG Internal Market, who also started the software patents directive project. Here she want to mess up criminal law of the member states.
Sorry, it is not feature-wise but most people do not like the GUI of GIMP and how the features are accessed. I think that GIMP works less productive than most other tools while having the same features. It was, despite the GimpShop hack, impossible to implement changes.
This is well understood and no problem per se. However, 4 years ago interfaces were far more chaotic than today. But GIMP remains.
My hope is that Krita continues to make progress. It looks good and is easy and powerful to use.
The advantage of Linux/open source lies where you apply the good old shell funactionality to image editing, think of Imagemagick. Commandline tools which just work.
In the GUI-world it makes no sense to create new interface schemes which are worse than what is offered by the big players.
Irue, but reparations are never individualistic and only the winner party gets it.
Patents are tools against too much competition for inventors. But competition law is not integrated into patent policy making. In most cases a community of patent officials, lobbied by patent attorney associations, with a partisan agenda, decides how to move forward in patent policy. The system governs itself.
Competition law and antitrust associations on the contrary combat anti-competitive action and defend freedom of the market. So in order to neutralise the patent movement, get the competition guys in.
Good point, I wonder why they don't. The reason is of course anti-open source ideology. But I believe MS has a business case here to support ReiserFS
As far as I understand NTFS will be laid open because of the ruling of EU competition authorities. Now MS pays millions a day because they do not comply yet.
And anyway, as a business you should write to your competition&antitrust office and complain.
--- What is regulation in the US like: When you take the original MS Windows source code and document it, may others use your documentation?
If Ms stopped to sell its products in Europe then the EU would bow down, no question. But what would follow next would be a program to combat the strategic dependency. So this is no rational strategy.
Of course they can. Competition law is not IPR law. Different legal systems. When in war you cannot ask for compensation of bombine damages. This does not mean that your property isn't protected, it is just that your nation is at war. Same goes for competition law.
"The company... says it was only this spring that it fully understood what it was required by the Commission to do, and had duly put a team of 300 people to work to supply the information."
You know, when you play these silly games you make reasonable people look at you like a fool. Microsofts communication policy and corporate affairs policy is asperger. You can play these games for a while but a hard landing and declining support is what you have to expect.
What is worse for Microsoft is the loss of reputation. They sent their lobbying cowboys to Brussels and these guys got it all wrong. Astroturf is not suited as a longterm strategy.
Recently the European Parliament passed a resolution which "urges the Commission to promote a socially inclusive knowledge-based society by supporting, for example, free and open source software and licensing concepts like the General Public
License (GPL) and the Public Documentation Licence (PDL);" This is no love letter to Richard Stallman but a clear indication how fed up they are with MS lobbyists.
I think the Microsoft staff which handled the case needs to get fired. They made every mistake that what possible and were totally ignorant to diplomatic messages by DG Competition. Now media is quoted that Kroes said "no companies may act above law". It is intresting to see that the asperger community in MS legal department does not get these messages. They still think they could play their tricks.
Btw: When you have a problem with Microsoft's anticompetitive action (Ms does not let you execute Foxpro runtimes etc.) why not report it to the Commission?
1. What does SUSE offer what other distros don't offer? - it has a (KDE) Desktop market in Europe and a good and experienced commercial community - it has a good reputation - the SuSE build server
3. All users Oh well, who needs a all-users directory.
The fact is: This is indeed about killing. Novell killed SuSe as we knew it when gave their desktop strategist more say than market. SuSE Enterprise is a zombie distribution.
Push-technologists from Ximian wanted to standardise SuSE on Gnome. Market never requested it. I like Gnome, I use it sometimes. But selling a SuSE with Gnome as default is like a holy shrine in a whorehouse. I don't like a Gnome SuSe.
SuSE always had a reputation of a solid and easy distribution and followed a true and fair view. Supporters of SuSE were always *very* critical. It had a strong user base.
SuSE will not kill Vista. We all know that. Vapour marketing is part of ugly Novell-Ximian culture. Novell cannot fool its customers with a SuSE zombie. Call it better "Novell Enterprise" and let killed SuSE rest in peace.
It is intresting that the most propretary operating system gained support in the geek community just because they build it on Unix.
I understand when an anti-DRM activist like Doctorow switches. But why Ubuntu and Gnome?
It is important for me to support communities. Some misbehaviour of Gnome activists make it impossible for me to support the Gnome plattform.
Slashdot Mirror
> There just was no need for OpenDarwin without Aqua.
Is it possible to run Darwin with Etoile / Gnustep? I think so.
I mean, if aqua misses why not recreate it.
And sure, you could run KDE on Darwin, so what's the problem?
Apple is "proprietary+" but Apple fans think that was a feature. Everything works well together and costs 30% more... Apple does not offer people's PCs. It offers high price hardware from a single (+x) source. Apple is known to make real interoperability a nightmare.
No, this was exaggarated, in fact produced by Microsoft PR itself.
The Commission was officially asked by MS whether they would also keep an eye on Vista and they confirmed that (otherwiese it would have be interpreted as a self-committment or agreement on non-investigation). Then Ms sent out the PR that Vista was threatened.
The goal is to depict EU antitrust officials as radicals bent to destroy Microsoft and defend the interests of European competitors. Now, this is not true.
You know, Comical Brad ruins the public affairs reputation of Microsoft by playing silly tricks, Microsoft is not SCO. We want it to keep alive.
The main problem of Microsoft's PR in Brussels is that they talk as if they were in the position to negotiate with the authorities. I call it deception of the stock market.
Complain, provided you are affected and cite your source.
It is a severe difference!
a) civil law enforcement vs. criminal law
b) 'all infringements of an IPR' - Trips is worded different, it says criminal sanctions have to be there for PAtents and copyright. It does not say "infringement == crime". In reality criminal measures are hardly used. This would change.
So the DOJ was pleased with baseless committments which did not change anything. Didn't they want to break the company up? It was a horrible defeat of US competition policy due to political change.
I recommend to report abuses to your responsible antitrust agency in the future. The reason is that this is an instrument which educates them. Small steps.
Find your national competition authority here
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/other_sites/
At least for all the "missing features" Mozilla addons exist. FF told us the lesson not to overload your tools.
I am embarassed that too little happened with Sunbird development. Mozilla has a lot of money, so why didn't they cross-finance Sunbird properly. FF 1.5 is good enough for me. No need for urgent updates anymore. I am looking for another Phoenix.
But I mean, what are the real features we want to see? What does Vista offer me. Even the new nice Segoe font was ruled to be an illegal copy of Frutiger.
...
Most improvements of Windows XP I know are due to installation of third party software.
Install Firefox --> Better Browser
Install iTunes --> proper media player
Install Lame --> Ogg, mp3
Install Audacity --> proper semiprofessional audio recorder
Install Nvidea drivers --> transparent windows
Install Thunderbird --> You can trash outlook express
Install Nero --> CD Burning
Install
etc.
Windows is just the basic. But is is broken. And if Windows was not broken, third party drivers will break it for you. Given that Vista is new, I wonder how long it will take to get it stable. I would not deploy it before early 2008.
Two years ago Linux could not compete with the market ruler but we are getting pretty close. And now it would be not to much difficult for Apple to supply their OS to other vendors despite that they would have to cope with driver hell.
It is like: Mafia promises not to kill judges.
"Microsoft will not retaliate against any computer manufacturer that supports non-Microsoft software. To provide transparency on this point, Microsoft will post a standard volume-based price list to a Web site that is accessible to computer manufacturers, as it has under the U.S. antitrust ruling."
I mean, should that not be taken for granted? Further there are other actions possible than just price driven approaches. E.g. you do not supply interoperability information or give better and earlier access to premium customers. You introduce new security schemes which break driver compatibility, warning signs etc. It breaks your software vendor the neck. Or you claim "no antivir installed" when users take Clamwin.
Many options left. Competition authorities will understand that the move is irrelevant.
I just know the desasterous communication from Brad Smith in Brussels. Surely this move is also related to antitrust policy and the EU competition orders. He is a guy who burns soil and funds unsound lobbyists. The other side of the medal is that their lobbying cowboys trash Microsoft's reputation because they do adapt.
It remains important to inform antitrust agencies about Microsoft's abuse so that they could react.
Then we will see search engine competition etc. etc. etc.
Good, then I suggest the authorities will be curious to know.
I mean, the antitrust struggle is about millions. Microsoft pays a 2 million fine a day because of continuous non-compliance. It shows what harm a antitrust authority can do.
All this because of lack of interoperability. I suggest they are very curious about the latest move...
And what you can win out of this is pressure from the authorities which then leads to a different code of conduct or perhaps better EULA.
I understand, that is the way 3rd party business creation works.
Ms will fix its worm problems and as a compensation the antivir guys get a new insecure IP stack.
All you have to do is file a complaint under Article 82 or 81 EC Treaty:
Or just mail to COMP-MARKET-INFORMATION@cec.eu.int
What you need to provide about yourself and your enterprise and how to write a complaint see here
This has to be seen in the context of anti-interoperability action of Microsoft and orders from the competition authorities e.g. in the European Union. Still Microsoft fails to comply with the documentation orders of the European Union.
Now Microsoft takes over tools which enable interoperability with its plattform and puts them under their licensing control. What we will see next is a restrictive Microsoft EULA for it which discourages use for reengineering or interoperability for Ms competitors etc.
Worth to file a complaint at the responsible EU competition consumer liason office.
Let's don't forget the upcoming European IPRED2:
...
Article 3 Offences
Member States shall ensure that all intentional infringements of an intellectual property right on a commercial scale, and attempting, aiding or abetting and inciting such infringements, are treated as criminal offences.
Article 7 Joint investigation teams
The Member States must ensure that the holders of intellectual property rights concerned, or their representatives, and experts, are allowed to assist the investigations carried out by joint investigation teams into the offences referred to in Article 3.
Article 8: Initiation of criminal proceedings
Member States shall ensure that the possibility of initiating investigations into, or prosecution of, offences covered by Article 3 are not dependent on a report or accusation made by a person subjected to the offence, at least if the acts were committed in the territory of the Member State.
Here you find the list of responsible rapporteurs in parliament. If you think the formula infringement==crime is wrong it would be appropriate to take action now.
The source of IPRED2 is Jacqueline Minor from DG Internal Market, who also started the software patents directive project. Here she want to mess up criminal law of the member states.
Sorry, it is not feature-wise but most people do not like the GUI of GIMP and how the features are accessed. I think that GIMP works less productive than most other tools while having the same features. It was, despite the GimpShop hack, impossible to implement changes.
This is well understood and no problem per se. However, 4 years ago interfaces were far more chaotic than today. But GIMP remains.
My hope is that Krita continues to make progress. It looks good and is easy and powerful to use.
The advantage of Linux/open source lies where you apply the good old shell funactionality to image editing, think of Imagemagick. Commandline tools which just work.
In the GUI-world it makes no sense to create new interface schemes which are worse than what is offered by the big players.
"Reparations were common in wars."
Irue, but reparations are never individualistic and only the winner party gets it.
Patents are tools against too much competition for inventors. But competition law is not integrated into patent policy making. In most cases a community of patent officials, lobbied by patent attorney associations, with a partisan agenda, decides how to move forward in patent policy. The system governs itself.
Competition law and antitrust associations on the contrary combat anti-competitive action and defend freedom of the market. So in order to neutralise the patent movement, get the competition guys in.
Good point, I wonder why they don't. The reason is of course anti-open source ideology. But I believe MS has a business case here to support ReiserFS
As far as I understand NTFS will be laid open because of the ruling of EU competition authorities. Now MS pays millions a day because they do not comply yet.
And anyway, as a business you should write to your competition&antitrust office and complain.
---
What is regulation in the US like: When you take the original MS Windows source code and document it, may others use your documentation?
If Ms stopped to sell its products in Europe then the EU would bow down, no question. But what would follow next would be a program to combat the strategic dependency. So this is no rational strategy.
Of course they can. Competition law is not IPR law. Different legal systems. When in war you cannot ask for compensation of bombine damages. This does not mean that your property isn't protected, it is just that your nation is at war. Same goes for competition law.
... says it was only this spring that it fully understood what it was required by the Commission to do, and had duly put a team of 300 people to work to supply the information."
"The company
You know, when you play these silly games you make reasonable people look at you like a fool. Microsofts communication policy and corporate affairs policy is asperger. You can play these games for a while but a hard landing and declining support is what you have to expect.
What is worse for Microsoft is the loss of reputation. They sent their lobbying cowboys to Brussels and these guys got it all wrong. Astroturf is not suited as a longterm strategy. Recently the European Parliament passed a resolution which "urges the Commission to promote a socially inclusive knowledge-based society by supporting, for example, free and open source software and licensing concepts like the General Public License (GPL) and the Public Documentation Licence (PDL);" This is no love letter to Richard Stallman but a clear indication how fed up they are with MS lobbyists. I think the Microsoft staff which handled the case needs to get fired. They made every mistake that what possible and were totally ignorant to diplomatic messages by DG Competition. Now media is quoted that Kroes said "no companies may act above law". It is intresting to see that the asperger community in MS legal department does not get these messages. They still think they could play their tricks. Btw: When you have a problem with Microsoft's anticompetitive action (Ms does not let you execute Foxpro runtimes etc.) why not report it to the Commission?
1. What does SUSE offer what other distros don't offer?
- it has a (KDE) Desktop market in Europe and a good and experienced commercial community
- it has a good reputation
- the SuSE build server
3. All users
Oh well, who needs a all-users directory.
In fact SuSE has a fair market befor Novell changed it. SuSe was a always market driven.
The fact is: This is indeed about killing. Novell killed SuSe as we knew it when gave their desktop strategist more say than market. SuSE Enterprise is a zombie distribution.
Push-technologists from Ximian wanted to standardise SuSE on Gnome. Market never requested it. I like Gnome, I use it sometimes. But selling a SuSE with Gnome as default is like a holy shrine in a whorehouse. I don't like a Gnome SuSe.
SuSE always had a reputation of a solid and easy distribution and followed a true and fair view. Supporters of SuSE were always *very* critical. It had a strong user base.
SuSE will not kill Vista. We all know that. Vapour marketing is part of ugly Novell-Ximian culture. Novell cannot fool its customers with a SuSE zombie. Call it better "Novell Enterprise" and let killed SuSE rest in peace.
It is intresting that the most propretary operating system gained support in the geek community just because they build it on Unix. I understand when an anti-DRM activist like Doctorow switches. But why Ubuntu and Gnome? It is important for me to support communities. Some misbehaviour of Gnome activists make it impossible for me to support the Gnome plattform.