Gee that would be great, except I already use cmd-tab to switch between the twelve open programs I have running right now. (I'm running on OS where multitasking actually works, not Windows.)
Alt-F4 is my pop-up blocker
Manually closing pop-ups is the best you can do? Pathetic.
Yeah it has tabs, but since SP2 on windows a lot of problems (with popups and spyware) were greatly reduced. Besides, install Spybot Search & Destroy and Your Choice(tm) of viruscan...
Gee running a different browser on a different OS, I've never had any spyware. I did have a pop-up once, a few months back. I told my browser it was an ad and now nothing from that that server is downloaded by my browser. You forgot to mention in page ads. Can IE finally block those as well? So lets look at that again. With IE you can manually close pop-ups and run software to remove the crap that gets installed on your machine, or you can use something else and not have to worry about pop-ups or spyware. And you think IE is up to snuff here? I mean if it was just one browser that was better you could argue, but every other browser does better in both these regards.
I think I'll stick with grouping my web browsing by tabs in one or two windows, and not worrying about spyware or random worms compromising my machine.
Only Government sponsored monopolies are legal in the United States.
Please cite the law that makes having a monopoly illegal in the US. Of course since we're discussing the EU case, that does not matter. MS has been found to have and to have abused their monopoly in violation of anti-trust statutes in the U.S., EU, and a number of other countries.
...prior to the advent of GNU/Linux and rebirth of Apple.
Lets see, MS incorporated in 84, GNU/Linux was founded in 83. How MS gained a monopoly before they existed is an exercise left to the reader.
IE is the clear market leader which works great and they are about to release a new version which should please nearly everyone.
I'll have to disagree with you. MS is the market Leader, but not by virtue of working great, as you put it. Luckily all the web development I do is for security and networking professionals, and Lynx compatibility is in about the same demand as IE compatibility. The pages I create degrade gracefully for IE, but certainly don't have all the same features, since IE cannot support them yet. They work fine in Firefox, Opera, and Safari (all three of which our customers do use). MS is the market Leader due to their illegal bundling and nothing else. Their browser stinks, and is sub-par, just not so bad that more than a small percentage of knowledgeable people go out of their way to find something else. Most people do not even know that there are other browsers. Certainly there is more money in subverting the standard and trying to lock people into IE and Windows if they want to use the Web, but you're one of the few Web developers that I've ever heard of that supported them in that endeavor. Usually only clueless people using FrontPage, that don't realize how broken the code it outputs is, speak in favor of IE.
No tabs - how do you manage more than four or five Web pages at a time? I have nine tabs open right now, and that is about average.
Pop-ups/pop-unders - How can you stand having pop-ups appear constantly cluttering your workspace. I can't stand it.
Adblock - hundreds of flashing, blinking, moving, bouncing banners. Some sites are good about them, but some are so bad as to be unreadable.
Active X - if I want software installed, I'll install it. I'm not so keen on this huge security hole.
CSS - IE can't show much of the nice CSS on pages and you can't specify a default CSS style (which is great for my relations with poor eyesight and for pages who insist yellow and white text and backgrounds go together)
Now I've done my share of web development, but I'm primarily a user, but I can't see how anyone could use IE as an everyday browser after trying something else. Almost anything else is better. I've used pretty much every browser on every system, for testing purposes if nothing else. I just can't see how someone could recommend IE. If nothing else the popularity, Active X implementation, and co-mingled code with the file browser makes it such a huge security risk that it is just not worth it. I guess if you don't care about security and don't mind having to remove malware and viruses it might be an option, but I don't really see why.
When I read the headline, I immediately thought, "yeah, right." Love or hate MS, IE 6 usability and look and feel pretty much kicks ass.
What?... What?!?
IE 6 is crap, through and through. It doesn't even have tabbed browsing. It is ugly. It violates plenty of basic UI principles. It does not have a build in, working ad blocker. The pop-up blocking is sub par. The security is abysmal and it can't even properly render Web pages written in WC3 standards set half a decade ago. It is ugly and unusable in my opinion.
IE will be the standard for a long time, and another reason to choose Windows over the 'competition'.
Nobody chooses Windows except OEMs that don't want to be run out of business. It comes pre-installed on every computer you buy (sans a few renegades that don't really affect the market). Some people choose the competition, but only after they have been forced to pay for MS's products first. I certainly hope it is not the standard for years to come, because that would imply that Web technologies will stagnate for another decade as MS refuses to implement any new standards and instead tries to covertly take over the Web using broken standards and proprietary extensions. I certainly don't look forward to another five years of coding pages to the standards, then working around all of IE's bugs and flaws.
I agree MS won't buy Opera to use the browser, but that is because they want a broken browser tied to the OS as tightly as possible, not because it is not superior. The banner ads you complain of are because they actually have to pay for developers with money not acquired via a monopoly. MS just rolls the cost into Windows, which you have to buy anyway, even if you plan to run Linux. Don't worry, if MS does acquire them there would be no banner ads and even if you run Linux you'll be paying for the developers. Gee, great, huh?
Um, sorry but were you not the one going 'holy hell, desktop OS monopoly?' in your reply. MS are certainly not in a monopoly server wise, and thats what you said, so give it a rest.
Is English your first language? I said MS has a monopoly on desktop OS's. The EU documents call them "PC Operating Systems" and have a lengthy definition of them. I never made any claims that they had a monopoly on server operating systems, only that they abused the monopoly they do have to give themselves an unfair advantage in server OS sales. What part of that do you disagree with? Is there something else I wrote that you disagree with? Do you even know what I was talking about?
They were not convicted of abusing their monopoly on 'SERVER PROGRAMS' (as you put it). They did agree to provide all necessary information for interoperability with server programs as part of their settlement. The monopoly they are convicted of abusing is in "the market for PC operating systems" which they used to gain an unfair advantage in the "markets for work group server operating systems and for media players."
Get your facts right before you get up on your horse. How about understanding 'Read the full article', idiot.
I think it is pretty obvious you don't understand what you are talking about. Server program documentation is part of the settlement to mitigate their abuse of their monopoly on 'PC operating systems' to gain an unfair advantage for 'work group server operating systems' which server programs are a part of. Perhaps before calling someone an idiot, you should not only read the article, but make sure you understand what it is talking about.
First their IP is not limited to the source code and includes compiled binaries. Second, I'm sure EU members have copies of Windows source code. They have shared it with many different companies and governments. Various EU members have pretty decent intelligence gathering operations. And, they could always buy it from China.
Monopolies are defined by markets, not products. What other company sells OS's and makes a reasonable profit and has a reasonable market share? IBM sells services. Apple sells hardware. Who sells OS's?
Are they going to fine all of the ones that don't have a "feature" or documentation that they don't like? What's next? Applications?
No they are going to fine all the ones that have a monopoly, and then use that monopoly to move into other markets, illegally putting companies with better products out of business.
If Windows doesn't let you do something that is important for your group, THEN DON'T USE IT!
How about if MS does not want open up their APIs and interoperate properly they don't first break the law and then second sign an agreement saying they will open up their APIs and become interoperable as part of their settlement for breaking the law?
It's kind of hard to split a company that shut down.
Not really, how long do you suppose it will take for MS to move all their assets out of Europe, including properties, employees, etc.? And they can't relocate their most valuable assets, the intellectual property rights to Windows and other software. Poof! Within the EU a new company has the rights to sell Windows. Or, the EU could declare it public domain, to compensate the people.
Not that any of this matters. If Ballmer and company decided to pull out of the EU today, they would be fired by an emergency stockholder meeting tomorrow. You don't walk away from billions in profit annually in order to avoid millions in fines. Any executive deciding to do so would be fired, and probably sued for maliciously trying to destroy the shareholder's company.
Microsoft, no matter how many people hate them, should not be penalised for being a sucessful business.
Agreed. They should be punished for breaking the law, which, coincidentally, is what they are being punished for.
There are plenty of alternatives to their product.
And here you make a incredibly common mistake. Monopolies are defined by markets, not products. No one else sells a significant number of desktop OS's and makes a profit doing so. All companies that have tried have gone out of business. IBM and many others sell services and include an OS. Apple and many others sell hardware and include an OS. Who, aside from MS, sells OS's and makes a profit?
Lets fine apple for making people with ipods (a monopoly) download itunes, which now comes with quicktime.
One, ipods have about 70% of the market. That is not a monopoly. Two, Apple's quicktime competes against MS Media player, which is bundled with a monopolized product.
Lets fine sony (or X,Y,Z) for not playing songs downloaded by itunes.
...because Sony has a monopoly on what, that they have abused how?
Lets fine apple for not allowing other mp3 player play songs downloaded by itunes.
If Apple were to gain a monopoly on music downloads, and use that to gain a monopoly on players, then yes lets fine them. Last I heard, however, they were nowhere near having a monopoly and dozens of other companies, including MS, Walmart, and Sony offered similar services.
Lets fine KFC for not telling us the secret ingredient in the batter for the fried chicken, as some little take-away next door is suffering.
First, KFC does not have a monopoly on anything. Second, having a monopoly is not illegal. Having a monopoly and using it to get another monopoly is illegal. So as soon as KFC is the only company making money selling fried chicken and they start giving away free whatever with that chicken, the courts should step in on behalf of whatever sellers.
How can someone come up with opinions like yours without understanding the basics of monopolies, bundling, anti-trust law, or this particular case? How can you have not even tried to use Google to research this at all, or read any opposing opinions on it that might inform you? Do you just randomly spout uninformed opinions about everything?
This is equal to a habitual speeder getting pulled over for the 10th time in a month, and the penalty is his wife can no longer work. The justification; she makes allot of money and bought him the car. Should we tell MS that they can no longer sell Office unless they give Open Office their source code too?
Wow, where to begin. MS is one legal entity called a corporation, not two individuals. This is a lot more like restricting a child molester out on parole from going near playgrounds. MS has illegally used their monopoly multiple times. Now the courts have forbidden them from activities that could lead them to abuse it again. It sounds pretty reasonable to me. If MS wants their server and other operations legally separate they can just make them separate corporations. I'm all for splitting up MS and letting them actually compete.
As to the source code, you're mistaking EU ruling. They order them to open up the protocols and make them interoperable, not to open the source code. That is like saying they have to open up the.doc spec after abusing their monopoly to make.doc the default specification. It is not like saying they have to open up the source to Word. The only issue is MS won't release the spec, and what they have released is not what they are actually using. After so many times of them lying and giving a spec that is not the real spec, access to the source code may be the only way anyone can determine what the real spec is.
MS server api/code being required to be exposed is border line criminal in my opinion. This is MS IP (good or bad it's theirs), and forcing an Open Source model on the world is a dangerous road... regardless of your opinion on OSS.
Where do you get this crap? Opening an API is not open sourcing the code that implements an API. It is documenting what is used and making sure others can use it equally. It is akin to one company having a monopoly on cars, and then switching all their cars to use a non-standard fuel. The courts just said they have to tell everyone what the specifications for the fuel are (not even the formula for it or the process used to make it) so that they can't use that monopoly to take over the fuel market. I hope you are being paid to spread this FUD. If MS does not want to be punished they shouldn't break the bloody law.
This is an attempt to throw a bone at competitors of Microsoft...
This is an attempt to stop MS from illegally putting more people, with better products, and who actually innovate, out of business.
The fact that the foes of Microsoft resort to beating them on the server front like this just goes to show you that MS really has made a good product with Windows 2003.
No, the fact that MS is gaining market share with such an obviously inferior product is what prompted this response.
The cold hard truth is that this has very little to do with MS or monopolies. The EU is just trying to hurt the US economy by hurting the largest American company.
I doubt it, or they would be picking on a lot more corporations. Nope this is about power, and making sure foreign companies don't put local ones out of business by breaking the laws.
MS chose to break the law as part of their business model. They have a gajillion lawyers and know full well when they are breaking the law. They have just gambled that it will be more profitable to break the law and pay any fines and settlements that result than it will be to comply with the law. So far they have been completely correct in this gamble and it has paid off amazingly well. Even with a few million dollars a day in fines they will still be making money in Europe, thus further justifying their business plan. This tells corporations around the world something most of them already know. Laws are an inconvenience for corporations, not a deal breaker. Crime pays, especially when it is on a very large scale that allows you to bribe corrupt politicians left and right. Additionally, you can get sympathy from uneducated, ignorant, nationalists who are willing to support breaking crimes in other countries. Brilliant!
Can they by law do that? That just seems fraked up to me. IMO M$ should have no obligation to release anything unless they wanted to.
...In other news convicted killer Ben Dover was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of seven children. Mouth breathers everywhere ask, "can they do that?" It seems, in my screwed up opinion, that the courts don't have any right to order someone to go to a particular location unless they want to.
You'd have to be a moron to think MS has the option of "going home." If they were to declare their products no longer for sale in the EU and pull all their employees out and try to sell all their holdings there, the EU would order the company split up immediately and MS-USA would have to compete with MS-Europe which would hold all the intellectual property rights there. They are a convicted, abusive monopoly. Trying to avoid a punishment by the courts does not work, because the courts have all the power in their jurisdiction.
Actually, under a strict legal interpretation the only thing you could be persecuted for under a "yelling fire" situation is a series of civil lawsuits. Making laws that abridge freedom of speech are actually supposed to be off limits.
Perhaps according to the constitution as you interpret it, but to my knowledge it has never been interpreted that way by the courts, even in the earliest years of the republic.
You're mistaking freedom of speech for freedom of responsibility for speech. If someone yells "Fire" in a crowded theater and then is arrested for reckless endangerment is that a violation of their freedom of speech? If a doctor tells a patient that certain pills will help their heart condition, when they are truly a deadly neurotoxin, should the doctor be arrested for what he said? After all, he did not force anyone to take any poison pills.
Freedom of speech has always been limited, but the courts have a whole list of contingencies. For example, commercial speech is given less protection than non-commercial speech. I can write that Crest toothpaste not only whitened my teeth but caused me to lose ten pounds and grow more hair. Crest, however, can be sued for saying the same thing, if they know it is untrue. The highest form or protected speech is political speech. If I were to claim the CEO of some company was evil and immoral, I can be sued for slander and might lose. If I say the same thing about the president or a member of congress, there is little chance that I will lose.
If these people truly did commit libel, and have cost a company and its shareholders money with lies, then they deserve to pay that back. If they are telling the truth, then not only should the courts find them innocent, but Juniper should be charged with barratry. The problem as I see it, is that the courts are not a level and impartial field. Large companies with lots of money are more likely to win a case and are almost assured of never being found guilty of barratry. This is due to a system corrupted by money and purchased laws. Freedom of speech is relatively intact, it is just that the courts do not do a good job of making sure certain laws protecting it are actually enforced.
Whedon's series and movie just came off to me as targeted obsessively at his Buffy/Angel teen fanbase.
I can't stand Buffy or Angel. I have a lot of friends you love those shows and a lot who hate them. I don't have any friends that did not like the Firefly series when they saw it. Right now Firefly the series is selling more copies than Lost. How do you figure he failed to target other than his teen fanbase?
The concepts and acting all very uninspired and average, particularly in its' film outing. I find it to be an entirely derivitive mishmash of a few things. None done particularly well.
This makes you sound a lot like someone who judges films based upon the concept and the special effects. Firefly was innovative in dialogue and had very rich character development. You could tell the same story in ancient egypt and it would still have been interesting if it had that quality of writing. Some of us watch shows for the story.
The TV series was average.
Then why is it selling so many DVDs?
The TV series performed very poorly.
And yet it is currently performing very well on a normal time slot, shown in order on the Sci-fi channel. How exactly do you rate how well a series does?
You like to deride Lost for its' marketing...
Umm, I do? Gee I guess I learn something new about myself every day.
You didn't like the Firefly series or the DVD, which actually makes you the first person I know to have both watched the series and told me they did not like it. (You did watch the series right?) Well, that is just fine, but you can't deny that the series is incredibly popular for a series that was cancelled after the first season. Nor do I think it is sensible to argue that Fox does not cancel a lot of very popular shows, for one reason or another. They have managed to cancel no less than four television series that are rated in the top 100, consistently, long before the series had become unprofitable. A program that was cancelled even before all the episodes were shown is outselling the most popular, big budget, show on prime-time right now. That has significance.
Which executives? What grudge? They're in the business of business. If they're not making money, they're fired.
Have you ever worked in a corporation? Was the person who made the decision to cancel the family guy fired after they calculated how much money they lost from that decision? I doubt it. Lets put it this way. If you cancel a show that then goes on to be one of the best selling DVDs ever, should you be fired? Probably. Will you be fired? Unlikely, because at that level it is more about politics and making money for execs than for the company.
You clearly do not understand how mass media works. The invisible hand is always there, but you have the positions all wrong. You are not the customer and the shows you watch are not the products being sold.
First, yes the viewer is the consumer in the television market. Most people pay for cable or satellite TV in the U.S. Everyone pays for television either by paying a subscription fee (HBO), enduring commercials (over the air TV), or both (most other TV). It is true that there are also advertisers who are consumers in this model, but it is a secondary role in that sales people are not consuming the television programs and are not concerned about the quality. Advertisers don't care if ever show sucks so long as they get people to buy things, but end consumers do, and DVD sales reflect the opinions of end users. That is why both advertisers and distribution houses are paying attention to those sales. The Sci-Fi Channel can charge a lot more money for advertisements during an episode of Firefly than they can at other times, because advertisers know that it is the number one selling TV series on DVD and that influences their opinion about its popularity.
I liked Buffy and Angel, so I was predisposed to like it, but I've tried several times and just found it not at all entertaining.
How interesting. I can't stand to watch Buffy or Angel. It is heavily cheesed campy crap aimed at high school goth kids. The acting sucked and the plots were horrible. I actually leave the room if someone puts either on.
In contrast I liked the Firefly series quite a bit. The movie was an interesting case. By itself it is sort of thin. You can tell he crammed a lot into a short period to try to bring some sort of completion to the story. It was nowhere near as good as the series, but not particularly bad either. I guess different people just have different tastes.
Double-checking, I'm wrong, it's $2 million per episode in production costs for Firefly... That's almost as much as ABC's Lost, and there they have a huge audience and marketing engine behind the show.
It's interesting you should make that comparison. It is very hard to rate the popularity of TV shows, since there is no direct purchase involved. Nielson type ratings are questionable in reliability. DVD purchases are actually one of the best measures. If you take a look at Amazon's top DVD sales for today you'll find that Lost is the second most popular TV series... right behind Firefly which is the most purchased TV series. Now, the price of Lost is higher than Firefly by about 25%, and they don't have specific statistics on how many have sold total. Nonetheless I think the runaway popularity of Firefly DVD sales speaks to its potential as a show that has an audience willing to support those production costs, if only given that option.
It was poorly planned. They tried to keep too many secrets from the audience, which just wound up making the show hard to get attached to. Compare it to lost: lost only gives you a few mysteries at a time, and always wraps up a few before delivering the next batch. Firefly really needed better writers and better planning.
You couldn't be more wrong. I've seen both shows. Lost has mediocre writing and weak character development. I have not seen a single innovative element to the writing of Lost. Firefly had excellent and innovative writing, including some of the the best examples of characters not understanding one another without dumbing it down so much as to seem unbelievable.
The reason Lost is a success and Firefly is not is because Lost is marketed to hell and back by some fairly sharp people. Firefly was intentionally sabotaged by executives with a grudge. Do you really think Lost would be a success if they aired the episodes out of order and changed the time it was on three times during it's first season, and they pre-empted it with sports multiple times?
...that the movie only made $25m, and that marketing is being blamed.
Actually the movie has grossed 38 million, one million short of the budget. Heres the industry rule of thumb. Box office is 1/5 of the total income from a movie, once you include DVD sales, and showings on television. Production budget is 1/3 of the cost of the movie once you figure in marketing and distribution costs. So the movie cost 117 million and will make about 190 million when all is said and done. Rumor has it they skimped a lot on the marketing, so it will actually be quite a bit more profitable than that. Also, Serenity is the number one DVD sale on Amazon today, so DVD sales may be a lot more than expected. Anyone who thinks it was a "flop" does not know what they are talking about. Not that it was a huge success, as movies go.
Slashdot Mirror
That's your last punch, calling me a Front Page user? Them's fighting words.
Now, now. I just compared you to a FrontPage user. I wouldn't make such a dire accusation without having proof.
You are probably a Macintosh user or something.
Well, right at this moment I'm a OS X, OpenBSD, Linux, and Win2K user. But, I'm typing this message in Safari on OS X, just for you.
Alt-tab for fast window switching
Gee that would be great, except I already use cmd-tab to switch between the twelve open programs I have running right now. (I'm running on OS where multitasking actually works, not Windows.)
Alt-F4 is my pop-up blocker
Manually closing pop-ups is the best you can do? Pathetic.
Yeah it has tabs, but since SP2 on windows a lot of problems (with popups and spyware) were greatly reduced. Besides, install Spybot Search & Destroy and Your Choice(tm) of viruscan...
Gee running a different browser on a different OS, I've never had any spyware. I did have a pop-up once, a few months back. I told my browser it was an ad and now nothing from that that server is downloaded by my browser. You forgot to mention in page ads. Can IE finally block those as well? So lets look at that again. With IE you can manually close pop-ups and run software to remove the crap that gets installed on your machine, or you can use something else and not have to worry about pop-ups or spyware. And you think IE is up to snuff here? I mean if it was just one browser that was better you could argue, but every other browser does better in both these regards.
I think I'll stick with grouping my web browsing by tabs in one or two windows, and not worrying about spyware or random worms compromising my machine.
Only Government sponsored monopolies are legal in the United States.
Please cite the law that makes having a monopoly illegal in the US. Of course since we're discussing the EU case, that does not matter. MS has been found to have and to have abused their monopoly in violation of anti-trust statutes in the U.S., EU, and a number of other countries.
Lets see, MS incorporated in 84, GNU/Linux was founded in 83. How MS gained a monopoly before they existed is an exercise left to the reader.
IE is the clear market leader which works great and they are about to release a new version which should please nearly everyone.
I'll have to disagree with you. MS is the market Leader, but not by virtue of working great, as you put it. Luckily all the web development I do is for security and networking professionals, and Lynx compatibility is in about the same demand as IE compatibility. The pages I create degrade gracefully for IE, but certainly don't have all the same features, since IE cannot support them yet. They work fine in Firefox, Opera, and Safari (all three of which our customers do use). MS is the market Leader due to their illegal bundling and nothing else. Their browser stinks, and is sub-par, just not so bad that more than a small percentage of knowledgeable people go out of their way to find something else. Most people do not even know that there are other browsers. Certainly there is more money in subverting the standard and trying to lock people into IE and Windows if they want to use the Web, but you're one of the few Web developers that I've ever heard of that supported them in that endeavor. Usually only clueless people using FrontPage, that don't realize how broken the code it outputs is, speak in favor of IE.
Things that make IE unusable for every day use:
Now I've done my share of web development, but I'm primarily a user, but I can't see how anyone could use IE as an everyday browser after trying something else. Almost anything else is better. I've used pretty much every browser on every system, for testing purposes if nothing else. I just can't see how someone could recommend IE. If nothing else the popularity, Active X implementation, and co-mingled code with the file browser makes it such a huge security risk that it is just not worth it. I guess if you don't care about security and don't mind having to remove malware and viruses it might be an option, but I don't really see why.
When I read the headline, I immediately thought, "yeah, right." Love or hate MS, IE 6 usability and look and feel pretty much kicks ass.
What?... What?!?
IE 6 is crap, through and through. It doesn't even have tabbed browsing. It is ugly. It violates plenty of basic UI principles. It does not have a build in, working ad blocker. The pop-up blocking is sub par. The security is abysmal and it can't even properly render Web pages written in WC3 standards set half a decade ago. It is ugly and unusable in my opinion.
IE will be the standard for a long time, and another reason to choose Windows over the 'competition'.
Nobody chooses Windows except OEMs that don't want to be run out of business. It comes pre-installed on every computer you buy (sans a few renegades that don't really affect the market). Some people choose the competition, but only after they have been forced to pay for MS's products first. I certainly hope it is not the standard for years to come, because that would imply that Web technologies will stagnate for another decade as MS refuses to implement any new standards and instead tries to covertly take over the Web using broken standards and proprietary extensions. I certainly don't look forward to another five years of coding pages to the standards, then working around all of IE's bugs and flaws.
I agree MS won't buy Opera to use the browser, but that is because they want a broken browser tied to the OS as tightly as possible, not because it is not superior. The banner ads you complain of are because they actually have to pay for developers with money not acquired via a monopoly. MS just rolls the cost into Windows, which you have to buy anyway, even if you plan to run Linux. Don't worry, if MS does acquire them there would be no banner ads and even if you run Linux you'll be paying for the developers. Gee, great, huh?
Um, sorry but were you not the one going 'holy hell, desktop OS monopoly?' in your reply. MS are certainly not in a monopoly server wise, and thats what you said, so give it a rest.
Is English your first language? I said MS has a monopoly on desktop OS's. The EU documents call them "PC Operating Systems" and have a lengthy definition of them. I never made any claims that they had a monopoly on server operating systems, only that they abused the monopoly they do have to give themselves an unfair advantage in server OS sales. What part of that do you disagree with? Is there something else I wrote that you disagree with? Do you even know what I was talking about?
Um, 'SERVER PROGRAMS', not desktop OS's.
They were not convicted of abusing their monopoly on 'SERVER PROGRAMS' (as you put it). They did agree to provide all necessary information for interoperability with server programs as part of their settlement. The monopoly they are convicted of abusing is in "the market for PC operating systems" which they used to gain an unfair advantage in the "markets for work group server operating systems and for media players."
Get your facts right before you get up on your horse. How about understanding 'Read the full article', idiot.
I think it is pretty obvious you don't understand what you are talking about. Server program documentation is part of the settlement to mitigate their abuse of their monopoly on 'PC operating systems' to gain an unfair advantage for 'work group server operating systems' which server programs are a part of. Perhaps before calling someone an idiot, you should not only read the article, but make sure you understand what it is talking about.
P.S. oh and you're an idiot.
Eactly how are you going to get their IP then?
First their IP is not limited to the source code and includes compiled binaries. Second, I'm sure EU members have copies of Windows source code. They have shared it with many different companies and governments. Various EU members have pretty decent intelligence gathering operations. And, they could always buy it from China.
There are about 100 OSs out there.
Monopolies are defined by markets, not products. What other company sells OS's and makes a reasonable profit and has a reasonable market share? IBM sells services. Apple sells hardware. Who sells OS's?
Are they going to fine all of the ones that don't have a "feature" or documentation that they don't like? What's next? Applications?
No they are going to fine all the ones that have a monopoly, and then use that monopoly to move into other markets, illegally putting companies with better products out of business.
If Windows doesn't let you do something that is important for your group, THEN DON'T USE IT!
How about if MS does not want open up their APIs and interoperate properly they don't first break the law and then second sign an agreement saying they will open up their APIs and become interoperable as part of their settlement for breaking the law?
It's kind of hard to split a company that shut down.
Not really, how long do you suppose it will take for MS to move all their assets out of Europe, including properties, employees, etc.? And they can't relocate their most valuable assets, the intellectual property rights to Windows and other software. Poof! Within the EU a new company has the rights to sell Windows. Or, the EU could declare it public domain, to compensate the people.
Not that any of this matters. If Ballmer and company decided to pull out of the EU today, they would be fired by an emergency stockholder meeting tomorrow. You don't walk away from billions in profit annually in order to avoid millions in fines. Any executive deciding to do so would be fired, and probably sued for maliciously trying to destroy the shareholder's company.
Microsoft, no matter how many people hate them, should not be penalised for being a sucessful business.
Agreed. They should be punished for breaking the law, which, coincidentally, is what they are being punished for.
There are plenty of alternatives to their product.
And here you make a incredibly common mistake. Monopolies are defined by markets, not products. No one else sells a significant number of desktop OS's and makes a profit doing so. All companies that have tried have gone out of business. IBM and many others sell services and include an OS. Apple and many others sell hardware and include an OS. Who, aside from MS, sells OS's and makes a profit?
Lets fine apple for making people with ipods (a monopoly) download itunes, which now comes with quicktime.
One, ipods have about 70% of the market. That is not a monopoly. Two, Apple's quicktime competes against MS Media player, which is bundled with a monopolized product.
Lets fine sony (or X,Y,Z) for not playing songs downloaded by itunes.
...because Sony has a monopoly on what, that they have abused how?
Lets fine apple for not allowing other mp3 player play songs downloaded by itunes.
If Apple were to gain a monopoly on music downloads, and use that to gain a monopoly on players, then yes lets fine them. Last I heard, however, they were nowhere near having a monopoly and dozens of other companies, including MS, Walmart, and Sony offered similar services.
Lets fine KFC for not telling us the secret ingredient in the batter for the fried chicken, as some little take-away next door is suffering.
First, KFC does not have a monopoly on anything. Second, having a monopoly is not illegal. Having a monopoly and using it to get another monopoly is illegal. So as soon as KFC is the only company making money selling fried chicken and they start giving away free whatever with that chicken, the courts should step in on behalf of whatever sellers.
How can someone come up with opinions like yours without understanding the basics of monopolies, bundling, anti-trust law, or this particular case? How can you have not even tried to use Google to research this at all, or read any opposing opinions on it that might inform you? Do you just randomly spout uninformed opinions about everything?
This is equal to a habitual speeder getting pulled over for the 10th time in a month, and the penalty is his wife can no longer work. The justification; she makes allot of money and bought him the car. Should we tell MS that they can no longer sell Office unless they give Open Office their source code too?
Wow, where to begin. MS is one legal entity called a corporation, not two individuals. This is a lot more like restricting a child molester out on parole from going near playgrounds. MS has illegally used their monopoly multiple times. Now the courts have forbidden them from activities that could lead them to abuse it again. It sounds pretty reasonable to me. If MS wants their server and other operations legally separate they can just make them separate corporations. I'm all for splitting up MS and letting them actually compete.
As to the source code, you're mistaking EU ruling. They order them to open up the protocols and make them interoperable, not to open the source code. That is like saying they have to open up the .doc spec after abusing their monopoly to make .doc the default specification. It is not like saying they have to open up the source to Word. The only issue is MS won't release the spec, and what they have released is not what they are actually using. After so many times of them lying and giving a spec that is not the real spec, access to the source code may be the only way anyone can determine what the real spec is.
MS server api/code being required to be exposed is border line criminal in my opinion. This is MS IP (good or bad it's theirs), and forcing an Open Source model on the world is a dangerous road... regardless of your opinion on OSS.
Where do you get this crap? Opening an API is not open sourcing the code that implements an API. It is documenting what is used and making sure others can use it equally. It is akin to one company having a monopoly on cars, and then switching all their cars to use a non-standard fuel. The courts just said they have to tell everyone what the specifications for the fuel are (not even the formula for it or the process used to make it) so that they can't use that monopoly to take over the fuel market. I hope you are being paid to spread this FUD. If MS does not want to be punished they shouldn't break the bloody law.
This is an attempt to throw a bone at competitors of Microsoft...
This is an attempt to stop MS from illegally putting more people, with better products, and who actually innovate, out of business.
The fact that the foes of Microsoft resort to beating them on the server front like this just goes to show you that MS really has made a good product with Windows 2003.
No, the fact that MS is gaining market share with such an obviously inferior product is what prompted this response.
The cold hard truth is that this has very little to do with MS or monopolies. The EU is just trying to hurt the US economy by hurting the largest American company.
I doubt it, or they would be picking on a lot more corporations. Nope this is about power, and making sure foreign companies don't put local ones out of business by breaking the laws.
MS chose to break the law as part of their business model. They have a gajillion lawyers and know full well when they are breaking the law. They have just gambled that it will be more profitable to break the law and pay any fines and settlements that result than it will be to comply with the law. So far they have been completely correct in this gamble and it has paid off amazingly well. Even with a few million dollars a day in fines they will still be making money in Europe, thus further justifying their business plan. This tells corporations around the world something most of them already know. Laws are an inconvenience for corporations, not a deal breaker. Crime pays, especially when it is on a very large scale that allows you to bribe corrupt politicians left and right. Additionally, you can get sympathy from uneducated, ignorant, nationalists who are willing to support breaking crimes in other countries. Brilliant!
Can they by law do that? That just seems fraked up to me. IMO M$ should have no obligation to release anything unless they wanted to.
...In other news convicted killer Ben Dover was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of seven children. Mouth breathers everywhere ask, "can they do that?" It seems, in my screwed up opinion, that the courts don't have any right to order someone to go to a particular location unless they want to.
How is this modded flamebait? It so very true.
You'd have to be a moron to think MS has the option of "going home." If they were to declare their products no longer for sale in the EU and pull all their employees out and try to sell all their holdings there, the EU would order the company split up immediately and MS-USA would have to compete with MS-Europe which would hold all the intellectual property rights there. They are a convicted, abusive monopoly. Trying to avoid a punishment by the courts does not work, because the courts have all the power in their jurisdiction.
Actually, under a strict legal interpretation the only thing you could be persecuted for under a "yelling fire" situation is a series of civil lawsuits. Making laws that abridge freedom of speech are actually supposed to be off limits.
Perhaps according to the constitution as you interpret it, but to my knowledge it has never been interpreted that way by the courts, even in the earliest years of the republic.
You're mistaking freedom of speech for freedom of responsibility for speech. If someone yells "Fire" in a crowded theater and then is arrested for reckless endangerment is that a violation of their freedom of speech? If a doctor tells a patient that certain pills will help their heart condition, when they are truly a deadly neurotoxin, should the doctor be arrested for what he said? After all, he did not force anyone to take any poison pills.
Freedom of speech has always been limited, but the courts have a whole list of contingencies. For example, commercial speech is given less protection than non-commercial speech. I can write that Crest toothpaste not only whitened my teeth but caused me to lose ten pounds and grow more hair. Crest, however, can be sued for saying the same thing, if they know it is untrue. The highest form or protected speech is political speech. If I were to claim the CEO of some company was evil and immoral, I can be sued for slander and might lose. If I say the same thing about the president or a member of congress, there is little chance that I will lose.
If these people truly did commit libel, and have cost a company and its shareholders money with lies, then they deserve to pay that back. If they are telling the truth, then not only should the courts find them innocent, but Juniper should be charged with barratry. The problem as I see it, is that the courts are not a level and impartial field. Large companies with lots of money are more likely to win a case and are almost assured of never being found guilty of barratry. This is due to a system corrupted by money and purchased laws. Freedom of speech is relatively intact, it is just that the courts do not do a good job of making sure certain laws protecting it are actually enforced.
Whedon's series and movie just came off to me as targeted obsessively at his Buffy/Angel teen fanbase.
I can't stand Buffy or Angel. I have a lot of friends you love those shows and a lot who hate them. I don't have any friends that did not like the Firefly series when they saw it. Right now Firefly the series is selling more copies than Lost. How do you figure he failed to target other than his teen fanbase?
The concepts and acting all very uninspired and average, particularly in its' film outing. I find it to be an entirely derivitive mishmash of a few things. None done particularly well.
This makes you sound a lot like someone who judges films based upon the concept and the special effects. Firefly was innovative in dialogue and had very rich character development. You could tell the same story in ancient egypt and it would still have been interesting if it had that quality of writing. Some of us watch shows for the story.
The TV series was average.
Then why is it selling so many DVDs?
The TV series performed very poorly.
And yet it is currently performing very well on a normal time slot, shown in order on the Sci-fi channel. How exactly do you rate how well a series does?
You like to deride Lost for its' marketing...
Umm, I do? Gee I guess I learn something new about myself every day.
You didn't like the Firefly series or the DVD, which actually makes you the first person I know to have both watched the series and told me they did not like it. (You did watch the series right?) Well, that is just fine, but you can't deny that the series is incredibly popular for a series that was cancelled after the first season. Nor do I think it is sensible to argue that Fox does not cancel a lot of very popular shows, for one reason or another. They have managed to cancel no less than four television series that are rated in the top 100, consistently, long before the series had become unprofitable. A program that was cancelled even before all the episodes were shown is outselling the most popular, big budget, show on prime-time right now. That has significance.
Which executives? What grudge? They're in the business of business. If they're not making money, they're fired.
Have you ever worked in a corporation? Was the person who made the decision to cancel the family guy fired after they calculated how much money they lost from that decision? I doubt it. Lets put it this way. If you cancel a show that then goes on to be one of the best selling DVDs ever, should you be fired? Probably. Will you be fired? Unlikely, because at that level it is more about politics and making money for execs than for the company.
How do you define a hit? something that makes more than $25 million
Well the movie has pulled in $38 million so far, and theater sales usually account for about 1/5 of total income from a film.
You clearly do not understand how mass media works. The invisible hand is always there, but you have the positions all wrong. You are not the customer and the shows you watch are not the products being sold.
First, yes the viewer is the consumer in the television market. Most people pay for cable or satellite TV in the U.S. Everyone pays for television either by paying a subscription fee (HBO), enduring commercials (over the air TV), or both (most other TV). It is true that there are also advertisers who are consumers in this model, but it is a secondary role in that sales people are not consuming the television programs and are not concerned about the quality. Advertisers don't care if ever show sucks so long as they get people to buy things, but end consumers do, and DVD sales reflect the opinions of end users. That is why both advertisers and distribution houses are paying attention to those sales. The Sci-Fi Channel can charge a lot more money for advertisements during an episode of Firefly than they can at other times, because advertisers know that it is the number one selling TV series on DVD and that influences their opinion about its popularity.
I liked Buffy and Angel, so I was predisposed to like it, but I've tried several times and just found it not at all entertaining.
How interesting. I can't stand to watch Buffy or Angel. It is heavily cheesed campy crap aimed at high school goth kids. The acting sucked and the plots were horrible. I actually leave the room if someone puts either on.
In contrast I liked the Firefly series quite a bit. The movie was an interesting case. By itself it is sort of thin. You can tell he crammed a lot into a short period to try to bring some sort of completion to the story. It was nowhere near as good as the series, but not particularly bad either. I guess different people just have different tastes.
Double-checking, I'm wrong, it's $2 million per episode in production costs for Firefly... That's almost as much as ABC's Lost, and there they have a huge audience and marketing engine behind the show.
It's interesting you should make that comparison. It is very hard to rate the popularity of TV shows, since there is no direct purchase involved. Nielson type ratings are questionable in reliability. DVD purchases are actually one of the best measures. If you take a look at Amazon's top DVD sales for today you'll find that Lost is the second most popular TV series... right behind Firefly which is the most purchased TV series. Now, the price of Lost is higher than Firefly by about 25%, and they don't have specific statistics on how many have sold total. Nonetheless I think the runaway popularity of Firefly DVD sales speaks to its potential as a show that has an audience willing to support those production costs, if only given that option.
It was poorly planned. They tried to keep too many secrets from the audience, which just wound up making the show hard to get attached to. Compare it to lost: lost only gives you a few mysteries at a time, and always wraps up a few before delivering the next batch. Firefly really needed better writers and better planning.
You couldn't be more wrong. I've seen both shows. Lost has mediocre writing and weak character development. I have not seen a single innovative element to the writing of Lost. Firefly had excellent and innovative writing, including some of the the best examples of characters not understanding one another without dumbing it down so much as to seem unbelievable.
The reason Lost is a success and Firefly is not is because Lost is marketed to hell and back by some fairly sharp people. Firefly was intentionally sabotaged by executives with a grudge. Do you really think Lost would be a success if they aired the episodes out of order and changed the time it was on three times during it's first season, and they pre-empted it with sports multiple times?
Actually the movie has grossed 38 million, one million short of the budget. Heres the industry rule of thumb. Box office is 1/5 of the total income from a movie, once you include DVD sales, and showings on television. Production budget is 1/3 of the cost of the movie once you figure in marketing and distribution costs. So the movie cost 117 million and will make about 190 million when all is said and done. Rumor has it they skimped a lot on the marketing, so it will actually be quite a bit more profitable than that. Also, Serenity is the number one DVD sale on Amazon today, so DVD sales may be a lot more than expected. Anyone who thinks it was a "flop" does not know what they are talking about. Not that it was a huge success, as movies go.