I would love to see more programs integrate a command-line feature that lets you do things like batch operations.
Most Linux and OS X programs already do this. It's one of the main reasons I still use GIMP. Of course most users won't touch it. Automator is the only solution I've seen non-geeks willing to touch for batch jobs.
Why isn't anyone clamoring for Microsoft and Apple to adopt a unified package format?
Because no one believes Microsoft would be willing to go along or play nice if they did.
Same deal with Linux. Just because two operating systems use the same kernel doesn't mean you can expect a binary package from one to work on the other.
Apple's package format is nice, but would need to be extended to work well with Linux and package managers, but most people who care about usability have left Linux as a desktop and don't want to spend time bringing it up to speed. Most paid Linux developers are working for server and appliance applications where such a move is viewed as "bloat" and an unnecessary change when what they want is stripped down stability.
Stop thinking of Linux distros like different Windows versions. As much as they have in common, they're run by different people with different ideas about what they want their OS to be, just like Apple and Microsoft.
And while on of Linux's greatest strengths it also makes any sort of major changes pretty impossible if compatibility is a concern at all. They can't get all major distros on one package format now, let alone all of them to switch to a new format that has support for the features of Apple's packages.
You mistakenly assume that your method of finding the software you want to install and then apt-get installing it (and woe unto you if it's not in the standard repositories, or worse, doesn't even have a Debian/Ubuntu build of it and therefore no APT repository at all!) is inherently better!
To be fair, for some use cases using the package manager is easier/better than the Apple method. And once it is install, keeping it up to date is (usually) significantly easier. The main problem I have is that on Linux there are significantly more cases where that method is not easier or where you have to use a different method altogether (installation from DVD, commercial apps which almost all use stand alone binary installers, installation from a Web site, adding a repository, installation from an old computer or friend's computer, etc.)
I really think the ideal system would take Apple's drag and drop installable packages, extend them with some cool info for package managers, and use a central package manager to handle them. The previous poster was defensive and a bit out of line (as many defending their FavoriteOS can be) but there is a lot to be said about the potential of package managers and some use cases where they are a real win today.
The difference is in intuitiveness. You might have to take a course to learn how to ride a motorcycle but you don't need to read a book to figure out which way to lean when you are making a left turn.
I don't know about that. A lot of people screw up the whole counter steering thing.
People take lessons to learn how to ride a motorcycle after all they've known how to drive is a car. Why would software be any different?
The law requires them to take lessons, or at least an examination because riding a motorcycle can lead to death or injury for the rider or others. Using a computer is unlikely to result in death or harm to serious harm to others, thus does not infringe their rights, thus should not be regulated.
Secondly, motorcycles behave pretty much as the user expects. When you push the gas it accelerates. When you push the clutch lever the engine disengages. When you push the brake it decelerates. When you drive past certain areas it does not suddenly and without your explicit command start heading to the mall or dumping gas out the bottom. The difference being, computers do not behave as users think and expect because most computer designs do not live up to the reasonable expectation of users. Most people don't assume double clicking an icon will allow the creator of that icon to take compete control of their computer forever, because that seems ludicrous. Sadly, it is the current state of the art since the industry has been crippled and failed to innovate due largely to control by a monopolist.
His basic problem is that he is used to Windows, where things are done differently. Either Microsoft Office is installed or it isn't; and the only pieces of Office that you can see are large chunks like Word, Excel, etc. It was surprising and alarming to him when there were hundreds and hundreds of little packages with odd names. For example, the updater told him it would update "anachron -- cron-like program that doesn't go by time" and he didn't know what to make of that.
I'd argue this is a case of exposing unnecessary complexity by default. There's no reason there can't be an "updates to existing system" line item in the package manager which can be expanded to see details, but is not by default. Classifying or coloring updates to indicate what can be considered part of the default Ubuntu distro and can be considered relatively safe is also an idea. Finally, providing clearer package descriptions that don't rely upon the user to have pre-existing knowledge would probably be a a plus.
The correct policy is to have the updater pull from a trusted source, and just let it update. Trust the system.
The UI needs to encourage this more, as the default behavior. Why is he being shown this big list if unchecking items is an action only power users should be taking?
In all fairness, Windows has its share of similarly weird stuff. But they have done a much better job of wrapping it up to present to the user.
Windows is pretty awful in this regard, but people are used to it and the software installation paradigm has been built up by developers. Also, the typical software installation use case is actually a lot easier. Most people learn about new software online. With Windows, installation is pretty much just clicking in the browser. This is possible in some Linux distros, but in practice is very rare to have working correctly. Generally people find out about software, decide to install it, then open their package manager and search for it, hopefully find it, and install it from there. Keeping it updated is easier but installing it is not.
Perhaps Ubuntu should have a popup on the update manager that gives newbies a quick overview of package management on Linux?
I don't think this is a good idea. Many people will just try to click past it because they want to try out the system first, not read a bunch of stuff about what they should do later if they decide to keep using it. Rather, I think we need to hone the usability of the package manager for use cases other than "search in package manager and install from there" as well as provide better help and advice within the package manager and access the package manager more smoothly from the Web.
fringement because my app can only run on a jailbroken phone?
Absolutely.
To prove contributory infringement, you first have to prove infringement...
True, they have to prove infringement of their copyright via breaking their license and DMCA nonsense.
Then you have to prove the contributor induces, causes, or materially contributes to the infringement.
Yup, inducing people to crack the DRM to use your third party app. You're providing the motivation and profiting... that's all they need to go to court and potentially win.
The only infringement that Apple can allege is with regards to their firmware. So once again, where does a 3rd party app store fit into this?
As inducing people to run jailbreak by providing them with applications that only work in those circumstances. That's inducement and could lose in court for contributory copyright infringement. I'm not sure how likely it is Apple would win, but it certainly is not outside the realm of possibility.
Apple are not a monopoly (or even remotely close), so they don't have to play by monopoly rules.
That remains to be seen.
True. Apple may well have monopoly influence on the portable, digital music player market. Not that suchlike makes much difference in this case.
More pertinent is that there are laws on restricting trade that apply to non-monopolies and in some jurisdictions Apple's actions may fall afoul of them.
Apple can not invite third party developers to their store and then impose arbitrary and inconsistent restrictions on one application which do not apply to all. Once you open your lunch counter for business you can no longer choose to let in Baptists but not Catholics, Whites but not Blacks and hide behind the fact that there are other lunch counters in town.
Ummm. Wow. In the US businesses are restricted from discriminating based upon race, creed, color, national origin, or sex. Aside from that, they can do business with a person (or not) as they like.
You would be first in line if Microsoft prevented you from running OpenOffice, or Apple locked Firefox off of the Mac.
The former would be illegal and undermine the market. The latter would be stupid and lose Apple market share, but not be illegal or undermine the market.
Yet for some reason you think Apple gets veto power over applications based on whimsy?!?
As far as I know, the US does not have any laws preventing them from picking and choosing. What law are you proposing and why do you think it will work better than the market?
That argument doesn't work. eBay was not the only online auction system on the Internet, but they got done like a dinner for third-line forcing when they tried to make everyone in Australia only use PayPal.
No, but they had enough of the market for antitrust regulators to rule they had overwhelming influence on the online auction market (with approximately 83% of sales going through one of their sites). The rule of thumb for investigators is often 60% or 70%
Apple's iPhone accounts for 17% to 28% of the smartphone market and less of the cell phone market in the US; making it not overwhelmingly and dominant not even the biggest player.
Actually, they could go after them for contributory copyright infringement. They just have to prove the Website operator knew about the infringement of Apple's copyright, contributed to it in any way including facilitating it or motivating it, and profited from it. I don't like said laws, but they do exist and are enforced.
Apple can claim whatever they want about jailbreaking, but the only people they can sue over it are the people developing jailbreak tools and the people using them. What does this online store have to do with either of those groups?
We heard very similar things during the commercial P2P cases. Don't listen to me or 'TubeSteak' though, Slashdot isn't the place to get your legal advice.
So if I go to the store and and there is a buy one get one free sale going on, I can just take the second one because it is free? Calling something "free" in marketing doesn't make it free. Firefox isn't free, it is ad supported. By default it directs you to Google for searches so you see ads and Google pays them for that privilege. That's the money.
You really are letting your bias with a close association cloud your judgement on this.
You just don't understand economics at all. So answer my question. If a particular business operates by barter do you think that means that economic laws including antitrust laws don't apply to them?
Electric is not the answer, because it only shifts fuel costs to your electric bill.
Electric is half the answer. What is the question?
Since my electric bill goes well over $300 a month in the summer (AC usage), I can't even begin to guess how expensive it would be to charge my car every night.
Electricity is just a way to make the energy source flexible. You can generate electricity with gas or many, many other ways. The second half of the issue is generating the electricity in better ways both economically and environmentally. And make no mistake, environmental factors are part of economics, just such that the people causing the problem can try to divorce themselves from the costs. If global temperatures go up due to fossil fuel use and there are more storms and it cost insurance companies more, that is worse for the economy than if people pay that same amount more to buy and run electric vehicles charged from clean power sources. The reason being, then the cost relationship is direct and innovation is much more strongly encouraged (financially).
I'm not a fan of Hybrids (yet), but at least that system doesn't accrue the additional cost of an electric bill to go with your gasoline bill.
But does it increase your homeowners' insurance costs? Does it increase your healthcare costs and tax burden to pay medicaid to people who have cancer or breathing problems caused or worsened by pollution and nano particles emitted?
That's the real problem with fossil fuel use in general, is there are lots of costs and likely costs associated with it, that are not paid for just by the people using them.
Web browsers. Some premium ones are for sale, others are ad supported. Both make money for the developer directly or indirectly. You do know you don't have to pay for something directly for their to be a market in terms of either economics or law right? You do know barter systems are still markets, right?
Where is the money?
The Firefox team is paid by Google mostly to direct people to their search engine so they can make money from Ads. The IE team is paid by MS with money you give them when you buy Windows. They're all moving cash around though.
Where is the money?
They were never just about money. They were about markets and innovation. Do you mean to imply that if a company barters their product for other products instead of selling it for cash, antitrust laws no longer apply? That's nonsense.
Why is it people think they can make an analogy about a case of antitrust abuse, but replacing a trust with a company that doesn't have a monopoly?
Possibly because it exposes the stupidity of "remedies" that will do nothing more than harm users, and the farce of "establishing a level playing field".
No it exposes the ignorance of the people making the analogy. To continue my analogy, "I want the guy who went to the shooting range arrested for murder too" does not demonstrate the stupidity of murder laws. To anyone who knows what murder is and why it is illegal, the analogy is asinine. MS's isn't going to court because they violated some law that says you can't bundle a Web browser and an operating system. They're going to court because they undermined a market using their monopolized market. The fact that they did that via bundling is no more relevant than the fact that a murder was committed by pulling the trigger of a gun is and neither in any way implies firing a gun or bundling two products is illegal in the general case.
As far as i can READ... The EU wants to force Microsoft to ship every competing browser with their Windows 7 release.
Don't you ever get tired of being wrong? Where did you read that? I'm quite interested in seeing your citation since the EU has not even convicted them, let alone made any statements about punishment and reparations. I'm beginning to doubt you can read since you haven't made a post yet that doesn't fundamentally misunderstand the laws in question.
...so what is this magical problem that we dont understand?
I can see why antitrust law and economics seem like magic to you, since you refuse to learn anything about them.
I'm not even going to bother to address the rest of your nonsense. Please, please, please educate yourself or shut up.
For there to be a real anti-trust case against Microsoft, there needs to be a real market that is being undermind[sic]. That is not the case, yet the E.U. is going after Microsoft anyways.
Yeah, but they've already been found guilty of undermining that exact market by several other courts in several other countries.Is it a global conspiracy then? And the fact that every economist and lawyer who assesses the issue says there is a market and they're going to lose this one is also part of said conspiracy? And the textbook authors who describe how markets are determined are in on it to and travelled back in time to write text from a hundred years ago describing them the same? Can you work vampires into it somehow?
Or maybe you're just WRONG about your assertion about the web browser market.
If this court is going to (again) leverage against this company
I don't think that verb means what you think it means.
..then it is quite clear what is happening. Repeated abuse of judicial power...
Evidence?
Who the heck doesnt want to decide the fate of billions of dollars?
EU commissioners who don't get any of it and have no vested interest.
Are you mistaking now monopoly and dominant position?
Nope. Usually at around 70% market share and when the courts decide a company has enough influence, that company can be declared a monopoly. It is a legal term, distinct from a dominant player in a market.
US vs Microsoft was declared by fact that Microsoft had monopoly _on Intel-based_ computers. Not on all personal computers (PC's and Mac's), because it did not have monopoly on those, but dominant position.
That's not really very relevant. The EU ruled MS has a monopoly on "desktop computer operating systems". Their assessment of Macintosh computers does not count them as having any market share because they don't license their OS to the consumers in question (mostly OEMs but a few site licenses as well). Apple instead bypasses that market and competes only in the desktop computer system market. (boxed sales of OS X being tied to their hardware by licensing and negligible in volume anyway).
You haven't really convinced me that the browser "market" is right to sue and win on this thing with Microsoft.
No one is suing. Opera reported the crime. The EU decided to prosecute the criminal offense. Mozilla asked if they could make commentary as the situation affected them and they have insight into the market. This is not a civil suit.
The fact that a company whose market is Office applications and operating systems wrote and gave a free browser...
Free does not exist. MS pays the developers of IE with the money you give them when you buy a computer pre-installed with windows. Arguing about if IE is "free" or not is just semantics, but legally it is a bundled cost.
that's like toy companies suing McDonalds for complimenting their meals with toys.
Sure it is, if you mistake this for a lawsuit and fundamentally misunderstand what the crime is. This is antitrust abuse. McDonalds is not a trust and does not even have the ability to commit this crime. Unless you know what the crime is and understand why such laws exist, it is pointless trying to discuss the issue with you.
And the customer can themselves...
I strongly doubt you even know who the consumers in question are in this case. I'll give you a hint, it isn't you or any individual.
So yea, this still just looks like MS legalese bashing.
How would you know? You don't even seem to understand the crime in question or the laws. Please actually read about the law and this case before responding again.
This is silly. If 3rd party software wants to use different HTML rendering libraries then it can just do so.
That doesn't matter. Can other producers of HTML rendering libraries ship those libraries with every Windows install so developers have the same access to them? Were HTML rendering libraries a different market or part of a different market when MS bundled them?
This isn't a crime against application developers directly, but against competitors by changing the market and making other options artificially less attractive to application developers.
Also the libraries are needed for HTML help so they really aren't going anywhere.
Probably not, but (as I already mentioned) the EU could require those libraries to be made drag and drop and be used via an open API and then require Windows to ship without them forcing OEMs to pick a drop in set. Alternately, the EU could let the libraries stay but force MS to make them standards compliant. Or, the EU could ignore them entirely.
Microsoft is accused of trying "monopolized" browser market.
That sentence does not seem make sense. MS is accused of using a monopoly in the desktop OS market to illegally influence the Web browser market. Whether or not that results in a new monopoly in the Web browser market or not is not particularly relevant to the antitrust case.
Aw... poor baby, keep with the cheap shots... it will always get mommy's attention.
Hurt your fragile ego huh? Deal with it.
I know exactly what the issue is. Dont talk down to me to justify your bent. THERE IS NO "monopolized" browser market.
You just demonstrated you don't know what the issue is, since MS has not been accused of having a monopoly on the browser market.
You said it was a monopoly dick. I said there IS NO monopoly.
As one can easily see in your quote you asserted there is no monopoly on the "browser market". MS has never been accused of having a monopoly on the browser market. They've been found to have a monopoly on "desktop OS's" which is legal by itself (which you'd already know if you'd bother to learn anything before mouthing off). They're being convicted of leveraging that monopoly into the web browser market.
Now we could get into a discussion of market definitions to determine how the original ruling was made. Or we could discuss why the laws exist in the first place. But I don't really feel like continuing a discussion with someone as rude and willfully ignorant as you. What's the point? You have an opinion which you formed without any knowledge of the subject and you've repeatedly refused to spend a few minutes learning what antitrust abuse is and about this case. You are obviously irrational and not too bright.
Obligatory car analogy: I think Ford should stop selling cars with alternators. Other parts of the car rely on having electricity to run, but what if I don't like the one they sold to me in my car?
Why is it people think they can make an analogy about a case of antitrust abuse, but replacing a trust with a company that doesn't have a monopoly?
Here's my analogy: Your analogy is like an analogy about a murder that happened, except where you replace the murderer with a guy who just went to the shooting range and legally did some target practice.
No, it undermines the market for html layout engines used for Windows apps which is not the same market as web browsers.
That's not exactly what is relevant to if MS broke the law. What is relevant is if that was a separate market when MS started bundling IE. Even if it wasn't, the EU commission may still order MS to take action with regard to it as part of repairing the damage they have done to the Web browser market and innovation in Web technologies.
Whoa, hold on there. Microsoft killing the browser market? Sure, no debates there.
Not killing, illegally influencing... and no there isn't much debate about it among people who understand economics or antitrust law. MS is going to lose this one in record time. It is open and shut.
Microsoft killing the DHTML renderer component market? Possibly. The same as they are killing the common-control market, the shell market, etc. Where do you draw the line?
The line is defined by markets as antitrust law applies to markets and there are not laws specific to every single kind of market (nor are they needed). MS cannot tie their monopoly to any product from a separate, preexisting market at the time they gained a monopoly or tied the product. Was there a separate market for shell environments when MS started bundling their OS with one and did MS have monopoly influence on the desktop OS market at that time?
How can you have an opinion on this topic if you don't even have a basic understanding of the laws in question?
IMO a DHTML rendering control is part of providing a complete UI widget set - which is something that an application platform has to provide.
Law and economic theory don't care about technical definitions of OS's or components, just markets. It's a lot simpler that way.
. Period.
Period period period?
When speaking, I can understand saying the punctuation "period" as emphasis. When writing, it is just silly and redundant.
The MSHTML COM component *should* be part of the standard distribution (as it is NOT ie).
First, whether or not bundling it is illegal is based solely on if their was a preexisting market for such rendering engines, separate from Windows. Even if there was not, it might still be addressed in some fashion as part of the punishment for the crime to help undo the damage done by MS's illegal actions. Remember, whenever we talk about removing things from Windows or including things from other vendors or restricting how MS implements things, it is as part of a punishment for breaking the law, not an attempt to regulate how companies do things in general. Criminals are often ordered to do things that would be unjust restrictions for non-criminals (like forcing people to live in prison cells).
Slashdot Mirror
I would love to see more programs integrate a command-line feature that lets you do things like batch operations.
Most Linux and OS X programs already do this. It's one of the main reasons I still use GIMP. Of course most users won't touch it. Automator is the only solution I've seen non-geeks willing to touch for batch jobs.
Why isn't anyone clamoring for Microsoft and Apple to adopt a unified package format?
Because no one believes Microsoft would be willing to go along or play nice if they did.
Same deal with Linux. Just because two operating systems use the same kernel doesn't mean you can expect a binary package from one to work on the other.
Apple's package format is nice, but would need to be extended to work well with Linux and package managers, but most people who care about usability have left Linux as a desktop and don't want to spend time bringing it up to speed. Most paid Linux developers are working for server and appliance applications where such a move is viewed as "bloat" and an unnecessary change when what they want is stripped down stability.
Stop thinking of Linux distros like different Windows versions. As much as they have in common, they're run by different people with different ideas about what they want their OS to be, just like Apple and Microsoft.
And while on of Linux's greatest strengths it also makes any sort of major changes pretty impossible if compatibility is a concern at all. They can't get all major distros on one package format now, let alone all of them to switch to a new format that has support for the features of Apple's packages.
You mistakenly assume that your method of finding the software you want to install and then apt-get installing it (and woe unto you if it's not in the standard repositories, or worse, doesn't even have a Debian/Ubuntu build of it and therefore no APT repository at all!) is inherently better!
To be fair, for some use cases using the package manager is easier/better than the Apple method. And once it is install, keeping it up to date is (usually) significantly easier. The main problem I have is that on Linux there are significantly more cases where that method is not easier or where you have to use a different method altogether (installation from DVD, commercial apps which almost all use stand alone binary installers, installation from a Web site, adding a repository, installation from an old computer or friend's computer, etc.)
I really think the ideal system would take Apple's drag and drop installable packages, extend them with some cool info for package managers, and use a central package manager to handle them. The previous poster was defensive and a bit out of line (as many defending their FavoriteOS can be) but there is a lot to be said about the potential of package managers and some use cases where they are a real win today.
The difference is in intuitiveness. You might have to take a course to learn how to ride a motorcycle but you don't need to read a book to figure out which way to lean when you are making a left turn.
I don't know about that. A lot of people screw up the whole counter steering thing.
Why doesn't someone write a story about being a long time Linux/Unix user and going back to Windows for 2 weeks?
They have. In fact there have been several such articles in recent years.
People take lessons to learn how to ride a motorcycle after all they've known how to drive is a car. Why would software be any different?
The law requires them to take lessons, or at least an examination because riding a motorcycle can lead to death or injury for the rider or others. Using a computer is unlikely to result in death or harm to serious harm to others, thus does not infringe their rights, thus should not be regulated.
Secondly, motorcycles behave pretty much as the user expects. When you push the gas it accelerates. When you push the clutch lever the engine disengages. When you push the brake it decelerates. When you drive past certain areas it does not suddenly and without your explicit command start heading to the mall or dumping gas out the bottom. The difference being, computers do not behave as users think and expect because most computer designs do not live up to the reasonable expectation of users. Most people don't assume double clicking an icon will allow the creator of that icon to take compete control of their computer forever, because that seems ludicrous. Sadly, it is the current state of the art since the industry has been crippled and failed to innovate due largely to control by a monopolist.
His basic problem is that he is used to Windows, where things are done differently. Either Microsoft Office is installed or it isn't; and the only pieces of Office that you can see are large chunks like Word, Excel, etc. It was surprising and alarming to him when there were hundreds and hundreds of little packages with odd names. For example, the updater told him it would update "anachron -- cron-like program that doesn't go by time" and he didn't know what to make of that.
I'd argue this is a case of exposing unnecessary complexity by default. There's no reason there can't be an "updates to existing system" line item in the package manager which can be expanded to see details, but is not by default. Classifying or coloring updates to indicate what can be considered part of the default Ubuntu distro and can be considered relatively safe is also an idea. Finally, providing clearer package descriptions that don't rely upon the user to have pre-existing knowledge would probably be a a plus.
The correct policy is to have the updater pull from a trusted source, and just let it update. Trust the system.
The UI needs to encourage this more, as the default behavior. Why is he being shown this big list if unchecking items is an action only power users should be taking?
In all fairness, Windows has its share of similarly weird stuff. But they have done a much better job of wrapping it up to present to the user.
Windows is pretty awful in this regard, but people are used to it and the software installation paradigm has been built up by developers. Also, the typical software installation use case is actually a lot easier. Most people learn about new software online. With Windows, installation is pretty much just clicking in the browser. This is possible in some Linux distros, but in practice is very rare to have working correctly. Generally people find out about software, decide to install it, then open their package manager and search for it, hopefully find it, and install it from there. Keeping it updated is easier but installing it is not.
Perhaps Ubuntu should have a popup on the update manager that gives newbies a quick overview of package management on Linux?
I don't think this is a good idea. Many people will just try to click past it because they want to try out the system first, not read a bunch of stuff about what they should do later if they decide to keep using it. Rather, I think we need to hone the usability of the package manager for use cases other than "search in package manager and install from there" as well as provide better help and advice within the package manager and access the package manager more smoothly from the Web.
fringement because my app can only run on a jailbroken phone?
Absolutely.
To prove contributory infringement, you first have to prove infringement...
True, they have to prove infringement of their copyright via breaking their license and DMCA nonsense.
Then you have to prove the contributor induces, causes, or materially contributes to the infringement.
Yup, inducing people to crack the DRM to use your third party app. You're providing the motivation and profiting... that's all they need to go to court and potentially win.
The only infringement that Apple can allege is with regards to their firmware. So once again, where does a 3rd party app store fit into this?
As inducing people to run jailbreak by providing them with applications that only work in those circumstances. That's inducement and could lose in court for contributory copyright infringement. I'm not sure how likely it is Apple would win, but it certainly is not outside the realm of possibility.
Apple are not a monopoly (or even remotely close), so they don't have to play by monopoly rules.
That remains to be seen.
True. Apple may well have monopoly influence on the portable, digital music player market. Not that suchlike makes much difference in this case.
More pertinent is that there are laws on restricting trade that apply to non-monopolies and in some jurisdictions Apple's actions may fall afoul of them.
Apple can not invite third party developers to their store and then impose arbitrary and inconsistent restrictions on one application which do not apply to all. Once you open your lunch counter for business you can no longer choose to let in Baptists but not Catholics, Whites but not Blacks and hide behind the fact that there are other lunch counters in town.
Ummm. Wow. In the US businesses are restricted from discriminating based upon race, creed, color, national origin, or sex. Aside from that, they can do business with a person (or not) as they like.
You would be first in line if Microsoft prevented you from running OpenOffice, or Apple locked Firefox off of the Mac.
The former would be illegal and undermine the market. The latter would be stupid and lose Apple market share, but not be illegal or undermine the market.
Yet for some reason you think Apple gets veto power over applications based on whimsy?!?
As far as I know, the US does not have any laws preventing them from picking and choosing. What law are you proposing and why do you think it will work better than the market?
That argument doesn't work. eBay was not the only online auction system on the Internet, but they got done like a dinner for third-line forcing when they tried to make everyone in Australia only use PayPal.
No, but they had enough of the market for antitrust regulators to rule they had overwhelming influence on the online auction market (with approximately 83% of sales going through one of their sites). The rule of thumb for investigators is often 60% or 70%
Apple's iPhone accounts for 17% to 28% of the smartphone market and less of the cell phone market in the US; making it not overwhelmingly and dominant not even the biggest player.
Well, of course Apple will go after them.
On what basis?
Actually, they could go after them for contributory copyright infringement. They just have to prove the Website operator knew about the infringement of Apple's copyright, contributed to it in any way including facilitating it or motivating it, and profited from it. I don't like said laws, but they do exist and are enforced.
Apple can claim whatever they want about jailbreaking, but the only people they can sue over it are the people developing jailbreak tools and the people using them. What does this online store have to do with either of those groups?
We heard very similar things during the commercial P2P cases. Don't listen to me or 'TubeSteak' though, Slashdot isn't the place to get your legal advice.
So if I go to the store and and there is a buy one get one free sale going on, I can just take the second one because it is free? Calling something "free" in marketing doesn't make it free. Firefox isn't free, it is ad supported. By default it directs you to Google for searches so you see ads and Google pays them for that privilege. That's the money.
You really are letting your bias with a close association cloud your judgement on this.
You just don't understand economics at all. So answer my question. If a particular business operates by barter do you think that means that economic laws including antitrust laws don't apply to them?
Electric is not the answer, because it only shifts fuel costs to your electric bill.
Electric is half the answer. What is the question?
Since my electric bill goes well over $300 a month in the summer (AC usage), I can't even begin to guess how expensive it would be to charge my car every night.
Electricity is just a way to make the energy source flexible. You can generate electricity with gas or many, many other ways. The second half of the issue is generating the electricity in better ways both economically and environmentally. And make no mistake, environmental factors are part of economics, just such that the people causing the problem can try to divorce themselves from the costs. If global temperatures go up due to fossil fuel use and there are more storms and it cost insurance companies more, that is worse for the economy than if people pay that same amount more to buy and run electric vehicles charged from clean power sources. The reason being, then the cost relationship is direct and innovation is much more strongly encouraged (financially).
I'm not a fan of Hybrids (yet), but at least that system doesn't accrue the additional cost of an electric bill to go with your gasoline bill.
But does it increase your homeowners' insurance costs? Does it increase your healthcare costs and tax burden to pay medicaid to people who have cancer or breathing problems caused or worsened by pollution and nano particles emitted?
That's the real problem with fossil fuel use in general, is there are lots of costs and likely costs associated with it, that are not paid for just by the people using them.
If I am wrong, then show me the market.
Web browsers. Some premium ones are for sale, others are ad supported. Both make money for the developer directly or indirectly. You do know you don't have to pay for something directly for their to be a market in terms of either economics or law right? You do know barter systems are still markets, right?
Where is the money?
The Firefox team is paid by Google mostly to direct people to their search engine so they can make money from Ads. The IE team is paid by MS with money you give them when you buy Windows. They're all moving cash around though.
Where is the money?
They were never just about money. They were about markets and innovation. Do you mean to imply that if a company barters their product for other products instead of selling it for cash, antitrust laws no longer apply? That's nonsense.
Why is it people think they can make an analogy about a case of antitrust abuse, but replacing a trust with a company that doesn't have a monopoly?
Possibly because it exposes the stupidity of "remedies" that will do nothing more than harm users, and the farce of "establishing a level playing field".
No it exposes the ignorance of the people making the analogy. To continue my analogy, "I want the guy who went to the shooting range arrested for murder too" does not demonstrate the stupidity of murder laws. To anyone who knows what murder is and why it is illegal, the analogy is asinine. MS's isn't going to court because they violated some law that says you can't bundle a Web browser and an operating system. They're going to court because they undermined a market using their monopolized market. The fact that they did that via bundling is no more relevant than the fact that a murder was committed by pulling the trigger of a gun is and neither in any way implies firing a gun or bundling two products is illegal in the general case.
Explain the problem then?
That's a question?
As far as i can READ... The EU wants to force Microsoft to ship every competing browser with their Windows 7 release.
Don't you ever get tired of being wrong? Where did you read that? I'm quite interested in seeing your citation since the EU has not even convicted them, let alone made any statements about punishment and reparations. I'm beginning to doubt you can read since you haven't made a post yet that doesn't fundamentally misunderstand the laws in question.
...so what is this magical problem that we dont understand?
I can see why antitrust law and economics seem like magic to you, since you refuse to learn anything about them.
I'm not even going to bother to address the rest of your nonsense. Please, please, please educate yourself or shut up.
For there to be a real anti-trust case against Microsoft, there needs to be a real market that is being undermind[sic]. That is not the case, yet the E.U. is going after Microsoft anyways.
Yeah, but they've already been found guilty of undermining that exact market by several other courts in several other countries.Is it a global conspiracy then? And the fact that every economist and lawyer who assesses the issue says there is a market and they're going to lose this one is also part of said conspiracy? And the textbook authors who describe how markets are determined are in on it to and travelled back in time to write text from a hundred years ago describing them the same? Can you work vampires into it somehow?
Or maybe you're just WRONG about your assertion about the web browser market.
If this court is going to (again) leverage against this company
I don't think that verb means what you think it means.
..then it is quite clear what is happening. Repeated abuse of judicial power...
Evidence?
Who the heck doesnt want to decide the fate of billions of dollars?
EU commissioners who don't get any of it and have no vested interest.
Are you mistaking now monopoly and dominant position?
Nope. Usually at around 70% market share and when the courts decide a company has enough influence, that company can be declared a monopoly. It is a legal term, distinct from a dominant player in a market.
US vs Microsoft was declared by fact that Microsoft had monopoly _on Intel-based_ computers. Not on all personal computers (PC's and Mac's), because it did not have monopoly on those, but dominant position.
That's not really very relevant. The EU ruled MS has a monopoly on "desktop computer operating systems". Their assessment of Macintosh computers does not count them as having any market share because they don't license their OS to the consumers in question (mostly OEMs but a few site licenses as well). Apple instead bypasses that market and competes only in the desktop computer system market. (boxed sales of OS X being tied to their hardware by licensing and negligible in volume anyway).
You haven't really convinced me that the browser "market" is right to sue and win on this thing with Microsoft.
No one is suing. Opera reported the crime. The EU decided to prosecute the criminal offense. Mozilla asked if they could make commentary as the situation affected them and they have insight into the market. This is not a civil suit.
The fact that a company whose market is Office applications and operating systems wrote and gave a free browser...
Free does not exist. MS pays the developers of IE with the money you give them when you buy a computer pre-installed with windows. Arguing about if IE is "free" or not is just semantics, but legally it is a bundled cost.
that's like toy companies suing McDonalds for complimenting their meals with toys.
Sure it is, if you mistake this for a lawsuit and fundamentally misunderstand what the crime is. This is antitrust abuse. McDonalds is not a trust and does not even have the ability to commit this crime. Unless you know what the crime is and understand why such laws exist, it is pointless trying to discuss the issue with you.
And the customer can themselves...
I strongly doubt you even know who the consumers in question are in this case. I'll give you a hint, it isn't you or any individual.
So yea, this still just looks like MS legalese bashing.
How would you know? You don't even seem to understand the crime in question or the laws. Please actually read about the law and this case before responding again.
This is silly. If 3rd party software wants to use different HTML rendering libraries then it can just do so.
That doesn't matter. Can other producers of HTML rendering libraries ship those libraries with every Windows install so developers have the same access to them? Were HTML rendering libraries a different market or part of a different market when MS bundled them?
This isn't a crime against application developers directly, but against competitors by changing the market and making other options artificially less attractive to application developers.
Also the libraries are needed for HTML help so they really aren't going anywhere.
Probably not, but (as I already mentioned) the EU could require those libraries to be made drag and drop and be used via an open API and then require Windows to ship without them forcing OEMs to pick a drop in set. Alternately, the EU could let the libraries stay but force MS to make them standards compliant. Or, the EU could ignore them entirely.
Microsoft is accused of trying "monopolized" browser market.
That sentence does not seem make sense. MS is accused of using a monopoly in the desktop OS market to illegally influence the Web browser market. Whether or not that results in a new monopoly in the Web browser market or not is not particularly relevant to the antitrust case.
Aw... poor baby, keep with the cheap shots... it will always get mommy's attention.
Hurt your fragile ego huh? Deal with it.
I know exactly what the issue is. Dont talk down to me to justify your bent. THERE IS NO "monopolized" browser market.
You just demonstrated you don't know what the issue is, since MS has not been accused of having a monopoly on the browser market.
You said it was a monopoly dick. I said there IS NO monopoly.
As one can easily see in your quote you asserted there is no monopoly on the "browser market". MS has never been accused of having a monopoly on the browser market. They've been found to have a monopoly on "desktop OS's" which is legal by itself (which you'd already know if you'd bother to learn anything before mouthing off). They're being convicted of leveraging that monopoly into the web browser market.
Now we could get into a discussion of market definitions to determine how the original ruling was made. Or we could discuss why the laws exist in the first place. But I don't really feel like continuing a discussion with someone as rude and willfully ignorant as you. What's the point? You have an opinion which you formed without any knowledge of the subject and you've repeatedly refused to spend a few minutes learning what antitrust abuse is and about this case. You are obviously irrational and not too bright.
Obligatory car analogy: I think Ford should stop selling cars with alternators. Other parts of the car rely on having electricity to run, but what if I don't like the one they sold to me in my car?
Why is it people think they can make an analogy about a case of antitrust abuse, but replacing a trust with a company that doesn't have a monopoly?
Here's my analogy: Your analogy is like an analogy about a murder that happened, except where you replace the murderer with a guy who just went to the shooting range and legally did some target practice.
No, it undermines the market for html layout engines used for Windows apps which is not the same market as web browsers.
That's not exactly what is relevant to if MS broke the law. What is relevant is if that was a separate market when MS started bundling IE. Even if it wasn't, the EU commission may still order MS to take action with regard to it as part of repairing the damage they have done to the Web browser market and innovation in Web technologies.
Whoa, hold on there. Microsoft killing the browser market? Sure, no debates there.
Not killing, illegally influencing... and no there isn't much debate about it among people who understand economics or antitrust law. MS is going to lose this one in record time. It is open and shut.
Microsoft killing the DHTML renderer component market? Possibly. The same as they are killing the common-control market, the shell market, etc. Where do you draw the line?
The line is defined by markets as antitrust law applies to markets and there are not laws specific to every single kind of market (nor are they needed). MS cannot tie their monopoly to any product from a separate, preexisting market at the time they gained a monopoly or tied the product. Was there a separate market for shell environments when MS started bundling their OS with one and did MS have monopoly influence on the desktop OS market at that time?
How can you have an opinion on this topic if you don't even have a basic understanding of the laws in question?
IMO a DHTML rendering control is part of providing a complete UI widget set - which is something that an application platform has to provide.
Law and economic theory don't care about technical definitions of OS's or components, just markets. It's a lot simpler that way.
. Period.
Period period period?
When speaking, I can understand saying the punctuation "period" as emphasis. When writing, it is just silly and redundant.
The MSHTML COM component *should* be part of the standard distribution (as it is NOT ie).
First, whether or not bundling it is illegal is based solely on if their was a preexisting market for such rendering engines, separate from Windows. Even if there was not, it might still be addressed in some fashion as part of the punishment for the crime to help undo the damage done by MS's illegal actions. Remember, whenever we talk about removing things from Windows or including things from other vendors or restricting how MS implements things, it is as part of a punishment for breaking the law, not an attempt to regulate how companies do things in general. Criminals are often ordered to do things that would be unjust restrictions for non-criminals (like forcing people to live in prison cells).