If the online music business were a bunch of generic outfits selling MP3s(or generic AAC) then the relationship between the labels and the retailers would be a lot more like the brick and mortar one.
With brick and mortar, the RIAA screwed up and Walmart became such a large retail outlet they gained significant ability to push back and negotiate with the RIAA. The RIAA's attempts to give Amazon better terms than Apple and crazy (probably illegal) clauses in their contracts were an attempt to keep Apple from doing it online.
Just goes to show that no matter how much protection you have on the tech side, there's always a social engineering way around it.
True, but the better your protections on the tech side, the harder they have to work at social engineering and the less widespread and effective it will be. There is plenty of room on the tech side for technologies to mitigate trojans.
Lol wut? If it's an open standard anyone should be allowed to implement it.
Anyone can, so long as they're not violating an unrelated criminal law in the process. Here's another example, is it no longer an open standard if I can't implement it because I'm on probation and banned from using computers?
What if I write a computer program that constantly looks at my computer to see if I've written a program that can open ODF files and if I have it sets off a bomb killing a bunch of people. Then I write a program to implement ODF, the first program notices and sets off the bomb. My implementing ODF was an act of murder. Does that mean ODF is no longer an open standard because the police arrest me for murder for the act of implementing it?
Just because PDF is an open standard does not mean their is no way one can implement it that would be illegal. MS can implement PDF in absolutely any way that does not violate criminal law, including writing tools to read and write PDF but which they do not bundle with products in markets where they have monopoly influence.
Funnily enough Microsoft planned to implement PDF support in Office. Unfortunately Adobe threatened a lawsuit until they agreed to drop the feature - So much for open standards I guess.
I don't see the correlation. If I write a libelous article defaming your character in OpenOffice and you sue me to stop me from publishing it and I capitulate, does that make ODF not an open standard?
How does breaking the law using a format have anything to do with whether or not the format is open?
I didn't read the details to know one way or the other, did you?
Yes, long ago. It wasn't even a bailout, it was a lawsuit settlement where MS invested in Apple shares for a while as a PR move for Apple. Apple had plenty of cash at the time and did not need a "bailout". They also gained such things as a license to the Windows API for many years, in case Apple wanted to implement is themselves. It wasn't the result of Apple needing money, but MS basically losing the lawsuit over ripping off Apple.
Since I mentioned OS X on normal PC's, what does it matter what Microsoft did after that? Microsoft doesn't make PC's and their involvement on OS X is limited to Office and a few other things we can easily do without.
Currently Apple sells computer systems and competes with the likes of Dell. MS can hurt them, but since the computer system market is not monopolized they have to do it indirectly. If Apple were to try selling their OS for normal computers it would be a flop unless they went to OEMs and licensed it (they already tried it once and nearly died). It would put them in direct competition with MS who currently has monopolized the market for desktop OS's. Any businessman will tell you that is a death sentence until MS is cut down to 50-70% of the market. OEMs would have to bet the whole company on Apple, because MS could kill all their Windows sales with differential pricing in a heartbeat. Expecting an OEM to bet the whole company is asking a lot and a CEO could go to jail over such a move, or at very least be sued by the shareholders. Then all MS has to do is introduce incompatibilities between OS X and Windows and suddenly Macs are "breaking" when trying to work with other computers... with the other 90% of computers. The whole reason antitrust abuse is illegal is because it allows a company to leverage their monopoly to win market share even when their offering is more expensive or technically inferior or both. It would be a super-bonehead move on the part of Apple.
I know Apple has had their own hardware from the start, but making a generic PC port wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Yeah, it would just kill 50% of their revenue scheme while getting them pretty much nothing. It doesn't matter if OS X is better than Windows. MS has a monopoly and that means they can introduce artificial problems of compatibility in OS X at will. Theoretically it is illegal, but we all know how well the courts have worked so far. A decade later something might be done after OS X is dead.
I'm of course guessing there's a clause from when MS bailed them out that prevents that from happening.
Sorry, I gave up on you. You can' understand my arguments and you persist in trying to redefine everything, which simply does not make for a productive conversation. When I ask for your ideas as anything but examples you fail to provide them. The conversation is pointless. You don't care if the market is undermined or how people go about deciding that logically or under the law. All you care about is finding some way you can claim any explanation of how MS has been determined to do that can't be proved. It's sad.
. All these browsers are aftermarket enhancements to OSes that already have bundled browsers. And while they're profitable, they're also still free -- you have MS to thank for that.
What you call them doesn't matter. MS makes a browser. Other people make browsers. They profit from them. Some premium ones are payware. That's a separate market in every way that matters to antitrust issues. Trying to make up your own definitions is pointless. Your definition of "free" I might mention is not the same as economics.
By your logic it would not be a problem if MS required an MS branded video card to be purchased with every copy of Windows?
How did you get that from what I said?
You argued that people providing browsers separately was not enough for them to qualify as a separate market (which I find absurd) but then you argued that browsers are "aftermarket 'enhancements' to an OS. The reverse is not true -- nobody provides Desktop OSes without browsers." Desktop OS's don't sell by themselves either, they are almost always bundled with hardware for sale, including a video card. So following your logic, MS should be able to bundle them too, since they aren't a separate market according to your new rules.
Because none of those scenarios you mention have anything to do with the market and this is a law about undermining markets. That's its purpose and how its defined.
They have nothing to do with the market? See what I mean about colored lenses?
No. I think you're having problems. Defining antitrust abuse in your terms is not any more valid than defining it in terms of things that come in blue boxes. It's a law about undermining markets. Claiming it should be defined by what you want to call a complete OS is nonsensical. No one undermined a "complete OS" they undermined a market.
And I could show you a ROM chip I designed. Now, do you want to bundle ROM flashing hardware with the OS disk, or are you ready to admit that your analogy simply proves my point.
As near as I can tell you don't have a point and you still don't seem to understand antitrust abuse at all. I'm not sure how much more dumbed down I can make this. My point is you're making arbitrary inclusions to define what you call a complete OS, but it is irrelevant because it has nothing to do with the crime as to what makes up a complete OS, just what makes up the markets as defined by what people buy.
Bundling a ROM with an OS doesn't make sense -- so it never happened.
It happens all the time. The vast majority of OS's sold come ith a complete computer system including ROM and BIOS. Get it?
Bundling a ROM with an OS doesn't make sense -- so it never happened.
I see, you want "natural allies" codified into law? Yeah, that will go over well.
Why don't we cut this short. Tell me, what do you think antitrust laws should say and explain how they will solve antitrust abuse, then I'll explain why you're clueless.
I still say they are not a separate market.
Ahh, with your brilliant "natural allies" definition instead of oh, you know customers and what they purchase which is used to define markets in every aspect of law and are the definition of what a market is?
You did not find any flaw in my argument.
You don't even have an argument, just an assertion.
"In terms of the law, they are clearly in violation." -- it's a really tall claim you're making there
Yeah, it sounds pretty crazy except for them already having been convicted in three different jurisdictions all of which defined them as a separate market and it being a nearly textbook case. Please.
I live in the US where we believe that the "rule of law" should never silent dissent.
Am I silencing you? No I'm encouraging you to go on and on apparently. That doesn't excuse breaking laws they don't agree with. This isn't a civil rights issue, it's time tested antitrust law applied to large corporations who clearly knew what they were doing and have been spending money not to change the law or inform people, but to spread misinformation about the law and get favors from politicians with legalized bribes.
I share your confidence regarding the outcome -- but that's because of my faith in
Plenty of lock-in (ensuring that windows is the only real choice), well, yes and no -- but let's stick to the main point -- so agreed.
From there how did you get to the web browser market being undermined??
That was a demonstration and refutation. The claim from "Creepy Crawler" was that MS no longer had monopoly influence. I already explained in my original post how antitrust abuse works, in particular bundling. They bundled a product from a separate, pre-existing market (web browsers) with a product from a market they had monopolized (Windows). It's open and shut.
Now you're coming up with some fairly arbitrary stuff. How is the market boundary defined?
Defining a law about undermining markets in terms of markets is arbitrary? I suppose you think laws about theft that define it in terms of who has possession of items are arbitrary to? Markets are defined by the economically viable options customers consider when purchasing a product or service for their purpose. Since MS's customers are almost entirely OEMs the monopolized market is mostly what desktop OS's OEMs consider when licensing OS's they resell.
By the EU?
The courts make the determination as they make all determinations of fact in legal cases.
Why is it right to take a snapshot of a market at a point in time...
Because it s the point in time when the action occurs. To continue with the theft example, it's who owns the property at the time of the theft, not who owns it years later after it may have been resold.
...you cannot act on any foresight you might have that this market will naturally get absorbed into another one...
Except it hasn't happened. There is still a separate market for browsers as demonstrated by Opera, Safari, Firefox, etc.
- by refusing to bundle a browser with your OS no matter how many of your competitors do that
Every company is free to bundle anything they want with anything they want so long as it is not monopolized. I can bundle socks and Cable tV service and sell it, because I don't have a monopoly on either. Why does that matter to someone who does have a monopoly on one of the two items in question? Does that make the market any less broken by their action? If one person runs a cable to their neighbors house and sells them the electrical distribution service (but does not take enough share to undermine the monopoly, they can bundle water with the deal. Does that mean it is any more fair to people who are forced to buy it from the power company? Does that make their actions hurt existing bottled water companies any less?
In today's environment all desktop OS competitors bundle browsers...
In today's environment there aren't any other desktop OS competitors that have enough market share to mention. In today's environment, OEMs sell bundled OS's+computers+support services. Does that somehow invalidate bundling with a monopolized component by the monopolist? How? I'm just not seeing how any of this makes any difference. Please explain using my electrical distribution and bottled water example to abstract the concept.
Given that, how does it matter what the boundary of the market was when the bundling first occurred?
Umm, one of the primary requirements for the law can be ignored is a given? I don't think so.
What are you going to find MS guilty of -- having great foresight??
Undermining the Web browser market, intentionally breaking it to prevent innovation, hurting competition and competitors. You know, antitrust abuse.
People did and do make money from creating and providing browsers without an OS attached. People sell browsers as payware directly. That's a separate market under the law. It's not even a question at this point.
You're misunderstanding my point. The browsers sold (for money) are aftermarket 'enhancements' to an OS. The reverse is not true -- nobody provides Desktop OSes without browsers.
So? In terms of the market, no significant amount of desktop OS's comes without a computer it is pre-installed on. An OS is a component, just like a monitor or hard drive. By your logic it would not be a problem if MS required an MS branded video card to be purchased with every copy of Windows? How does that not undermine the market for that component?
How is that arbitrary? I called out numerous, common, and specific consumer scenarios that depend on having a browser present, and concluded from them that an OS sans browser is incomplete.
Because none of those scenarios you mention have anything to do with the market and this is a law about undermining markets. That's its purpose and how its defined.
I can call out a specific case to invalidate your scenario as well -- if you get machines sans BIOS -- and bundle the BIOS with the OS -- how do you load the BIOS into the ROM?
I could explain how to flash ROM, but why? There's no reason the BIOS can't be on the ROM already. You're making arbitrary distinctions that have nothing to do with the crime involved. The crime is undermining a market, so the crime is defined by the markets involved. People buy browsers separate from OS's and profit from providing browsers separate from the OS's That's the only distinction needed for a market to be undermined and that's the only distinction the law cares about. Rearranging the chairs on the Titanic is not helping your case.
Look, you can repeat that line about the law all you want -- and the EU may well agree with you, fine MS 10 billion dollars, force them to strip IE etc. -- that doesn't mean it's correct. The law might say whatever it wants about monopolies -- that doesn't mean that browsers are a separate market. The EU might rule that browsers are a separate market -- that doesn't mean they are right.
Make up your mind. Earlier you said your argument was that browsers weren't a seperate market. Now that I've shown that argument to be flawed you're changing your argument to a belief that antitrust laws in general are wrong, or is it that you think MS's case is an exception in some specific way aside from your failed argument?
The EU stands to gain overall by reducing dependence on MS software. The EU stands to gain financially by fining MS. The EU commissioners are actors for the EU. You know this already -- I don't have to spell it out.
So? What's their motivation to target MS? They don't profit personally, so you think they're compromising their values to benefit the EU for some reason?
You need to stop pretending that the law (and results of court cases) are always right/just/fair.
I think I already demonstrated the need for this particular law and showed how it is applied. The onus is on you to show why that demonstration was incorrect or why it is different in this case. I live in the US where we have this fundamental value of "rule by law" instead of rule by man. The same laws apply to everyone. This is the same laws as have been enforced against other companies being applied to MS the same way. Even if you think the law is wrong, MS is still obligated to obey the laws and try to get them changed and should be punished for their crimes. They don't get to break laws they disagree with.
You have to accept the law -- no question about that. But in a debate you can certainly call into question it's wisdom, and rulings based on it.
Back when browsers were made for profit, Microsoft did infringe.
Opera gets paid by an advertising deal to make Google the primary search. OmniWeb charges a shareware fee. Google profits by making their services run better. Undermining the market injures all of them even now.
But then I'll argue what is the boundary to an operating system? Is it the kernel? Is it the basic drivers...
It doesn't matter. The law doesn't care what the boundary of an operating system is. Economically, it doesn't matter. What matters is the boundary of the market, when the bundling first occurs.
By your argument, even one extra tool kills a segment, and should never be allowed. That's gobbledegook.
No, only products from separate, pre-existing markets at the time of the bundling, which is, admittedly, a lot in the case of what comes with Windows. The thing is, nothing prevents MS from creating and providing extra products. They can sell them or give them away. Nothing prevents OEMs from bundling products with Windows. MS is just not allowed to force it on everyone. That's the law and when you understand how antitrust abuse undermines markets or simply look at the mess that is Web technologies today, it becomes clear why.
So if there's a new protocol or something, we should actively prevent Microsoft from entering because of a monopoly?
No, if there's a new market for a type of program, MS can make a program to fill that niche and sell it or give it away. They just can't bundle it with Windows, just like every other software developer.
And to the argument that Microsoft is no longer a monopoly: I can download, legally for free, a network operating system that can handle all server duties, client duties, open nearly all MS file formats, run MS executables, join MS networks, and share it with anybody I wish.
If Dell or Sony or HP decides it is a valid competitor and it gets installed on about 30% of desktop and laptop computers, then MS will be on the verge of not having undue influence in the market. As it is, they have enormous influence and can destroy other markets and have already done so. Sorry, but the argument that MS does not have monopoly power (when they have 99% of the market) just doesn't fly.
It leads me to believe that the only reason MS is still considered a monopoly is that people choose MSWindows, not the theoretical situation of the State mandated power company handing out "free bottled water".
You're missing the point. It doesn't matter at all why MS has a monopoly. It's legal to have a monopoly, just as it is legal for a company to have the exclusive contract to distribute power in an area. It's illegal to abuse the power that comes with having a monopoly. With the example of the power company, people can choose to run their own generators and bypass the monopoly. It just isn't in their best economic interests in the short term, so they don't. It doesn't matter. Antitrust abuse isn't about forcing people to do something at gunpoint. It is about making more expensive and worse products the right economic choice for purchasers because of power in a completely different market. OEM CEOs feel Windows is the only real choice they have to stay in business and there is plenty of lock-in and reason for that. As a result, the separate market for Web browsers is undermined.
Choice is the factor that makes a monopoly position. There's choice at "Free", "Declared Monopoly", and "Expensive". Tells me there's not one any more.
Except how do you evaluate what is a real, practical choice and what is an impractical or non-working choice. Is driving to the power company with a truck load of car batteries, filling them up, and driving them back to power your house choice? Yes. Is buying tens of thousands of dollars in solar panels a choice? Sure. Are they reasonable choices? The answer to that legally and practically is the percentage of people that choose them. At 1% for Linux and 99% for Windows, there's a long way to go before Linux is a practical choice according to consumers.
Why hasn't Apple been slapped with the same anti-trust suit for the software that comes on their machines.
The law says you can't bundle a monopolized product with one from a separate pre-existing market because it undermines free trade. Did you think Apple had a monopoly on desktop OS's, computer systems, or on one of the software packages?
What am missing? It's very convoluted to me.
A basic understanding of antitrust law. I went to all the trouble to write a lengthy explanation and it is modded to +5 a ways up.
What? If we go back to before IE, or perhaps before Winsock, what good would that do for the user?
It determines if MS's actions were legal when they started them. It's not fair to punish a company if they accidentally happened upon a violation. You questioned if their was a pre-existing separate market. There was when MS started and there is now.
that's not a sign that MS had to bow to competitive pressures, as in NOT A MONOPOLY, I dont know what is.
I'm sorry, when you have 99% of the install base for desktop OS's, you have enough influence to undermine other markets. In rare cases such as Netbooks or high end workstations or ultra secure systems there are a few other options, but nothing that makes a dent in the overall market.
...but as I said above it being software changes the whole argument.
You've said that, but you haven't explained how. Do you think for some reasons the rules of the market don't apply to intellectual property? If so, why not? How are markets for intellectual property fundamentally different? Since these laws have applied to intellectual property in the past, even if there is a reason for them not to apply, MS still violated the law when they did it and refused to follow the same rules as everyone else, so they would still need to be punished to be fair, no?
And no, simply making a better product at a better price is impossible unless MS offers software for free.
So they should make it better and offer it for free. I have no problem with that. The problem is that they have bundled it. That is illegal.
Just as we saw back in '00, web browsers are approaching commodity.
Again, I don't see what this has to do with anything. Commodities are still ruled by antitrust law. Free doesn't matter either so long as someone is making money from them, which most companies do by using them as advertising platforms.
Instead, we see Mac and Linux both with all these tools and more.
So, how does that violate antitrust law or undermine any market?
That default installation would break every anti-trust instance of law IF Microsoft did it, regardless if they chose open source apps as their options.
No, that would not. What would violate antitrust law is if they bundled those things with Windows or any other monopolized product. They can bundle them with their server OS, a Linux distro, or anything else they feel like.
That recent article about companies relying too much webapps goes deeper: Get rid of the branded servers. Buh bye MS mail server.
So if your revenue model is threatened by cheaper and better competitors that gives one an excuse to break the law to prop up your inferior products and force people to use them anyway? Is that your argument? If I run a sandwich shop but someone else makes better sandwiches can I burn it down to insure my revenue stream?
Commoditization of an OS is what MS has to rightly fear.
Who cares? They have monopoly influence now and are using it to break the Web browser market. Are you arguing their being threatened (so far unsuccessfully) in their primary market justifies their destroying other markets? I think that's absurd.
Apple's already entrenched on the high price side, slowing moving down.
Apple doesn't sell their OS to OEMs or site licenses. They aren't even in the desktop OS market. They were forced out of it by MS's monopoly in that area.
Linux is on the low side, at free, going only up in quality taking what works and ditching the rest.
It seems what he's saying is that Linux might be the excuse to get Microsoft to be non-monopolized.
I'm not sure I understand. Linux might, some day, take 30% of the market and lead to MS no longer having monopoly influence, but I don't see how much Linux costs an OEM to have anything to do with whether or not MS's Windows OS constitutes a monopoly right now. If anything the fact that their main competitor is free and developed as a community effort bolsters arguments that the market is severely monopolized.
The only real way to compete with free is free. And MS cant do that.
I guess I still don't see the argument. Companies don't become un-monopolized. They either have monopoly influence in a specific market or they don't. How does someone else giving away an OS make MS not have a monopoly in that market? Given that they do have a monopoly, how does someone giving away an OS effect whether or not MS is breaking the Web browser market?
My problem with treating IE bundling as an antitrust issue is pretty simple -- I simply don't recognize browsers as being a separate market. They're more like an 'aftermarket accessory'.
People did and do make money from creating and providing browsers without an OS attached. People sell browsers as payware directly. That's a separate market under the law. It's not even a question at this point.
Web applications are pretty pervasive these days. Social networking sites, online banking, web mail, Google docs, photo sharing sites, etc. are all examples thereof. In that context, a browser is merely another 'framework' on which applications run. An OS without this framework is an incomplete OS.
You're making an arbitrary distinction, but it's a technological one. One could argue that an OS without BIOS to run on is incomplete and unusable and argue that on technological grounds. Antitrust law is about insuring the integrity of the free market and as such applies not technologies, but markets. It's not about what works with what, but about who buys what (or more specifically profits from what).
So I still contend that the EU is just trying to extract money in this ca
You can contend that all you want, but there isn't any evidence. In terms of the law, they are clearly in violation. A criminal complaint was filed by a competitor. They're a repeat offender and have done this in numerous markets. The EU has prosecuted other companies for the same crime, including companies based in the EU. The EU commissioners don't profit from this judgement in any way. So I'd ask you, why do you think this is about the EU going for money instead of trying to enforce the law and fix the markets for the good of the people?
Antitrust law has always been concerned about physical goods and services.
I've never seen any such restriction and I know it has dealt with copyright in the past.
I could argue and say that due to the boom of the internet, FTP, POP3, SMTP, HTTP, NNTP and others are protocols that an OS should provide basic services for.
This sentence seems a bit incomplete. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
How else, especially in todays Internet, do you get a web browser if you dont understand commandline ftp? Or for that matter, find the server that hosts it?
You seem to have jumped ahead from MS's actions to being an abuse to discussion about the merits of potential remedies. One could just as well ask how does one use an OS that doesn't come bundled with a monitor. You can't even install it by sound. I'm just not sure what this really has to do with the discussion at hand.
And about the Monopoly position: do they really have that kind of influence any more?
If the CEO of Dell is looking to license an OS to put on his new line of consumer desktops, how much influence does MS have over him? Is it significantly less? If he doesn't want to license Windows from MS, can he expect to have his job in a month? Does he have any other viable options?
You could argue that he does and he could hire someone to customize a Linux distro, but the general measure of how economically viable that is, is how much market share Linux has on the desktop. So far, it is pretty much nil, so yeah I think MS still has monopoly influence by a large margin.
How does Microsoft, champion of Capitalism, deal with thousands of neer-do-wells, many of which make this software for fun?
MS isn't the campion of capitalism, seeing as monopoly abuse is anti-capitalism. In any case, they simply have to make a better product at a better price. They seem to be doing fairly well so far. In any case, this isn't about MS maintaining their monopoly against Linux. This is about the Web browser market.
If there was a monopoly, there isnt now. That's because there IS a choice and that choice will never go away.
MS's Windows OS still qualifies a monopoly legally, and they still have enormous influence economically, more than enough for their bundling to undermine the Web browser market and destroy innovation. They are clearly violating the law and since you can understand the purpose of the law in general. I don't see that there is much question.
I think these lawsuits are just getting over the top.
This isn't a lawsuit. It's a criminal case.
Microsoft in this case is interested in enhancing the user experience by integrating the web browser into the OS. I think that's fine.
The laws around the world disagree. Would it be fine with you if the power distribution monopoly in your area decided to enhance your electricity using experience and ship you a new TV every year and roll the cost into your bill?
And this has somehow given Europe access to suing them for as much money as they like? don't you think that's stupid?
Well, it might be if it was true, but it isn't. Europe is charging them with a crime and working on punishing them for it while forcing them to stop, all without upsetting the US too much, since MS is a huge campaign contributor to both parties.
This is a clear-case of a company being attacked for being successful, this is just extra tax/bribes which is being conjured out of them, at least in asia the politicians call the bribes what it is: a bribe.
You mean like the large contributions MS made just before the US changed their mind about splitting them up for their crimes and instead decided to do nothing at all? This is a fine for a crime. That was a bribe, even if such bribery is stupidly legal in the US. The difference is the people in the EU making the decisions don't benefit, whereas the politicians in the US were re-elected using ads paid for by MS.
The fact they add IE to the OS, I don't find anything wrong with that...
I have no doubt. Of course you probably don't understand what the law was they convicted of abusing or why that law was written either. Maybe you should find out.
It's also a tax/blackmail because other OS-companies don't have this problem. Apple doesn't have this problem, most linux distributions don't have this problem.
Yeah it's funny how only the people who break the laws are convicted of breaking the laws. That's pretty nuts.
Hopefully they will win if they get sued because it's just a bloody stupid lawsuit.
Well, this article is about the US courts investigating MS's criminal acts. The EU thing is the EU looking to convict them for the criminal act, and MS will lose that case because it is open and shut. After reading your post the phrase 'bloody stupid" did come to mind, but that is unfair. You're probably not stupid, just ignorant and loud about it.
This is funny as the first post after my post complaining about how ignorant people are posting their uneducated opinions anyway and my very long explanation of why bundling is sometimes illegal... which you obviously did not read.
ARE YOU RETARDED
No, are you willfully ignorant and opinionated? Go read my explanation and then if you want to argue with any particular point go ahead. Or you could remain ignorant and be content with that, but stop making posts based in your own ignorance and embarrassing yourself. Or you could just go on ranting about things you know nothing about and using lots of capital letters in the hopes that it will make you more convincing.
A human being is a human being. It does not matter if that human is an adult, teen, child, infant, or fetus.
Legally, that is not true at all. Ever tried buying a handgun when you're eight years old? Our society grants rights gradually as we supposedly gain responsibility and the ability to handle the added rights and responsibilities. You can argue they shouldn't differentiate, but it will be a tough argument to make without invalidating the basis for a lot of really important laws.
Mod me down for not bashing MS, but actually you are thinking only of current uses, because under your regime no innovation is permitted, nor is any browser that supports only a part of the standard. Want to try to make a web browser, but don't have the time to implement the entire government approved standard? Go to jail.
I think you're misunderstanding the scope of this discussion. This is about proposed punishment's for MS's criminal actions, punishments that will help undo the damage they've done.
An analogy would be if someone argues a vandal should have to clean the entire park, since we don't know the full extend of their vandalism, and another person replying with the argument that it is unfair to other kids who did not break the law for the police to force them to clean the part (something no one proposed).
Different people have different needs (hence debian and suse coexisting). Please don't restrict my options by telling MS what they can't give me for free...
I bet you're one of those people who really thinks "buy one get one free" sales are costing the store money too. When you buy Windows you pay for IE. As for the rest of it, please go learn why MS's bundling is an antitrust abuse crime and how antitrust abuse breaks capitalism and harms us all. Then, you can feel free to argue the particulars of why you think this antitrust abuse is an exception.
Slashdot Mirror
If the online music business were a bunch of generic outfits selling MP3s(or generic AAC) then the relationship between the labels and the retailers would be a lot more like the brick and mortar one.
With brick and mortar, the RIAA screwed up and Walmart became such a large retail outlet they gained significant ability to push back and negotiate with the RIAA. The RIAA's attempts to give Amazon better terms than Apple and crazy (probably illegal) clauses in their contracts were an attempt to keep Apple from doing it online.
Just goes to show that no matter how much protection you have on the tech side, there's always a social engineering way around it.
True, but the better your protections on the tech side, the harder they have to work at social engineering and the less widespread and effective it will be. There is plenty of room on the tech side for technologies to mitigate trojans.
Lol wut? If it's an open standard anyone should be allowed to implement it.
Anyone can, so long as they're not violating an unrelated criminal law in the process. Here's another example, is it no longer an open standard if I can't implement it because I'm on probation and banned from using computers?
What if I write a computer program that constantly looks at my computer to see if I've written a program that can open ODF files and if I have it sets off a bomb killing a bunch of people. Then I write a program to implement ODF, the first program notices and sets off the bomb. My implementing ODF was an act of murder. Does that mean ODF is no longer an open standard because the police arrest me for murder for the act of implementing it?
Just because PDF is an open standard does not mean their is no way one can implement it that would be illegal. MS can implement PDF in absolutely any way that does not violate criminal law, including writing tools to read and write PDF but which they do not bundle with products in markets where they have monopoly influence.
Funnily enough Microsoft planned to implement PDF support in Office. Unfortunately Adobe threatened a lawsuit until they agreed to drop the feature - So much for open standards I guess.
I don't see the correlation. If I write a libelous article defaming your character in OpenOffice and you sue me to stop me from publishing it and I capitulate, does that make ODF not an open standard?
How does breaking the law using a format have anything to do with whether or not the format is open?
I didn't read the details to know one way or the other, did you?
Yes, long ago. It wasn't even a bailout, it was a lawsuit settlement where MS invested in Apple shares for a while as a PR move for Apple. Apple had plenty of cash at the time and did not need a "bailout". They also gained such things as a license to the Windows API for many years, in case Apple wanted to implement is themselves. It wasn't the result of Apple needing money, but MS basically losing the lawsuit over ripping off Apple.
Since I mentioned OS X on normal PC's, what does it matter what Microsoft did after that? Microsoft doesn't make PC's and their involvement on OS X is limited to Office and a few other things we can easily do without.
Currently Apple sells computer systems and competes with the likes of Dell. MS can hurt them, but since the computer system market is not monopolized they have to do it indirectly. If Apple were to try selling their OS for normal computers it would be a flop unless they went to OEMs and licensed it (they already tried it once and nearly died). It would put them in direct competition with MS who currently has monopolized the market for desktop OS's. Any businessman will tell you that is a death sentence until MS is cut down to 50-70% of the market. OEMs would have to bet the whole company on Apple, because MS could kill all their Windows sales with differential pricing in a heartbeat. Expecting an OEM to bet the whole company is asking a lot and a CEO could go to jail over such a move, or at very least be sued by the shareholders. Then all MS has to do is introduce incompatibilities between OS X and Windows and suddenly Macs are "breaking" when trying to work with other computers... with the other 90% of computers. The whole reason antitrust abuse is illegal is because it allows a company to leverage their monopoly to win market share even when their offering is more expensive or technically inferior or both. It would be a super-bonehead move on the part of Apple.
I know Apple has had their own hardware from the start, but making a generic PC port wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Yeah, it would just kill 50% of their revenue scheme while getting them pretty much nothing. It doesn't matter if OS X is better than Windows. MS has a monopoly and that means they can introduce artificial problems of compatibility in OS X at will. Theoretically it is illegal, but we all know how well the courts have worked so far. A decade later something might be done after OS X is dead.
I'm of course guessing there's a clause from when MS bailed them out that prevents that from happening.
Where do you get this FUD?
Sorry, I gave up on you. You can' understand my arguments and you persist in trying to redefine everything, which simply does not make for a productive conversation. When I ask for your ideas as anything but examples you fail to provide them. The conversation is pointless. You don't care if the market is undermined or how people go about deciding that logically or under the law. All you care about is finding some way you can claim any explanation of how MS has been determined to do that can't be proved. It's sad.
Get a new hobby.
You already admitted in other posts that MS has a monopoly on desktop OS's. Give it up already.
. All these browsers are aftermarket enhancements to OSes that already have bundled browsers. And while they're profitable, they're also still free -- you have MS to thank for that.
What you call them doesn't matter. MS makes a browser. Other people make browsers. They profit from them. Some premium ones are payware. That's a separate market in every way that matters to antitrust issues. Trying to make up your own definitions is pointless. Your definition of "free" I might mention is not the same as economics.
By your logic it would not be a problem if MS required an MS branded video card to be purchased with every copy of Windows?
How did you get that from what I said?
You argued that people providing browsers separately was not enough for them to qualify as a separate market (which I find absurd) but then you argued that browsers are "aftermarket 'enhancements' to an OS. The reverse is not true -- nobody provides Desktop OSes without browsers." Desktop OS's don't sell by themselves either, they are almost always bundled with hardware for sale, including a video card. So following your logic, MS should be able to bundle them too, since they aren't a separate market according to your new rules.
Because none of those scenarios you mention have anything to do with the market and this is a law about undermining markets. That's its purpose and how its defined.
They have nothing to do with the market? See what I mean about colored lenses?
No. I think you're having problems. Defining antitrust abuse in your terms is not any more valid than defining it in terms of things that come in blue boxes. It's a law about undermining markets. Claiming it should be defined by what you want to call a complete OS is nonsensical. No one undermined a "complete OS" they undermined a market.
And I could show you a ROM chip I designed. Now, do you want to bundle ROM flashing hardware with the OS disk, or are you ready to admit that your analogy simply proves my point.
As near as I can tell you don't have a point and you still don't seem to understand antitrust abuse at all. I'm not sure how much more dumbed down I can make this. My point is you're making arbitrary inclusions to define what you call a complete OS, but it is irrelevant because it has nothing to do with the crime as to what makes up a complete OS, just what makes up the markets as defined by what people buy.
Bundling a ROM with an OS doesn't make sense -- so it never happened.
It happens all the time. The vast majority of OS's sold come ith a complete computer system including ROM and BIOS. Get it?
Bundling a ROM with an OS doesn't make sense -- so it never happened.
I see, you want "natural allies" codified into law? Yeah, that will go over well.
Why don't we cut this short. Tell me, what do you think antitrust laws should say and explain how they will solve antitrust abuse, then I'll explain why you're clueless.
I still say they are not a separate market.
Ahh, with your brilliant "natural allies" definition instead of oh, you know customers and what they purchase which is used to define markets in every aspect of law and are the definition of what a market is?
You did not find any flaw in my argument.
You don't even have an argument, just an assertion.
"In terms of the law, they are clearly in violation." -- it's a really tall claim you're making there
Yeah, it sounds pretty crazy except for them already having been convicted in three different jurisdictions all of which defined them as a separate market and it being a nearly textbook case. Please.
I live in the US where we believe that the "rule of law" should never silent dissent.
Am I silencing you? No I'm encouraging you to go on and on apparently. That doesn't excuse breaking laws they don't agree with. This isn't a civil rights issue, it's time tested antitrust law applied to large corporations who clearly knew what they were doing and have been spending money not to change the law or inform people, but to spread misinformation about the law and get favors from politicians with legalized bribes.
I share your confidence regarding the outcome -- but that's because of my faith in
Plenty of lock-in (ensuring that windows is the only real choice), well, yes and no -- but let's stick to the main point -- so agreed. From there how did you get to the web browser market being undermined??
That was a demonstration and refutation. The claim from "Creepy Crawler" was that MS no longer had monopoly influence. I already explained in my original post how antitrust abuse works, in particular bundling. They bundled a product from a separate, pre-existing market (web browsers) with a product from a market they had monopolized (Windows). It's open and shut.
Now you're coming up with some fairly arbitrary stuff. How is the market boundary defined?
Defining a law about undermining markets in terms of markets is arbitrary? I suppose you think laws about theft that define it in terms of who has possession of items are arbitrary to? Markets are defined by the economically viable options customers consider when purchasing a product or service for their purpose. Since MS's customers are almost entirely OEMs the monopolized market is mostly what desktop OS's OEMs consider when licensing OS's they resell.
By the EU?
The courts make the determination as they make all determinations of fact in legal cases.
Why is it right to take a snapshot of a market at a point in time...
Because it s the point in time when the action occurs. To continue with the theft example, it's who owns the property at the time of the theft, not who owns it years later after it may have been resold.
...you cannot act on any foresight you might have that this market will naturally get absorbed into another one...
Except it hasn't happened. There is still a separate market for browsers as demonstrated by Opera, Safari, Firefox, etc.
- by refusing to bundle a browser with your OS no matter how many of your competitors do that
Every company is free to bundle anything they want with anything they want so long as it is not monopolized. I can bundle socks and Cable tV service and sell it, because I don't have a monopoly on either. Why does that matter to someone who does have a monopoly on one of the two items in question? Does that make the market any less broken by their action? If one person runs a cable to their neighbors house and sells them the electrical distribution service (but does not take enough share to undermine the monopoly, they can bundle water with the deal. Does that mean it is any more fair to people who are forced to buy it from the power company? Does that make their actions hurt existing bottled water companies any less?
In today's environment all desktop OS competitors bundle browsers...
In today's environment there aren't any other desktop OS competitors that have enough market share to mention. In today's environment, OEMs sell bundled OS's+computers+support services. Does that somehow invalidate bundling with a monopolized component by the monopolist? How? I'm just not seeing how any of this makes any difference. Please explain using my electrical distribution and bottled water example to abstract the concept.
Given that, how does it matter what the boundary of the market was when the bundling first occurred?
Umm, one of the primary requirements for the law can be ignored is a given? I don't think so.
What are you going to find MS guilty of -- having great foresight??
Undermining the Web browser market, intentionally breaking it to prevent innovation, hurting competition and competitors. You know, antitrust abuse.
People did and do make money from creating and providing browsers without an OS attached. People sell browsers as payware directly. That's a separate market under the law. It's not even a question at this point.
You're misunderstanding my point. The browsers sold (for money) are aftermarket 'enhancements' to an OS. The reverse is not true -- nobody provides Desktop OSes without browsers.
So? In terms of the market, no significant amount of desktop OS's comes without a computer it is pre-installed on. An OS is a component, just like a monitor or hard drive. By your logic it would not be a problem if MS required an MS branded video card to be purchased with every copy of Windows? How does that not undermine the market for that component?
How is that arbitrary? I called out numerous, common, and specific consumer scenarios that depend on having a browser present, and concluded from them that an OS sans browser is incomplete.
Because none of those scenarios you mention have anything to do with the market and this is a law about undermining markets. That's its purpose and how its defined.
I can call out a specific case to invalidate your scenario as well -- if you get machines sans BIOS -- and bundle the BIOS with the OS -- how do you load the BIOS into the ROM?
I could explain how to flash ROM, but why? There's no reason the BIOS can't be on the ROM already. You're making arbitrary distinctions that have nothing to do with the crime involved. The crime is undermining a market, so the crime is defined by the markets involved. People buy browsers separate from OS's and profit from providing browsers separate from the OS's That's the only distinction needed for a market to be undermined and that's the only distinction the law cares about. Rearranging the chairs on the Titanic is not helping your case.
Look, you can repeat that line about the law all you want -- and the EU may well agree with you, fine MS 10 billion dollars, force them to strip IE etc. -- that doesn't mean it's correct. The law might say whatever it wants about monopolies -- that doesn't mean that browsers are a separate market. The EU might rule that browsers are a separate market -- that doesn't mean they are right.
Make up your mind. Earlier you said your argument was that browsers weren't a seperate market. Now that I've shown that argument to be flawed you're changing your argument to a belief that antitrust laws in general are wrong, or is it that you think MS's case is an exception in some specific way aside from your failed argument?
The EU stands to gain overall by reducing dependence on MS software. The EU stands to gain financially by fining MS. The EU commissioners are actors for the EU. You know this already -- I don't have to spell it out.
So? What's their motivation to target MS? They don't profit personally, so you think they're compromising their values to benefit the EU for some reason?
You need to stop pretending that the law (and results of court cases) are always right/just/fair.
I think I already demonstrated the need for this particular law and showed how it is applied. The onus is on you to show why that demonstration was incorrect or why it is different in this case. I live in the US where we have this fundamental value of "rule by law" instead of rule by man. The same laws apply to everyone. This is the same laws as have been enforced against other companies being applied to MS the same way. Even if you think the law is wrong, MS is still obligated to obey the laws and try to get them changed and should be punished for their crimes. They don't get to break laws they disagree with.
You have to accept the law -- no question about that. But in a debate you can certainly call into question it's wisdom, and rulings based on it.
I'm g
Back when browsers were made for profit, Microsoft did infringe.
Opera gets paid by an advertising deal to make Google the primary search. OmniWeb charges a shareware fee. Google profits by making their services run better. Undermining the market injures all of them even now.
But then I'll argue what is the boundary to an operating system? Is it the kernel? Is it the basic drivers...
It doesn't matter. The law doesn't care what the boundary of an operating system is. Economically, it doesn't matter. What matters is the boundary of the market, when the bundling first occurs.
By your argument, even one extra tool kills a segment, and should never be allowed. That's gobbledegook.
No, only products from separate, pre-existing markets at the time of the bundling, which is, admittedly, a lot in the case of what comes with Windows. The thing is, nothing prevents MS from creating and providing extra products. They can sell them or give them away. Nothing prevents OEMs from bundling products with Windows. MS is just not allowed to force it on everyone. That's the law and when you understand how antitrust abuse undermines markets or simply look at the mess that is Web technologies today, it becomes clear why.
So if there's a new protocol or something, we should actively prevent Microsoft from entering because of a monopoly?
No, if there's a new market for a type of program, MS can make a program to fill that niche and sell it or give it away. They just can't bundle it with Windows, just like every other software developer.
And to the argument that Microsoft is no longer a monopoly: I can download, legally for free, a network operating system that can handle all server duties, client duties, open nearly all MS file formats, run MS executables, join MS networks, and share it with anybody I wish.
If Dell or Sony or HP decides it is a valid competitor and it gets installed on about 30% of desktop and laptop computers, then MS will be on the verge of not having undue influence in the market. As it is, they have enormous influence and can destroy other markets and have already done so. Sorry, but the argument that MS does not have monopoly power (when they have 99% of the market) just doesn't fly.
It leads me to believe that the only reason MS is still considered a monopoly is that people choose MSWindows, not the theoretical situation of the State mandated power company handing out "free bottled water".
You're missing the point. It doesn't matter at all why MS has a monopoly. It's legal to have a monopoly, just as it is legal for a company to have the exclusive contract to distribute power in an area. It's illegal to abuse the power that comes with having a monopoly. With the example of the power company, people can choose to run their own generators and bypass the monopoly. It just isn't in their best economic interests in the short term, so they don't. It doesn't matter. Antitrust abuse isn't about forcing people to do something at gunpoint. It is about making more expensive and worse products the right economic choice for purchasers because of power in a completely different market. OEM CEOs feel Windows is the only real choice they have to stay in business and there is plenty of lock-in and reason for that. As a result, the separate market for Web browsers is undermined.
Choice is the factor that makes a monopoly position. There's choice at "Free", "Declared Monopoly", and "Expensive". Tells me there's not one any more.
Except how do you evaluate what is a real, practical choice and what is an impractical or non-working choice. Is driving to the power company with a truck load of car batteries, filling them up, and driving them back to power your house choice? Yes. Is buying tens of thousands of dollars in solar panels a choice? Sure. Are they reasonable choices? The answer to that legally and practically is the percentage of people that choose them. At 1% for Linux and 99% for Windows, there's a long way to go before Linux is a practical choice according to consumers.
Ha! You're a hoot! Those socialists and their antitrust laws huh? Whew! Keep it coming RightSaidFred99!
Why does Microsoft have to take it in the ass?
Because they broke the law.
Their software has been gimped enough thanks to the antitrust nonsense.
Please. MS crippled their own software. They also helped cripple everyone else's by holding back the Web for a decade.
How about APPLE be taken to task for their OS. I cant even legally install it on a PC that I bought, unless i buy it from apple.
Yeah, except what they're doing is legal.
...why doesnt Apple take it in the ass?
They obey the law?
I guess monopolies are ok when they're "cool".
What market, exactly, do you think Apple has monopolized?
Why hasn't Apple been slapped with the same anti-trust suit for the software that comes on their machines.
The law says you can't bundle a monopolized product with one from a separate pre-existing market because it undermines free trade. Did you think Apple had a monopoly on desktop OS's, computer systems, or on one of the software packages?
What am missing? It's very convoluted to me.
A basic understanding of antitrust law. I went to all the trouble to write a lengthy explanation and it is modded to +5 a ways up.
Gah! Learn to use "quote" tags, please.
What? If we go back to before IE, or perhaps before Winsock, what good would that do for the user?
It determines if MS's actions were legal when they started them. It's not fair to punish a company if they accidentally happened upon a violation. You questioned if their was a pre-existing separate market. There was when MS started and there is now.
that's not a sign that MS had to bow to competitive pressures, as in NOT A MONOPOLY, I dont know what is.
I'm sorry, when you have 99% of the install base for desktop OS's, you have enough influence to undermine other markets. In rare cases such as Netbooks or high end workstations or ultra secure systems there are a few other options, but nothing that makes a dent in the overall market.
...but as I said above it being software changes the whole argument.
You've said that, but you haven't explained how. Do you think for some reasons the rules of the market don't apply to intellectual property? If so, why not? How are markets for intellectual property fundamentally different? Since these laws have applied to intellectual property in the past, even if there is a reason for them not to apply, MS still violated the law when they did it and refused to follow the same rules as everyone else, so they would still need to be punished to be fair, no?
And no, simply making a better product at a better price is impossible unless MS offers software for free.
So they should make it better and offer it for free. I have no problem with that. The problem is that they have bundled it. That is illegal.
Just as we saw back in '00, web browsers are approaching commodity.
Again, I don't see what this has to do with anything. Commodities are still ruled by antitrust law. Free doesn't matter either so long as someone is making money from them, which most companies do by using them as advertising platforms.
Instead, we see Mac and Linux both with all these tools and more.
So, how does that violate antitrust law or undermine any market?
That default installation would break every anti-trust instance of law IF Microsoft did it, regardless if they chose open source apps as their options.
No, that would not. What would violate antitrust law is if they bundled those things with Windows or any other monopolized product. They can bundle them with their server OS, a Linux distro, or anything else they feel like.
That recent article about companies relying too much webapps goes deeper: Get rid of the branded servers. Buh bye MS mail server.
So if your revenue model is threatened by cheaper and better competitors that gives one an excuse to break the law to prop up your inferior products and force people to use them anyway? Is that your argument? If I run a sandwich shop but someone else makes better sandwiches can I burn it down to insure my revenue stream?
Commoditization of an OS is what MS has to rightly fear.
Who cares? They have monopoly influence now and are using it to break the Web browser market. Are you arguing their being threatened (so far unsuccessfully) in their primary market justifies their destroying other markets? I think that's absurd.
Apple's already entrenched on the high price side, slowing moving down.
Apple doesn't sell their OS to OEMs or site licenses. They aren't even in the desktop OS market. They were forced out of it by MS's monopoly in that area.
Linux is on the low side, at free, going only up in quality taking what works and ditching the rest.
Bu so far they have less than 1% of the market.
And we call them a monopoly.
Yes we do. It is not
It seems what he's saying is that Linux might be the excuse to get Microsoft to be non-monopolized.
I'm not sure I understand. Linux might, some day, take 30% of the market and lead to MS no longer having monopoly influence, but I don't see how much Linux costs an OEM to have anything to do with whether or not MS's Windows OS constitutes a monopoly right now. If anything the fact that their main competitor is free and developed as a community effort bolsters arguments that the market is severely monopolized.
The only real way to compete with free is free. And MS cant do that.
I guess I still don't see the argument. Companies don't become un-monopolized. They either have monopoly influence in a specific market or they don't. How does someone else giving away an OS make MS not have a monopoly in that market? Given that they do have a monopoly, how does someone giving away an OS effect whether or not MS is breaking the Web browser market?
My problem with treating IE bundling as an antitrust issue is pretty simple -- I simply don't recognize browsers as being a separate market. They're more like an 'aftermarket accessory'.
People did and do make money from creating and providing browsers without an OS attached. People sell browsers as payware directly. That's a separate market under the law. It's not even a question at this point.
Web applications are pretty pervasive these days. Social networking sites, online banking, web mail, Google docs, photo sharing sites, etc. are all examples thereof. In that context, a browser is merely another 'framework' on which applications run. An OS without this framework is an incomplete OS.
You're making an arbitrary distinction, but it's a technological one. One could argue that an OS without BIOS to run on is incomplete and unusable and argue that on technological grounds. Antitrust law is about insuring the integrity of the free market and as such applies not technologies, but markets. It's not about what works with what, but about who buys what (or more specifically profits from what).
So I still contend that the EU is just trying to extract money in this ca
You can contend that all you want, but there isn't any evidence. In terms of the law, they are clearly in violation. A criminal complaint was filed by a competitor. They're a repeat offender and have done this in numerous markets. The EU has prosecuted other companies for the same crime, including companies based in the EU. The EU commissioners don't profit from this judgement in any way. So I'd ask you, why do you think this is about the EU going for money instead of trying to enforce the law and fix the markets for the good of the people?
Antitrust law has always been concerned about physical goods and services.
I've never seen any such restriction and I know it has dealt with copyright in the past.
I could argue and say that due to the boom of the internet, FTP, POP3, SMTP, HTTP, NNTP and others are protocols that an OS should provide basic services for.
This sentence seems a bit incomplete. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
How else, especially in todays Internet, do you get a web browser if you dont understand commandline ftp? Or for that matter, find the server that hosts it?
You seem to have jumped ahead from MS's actions to being an abuse to discussion about the merits of potential remedies. One could just as well ask how does one use an OS that doesn't come bundled with a monitor. You can't even install it by sound. I'm just not sure what this really has to do with the discussion at hand.
And about the Monopoly position: do they really have that kind of influence any more?
If the CEO of Dell is looking to license an OS to put on his new line of consumer desktops, how much influence does MS have over him? Is it significantly less? If he doesn't want to license Windows from MS, can he expect to have his job in a month? Does he have any other viable options?
You could argue that he does and he could hire someone to customize a Linux distro, but the general measure of how economically viable that is, is how much market share Linux has on the desktop. So far, it is pretty much nil, so yeah I think MS still has monopoly influence by a large margin.
How does Microsoft, champion of Capitalism, deal with thousands of neer-do-wells, many of which make this software for fun?
MS isn't the campion of capitalism, seeing as monopoly abuse is anti-capitalism. In any case, they simply have to make a better product at a better price. They seem to be doing fairly well so far. In any case, this isn't about MS maintaining their monopoly against Linux. This is about the Web browser market.
If there was a monopoly, there isnt now. That's because there IS a choice and that choice will never go away.
MS's Windows OS still qualifies a monopoly legally, and they still have enormous influence economically, more than enough for their bundling to undermine the Web browser market and destroy innovation. They are clearly violating the law and since you can understand the purpose of the law in general. I don't see that there is much question.
I think these lawsuits are just getting over the top.
This isn't a lawsuit. It's a criminal case.
Microsoft in this case is interested in enhancing the user experience by integrating the web browser into the OS. I think that's fine.
The laws around the world disagree. Would it be fine with you if the power distribution monopoly in your area decided to enhance your electricity using experience and ship you a new TV every year and roll the cost into your bill?
And this has somehow given Europe access to suing them for as much money as they like? don't you think that's stupid?
Well, it might be if it was true, but it isn't. Europe is charging them with a crime and working on punishing them for it while forcing them to stop, all without upsetting the US too much, since MS is a huge campaign contributor to both parties.
This is a clear-case of a company being attacked for being successful, this is just extra tax/bribes which is being conjured out of them, at least in asia the politicians call the bribes what it is: a bribe.
You mean like the large contributions MS made just before the US changed their mind about splitting them up for their crimes and instead decided to do nothing at all? This is a fine for a crime. That was a bribe, even if such bribery is stupidly legal in the US. The difference is the people in the EU making the decisions don't benefit, whereas the politicians in the US were re-elected using ads paid for by MS.
The fact they add IE to the OS, I don't find anything wrong with that...
I have no doubt. Of course you probably don't understand what the law was they convicted of abusing or why that law was written either. Maybe you should find out.
It's also a tax/blackmail because other OS-companies don't have this problem. Apple doesn't have this problem, most linux distributions don't have this problem.
Yeah it's funny how only the people who break the laws are convicted of breaking the laws. That's pretty nuts.
Hopefully they will win if they get sued because it's just a bloody stupid lawsuit.
Well, this article is about the US courts investigating MS's criminal acts. The EU thing is the EU looking to convict them for the criminal act, and MS will lose that case because it is open and shut. After reading your post the phrase 'bloody stupid" did come to mind, but that is unfair. You're probably not stupid, just ignorant and loud about it.
This is funny as the first post after my post complaining about how ignorant people are posting their uneducated opinions anyway and my very long explanation of why bundling is sometimes illegal... which you obviously did not read.
ARE YOU RETARDED
No, are you willfully ignorant and opinionated? Go read my explanation and then if you want to argue with any particular point go ahead. Or you could remain ignorant and be content with that, but stop making posts based in your own ignorance and embarrassing yourself. Or you could just go on ranting about things you know nothing about and using lots of capital letters in the hopes that it will make you more convincing.
A human being is a human being. It does not matter if that human is an adult, teen, child, infant, or fetus.
Legally, that is not true at all. Ever tried buying a handgun when you're eight years old? Our society grants rights gradually as we supposedly gain responsibility and the ability to handle the added rights and responsibilities. You can argue they shouldn't differentiate, but it will be a tough argument to make without invalidating the basis for a lot of really important laws.
Mod me down for not bashing MS, but actually you are thinking only of current uses, because under your regime no innovation is permitted, nor is any browser that supports only a part of the standard. Want to try to make a web browser, but don't have the time to implement the entire government approved standard? Go to jail.
I think you're misunderstanding the scope of this discussion. This is about proposed punishment's for MS's criminal actions, punishments that will help undo the damage they've done.
An analogy would be if someone argues a vandal should have to clean the entire park, since we don't know the full extend of their vandalism, and another person replying with the argument that it is unfair to other kids who did not break the law for the police to force them to clean the part (something no one proposed).
Different people have different needs (hence debian and suse coexisting). Please don't restrict my options by telling MS what they can't give me for free...
I bet you're one of those people who really thinks "buy one get one free" sales are costing the store money too. When you buy Windows you pay for IE. As for the rest of it, please go learn why MS's bundling is an antitrust abuse crime and how antitrust abuse breaks capitalism and harms us all. Then, you can feel free to argue the particulars of why you think this antitrust abuse is an exception.