There doesn't seem to be a lot of overview-type documentation on the IceWM website, so I'll try asking here...
If your X server supports multiple displays, will IceWM manage them? One invocation? Or one instance per display? Or does it work at all? (I've seen wm's that get very confused...)
Has it been tried on non-Linux platforms, such as Compaq Tru64, *BSD, etc.? Is the code 64-bit clean (Alpha-compatible)?
Not only is Microsoft a monopolist, it has harmed consumers, according to the judge's findings.
Side note: the "200 page document" is 75 pages when converted to single-spaced, 10-point Times type. If you can read the WP format, go for it, and save a tree.
Final excerpts from findings report:
411. Many of the tactics that Microsoft has employed have also harmed consumers indirectly by unjustifiably distorting competition. The actions that Microsoft took against Navigator hobbled a form of innovation that had shown the potential to depress the applications barrier to entry sufficiently to enable other firms to compete effectively against Microsoft in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. That competition would have conduced to consumer choice and nurtured innovation. The campaign against Navigator also retarded widespread acceptance of Sun's Java implementation. This campaign, together with actions that Microsoft took with the sole purpose of making it difficult for developers to write Java applications with technologies that would allow them to be ported between Windows and other platforms, impeded another form of innovation that bore the potential to diminish the applications barrier to entry. There is insufficient evidence to find that, absent Microsoft's actions, Navigator and Java already would have ignited genuine competition in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. It is clear, however, that Microsoft has retarded, and perhaps altogether extinguished, the process by which these two middleware technologies could have facilitated the introduction of competition into an important market.
412. Most harmful of all is the message that Microsoft's actions have conveyed to every enterprise with the potential to innovate in the computer industry. Through its conduct toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel, and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Microsoft's core products. Microsoft's past success in hurting such companies and stifling innovation deters investment in technologies and businesses that exhibit the potential to threaten Microsoft. The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not coincide with Microsoft's self-interest.
Nice that they posted WP5 format over on the DOJ site, so that good ol' non-desktop Linux could turn them into eminently greppable ASCII for posting to Slashdot...:-) Here are the excerpts:
50. The experience of the Linux operating system, a version of which runs on Intel-compatible PCs, similarly fails to refute the existence of an applications barrier to entry. Linux is an "open source" operating system that was created, and is continuously updated, by a global network of software developers who contribute their labor for free. Although Linux has between ten and fifteen million users, the majority of them use the operating system to run servers, not PCs. Several ISVs have announced their development of (or plans to develop) Linux versions of their applications. To date, though, legions of ISVs have not followed the lead of these first movers. Similarly, consumers have by and large shown little inclination to abandon Windows, with its reliable developer support, in favor of an operating system whose future in the PC realm is unclear. By itself, Linux's open-source development model shows no signs of liberating that operating system from the cycle of consumer preferences and developer incentives that, when fueled by Windows' enormous reservoir of applications, prevents non- Microsoft operating systems from competing.
And on Open Source:
51. Since application developers working under an open- source model are not looking to recoup their investment and make a profit by selling copies of their finished products, they are free from the imperative that compels proprietary developers to concentrate their efforts on Windows. In theory, then, open- source developers are at least as likely to develop applications for a non-Microsoft operating system as they are to write Windows-compatible applications. In fact, they may be disposed ideologically to focus their efforts on open-source platforms like Linux. Fortunately for Microsoft, however, there are only so many developers in the world willing to devote their talents to writing, testing, and debugging software pro bono publico. A small corps may be willing to concentrate its efforts on popular applications, such as browsers and office productivity applications, that are of value to most users. It is unlikely, though, that a sufficient number of open-source developers will commit to developing and continually updating the large variety of applications that an operating system would need to attract in order to present a significant number of users with a viable alternative to Windows. In practice, then, the open-source model of applications development may increase the base of applications that run on non-Microsoft PC operating systems, but it cannot dissolve the barrier that prevents such operating systems from challenging Windows.
Be, Linux, and OEM's, from C.54:
Although a few OEMs have announced their intention to pre-install Linux on some of the computers they ship, none of them plan to install Linux in lieu of Windows on any appreciable number of PC (as opposed to server) systems. For its part, Be is not even attempting to persuade OEMs to install the BeOS on PCs to the exclusion of Windows.
On monopoly, from F.60:
For while consumers might one day turn to network computers, or Linux, or a combination of middleware and some other operating system, as an alternative to Windows, the fact remains that they are not doing so today. Nor are consumers likely to do so in appreciable numbers any time in the next few years. Unless and until that day arrives, no significant percentage of consumers will be able to abandon Windows without incurring substantial costs. Microsoft can therefore set the price of Windows substantially higher than that which would be charged in a competitive market or impose other burdens on consumers without losing so much business as to make the action unprofitable.
Slashdot Mirror
There doesn't seem to be a lot of overview-type documentation on the IceWM website, so I'll try asking here...
If your X server supports multiple displays, will IceWM manage them? One invocation? Or one instance per display? Or does it work at all? (I've seen wm's that get very confused...)
Has it been tried on non-Linux platforms, such as Compaq Tru64, *BSD, etc.? Is the code 64-bit clean (Alpha-compatible)?
Not only is Microsoft a monopolist, it has harmed consumers, according to the judge's findings.
Side note: the "200 page document" is 75 pages when converted to single-spaced, 10-point Times type. If you can read the WP format, go for it, and save a tree.
Final excerpts from findings report: