Recently it became known that the European Union is charging Microsoft with anticompetitive behaviour concerning its Internet Explorer web browser. The EU is considering forcing OEMs to offer consumers a choice of browser. Opera responded quite positively to these events, and now Mozilla has responded as well: they fully support the EU.
Mozilla Foundation chairperson Mitchell Baker has stated her full support for the EU’s conviction that Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to Windows is harmful to the competition. They will offer full cooperation and will assist the EU with their expertise on the browser market. She wrote on her blog:
In my mind, there is absolutely no doubt that the statement above is correct. Not the single smallest iota of doubt. I’ve been involved in building and shipping web browsers continuously since before Microsoft started developing IE, and the damage Microsoft has done to competition, innovation, and the pace of the web development itself is both glaring and ongoing. There are separate questions of whether there is a good remedy, and what that remedy might be. But questions regarding an appropriate remedy do not change the essential fact. Microsoft’s business practices have fundamentally diminished (in fact, came very close to eliminating) competition, choice and innovation in how people access the Internet.
Ars Technica’s Ryan Paul expresses sincere problems with Baker’s statements in said blog post. First of all, Paul explains, is it really true that Microsoft still has a monopoly in the browser market? In the EU, roughly 30% of citizens prefer Firefox over Internet Explorer, and several WebKit-based alternatives like Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari are gaining ground fast. In fact, the browser market has never been as open and diverse is it is now.
Secondly, Paul argues that without Microsoft’s monopoly position with regards to IE, we would be seeing a much less healthy browser market today; facing uneven odds, competitors to IE had to make radical and innovative decisions in order to successfully compete. Or, as Paul puts it: “If Internet Explorer had never gained the dominant marketshare to necessitate a change in the status quo, the only browser choices we would have today might be between an ad-encumbered Opera and a proprietary Netscape.”
Thirdly, Baker makes a rather odd claim regarding the current status of the browser market. “The success of Mozilla and Firefox does not indicate a healthy marketplace for competitive products,” she states, “Mozilla is a non-profit organization; a worldwide movement of people who strive to build the Internet we want to live in. I am convinced that we could not have been, and will not be, successful except as a public benefit organization living outside the commercial motivations.”
Paul points out that many open source enthusiasts would disagree with this statement. “There are quite a few open source software enthusiasts who would argue that, for a broad range of software products, the emergence of a Mozilla-like model is actually desirable and highly advantageous for consumers,” Paul argues, “A point will eventually arrive for many kinds of software where there is simply no point in trying to derive value from shrink-wrapping it, and then efforts will converge around collaboratively-developed open source implementations that will displace and eliminate the need for proprietary commercial implementations. Why should that be viewed as unhealthy?”
I find it hard to disagree with Paul’s assessment of Mozilla’s position, and seeing the recent comment threads about this subject on OSAlert, I think most of you will agree as well. On most fronts where Microsoft used to call the industry shots, they lost major ground. This all started with the emergence of Firefox, which broke IE’s monopoly – without any government intervention. Firefox is beating IE so badly on its own merits – not because it received help from the government. We now see that Firefox opened the floodgates, allowing other players in other fields (Linux, Apple) to compete with Microsoft on other fronts, leading to a healthier overall market.
In addition, the recent browser market forces all players to innovate, and it has even forced Microsoft to make major improvements in its browser’s standards compliance. From whatever angle you look at it, the current browser market is healthier than it has ever been, with lots of choice and competition. The EU is not needed here.
Serious, is Ryan Paul having a laugh?
So, we can thank Microsoft’s monopolist actions for forcing competitors to … overcome their illegal practice to try and give us at least a *market*?
No, I won’t thank the car thief for stealing my car and forcing me to buy a new one.
Edited 2009-02-10 13:06 UTC
Courtesy of Ryan Paul @Arstechnica
“If Firefox achieves a majority marketshare in Europe, will Opera file a complaint with the EU and contend that open source licensing constitutes an “artificial distribution advantage” over other browsers? That may seem like a far-fetched suggestion, but it wouldn’t be the first time that such concerns have been voiced about open source software. Opera is certainly not above attacking Mozilla in that manner. Encouraging sanctions against dominant vendors on the basis of dominance sets a dangerous precedent.”
What on earth is that person’s basis for that? Casting FUD hither and thither it would appear.
Really when someone can suggest such a thing with no basis, and completely misrepresent the case as being about Microsoft being a “dominant vendor” you have to regard everything they say as suspicious.
Edited 2009-02-10 13:14 UTC
They support the EU, but not the proposed solutions (ie. bundling alternative browsers).
While FF is stealing market share from IE on the consumer market, it’s still almost non-existent on the corporate area.
Would the situation be better had MS not used Windows as a privileged platform to push both IE and their proprietary technologies? Maybe, or maybe not… yet even if it wasn’t the end doesn’t justify the means.
> While FF is stealing market share from IE on
> the consumer market, it’s still almost non-existent
> on the corporate area.
Many corporate applications only work in IE cause VARs see no reason to support anything else. So that’s the main problem here.
Where I work we use Sharepoint for our Intranet FireFox does most things but not everything and our corporate policy is we only support IE so when I ask the developers if they can fix the issue they of course say no. So until FF can do everything it can’t be my only browser at work. You can blame our developers and you would probably right in doing so but that won’t change the fact that for the foreseeable future we will not support FF.
Replace Sharepoint with Alfresco. Much cheaper and more reliable for your company (the servers can run Linux, so CALs are no longer payable), and it works equally well with IE, Firefox, MS Office or OpenOffice.
http://www.alfresco.com/
Problem solved.
If Firefox had some real management tools, or at least exposed some settings to global policies, then it might make inroads into the enterprise. right now, it is very hard to do more with it other than roll it out, and that makes administrators lives harder.
That’s why I don’t deploy it, it doesn’t support what I need to plug it into my management infrastructure. I wish it did.
It^aEURTMs no longer a matter of Microsoft^aEURTMs monopoly, it^aEURTMs a matter of the damage that remains because of it.
Or did I miss that five years of relentless viruses and spyware?
IE has caused untold headaches, that still persist, because of the monopoly.
Mozilla support the EU in wanting to repair that damage. I think most would have difficulty disagreeing with the individual points of the Mozilla Manifesto – which look beyond just Firefox.
So how many of those do you think the IE monopoly embraced and helped to further? That^aEURTMs right. None.
Exactly, let’s not even talk about how they repeatedly broke the web standards. What’s the reason for protecting it? Let’s have some REAL web browser for the reborn web and leave that monstrosity for the companies who still rely on their ActiveX nonsense.
Thom wrote:
Really? Never underestimate Microsoft. They destroyed almost every single good thing that stood in their way to world dominance. Firefox is one of the few exceptions. It’s great news that EU lends a hand to Firefox, Opera, Safari etc.
Edited 2009-02-10 14:10 UTC
Seems like they’re more a cancer themselves than what they accused Linux of being.
well apple, be and netscape (to name a few) f–ked up for themselfes
no MS involved in their demise
can you give me some examples what good things you are talking about?
opera are just pissed because noone wants to use their browser. but maybe it’s their own fault?
and i even have an axe to grind over firefox.
the bloody thing feels sluggisher on a 2x2ghz box than ie6 on 500mhz
maybe i’m a bit sensitive to such problems, but i prefere a not correctly rendered site over one where the content is hopping around for some seconds until everything is in place
Ehm… well… Regarding Be.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/sep03/09-05besettleme…
http://www.osnews.com/story/4464/Microsoft-Corp.-and-Be-Inc.-Reach-…
Nice to know you thought Netscape Communicator 4.x and Real Player were “good things”.
Yes, Netscape and Real Player were good things! It was Netscape that brought the internet to the masses and Real Player that brought video streaming to the masses. They did change the world.
That some people later would write better programs, not relevant in a healthy market. Capitalism will do its work.
Edited 2009-02-10 21:06 UTC
As long as Microsoft can get away with over 90% of computers shipped with nothing but MSIE, the road to web standards will be a rocky one.
Penetration of alternative browsers might be around 25% now, which is not very high. Most people never replace their preinstalled browser, of course MSIE, which makes compatibility with its limitations and deviant behavior a must. And with compulsory MSIE compatibility, Microsoft holds the reigns of web standards, and can hinder their progress to a crawl while force-feeding their own Silverlight alternative for modern internet apps.
Only if MSIE is forcefully decoupled from Windows, and computers can come with other browsers preinstalled, will MSIE have to be as good as their competition and abide the rules to keep up their penetration. And it is then that internet-access technologies such as Flash, JavaFX, Silverlight or AJAX++ will fight only on the ground of their technical merits, without the roadblocks imposed by Microsoft.
The EU is really being ridiculous here. After all, if they are going to force Microsoft to do this, they are are going to have to force every other OS to do it as well. Apple’s going to have to give users a choice between Safari and Firefox. All Linux distros in Europe will not be able to install Firefox by default unless they also offer users the choice of Opera for Linux.
Apple is not Microsoft and linux distros are not even companies.
The EU is not ridiculous at all, but those who think linux distros and Microsoft should be treated by the same laws are.
Edited 2009-02-10 15:20 UTC
Wait, aren’t these the same jackasses that came up with ‘Windows XP Edition N’? Yeah, we all know how well THAT went over.
For those of you cheering for the government to get involved, please be very, very careful what you wish for.
Yes, the EU is the same people that pushed Windows XP Edition N…. However it was Microsoft who decided to charge EXACTLY the same price for regular XP than they did for the less capable Edition N.
Guess which one the users bought ?
If Edition N was reduced in price by the same amount of “functionality” was reduced, it would have been a success.
Microsoft set out to screw up the EU judgement that time, they should not be allowed to get away with something like that again.
you can’t even find windows version N in stores up here
Oh ok, so they said to Microsoft, “We’re going to force you to ship a version of XP without media player, and oh yeah… we’re going to allow you to charge the same amount as the regular edition, so that nobody will want to buy it” Seriously, how dumb is that?
And you want these geniuses to get involved AGAIN so they can f**k it up, just like they did before?
Edited 2009-02-10 23:11 UTC
Microsoft DECIDED to sell XP N for the same price ot undermine the EU court ruling.
No-one with any sense would buy a crippled version for the same price as the retail version.
The problem was created by the ruling, whereby the EU told Microsoft to release a version without WMP pre-installed.
This would by default, make the XP Edition N be valued at a lesser value than the complete XP. However, because the EU has no right to tell companies how much to sell their products for, Microsoft put out both versions at the same price. Unsurprisingly, no-one bought the crippled version.
The EU has vowed never to make that mistake again..
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/European-Vendors-Ignore-Windows-XP…
No , that was MICROSFT IDEA of miss-interpretating the law and mocking it that said they could not ship there OS with any multimedia player bundled on the EU territory , because they broke the bundling law.
When they will get hit for the same thing on media center and Vista , just watch as the judge revisit the XP case and add a couple more billion for mocking justice …
> Apple is not Microsoft and linux distros are not
> even companies. The EU is not ridiculous at all,
> but those who think linux distros and Microsoft
> should be treated by the same laws are.
The EU is being completely ridiculous. And yes, Linux distros and Microsoft should be treated with the same laws. After all, it’s not like Linux doesn’t have its own “unfair” advantages. Like being FREE.
As WorknMan said, be careful what you wish for when the Government gets involved.
If Linux ever does get appreciable market share, what happens then? Will the EU make it illegal to give it away for free cause it harms companies trying to sell operating systems?
(PS: Voting comments down cause you don’t agree with them is a violation of OSNnews policy and can cause you to lose voting privileges. Just thought I would remind people of that… Since it seems to be happening in this thread…)
Edited 2009-02-10 15:42 UTC
Free. That’s good for consumer isn’t it? This is about protecting consumers that pay too much because of monopoly abuse.
Microsoft & Linux have not and will never be treated with the same laws. Yes, the law reads the same, but it states that only applies to companies that are dominant.
Edited 2009-02-10 16:45 UTC
> Free. That’s good for consumer isn’t it? This is
> about protecting consumers that pay too much
> because of monopoly abuse.
No it’s not at all about protecting consumers. It’s about protecting smaller companies from bigger companies. That’s really all it is here. How do you propose forcing MS go give consumers a choice of browser is going to lower the cost of Windows? If anything, it’s going to increase the cost because of the extra software engineering required.
I would also point out that it was government meddling that created the Microsoft monopoly in the first place… ironically, as a side-effect of trying to break up the IBM monopoly.
Never underestimate the power of the government to screw up everything they get involved with.
Your obviously didn’t read the Opera complaint. It’s simple: Because IE’s dominance, Microsoft can get away with implementing proprietary standards and not implementing industry standards.
This causes Opera, having a business in mobile browsers, using for example Symbian technology, being unable to compete against Windows CE technology, as the Windows CE technology can thanks to having access to IE source code, render pages correctly.
Because of that, Microsoft is able to ask higher prices for Windows CE, and the consumer pays more for his smartphone.
This was (part of) the complaint of Opera and has been declared well founded the DG Competition.
It’s all about protecting consumers. If you think monopolies are good for consumers go read a book about basic economy. Thanks to the Internet Explorer monopoly, Microsoft has made also tons of money selling Frontpage and IIS licenses.
You have no idea of the power of the DG Competition, the U.S. anti-trust authorities are soft, powerless and under influence from politics. Compare the U.S. authorities with a policeman, the DG Competition with the FBI. The DG Competition has a flawless track record in fixing market dominance problems. It has vowed to succeed in Microsofts case, and it will.
The Media Player case was just the beginning. Breaking a superdominance like Microsoft takes more than one verdict. This is how it was pictured years ago and this is how it is happening. The Opera case is the second case and will not be the last case.
Edited 2009-02-10 21:02 UTC
http://despair.com/government.html
“If you think the problems we create are bad, just wait until you see our solutions.”
I interpret this as a trolling reaction, so I troll back
Looking at the current economic crisis, deregulation is the real evil that brings us chaos and disaster…
Edited 2009-02-10 22:11 UTC
If you read what EU wants carefully, they want the entirety of IE out if the user choses against it at start up. Including things like MSHTML that other applications use. Not particularly good for consumers.
Even if that doesn’t happen, imagine the precedence that this would make. Soon Real, Apple, and others would demand the same. So consumers would have to sit through two questions. Eventually, it may just end up with a dozen or so questions asking which text editor or command prompt the user wants to have installed.
Ever heard of illegally leveraging a monopoly to gain another? That’s what MS did. They’ve been convicted of it in the US and in the EU. In the US they were about to get there arses handed to them when the Bush administration came into power and basically had the whole thing commuted to a slap on the wrist.
> Ever heard of illegally leveraging a monopoly to
> gain another? That’s what MS did. They’ve been
> convicted of it in the US and in the EU.
There is nothing illegal about bundling a browser with your operating system–even if it is one you write yourself. That’s the point here.
If the EU is going to say MS has to give users a choice during system setup, then they have to place the same requirement on Apple. In fact, Safari has more market share on Apple than IE does on Windows.
And well they are at it, they should nail Apple for their iTunes / iPod monopoly.
Edited 2009-02-10 17:18 UTC
No, that’s not the point here, and that’s not what he was talking about.
Re-read what you quoted.
During most of the Bush 8 years in office, Microsoft had was, in your words, a “slap on the wrist” and maintained its dominance in the market. Yet something strange happened. Internet Explorer, within a matter of a few months, lost more than 20% of the market, even when the parent company, AOL, of its main competitor, Mozilla, didn’t use Gecko in its software. Microsoft leveraged its monopoly by including Internet Explorer in XP SP3 and Vista, and yet, by some strange occurance, Internet Explorer kept losing market share.
And then something stranger occured. Microsoft decided in IE 8, default on monopolizing Windows 7, to have standards compliant rendering the default option.
What, did they forgot how to abuse their monopolitic position?
Neither IE7 nor IE8 get anywhere close to standards compliant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_explorer#Features
IE misses out almost completely on DOM2 and other useful rich-web-content standards such as SVG and SMIL. Instead, it tries to introduce the proprietary Silverlight as a “standard” for rich web content.
It is precisely for this reason, coupled with the fact that it is un-removeable from Windows, that gets IE into such hot water.
“Internet Explorer has introduced an array of proprietary extensions to many of the standards, including HTML, CSS and the DOM. This has resulted in a number of web pages that can only be viewed properly using Internet Explorer.”
but no one is forcing the web developers to use those extensions. so why is it MS’s fault for providing an extension if it doesnt force web designers to use it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_extend_extinguish
It is illegal for a monopoly provider in one market (say desktop software) to use that monopoly position to try to gain a monopoly in another market (say provision of web services). This is true even in the US, and it is just as true in the EU. The only real difference is that the EU is prepared to show that it means it when it makes law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in
… but you (probably) knew all this, so why ask me?
LOL, oh really? So where were these guys 10 years ago, when I kept running into sites that said “Internet Explorer is required”? You know… back when this kind of thing was ACTUALLY a problem?
I’d imagine that 10 years ago, IE was actually compliant with what web standards did then exist (HTML), and that IE was the ONLY way to view fancier content that plain HTML doesn’t support.
However, the problem was not so much that IE did extend existing web standards to cover richer content … the problem was that it did so in a way that was proprietary and exclusive to a sole supplier. That in turn is anathma to the whole concept of the Internet.
GNU/Linux follow the law , Microsoft break the law , Microsoft is a convicted criminal repeating offender corporation under the EU and US laws and others.
Criminal loose their right everyone as , because they are dangerous to society , Microsoft loose their coprorate privileges because it broke the law and harmed an entire industry ( OS ) and use it’s power there to harm other industry : multimedia , Browser , movie , music , etc …
The fact Microsoft mocked the law with Windows N is funny because it’s now in the mind of every Judge who face them in the EU , that they will play fast and loose with the law everytime they can.
Just as drug dealer say I am not selling crack anymore , I am selling exctasy now , is less worst as mocking the law then what Microsoft did , that is , keep selling windows XP as is , and mocking the law by creating a product to circumvent a judgement.
Microsoft lobbied succesfully to have Open Source and Free Software made illegal by getting an audition as first step to see if the Governement should not have it declared illegal , too bad for them their main opponent was their own EU IT staff who showed how ridiculous and irrelevent people like you that think that IT is all about desktop , how minuscule and pathetic Microsoft real usage in government is for every Microsoft desktop there is hundred of thousand of data server and crm and communication system that relly on Open Source and Free Software like 99% of it. So it had the opposite effect of having the EU governement pass a Open Source mandatory on all it’s IT requirement from then on.
I find your gratis argument funny , because there is an old case in the US against GNU/Linux and the GPL where some wacko sugested the same thing , not only did the judge threw the case out it did with prejudice , that mean he had to pay for is lies … (1)
There is another case where someone sued a journalist who claimed that GNU/Linux was but a small pathetic OS , the opponent showed that GNU/Linux ran the most majority of supercomputer and webserver worldwide then. In 2009 we got even more marketshare.
since you don’t get it let me put it in clear words for you GNU/Linux is the work of million of independent developer around the world who work on different project in and outside corporation , it doens’t exclude anything that work and offer at minimum 2 different choice for doing the same task. Saying otherwise is a prejudice and a harmful lies toward the GNU/Linux OS , the GNU/Linux industry and all thge company who participate in it.
The only browser with no GNU/Linux version is IE and is variant , because Microsoft refuse to make available a working version , even do they had a UNIX version in the past and that they offer one for Mac OS X ( a BSD (*nix) variant , that don’t work on BSD either.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/21/1427231
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060320201540127
—–
BTW , TOS is the least of you problem if I decided to go after you :
http://news.cnet.com/Create-an-e-annoyance,-go-to-jail/2010-1028_3-…
“Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity. In other words, it’s OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, ”
OsNews server are in the US …
—–
As always the court are open daily for you to try and present your cases , but we both know you would loose there as lies and bulshit don’t count and it’s not a popular contest.
“GNU/Linux follow the law , Microsoft break the law , Microsoft is a convicted criminal repeating offender corporation under the EU and US laws and others.”
I agree with you on all points BUT this one. if you look over teh 10,000 technology patents that MS holds the linux environment (and i mean those whole complete OS with a desktop, not just the kernel) infringle on tons and tons of them. MS did not persue this law suit due to the fact that it would have made them an even bigger trarget for the EU and made it out to make them more of a monopoly. but the fact is, linux isn’t so inocent, so choose your owrds carefully. Guess who owns the patent for the scroll bar….
Mutually assured destruction scenario.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_services
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_One
Guess who hold the Commerce One Web Services patents?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Invention_Network
Edited 2009-02-10 22:46 UTC
Guess who hold the Commerce One Web Services patents?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Invention_Network
you do realize MS’s deal with novel covered that patent right? They made sure of it. but yes the whole petent infostructure is a nightmear. I should mention I am a huge suporter of the Open Invention Network. for those who don’t know it, i highly recomend checking out Wikipedia or the offical site http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about.php
another great place to look is here. http://www.patentcommons.org/ at the Patend Commons
Edited 2009-02-10 22:56 UTC
The solution here is simply for Microsoft to join the OIN and Patent Commons itself, and thereby gain access to all of the defensive patents that these organisations hold, all to be had for the low, low price of promising not to sue FOSS over patents.
The fact that Microsoft don’t do that, but rather try to strike divisive deals with some Linux companies but not others, and not deal with FOSS in general, speaks volumes for the anti-competition strategy that Microsoft continues to relentlessly persue.
PS: The Novell-Microsoft pact cannot get around the patent protection clauses in GPL3. Microsoft (via vouchers) are contributing to the distribution of GPL3 software included in Novell’s SuSe Linux, and the (quite reasonable) license conditions for doing that require that whoever distributes (or assists in distribution) of the software does not sue the originators of the software.
Edited 2009-02-10 23:02 UTC
“The solution here is simply for Microsoft to join the OIN and Patent Commons itself, and thereby gain access to all of the defensive patents that these organisations hold, all to be had for the low, low price of promising not to sue FOSS over patents.”
indeed, it is a true shame MS does not join in. especialy since the “we could sue” fear has all but died…
The is the view of many in the open source community, but mere distribution is not an act that copyright laws require permission for. As the GPL is a simple copyright permission there is no need to accept the GPL to do mere distribution.
I.e. a retailer selling DVD’s is also doing nothing that copyright requires permission for. He can buy and resell copies, regardless what license is required to produce copies.
I strongly doubt that Microsoft has to accept the GPL because it is distributing copies of SuSE.
Edited 2009-02-10 23:12 UTC
Where did you get that idea from?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
Not so. try selling DVDs without a licesne from the copyright holder, and see how far you get.
It is not SuSe that they need permission for, they have that from Novell.
It is GPL v3 licensed software within SuSe that they need to comply with the license conditions for. Vital elements of SuSe such as gcc (in fact most of GNU), KDE 4 including Qt4, etc etc are so licensed.
Microsoft need to get permission from the creators (or copyright holders) of those elements in order to be involved in their distribution. The creators give those permissions conditional on Microsoft’s compliance with the terms in a permission license called the GPL v3. Included amongst those conditions is the requirement that Microsoft does not sue said creators.
Edited 2009-02-10 23:37 UTC
Copyrigth law. You need permission for two actions: Multiplication or making a work public. Mere distribution does not fall under that. All other possible actions are not prevented by copyright. At least that’s how the law reads here in .nl.
I am confident that shops don’t have licenses to sell DVD’s.
OK, fair enough. In the US, where both Microsoft and Novell operate, the copyright law is AFAIK slightly different. Under that jurisdiction, Microsoft are obliged to get permission from the creator of a work before they can become involved in the distribution of that work.
The creators of (a significant part of) the works within SuSe have given everyone who abides by the terms of the GPL such permission, including Microsoft.
So far, happily for everyone, Microsoft have complied with the conditions of the GPL, including the requirement to refrain from suing the creators of the work. So far, then, Microsoft do have permission to be involved with Novell in the distribution of the work.
Edited 2009-02-11 10:27 UTC
Problem is Microsoft don’t have any valid patent , that don’t have prior art or another older patent invention covering Microsoft *innovation*.
Scroll bar is IBM patented …
Also similar technology don’t mean we infringe on Microsoft patent either …
It’s innocent until proven guilty , if Microsoft as a problem , bring the point forward with details or sue , it’s pathetic invalid insinuation don’t impress anyone anymore.
Ah, your right. it was a co develop with MS but IBM did infact file teh patent.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5973663.html
I am not usually wrong, I tip my hat to you sir.
Potentially a bigger problem for Microsoft as a software-only company is that recent decisions in court case(s) have tended to support the position (similar to the official EU policy) that software alone is not patentable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilski
Software is mathematics, after all, and mathematics is not patentable. Copyright, yes (you should do your own work) … patents, no (you cannot own an abstract idea, only your particular expression of it in something substantial).
In neither is the browser an integrated part of the os.
> In neither is the browser an integrated part of the
> os.
Konqueror is an integrated part of KDE. Maybe the EU should force the KDE project to remove the dependencies and give users a choice when they first start it?
Do you see the problem with letting the government dictate this kind of thing now? It’s a slippery slope that can easily get out of control.
Edited 2009-02-10 15:44 UTC
KDE <> Novell, Red Hat, Mandriva
Novell, Red Hat, Mandriva and so on already ship multiple browsers (that they have searched on the free market by the way). They don’t need to be forced because they already do so. None of these companies has a dominant position either.
but neither of them is writing their own browser, so they have to bundle a 3rd party one
You understand it.
Now, if Microsoft would do that too (As in: Choose a browser on the free market), there would still be a market where browser vendors compete against each other to convince MS to ship theirs.
KDE is no OS hmmm?
When installing Linux you can choose KDE, Fluxbox, Gnome, Xfse, Enlightment, etc, etc, etc….
When installing Windows you can choose ehhh… wait…
“When installing Linux you can choose KDE, Fluxbox, Gnome, Xfse, Enlightment, etc, etc, etc….
When installing Windows you can choose ehhh… wait…”
and look at the distro mess this has created. people complain about 5 or so versions of windows, can you imagine the customer complaints about 8 hundred billlion windows distrobutions with different web browsers and media players and what jsut just because the EU says MS isn’t playing fair? in the end is bad for the custer and has minimal impact on business. I mean look how well the media player market is doing for selling media playing things for windows. i think Corel making WinDVD may be the only truely profitable one, with the exception of cyberlink who makes PowerDVD.
Open source software filled in the gap there, and it didnt need Windows media player removed like teh EU wanted back in the day. and it certainly didnt help any business in a major way. ….good grief
Nonsense. Media Player was and is a tool used to sell encoding technology to website owners. In this market Microsoft has become invincible because it is the only vendor that can guarantee all users have its client installed.
The fact that open source software has been able to design more or less compatible media players thanks to a lot of reverse engineering has not changed anything about this market abuse.
Note that reverse engineering was considered by the EU as a means of the market to solve the issues by itself, but if I read the verdict the conclusion by the DG Competition was that reverse engineering alone would never be enough to restore competition.
Edited 2009-02-10 22:28 UTC
“Nonsense. Media Player was and is a tool used to sell encoding technology to website owners. In this market Microsoft has become invincible because it is the only vendor that can guarantee all users have its client installed.”
thought you should know, “In 2003, Microsoft drafted a video codec specification based on its WMV 9 codec and submitted it to SMPTE for standardization. The standard was officially approved in March 2006 as SMPTE 421M, better known as VC-1, thus making the WMV 9 codec an open but still proprietary standard. Since then, VC-1 has become one of the three mandatory video codecs for the BD-ROM specifications.[3][4]”
open standard
Agreed.
Forcing IE to follow web standards, without proprieatry and exclusive-to-Microsoft extensions, would be a far, far better solution. This would stop Microsoft from being able to lock people in to using Windows via the fact that some types of non-standard web content were viewable on IE only.
“Agreed.
Forcing IE to follow web standards, without proprieatry and exclusive-to-Microsoft extensions, would be a far, far better solution. This would stop Microsoft from being able to lock people in to using Windows via the fact that some types of non-standard web content were viewable on IE only.”
see now this makes sense, glad you agree. In MS’s defence IE 8 does pass the Acid 2, but only gets a 20 (or a 24 if your using Beta number… oh wait NDA sorry
). but it is slowly improving on web standards. And while teh Acid 3 is important, the Acid 2 is more important that it hits 100% on. though it wont be long till teh Acid 3 is the important on, like on the order of 3 to 6 months at this rate…
IE misses out (almost) utterly on the important standards like CSS, DOM2, SVG and SMIL. It is a long, long way behind all the other major web browser in this respect.
“IE misses out (almost) utterly on the important standards like CSS, DOM2, SVG and SMIL. It is a long, long way behind all the other major web browser in this respect.”
this is true and rather unfortunate. and this is why all of my internet browsing is done in Opera. mmmm Opera
We already have that. It’s called countless OEMs, selling large numbers of computer models with different hardware features, plopping any Windows version imaginable on their drives, and often coming with completely different sets of third-party crapware pre-loaded onto them… usually by competing companies, who all want to add their “toolbar” to your browser to make a quick buck.
The difference with Linux is that, well, there isn’t much difference between the major general-purpose distributions that focus on ease of use. Every Gnome distro will feel similar and have mostly the same apps; same with KDE and Xfce. Whether the desktop environment is Qt vs. GTK is usually the biggest indication of what programs you get, not corporate greed and advertising. Apart from that, they might use different package management systems, but that’s nothing to worry about for someone who just uses a GUI frontend to manage programs. Oh, and different DEs obviously all work different; it’s all personal preference from there.
I hope people don’t complain as much when driving through a car lot, walking down the cereal aisle at a grocery store, sorting through different brands of paper products, or looking at a local store at their selection of HDTVs. The way some people are, they might just explode.
Konqueror can easily be removed from KDE. Removing it un-installs 3 packages, which amount to the brwoser itself and some additional things such as the konqueror-to-flash-plugin connector.
I’m not sure when it happened, it was possibly made so with the introduction of KDE 4, but the argument you use above is no longer true. Konqueror is now a typical, and easily removeable, KDE 4 desktop application, and it is not part of the OS.
In fact, having removed Konqueror, there is then no web browser in a KDE installation. One can move from that state to having another browser installed, say Firefox, simply by using a package manager (Synaptic, yum apt-get, aptitude, urpmi or whatever your distribution uses) to install it. With KDE, you don’t need a browser to install a browser.
I hate Microsoft but this is unfair. Why the hell does it matter if they ship IE together with Windows? If you do not like IE then switch browser, if you do not like Windows then switch os. If you do not like any os then write your own. If you lack knowhow then you probably are better of paying for the software you use. Microsoft hasn’t forced you into anything. You are in control.
Most people I ask, think the big blue E “is” the internet. That is the danger, sheeple do not know, nor do they want or in fact need to know of alternatives. Sheeple will use what they know or what they are given to use.
The arrogance.
As if you are an informed consumer and user in every product field you buy in.
Edited 2009-02-10 19:09 UTC
I don’t think the OP was arrogant, although, he works with me, and he can be a little arrogant sometimes lol
I think he was making the point that the majority or people dont care if Firefox is better than Opera and Opera is better than IE, they just click the E on the desktop.
BTW, he is that much of a pain he will research everything before purchasing.
You can get your own muffins for coffee break :p
Arrogant ? Moi ? I nearly choked on my latte !
“If Linux ever does get appreciable market share, what happens then? Will the EU make it illegal to give it away for free cause it harms companies trying to sell operating systems?”
I dread that day will come.
Wow. I can’t believe Mozilla would publicly support this. It’s not as if they had anything to gain from EU action.
/sarcasm.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/246913/firefox-exec-we-dont-want-to-be-…
“Firefox exec: we don’t want to be bundled with Windows”
a little food for thought
Fair enough.
Personally, I think a far better solution is for the EU to require that the default IE that gets shipped (in Europe) embedded with Windows is strictly standards compliant, including CSS2, CSS3, DOM2, SVG, SMIL, XTHML, has a decently-fast standards compliant implementation of javascript, and supports open codecs such as vorbis, flac, theora and dirac, and excludes any proprietary functionality such as ActiveX and Silverlight.
If people want the peculiar-to-Microsoft non-standard (and, BTW, vulnerable) proprietary extensions to their IE browser, then they can then download them post-installation.
No! this is the kind of thinking that needs to stop! companies souldn’t be forced to provide an alternative to their own software just because users might not know that their are other options with makes for an “unfair advantage.” This practice only enchourages users to continue to be lazy and uneducated.
what should happen is have information proveded to the user to let them know there are infact alterntives and if they want they can look into and learn about it.
Now I understand compnaies getting upset that IE is bundled with windows, but the fact of the matter is it’s all about how you market your product. if you want it included, start making deals with OEM’s. Who else got a computer 6 years ago that came with Netscape as well as IE (raises hand) anyone else? (lots of hands go up).
so you see, the government should not be fighting the battles that the corporations should be fighting. and it certainly shouldnt force a company to leave out or make offer an alternative due to “users being unaware of alternatives.” If i buy a car (and i did just get a new Nissan Altima coupe) it is my job as the one purchasing the car to research it before buying it and compair it to others in its market sector. it would be like having the goverment make the Nissan dealership also have honda accords on the lot.
“The statement of objections seeks to impose a remedy that is different than the remedy imposed in the earlier proceeding concerning Windows Media Player. While computer users and OEMs are already free to run any Web browsing software on Windows, the Commission is considering ordering Microsoft and OEMs to obligate users to choose a particular browser when setting up a new PC”
(found here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3374 )
this is only going ot cause more problems and bloat. If the EOM’s have comprehensive education about hte browser selection then thats good. any the problem with this is that you can’t just copy the company that makes the broswer’s info about it, as in most cases it is clearly bias information or propaganda. every company that makes a browser will give its strong ponts and claim superiority (hint: most already do). so then you need unbias comparisons and data. and who will have to pay for these comparisons and research? will the EU make Microsoft? or make the OEM’s?
…ug, the sad part is that with all of these agencies willing to fight peoples or companies batles for them, it just encourages a culture of lazyness that in turn breeds stupidity…
(to frustereated to spell check, sound it out)
Mozilla Chairman and CEO Mitchell Baker declared on her blog late last week her current opinion: Microsoft continues, she says, to apply monopoly pressure on the Web market by distributing Internet Explorer in such a way that customers are not aware that they have a choice.
“Mozilla Firefox has made a crack in the Microsoft browser monopoly. But even so, hundreds of millions of people use old versions of IE, often without knowing what a browser is or that they have any choice in the quality of their experience. This makes it very difficult to bring innovation, choice or improved user experience to vast parts of the Internet. The extent of the damage is so great that it makes it difficult to figure out an effective and timely remedy. I believe it’s worth some effort to try.”
These are the kind of poeple who wouldnt download firefox even if they knew about it, out of fear of change. these are simple people with simple needs that would not use your product (or know the difference) if offered a choice anyways…
They don’t make any money off IE. Their share of the browser market also makes no difference. People are going to be buying pcs with Windows pre-installed regardless, so what exactly are they losing here?
Furthermore, suppose they stopped developing a browser themselves (seeing how much trouble it’s been for them), and concentrated on Windows 7, Exchange and Office. Why not just contract it out to somebody like the Avant people to do a browser for them?
In order to prepare ActiveX content for the web, what would one need? …
In order to view a site that used ActiveX content, what would one need? …
Hint: It isn’t about making money off IE … it is about making money off things that one needs in order to view or prepare IE-only web content.
If the market share of non-Microsoft browsers is significant, then any website offering IE-only content is cutting itself off from a sizeable audience. In this situation, IE-only content becomes a negative-value proposition for website owners.
If, due to a sizeable proportion of non-Microsoft browser in use, websites must be made to be able to viewed by any standards-compliant browser (as well as by IE), then one doesn’t any longer necessarily require a Microsoft platform in order to prepare or view website content.
Because they couldn’t outright just ask whoever it was to make it so that everybody needed Windows to use that browser. You can’t (without taking a huge risk) ask other companies to do something illegal for you.
Edited 2009-02-11 04:32 UTC
Do you imagine that anyone using a non-Windows platform could participate in any way in this web-based activity? :
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/02/develop-a-silverlight…
Do you imagine that anyone using a Windows/IE platform could participate in any way in these web-based activities, even though they are web-standards-compliant? :
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=%22svg+game%22&meta…
The web itself is designed so that there should be no dependencies on the platform that one uses to veiw it, or to prepare content for it for others to view.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_independence#Web_applications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web_Consortium#Standards
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_Independence
Clearly Microsoft doesn’t want platform indpendence.
That means that Microsoft doesn’t want YOU to have a choice.
Edited 2009-02-11 05:26 UTC
Well, of course not, but they ought to be realistic about it. They’ve already been found guilty of anti-trust in the U.S. They ought to expect it in the EU as well. Especially after WMP case. They’re a massive corporation getting slaps on the wrist. Nobody’s trying to break them into pieces as has happened to some companies. It’s also not as big a deal as companies like Google having to censor their content in China because a truly repressive government doesn’t want their citizens reading “seditious materials” online.
Silverlight, via Moonlight, comes to Linux
http://blogs.computerworld.com/silverlight_via_moonlight_comes_to_l…
So what is bad about that, exactly?
Well, the first part of what is bad is here:
One would have a dependency on Microsoft embedded into one’s Linux system. Binary blobs from Microsoft. Of course {sarcasm} it is always a good idea to be dependent on a party who has avowed an aim to be rid of you. {/sarcasm}
The next bit that is bad is this:
OK, not only do Microsoft/Novell want to make your Linux system depend on binary blobs from them, they want also to dictate to you what machines, CPU architectures and builds of Linux you may use to view web content.
Bad, bad, bad. No platform independence.
Warning, warning Will Robinson!
The article goes on to note the following:
Since the OpenScreen project has published specifications for Flash, and anyone is perfectly allowed to write viewer implementations for any architecture (including, for example, Android platforms), lets stick with that shall we? (It would be preferable to go with the real W3C standards for such things, including SVG and SMIL, but failing that OpenScreen standards are the next best thing).
http://www.openscreenproject.org/
That is the right idea.
Edited 2009-02-11 22:53 UTC
So when is the EU going to do something about Gazprom?