Slashdot Log In
Groklaw Examines Microsoft's Promises
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Feb 22, 2008 07:37 PM
from the tired-of-shoveling-it-yet dept.
from the tired-of-shoveling-it-yet dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Groklaw has examined that 'new leaf' Microsoft turned the other day. PJ has a lengthy analysis of Microsoft's latest promises. To make a long story short, the promises are more of the same stuff and don't help anyone but Microsoft. They only protect 'noncommercial' development and are set up to create a patented standards toll road so that Microsoft can charge competitors to compete. As PJ puts it, 'This is a promise to remain incompatible with the GPL, as far as I can make out.'"
Related Stories
[+]
Microsoft's New Leaf On Interoperability 371 comments
A large number of readers are submitting the news that Microsoft has made a major announcement about interoperating with others including specifically the FOSS world. The impetus is the ongoing EU antitrust case against Microsoft. The announcement comes in the context of the release of 30,000 pages of API documentation for Microsoft Vista, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 — and a listing of patents that apply to these technologies, and a pledge not to sue open source developers who use the APIs. InfoWorld summarizes by saying that Microsoft "promised greater transparency in its development and business practices." Fortune is blunter, saying "Microsoft declares truce in open source war." Here's Microsoft's FAQ on the open source interop initiative.
Submission: Groklaw Examines Microsoft's Promises by Anonymous Coward
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
We come in peace! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
In my opinion, there are very few times when a company's main goal isn't to help themselves.
To make a long story short: (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that GPL software cannot have this limitation.
Parent
Re:To make a long story short: (Score:4, Interesting)
How about Sun's legal threats against people who innovate on top of Java in unauthorized fashion?
Is there any party Microsoft has made a patent sharing agreement with to date that is not a net recipient?
Microsoft to Novell: "Take this money or we will sue you"
Novell to Microsoft: "Curse your threats, we surrender!"
Slashdot to Novell: "Thhhrrrruuuppppp!!!!!"
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:To make a long story short: (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, just as soon as Apple is declared to have a monopoly on portable, digital music players, which is still an undecided matter by the courts. Also, didn't I read somewhere that Apple just licensed the use of an existing variant of USB from JAE? While it is patented, I don't think it is Apple's patent, so that is a bit different.
Why? What do they have a monopoly on?
I don't think you understand the issue most people have with Microsoft. It isn't that they don't license their patents. It is that they use proprietary technologies to disadvantage potential competitors, and that disadvantage is only possible because of their monopolies (which is illegal and undermines the capitalist free market).
Parent
Re:We come in peace! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is not Microsoft wanting to profit and not wanting to help their competitors. The problem is they doing that while doing a big announcement that they want to help and interoperate, which is exactly what they did.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Fixed that for you.
Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up?
Sign up? You're already working for 'em.
And there was a collective sigh of "no shit." (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And there was a collective sigh of "no shit." (Score:5, Insightful)
You forget that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist and that they use dirty tactics against their competitors.
And that's exactly one of the problems of the capitalist and free market system (I'm not trolling here! No economic system is perfect and others failed miserably much quicker than capitalism, but that's not my point). The problem here is that once a company becomes a monopoly, it has too much power in its hands. It has, for example, power enough to extinguish small competitors by artificially lowering prices until the competitor dies and then, with no one to compete, rise prices again.
Microsoft is a good example of a company that takes profit from the "loopholes" of capitalism. By using lock in to their proprietary formats and bundling IE and WMP in the OS, they've achieved to keep for a long time more than 90% of market share on a wide range of products, to force people to upgrade and pay them more money, and all that without innovating (if you really look at their products, you'll see that in the last 5 years they didn't introduce any new feature worth buying, mostly cosmetic changes only). All that just using dirty tactics by making sure no one could create programs compatible or interoperatable with theirs.
I do believe in a free market, but this market we have with Microsoft is anything but free. And I do think governments have the responsability to level the playing field here.
The biggest issue here is why did we get into this situation. If Microsoft had used and promoted open standards since the begining, they wouldn't be in this situation today. They would have to compete in quality of their products, not based on the legacy that only they can access. Since they chose to do everything they could to avoid interoperability at all costs, being forced to do that now is the least I expect.
Parent
Re:And there was a collective sigh of "no shit." (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you trying to imply that they were wrongly accused?
Microsoft is a monopoly for a fact, they detain more than 90% of the market share of OS for desktops and Office applications. In several occasions Microsoft was shown to use anti-competitive practices, using their monopoly to kill their opponents and keep their market share.
Well, if they're still here, it's not for lack of Microsoft efforts to get rid of them.
Apple was virtually dead in the mid-90s, they only reappeared due to the amazing success of the iMac. They've been able to keep alive after that by delivering superior products and by marketing them right.
Linux is an pretty good piece of software and newadays it's superior to Windows in most of its features. The fact that it still has less than 1% of market share in the desktop is a direct result of Microsoft's dirty practices (such as blackmailing hardware vendors into bundling their OS and using proprietary protocols to make interoperability impossible).
Actually Microsoft has enough money and enough good programmers that they could compete by delivering good quality products if they wanted too. Even if they're forced to play nice (use open standards, unbundle software, interoperate), either by the courts or by the fact that they're no longer a monopoly, they'll probably be here for long.
It would be good though, because they'll have to deliver good software to keep some market share. If they would put all the effort they put to FUD us into writing decent software, I would have no problem with them at all.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And there was a collective sigh of "no shit." (Score:5, Interesting)
In one world, paying everyone not to deal with your competitor is good business. In that world, his paying people to hunt near your house is justifiable as well.
We aim for a more civilized world. Where you can't just pay for the elimination of a competitor. Who cares if this is ultimately more free for business when we've discovered that it inevitably leads to abuse?
It's illegal to discriminate based on the color of an employee's skin. While this does restrict businesses and even no-doubt prevent some legitimate concerns like hiring to match the drapes, it's a value that society as a whole believes is worth enforcing. Monopoly-busting rules are the same. You're enjoying the protection of law (your competitor can't just kill you for interfering) but harming pretty much everyone else through blackmail (playing price games in a cornered market for essentials like food or housing is essentially blackmail) isn't something that law was intended to support.
Parent
Re:And there was a collective sigh of "no shit." (Score:4, Insightful)
Gee brilliant reasoning there sport. MS's primary customers are PC OEMs, like Dell, not end users. Can Dell buy MacOS to preinstall on their machines? Nope. That disqualifies Apple as a competitor in that market. And do I really need to go into Linux? When the closest thing you have to a competitor is a communal, nonprofit collaboration using creative licensing to bypass traditional methods of destruction using market economics, well that's a pretty sure sign that the market is not healthy. How many copies of Linux were sold last year? What did you say? None? Gee, that sounds like they are a pretty strong competitor.
Sure other desktop OS's exist. That does not mean the free market is functioning. Both are examples of bypassing the OS market because it is so unhealthy. In a truly competitive market Apple would not be able to bundle their OS and hardware because they would be being undercut by more agile developers of both. As it is the broken market forces them to bundle and so compete in the "computer system" market against Dell and HP because that is a reasonably healthy market. As for Linux, it is an attempt by people so fed up with the results of the broken market that they're willing to work for free on the weekend to avoid having to use the abortion created by MS's abuse of their monopoly.
The government destroy Microsoft? Who said that was going to happen or was even proposed? If anything the government breaking up Microsoft would motivate them to make good products again, because they would have to or go out of business... just like every other company.
Parent
Re:And there was a collective sigh of "no shit." (Score:5, Interesting)
What right do Microsoft have to force me to pay for their product?
It's called the rule of law, and at the moment it's being enforced selectively. I would be arrested by jackbooted thugs if I took Microsoft products without paying, and would be forced to return the products.
Microsoft is illegally using its monopoly position to extort billions from me and other customers, and nobody's stopping the theft, nobody's making them return their ill-gotten gains.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, you would find that you wouldn't be arrested by jackbooted thugs for doing so. Many people pirate Microsoft products without any repercussions at all.
Now, in a world of total enforcement, Microsoft would be split up. And we would all be in jail for being software pirates.
Well, not all of us
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Principles of Justice
Article 1: Selective Prosecution.
Selective Prosecution is Persecution! The most damnable of all violations of Justice! It destroys both parties, the ones selected to be punished, to the uttermost farthing, and are never forgiven and those who are immune from penalties, because of some assumed position of nobility or immunity.
Avoiding detection is not the same as avoiding prosecution.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
First, since business models based on the charging per item for copyright and/or patented software depends entirely on government intervention it is nonsense to call it a free market. It is a market created by the government, on behalf of the people, fo
Darn it! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Sorry I doubted you Micro$oft".
They did act as we expected, after all.
Just before OOXML-vote (Score:5, Interesting)
I expect that it is no coincidence that this announcement comes just two business days (and only one, for most of the world) before the Ballot Resolution Meeting convenes in Geneva next Monday. This will effectively give those participating in the discussions of Microsoft's OOXML document format no opportunity to fully understand what Microsoft has actually promised to do, while reaping the maximum public relations benefit.
Re: (Score:2)
that this announcement comes just two business days before the Ballot Resolution Meeting
This was not the only action related to MSOOXML. Recently, they also released specs of binary formats [slashdot.org] and disabled old Office formats [slashdot.org]. They are really desperate to try to get their format into an ISO standard.
MS just don't get how the GPL works (Score:5, Insightful)
it only requires you provide the source code when you distribute your program. It doesn't mean you have to not charge for software or that software even be free. MS lose nothing if they say distributed win XP with source under the GPL, and it would certainly open up a whole new world of compatability for them that would result in tools that expand their market oppertunities.
it would at the same time prevent competitors taking that code and distributing a product without making the sources available themselfs, which would allow contribution of said sources into MS's own products.
Re:MS just don't get how the GPL works (Score:5, Insightful)
The GPL allows competition.
Microsoft's entire business model is to exploit the monopolies granted by copyright and patent law.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I realise this doesn't prevent people just rebranding their own hom
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't.
The pirated copies are not sanctioned, have no support, could get you sued, won't auto-update, etc etc.
A GPL'd version would be just as good as the real thing, maybe minus support, but most support is by third-parties like Dell anyhow -- and I'm sure D
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows and Office are the only two s
European Comission is not so impressed (Score:5, Informative)
The Commission would welcome any move towards genuine interoperability. Nonetheless, the Commission notes that today's announcement follows at least four similar statements by Microsoft in the past on the importance of interoperability.
ECIS's Thomas Vinje has also issued a statement [ecis.eu] that is worth reading.
Someone should make a horror movie. (Score:3, Informative)
Someone could make a really, really scary horror movie: Bill Gates as software's "Dr. Death", killing an OS used by millions of people, wasting their time by releasing software that isn't finished, and generally being dishonest and sneaky and adversarial toward the whole world.
Just when you thought that was as much ugliness as you could handle, there would be scenes of Microsoft Marketing robots spewing corporate-speak and not realizing that they are the undead.
One of the biggest and most respected IT magazines is rejecting Windows Vista: Save Windows XP [infoworld.com]. Quote: "More than 75,000 people have signed InfoWorld's "Save XP" petition in the three weeks since it was launched - many with passionate, often emotional pleas to not be forced to make a change."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I was claiming that MS was going to offer some patent infringment indemnification and do it in a way to halt GPLv3 projects because of the anti patent wording. The if you can't bla bla blah, you can't use the GPL. Now, I was thinking that this is a big ass hole that anyone could claim indemnification, associated with the acusition of software in some way, but not extend it in the way the GPLv3
Re:Someone should make a horror movie. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is forcing them to make a change. They can run windows xp for as long as they like. People out there are still running windows 95.
Oh... you meant you want to force microsoft not to release a new edition while discontinuing their old ones? Tough shit. Might as well cry to ford that you don't want them to update their models every year. See how far you get with that.
Or perhaps you mean, Infoworld thinks if Microsoft sees enough demand for continued XP support they'll continue to support it, and that's what this stunt is all about. Of course its a nice theory. They're a company after all. They aren't going to leave a big pile of money on the table.
If MS thinks people WON'T buy Vista, and will migrate away from windows if they can't buy XP then they'll support XP.
But they aren't really in that predicament at all. Not many of these so-called respected IT people are going to switch to linux or OSX if they can't buy XP, switching to linux doesn't get their activeX/iis/active directory/whatever infrastrucure going seamlessly without any retraining or re-implementation, etc. Its not that they don't want vista, its that they don't want to change at all.
So they're fucked. They can bitch and throw a tantrum all they want, MS can move forward and they'll come kicking and screaming because they bought into an OS that they don't have any control over, and Vista is still the easiest upgrade path they have. They made their bed when they signed up for proprietary software. Microsoft has released how many versions of windows? And how many versions of DOS before that?? If they didn't think that sooner or later MS would drag them forward they haven't been paying attention.
Apple users went through the same thing when they switched from OS9 to OSX and from PPC to intel... its just that apple isn't 90+ percent of the business desktop operating system market so "Infoworld" and IT people in general never got up in arms over it.
OS9 -> OSX is a lot like XP to Vista... OSX ran like a DOG compared to OS9 on the same hardware, tons of incompatible software, missing drivers for tons of hardware, completely redone interface with a lot of controversial issues -- like the dock, unix and security added in... good thing OS9 was so different it had to be run completely virtualized because NOT a single OS9 program would have gotten off the ground in OSX. And then just a couple years later they switched to intel and OS9 was dead as a doornail, and couldn't even be virtualized.
That is the price of progress and the nature of vender lockin. I feel sorry for end users when they get caught with their pants down during a transition... but IT people? They should fucking know better and should have seen this coming miles away and planned for it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
MS has published their guidelines on life cycle policy. The date the last license will be sold along with the end of the patch services is all readily available information. Look it up. Perhaps they'll extend the dates for XP as result of this stunt, perhaps not. But anyone in IT has known for a LONG time about this.
How long will the WGA servers continue to tell the customer's computers that it is okay to run xp?
Good question. I expect MS would be dragged
Slashdot is still not posting the good stuff... (Score:5, Informative)
I submitted this story last weekend. One of the many juicy excerpts....
I have mentioned before the "stacked panel". Panel discussions naturally favor alliances of relatively weak partners - our usual opposition. For example, an "unbiased" panel on OLE vs. OpenDoc would contain representatives of the backers of OLE (Microsoft) and the backers of OpenDoc (Apple, IBM, Novell, WordPerfect, OMG, etc.). Thus we find ourselves outnumbered in almost every "naturally occurring" panel debate.
A stacked panel, on the other hand, is like a stacked deck: it is packed with people who, on the face of things, should be neutral, but who are in fact strong supporters of our technology. The key to stacking a panel is being able to choose the moderator. Most conference organizers allow the moderator to select the panel, so if you can pick the moderator, you win. Since you can't expect representatives of our competitors to speak on your behalf, you have to get the moderator to agree to having only "independent ISVs" on the panel. No one from Microsoft or any other formal backer of the competing technologies would be allowed - just ISVs who have to use this stuff in the "real world." Sounds marvelously independent doesn't it? In fact, it allows us to stack the panel with ISVs that back our cause. Thus, the "independent" panel ends up telling the audience that our technology beats the others hands down. Get the press to cover this panel, and you've got a major win on your hands.
If you can't win by technical merit, stack the panel and buy the moderator. OpenDoc was superior and I find it interesting that were there again after 10+ years with the OOXML vs ODF battle.
I think Microsoft just killed my subscription(s) to every Pro-Windows magazine I subscribe too (DrDobbs, MSDN, etc). Now every favorable opinion I've read about Microsoft will be biased with a "Did Microsoft purchase that expert opinion?". If you compete against Microsoft you will loose because they control the Pundits/Press, and Moderators. Its all about the marketing, not the technical advantages of your product.
My opinion and I reserve the right to be wrong.
Enjoy,
Re: (Score:3)
If you can't win by technical merit, stack the panel and buy the moderator.
Exactly what they're doing to buy MSOOXML into an ISO standard. In the same article, Groklaw talks about how Microsoft bought Rick Jelliffe to defend their cause (Rick even disclosed that Microsoft paid him to edit MSOOXML entry in Wikipedia!) and how Rick is going to the BRM in Australia's name.
Rick hosts a blog at O'Reilly and poses as an "independent" consultant, until you start to dig and try to trace the money.
The comments on this thread [oreillynet.com] on his blog are hilarious (or, in a way, really sad).
Re: (Score:2)
There are hundreds of print magazines that hit the dust, and good damn riddance to a lot of them. Mostly, they were goob publishers trying to make a buck of the computer 'waves' and dot-com rush. They were run by journalists that couldn't understand tech. Fortunately, what remains is a pretty decent core these days. There are only a few sycophants that remain, and they're easy to spot.
Every once in a while, even Microsoft does something right. You can ha
Sue only those with money (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft promises better-feigned interoperability (Score:5, Funny)
MORDOR, Washington, Friday (UnGadget) -- Microsoft today announced a set of carefully-phrased promises to appear more open about its business practices and technologies, so as to expand its reach through developers, partners, customers and competitors' wallets.
The interoperability principles and promises are an apparent, lengthy, reluctant, and necessary step for Microsoft's sudden efforts to fulfill the obligations outlined in the September 2007 judgment of the European Court of First Instance (CFI). And the hope of half a chance of getting OOXML through ISO.
"These pronouncements appear to be an important step and significant change in how we share information about our products and technologies and a significant expansion in apparent transparency," said Microsoft CEO Heave Stallmore. "While we've promised considerable progress over the past several years, today's announcement takes our virtual commitment to a new level.
"For the past thirty years, we have carefully shared misinformation with thousands of now-bankrupt partners around the world. By promoting greater interoperability, opportunity and choice, we hope to share even more of their information to our benefit."
To enable third-party products to connect to Microsoft products, Microsoft will publish for free!!! voluminous documentation, setting a new low in information per page, to contaminate developers with claimed knowledge for which their employers can later be sued, should they not cough up at what Microsoft considers reasonable and non-discriminatory (or not unreasonably so) terms. Open source developers may use these protocols too!!! precisely so long as they do not do anything that involves people not giving Microsoft money.
"The promises announced today by Microsoft will benefit the broader IT community," said Vomit Togel, head of Microsoft partner Perception Management, "where 'IT community' is defined as 'Microsoft partner.' This provides remarkable opportunity for IT consultants and increased choice of us in the marketplace."
Microsoft will expand industry outreach and dialog through an online Interoperability Forum and Fee Collection Channel. In addition, an initiative will address data exchange between widely deployed bank accounts.
"Sincerity is the key," says Microsoft founder Jill Bates III. "If we can fake that, we've got it made."
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq MNPLY) is the worldwide dominator in software, services and solutions that make people and businesses help it realise its full potential.
Is msft honesty too much to ask? (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. Groklaw just asks that msft stop lying. If msft wants to keep their MSOOXML thing proprietary, that is no problem.
The problem is that msft claims that MSOOXML is an open standard, when it's not.
Parent
Re:Hear All About It (Score:5, Informative)
Groklaw is complaining that, as usual, Microsoft's marketing department is saying something that doesn't match what Microsoft is doing.
Marketing is saying: "Look! We care for open source! We'll release documentation they can use! We want to interoperate!!!"
Meanwhile, they're releasing some documentation that can be used only for non-commercial projects, and they're only saying they won't sue the developers of such projects.
They try to connect "non-commercial" with "open source", when in fact those are distinct, for instance Red Hat uses open source code for commercial purposes, they sell it. Not to mention Microsoft also tries to mix "open source" and "free software", which are also different concepts, and when their marketing department tries to imply they'll be good to free software, in fact their actions are totally against it.
And consider this snippet (from TFA):
STEVE BALLMER: Patents will be, not freely, will be available.
BRAD SMITH: Readily available.
STEVE BALLMER: Readily available for the right fee.
I mentioned before, they're saying they won't sue the developers... but the users? Oh... they'll have to license Microsoft's valuable patents to be able to use such software!
In other words, it's all FUD. Marketing doing a big fuss about something that is completely different of what they announce. All to try to look good at EU's eyes. It's still just business at usual, Microsoft way.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
"Judge, our business has been seriously damaged because we have been prevented from monopolizing the market with our obsolete and cumbersome technology?"
Yes, in a way it's true that it would be completely ridiculous for Microsoft to try to sue someone based on their patents, considering they're a convicted monopolist. (However, the justice is blind, it doesn't see well, and sometimes does some crazy things.)
But the problem with patents is not only from Microsoft as a monopolist successfully suing free software authors. Some alternatives for MS:
Re: (Score:2)
(I'm not talking about if they SHOULD be inforceable. I'm talking about if they ARE).
Thinking Microsoft has very little is an opinion, and possibly a valid one. Saying they have nothing, is something else, and quite stupid.
stop spreading FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
No, what is stupid is to think that there are some magical hidden patents out there. The MS Office format has been around for many years, Microsoft's patents are all known and published, and people look at this stuff regularly.
If you try to make people concerned about Microsoft patents without giving specifics, you're spreading FUD and playing right into Microsoft's hand
Re: (Score:2)
Good article, wrong link, this [breitbart.com] is the right one.
Re: (Score:2)