MS To Offer Windows Sans WMP, If EU So Orders 422
PSwim writes "Microsoft has said it will remove Media Player from Window, if ordered by the EU this week. The 'Windows-Lite'
version will only be available in Europe. Best quote from the article involves its refusal to release networking documentation: '"The Commission says Linux would disappear" if Microsoft did not grant access to its documentation, Smith claimed. "But Linux is alive and well and I don't know any person at Linux or any Linux programmers who share the Commission's view."'"
Linux Developer view is inmaterial (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares if the commission's view is shared by the OSS crew. Their ruling should be final and Microsoft should comply in good faith if they want to continue to trade in the EU.
They'll probably get chance to appeal the descision but I doubt the ruling will be overturned. Personally, I'm sick of them appealing on grounds they should have brought up earlier in the process. I think that if you appeal in a corporate case such as this and you lose the damages should be increased. You can justify this by lost interest due to the money sitting for in Microsoft's bank and not the EUs bank account for duration of the appeal process plus a surcharge for wasting everybody's time
Simon.
I'd like to see (Score:5, Insightful)
The other option being? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the other option is to stop selling Windows in the EU, this is not very surprising.
On coupling os and software (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has protested in the past that unbundling elements of Windows would be difficult and could even damage its operating system.
hm... i do not mean to flame against microsoft (yet another time), but wtf? why and how should a media player damage the os, if decently programmed? to me, it sounds sensible to separate the operating-system from the applications built upon it, not coupling them to an absurde degree. well, from the point of view "it will be easier to distribute both products that way", it is understandable, of course, but shouldn't a clear design weigh more than marketing advantage? mark the should, which is - sorrowfully - the keyword here.
ah, and by the way... what will microsoft do? if i was them, i'd offer a network-based installation of wmp, which is (semi)automatically triggered after the installation of windows. thus, they do not ship wmp with the os, but effectively bundle it in 90% of all installations.
The rest of the world would continue to use the full version of Windows, and it encouraged content developers to continue to encode music and other digital products in its Windows media format.
simply cute. encouraging developers to use a proprietary codec (i hope i am correct) to create content, when you need to additionally install software for that codec. *hm* a different approach than the one i outlined above, but an effective one, too.
though i have to say, if i was content provider, i'd see absolutely no advantage in using wmp if the player is not bundled with the os, only the drawback of lock-in by microsoft.
just my 2cent
What's wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is the media player so bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather see them have the WMA/WMV codecs excluded and if a user plays such things, s/he gets directed to a Microsoft web site where they can be downloaded.
Not allowing a stupid media player just seems silly to me.
Re:first wtf post (Score:2, Insightful)
Smart spin! Install option instead of open formats (Score:4, Insightful)
MS got everyone to babble about install-options (WMP yes/no?) instead of the real thing at stake:
Open formats e.g ISO standards or privately owned formats?
Hello, everyone, it isn't about WMP yes/no. It's about standard formats with competition or not. Did you get it now?
Re:What's wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
the point is that microsoft claims that it would be difficult and possibly damaging to remove wmp from the os.
now talk about tight coupling between software and os. bad thing in my opinion, plus, it remove the freedom of choice from the user.
furthermore, it implies that un-installing wmp properly is hardly possible, so when you think you've gotten rid of it, it has probably just removed some superficial links or such.
Re:Linux Developer view is inmaterial (Score:5, Insightful)
Often, an appealing party has to pay costs if they lose. In the U.S. in federal court, a lawyer can be forced to pay his opponent's legal fees if he submits any frivolous articles to the court. Relax a bit on the whole condemnation of the legal system thing
Re:What's wrong? (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe that Red Hat is the most common distro, and they don't ship mplayer.
And as for your answer -- no, it isn't a monopoly. First, no single Linux distributor has a monopoly on the Linux market. Second, there's no concept of lock-in -- I can make "Debian (or someone that does ship mplayer) with xine instead of mplayer" if I want, and start handing out CDs. Microsoft does not make it legally possible for me to ship a modified version of Windows that contains a different movie player.
Re:The version will contain a poison pill (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:first wtf post (Score:2, Insightful)
Me either. Coincidence?
He must still be geared up to compete with companies instead of communities.
Re:What's wrong? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that the one thing which is wrong here is that Microsoft is also pushing it's own Windows Media format (*.wm[va]) with own codecs.
What makes this a problem is that coupling the only player capable of [legally] playing these files gives Microsoft an unfair advantage over everything else.
No user wants to install for example a media player. A Windows user sees a .rm or .mov on a page, he/she might not click it because then new software might have to be installed, the user might look for a .wmv before installing some plugin.
Installing might be a non-wanted process because of the time taken, which gets irritating when it's taking more than zero seconds. Another thing that makes installing unwanted is the huge misuse of install-new-plug-in feature by dangerous spyware/adware/whatever-ware.
Re:What's wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Linux had >90% market share,
- there were only one vendor of Linux,
- there were a reason why other vendors could not release Linux as well,
- that version of Linux came with mplayer as mandatory and only preinstalled player,
- that version of mplayer supported a proprietary media format owned by that only Linux distributor,
- while media formats from competitors were not supported out-of-the-box,
then it would be an abuse of monopoly.Re:What's wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
Every reply so far has missed the point somewhat, so I'll give it a go. Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop operationg systems (or close enough to one that it makes no difference). There is a body of law that applies only to monopolies in order to prevent them from abusing the power that comes from having a monopoly. One of the things they are not allowed to do is to use their monopoly status to create dominance in a different market.
By bundling WMP with windows, Microsoft is using their monopoly on OSes to dominate the media player market. They have already done this in the web browser market. The relative merits of the players are irrelevant, only that Microsoft is abusing its monopoly powers.
Millions and Millions (Score:5, Insightful)
Removing a media player from an OS costs MILLIONS! I feel like making a joke but this is just too ridiculous. The sad thing is probably many non-techies believe these blatant lies. And I don't care what expenses they dream up (testing, lawyers, still more lawyers, cost of diminished monopoly power), this is pure BS.
The Gentle Hand of MicroSoft Reassures Us All. (Score:2, Insightful)
Only if by "face-to-face negotiations to tease out technological nuances" he means "coercion".
Is there a term for FUD so transparently unlikely that it causes no F, U, or D? Anti-FUD. The inverse function of FUD. RAW: Reassurance And Wellbeing.
Slowing innovation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, we all know better than that of course; why, just yesterday a Harvard professor jumped on the bandwagon warning that the current patent system inhibits, rather than encourages, innovation. How is Microsoft any different? When everyone knows M$ will come out on top in any battle it chooses to fight, the incentive to try to create something Redmond might want to compete against drops to zero. But if the EU succeeds in putting Microsoft in its place, that will tell a lot of software companies (and VCs!) that their products might finally have a chance of competing on their own merits.
Oh, and "privilege some special interests"? It's funny how one company can be so bad if it gets some help from the government (the criterion for "special interest"), but another company is beyond reproach if it has an advantage that everyone is already dependent on its products.
EU Remedy is Foolish (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Understand these basic facts:
1. It is legal to acquire a monopoly.
2. It is legal to bundle non-monopoly products.
3. It is not legal to use your monopoly in one market to gain a monopoly in another market.
To completely distance ourselves from the tech issues, I'll give you a bread and butter example (literally).
1. It is not illegal to gain a monopoly on producing bread (maybe you're just that much better)
2. As long as there is competition on both bread and butter, it is legal to bundle your bread with your butter.
3. If you have a monopoly on bread, you can't bundle your butter with your bread to drive the other butter companies out of business.
It has nothing to do with bread and butter belonging together or not, it has nothing to do with the quality of either product. It is a means to ensure that competition happens on equal terms.
Without anti-trust protection, anything dependent on bread would fall like dominos in a row. Next up, bread knives bundled with bread. Butter knives bundled with butter. Next up, filet knives bundled with bread and butter knives. Markets would crumble and turn to monopolies ruled by gigantic megacorporations spreading like a cancer throughout the economy.
To return to your Linux analogy, it is not only once, but twice fatally flawed. One, neither Linux nor Mplayer have a monopoly. Second, you misinterpret corrolation with causation. Mplayer and Linux appear often together because they are both popular products. There is no causation, one isn't being used to promote the other.
If Linux demanded that with each distribution of it you would be forced to include Mplayer, then there would be causation. They don't, but if they did (which they can't because of the GPL), and they were a monopoly, which they aren't, then it would be illegal. But Windows is a monopoly, Windows is used to monopolize the media player market, and thus it is illegal. IMNSHO.
Kjella
Re:Linux Developer view is inmaterial (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because facts and reasoning rarely fit into sound-bite sized juicy nuggets. McMedia is much more concerned with selling eyeshare than courting mindshare. The mindless eyes are as much to blame as anyone.
Give me convenience or give me reality TV.
Re:What's wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Having a monopoly is neither wrong, bad, or illegal.
However, it IS illegal bad and wrong to for acompany to leverage a monopoly in one product area into a monopoly in another by abusing their monopoly position. I'll use a silly example to show why this can't be allowed:
Imagine you have a monopoly on potatoes. If you used your cash reserves (or simply jacked up the price of potatoes) to give away a free carrot with every potato, and continued until all the carrot companies in the world went bust, bought them all up and then put the price of carrots up 1000%
Replace the potatoes with Desktop OS software, and the carrots with media player software, and you'll see what microsoft is doing that is wrong. It's taking a loss on WMP, and by bundling it for free (so that even by being free too, other players can't compete because they have the hassle of installation as well) it's abusing it's position to try and bankrupt all the other player companies, so it has a stranglehold on that market too. You can also replace carrots with Browsers for round 2 of the EU litigation
Re:ha-ha-ha (Score:5, Insightful)
Interoperability does not truly depend on MS granting access to its documentation; in most cases it is the result of some succesful reverse-engineering. I bet MS would love to put an end to that. The statement "grant access to [the] documentation" is right but should be more specific: "not deny interoperability by means of secrecy or patents or other means"... The Commission touches on an important point, even if they worded it funnily.
Re:I'd like to see (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, who cares about the media player? WMP s*cks d*nkey b*lls! It is slow, it is invasive, and it has such bad codec support that it cannot play many common formats. No-one who is really interested in playing movies or music will stick to WMP. It simply does not do the job required.
IE, on the other hand, seems to do a good job on the surface, and is totally entrenched in the system. Furthermore, IE allows MS to really dominate an important infrastructure. IE should go.
Of course, the probable reason that MS does not fight so hard against the current ruling, is that they themselves know it is not an important fight. I also expect that the ruling has been agreed upon by the Commission in conversations with MS. Many members of the Commission are really close buddies with MS, you know.
Re:ha-ha-ha (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a bad example, I think. I don't follow samba closely, but I have the general notion that (A) Samba has been implemented without any documentation from MS, and (B) the Samba team generally have a better understanding of the behavior of the MS samba stack than do Microsoft programmers.
Next?
Re:No problem with WMP (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Linux Developer view is inmaterial (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's wrong? (Score:2, Insightful)
Product quality is irrelevant when a monopoly abuses it's position, only the geeky can be bothered to install a new player. Both these points have been made quite clearley before. If MS where sure of the quality of there product they wouldn't mind WMP being separated as it would stand up on it's own, given a choice most people will chose the better product anyway.
The RealPlayer installer, for instance, should be picked up by Norton's and quarantined before you can even install it.
why would Norton's be so dumb as to risk a lawsuit? If you don't like Real player you should try real alternative best media player by far.
Re:On coupling os and software (Score:5, Insightful)
On Windows, the backend is an integral part of the operating system. Many other applications use it, many other applications plug into it - it's designed to be a central location for codec storage, and it succeeds in that goal admirably.
The frontend, obviously, is not.
Removing the frontend would be trivial. Removing the backend would be devastating because of all the programs that rely on it - akin to removing Internet Explorer entirely, for the exact same set of reasons.
I don't pretend to know which they've been ordered to remove. I don't put it past them for the courts to have said "remove Media Player" and for Microsoft to have said "aha! If we take that to mean the backend, we can argue that it would damage the user experience!" But it's worth pointing out that the bulk of what most moderately-technical people would consider Media Player - the chunk that does the actual decoding and playing of media - is, in fact, pretty deeply built into Windows. As is Internet Explorer. (I've seen many many MANY apps that embed IE in one way or another.)
An analogy - this would be similar to asking Linux to remove zlib entirely. Because, you know, not many people ever really need to compress things, right? Therefore zlib couldn't be that important, right?
Sometimes the user interface is only a small part of the usage a piece of software has within the system.
Now, it *would* be entirely reasonable to ask Microsoft to provide hooks to replace these modules. However that would be an extremely nontrivial programming job - I might demand it for Longhorn, but asking that they spend less than a year or so on it is really just begging for serious problems.
Re:Interesting article. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not quite it. MS know full well what Linux is and how it is developed. They also know that if they can convince the non-tech world that it's just another corporate actor, they can fight on their own ground. For them to survive, they need to maintain the market lock-in which is their only selling point, but convince regulatory authorities that they're just another OS company, facing loads of competition from others just like it: Sun, "Linux".
This aggressively stupid (and effective) attitude is probably part of what makes the EC consider "Linux" as a competitor needing legal protection from the monopolistic main player. This is useful, because it helps everyone move closer to interoperation, but idiotic. The competitors are Sun, RedHat, Novell, Apple... That many of them sell GNU/Linux distributions is beside the point.
The ideal situation would be for the EC regulators to rule that it is unfair for MS to force proprietary standards on pre-existing markets. A solution to that might be: force Microsoft to bundle an (as much as possible) feature-equivalent open-standard program for every non-essential program they ship that uses a proprietary format. eg, XviD and OGG codecs with WMP, compliant JScript in addition to ActiveX, optional Gabber in MSN, PostScript production from MSOffice, public specs for SMB/CIFS, or even a "use W3C standards" checkbox in IE...
Obviously, there is little or no chance of this happening, and in the mean time, it's probably faster for non-Windows users to wait for MS to alienate enough customers for MS-compatibility to become less important- that'd be a long time, but this, WinXP Crippled Edition, viruses, and the festival of incompatibility called 'Longhorn' rekindle hope :-)
Re:Silly Market Economy (Score:4, Insightful)
This is valid, since the OEM could've put anything on the machine after being received from MS. But, it also means that the Vendor is now liable to handle support for its devices. Theoretically, the hand-over of the software should be the end of the agreement. If Dell doesn't want to ship media player for whatever reason, they don't have to.
That all doesn't matter though. The second Dell starts getting phone calls over people not being able to play mp3's or watch movies, the crowds will be swarming. I agree with an earlier argument, it is too late to fix what they've done before.
What we have to do now is INFORM our governments of anything Microsoft does BEFORE the damage is incurred. Imagine MS's faces being held back from releasing Longhorn due to potential Monopolistic abuses in the system. That's where any of these 'Microfot is a monopoly, we'll fix it' scenerios holds any real world hopes.
This argument could have been the same for Microsoft with MS Movie maker. What happens if they decide to sink Adobe by investing tons of money into Their movie maker. Today's Media Player is tomorrows Antivirus, Movie Makers, networking protocols, web standards, etc.. There's no stopping them if we let them run free. If you hadn't guessed already, Bill gates is spoofed as a borg for a reason.
Re:ha-ha-ha (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux can have the best word processor with the finest document file format, but if Word cannot read it, it will never be widely adopted. Remember that version of Word (98 I think) that produced files which could not be read by earlier versions of Word? Everybody bitched about it, and Microsoft finally gave in a made a plugin for earlier versions to read these files. You can be sure they never made that mistake again...
Similarly, you will often find Windows boxes in even the most Linux-friendly offices. Many applications are only available on Windows. For that reason, we need Samba capability. It is not so important for Linux to stand on its own, but it sure as hell makes the transition from Windows to Linux a lot easier.
The point is: most people and especially businesses cannot afford to 'stay in their own world' as you put it. People who might be interested in Linux are not starting to use computers from scratch, they will in most cases have to ransition from Windows, and will want to continue to communicate with their Windows-using friends.
This is not off-topic at all, it is the heart of the matter that is hidden underneath this silliness about shipping Windows with no media player. There is nothing wrong per sé with selling software using closed and protected protocols and file formats. Microsoft however is (mis)using closed protocols and file formats, together with their virtual monopoly in the OS and Office suite markets, to make sure everyone stays locked into the Windows solution. They do this by making the transition to Linux exceptionally painful, and by trying to ostracise Linux users from their Windows-using friends (or from their computers and data, at least). That is why the Commission should demand open and freely usable standards from Microsoft instead of demanding a WMP-free OS; not because open standards are nice and cute, but because Microsoft has a virtual monopoly and is mis-using it and closed standards to keep out competitors like Linux.
Re:Why is the media player so bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What's wrong? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:first wtf post (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's wrong? (Score:2, Insightful)
The battle here isn't about selling media players or web browsers. It's about controlling the content available on these applications. If Microsoft controls all the media players, it can control the media formats too. If it controls the media formats, it can control the streaming of said formats. And people/companies are willing to pay for the ability to stream media that millions of consumers will be able to watch.
As far as web browsers go, every time someone uses the IE search bar, it does a Microsoft-controlled search of sites that Microsoft wants people to read. If people are too (stupid|lazy) to change their home page settings, IE will go to the MSN page every time it is opened. This means more advertising revenue for MSN.
The consumer programs are only the tip of the iceberg here. The web browser/media player market is still very significant.
Re:Linux Developer view is inmaterial (Score:5, Insightful)
In Europe the loser-pays system is the default. In the US, it is an option that you basically have to countersue for.
A better description might be that in the US if you sue somebody and lose you MIGHT have to pay their legal costs.
As a result, defence lawyers always charge heavy fees up front, and then try to get some of it back from the plaintiff later. Most people settle even if they're likely to win on defece since it is likely they'd still pay more in legal fees even if the plaintiff helps them out a little.
The US could seriously use a loser-pays system like Europe...
I'd hate to see that (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it really wouldn't. I'd bet that your average PC user doesn't appreciate the issues with IE. Many probably don't even know what a "browser" is, they just know to click this button for "the Internet" (not to be confused with e-mail).
Choice is not always a good thing. For average people without the time or inclination to learn the finer points of a subject, a single "good enough" option is often better than a choice. For people who do have the inclination to learn more, the choice is always there anyway, as the fact that I'm typing this in Firefox testifies.
Re:I'd like to see (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no need for this. Microsoft shouldn't have to do that at all, in all honesty it isn't fair. But they shouldn't prevent any OEM from doing it.
Don't prevent OEMs from including other software on PCs they sell. They want to include a Dell-branded Mozilla? Let them (without sneaky penalties). They want to install OpenOffice? It's none of your business, Microsoft.
Re:Silly Market Economy (Score:4, Insightful)
Forcing MS to remove WMP is probably the only way to guarantee that vendors are able to not include it without facing repurcussions.
Re:I'd like to see (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm, WMP is simply a DirectShow front end. It will play anything that DirectShow has a filter for decoding which, on Windows, is more or less anything except some QuickTime-specific things (Sorenson springs to mind).
Linux Developer view is correct, long term (Score:3, Insightful)
If Microsoft release accurate documentation, it will both handicap their efforts to lock people out and dilute their ability to turn everything they touch into an "IP" black hole.
That latter is kind of a Midas touch, short term spectacular but sooner or later everything's turned to pyrites and then Midas starves in a cold hard house full of statues.
This attitude toward full and accurate publication is true for some things already; but when Shorthorn gets its WinFS and a few more bells and whistles the absence of documentation would be crippling for any competitors hoping to get a toehold in markets currently 0wn3rz3d by Bill "your computer is My Computer" Gates - if, by that time, there still are any. The Linux revolution appears to be snowballing at an unprecedented rate right now.
Re:Linux Developer view is inmaterial (Score:3, Insightful)
I sue them and lose. Um, I couldn't possibly afford the fees nor would most small fry attempt to go against the big dogs in the future.
Re:Linux Developer view is inmaterial (Score:3, Insightful)
And if your claim is valid, it makes you think twice about how much you trust the court system. Courts are human systems; human systems aren't perfect. Occasionally the wrong guy is going to lose. A niave Loser Pays system will destroy that occasional wrong guy and provides incentive for individuals to simply accept harm done to them.
Re:I'd like to see (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I'd like to see it go back to the way it used to be. It used to be that computer makers (Dell, Gateway, etc) bundled and preinstalled the software they chose as being what their customers wanted. Imagine software companies competing to have their software preinstalled on a given computer manufacturer's machines. Imagine computer manufacturers being able to actually do what was suggested above and ask the user on first boot what browser they would prefer. That's the way it used to be. Computer makers set up the computer with the software they thought their customers wanted and they competed on their offerings.
Then MS came along and said, "Thou shalt bundle the software MS says you will bundle or thou shalt not get a discount on pre-installed Windows."
The rest is history. That's where MS used its monopoly illegally and did the most damage IMO.