US Antitrust Judge Examining Windows 7 Documents 225
Anonymous writes "After more than 11 years, the US antitrust case involving Microsoft is still alive, with a federal judge overseeing enforcement of provisions under which the software giant must operate. And now, Judge Kollar-Kotelly says she'll take a close look at new technical documents involving Windows 7. This case began during the Windows 95 era."
Now, that's interesting. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Summary (Score:3, Interesting)
They secured the big OEMs the right to sell more than just windows, eventually paving the way for netbooks.
Re:What if they had broken Microsoft up? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why does every Microsoft Bashing Troll have a homepage that looks like it was designed in 1992?
Black text on a white background? Possibly it's a demographic that places importance on information rather than aesthetics. If I put up a web page it would probably look like that. Before I got married I had virtually no decoration in my house other than family photos. I still have less in the way of decoration and entertainment than most, but considerably more tools and educational books than most people.
Re:What if they had broken Microsoft up? (Score:3, Interesting)
Cookies are always nice unless they're the browser kind or have something in them that you're allergic to. Many problems could be solved with them =]
As for my patronizing manner, having been the editor of an OSS mag, I've seen my fair share of zealot email, comments, etc on both sides of the debate. It burns you out after a while - especially when you're a pragmatic person who sees benefits to both open and closed source solutions in various situations.
You've never had fun until you've been at a conference and had someone come up to you and basically start yelling at you because your banner has a technology listed on it (it was on one of the covers) that "cost them business" because people moved to it from what they were doing.
Believe me, it's a surreal experience. After a while, you start to doubt that "subtle humor" is actually meant as humor with that sort of thing because you see it used in a serious manner far too often...
To be honest, the response you gave to my first post is really easy to mistake for actual zealotry. I've gotten real comments (both in person and online) that were just like it.
Re:Judging technical documents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Judge Kollar-Kotelly actually seems pretty bright. She saw through many of Microsoft's tricks, and did well in keeping up with technical discussions in court according to at least some case watchers.
Incidentally, she's the presiding judge for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Since her tenure began in 2002, the number of warrants that had to be modified before being accepted jumped dramatically. Her term expires in May, at which point she will also no longer be part of the FISC, as judges may not be reappointed.
I generally hold judges in high regard, and Judge Kollar-Kotelly ranks highly overall in my mind. She would, I think, make for a respectable member of the Supreme Court if she were appointed, though I think that's unlikely at this point, as she's around age 65 right now, and I think the trend over the next few administrations is going to be to pick much younger potential justices to fill those positions.
Red Tape (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Summary (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah. Pretty amazing how a website for engineer and computer scientists don't like to pay their own salaries.
Do you remember the 'good ole' days of software. Do you remember how much of it was funded? It was funded by the old telephone monopolies which used their guaranteed monopoly over phone lines to fund such ventures as the invention of C++ at ATT/Bell labs. Wait a minute... do you remember what happened to these great labs once they were forced to breakup from their monopoly? Oh yeah... they sucked and they have no money to fund anything useful.
I mean seriously, there is a reason Microsoft employs 100 000 people and treats its employees better than 99% of other companies... they have some money.
Microsoft is not a natural monopoly (like cable, electricity, water) where there is only going to be one infrastructure going to your house. Microsoft should not be regulated with these 'anti-competitive' behaviors. It's amazing to see all these engineers and computer scientists act like we need to always reduce cost and we need maximum competition.
Let me know when the rest of society operates like that. When anyone can practice medicine. When lawyers don't make needless laws so complex you need them to navigate the system. When teachers give you a voucher and you can choose the best deal in town to send your kid for an education. When bankers don't get massive bailouts when they screw up. Tell me when we get that world...
Until that time, let us people who produce goods that we need to sell in the brutally competitive free market have a few tools to have a steady income. If that means proprietary file formats, exclusive deals with distributors, making funny protocols... so be it. The free market will determine when that is too annoying to bother dealing it and get with the competition.
The market provides plenty of ways to kill the 'monopoly'. MS, in trying to defend the desktop OS market, let the web float away... and the market produced Google. MS missed the mark on the smart phone, along comes RIM and Apple.
Would the world be better if everything was free as in freedom? YES...and I won't argue with that. But we don't live in that world... and I don't feel like making my industry a martyr.
Please... no broken window philosophy. I know about it. I agree with it. But as I said... get the rest of society to agree with it. I'm not living in a world where my neighbor who makes windows break my window every morning, so I have to pay him to fix the window. Meanwhile, he won't even let me bundle a browser with the operating system I sell him :P //I don't work for Microsoft. I Actually work for their smart-phone competitor.
THE FREE MARKET!? (Score:1, Interesting)
if you seriously think, that the OS market was free, then you obviously don't know about Windows Refunds [wikipedia.org].
If you speak german, read this article [heise.de] where VOBIS (german pc vendor) describes exactly how Microsoft blackmailed them to make them stop selling any OS except windows and not tell anybody about this.
also read how microsoft tried to kill linux [slashdot.org] by silently funding SCO's lawsuit against major linux distros.
If you actually think, the OS Market was anywhere near "free" in the last 24 years, then you have no freakin clue about what you're talking and should just STFU!
Re:wiping competitors with reformat, reinstall (Score:3, Interesting)
MS "systems" have lacked and still lack a unified, easy to use package management system such as have been available elsewhere for years.
That's because packaging systems (*especially* on Linux) exist largely to solve a problem Windows doesn't have - massive amounts of intricate and interlinked software dependencies.
OS X lacks a packaging system for much the same reason - there's simply no compelling need for one.
(Of course, it doesn't take much imagination to realise the level of apoplectic outrage that would come out of Slashdot, et al, if the only easy way to install software on Windows was via a centralised repository controlled by Microsoft.)
Re:Summary (Score:1, Interesting)
Psssst. We don't have a free market system in the US or the rest of the world and haven't had one in a very long time.
Pretty sure that was the point of the entire post. Why do you want to expose our industry to complete brutal free market capitalism, when no one else is playing by those rules. Regulating bundling is questionable in a complete free market system anyways... The market can and does regulate itself in these cases, but I'll ignore that for now.
I don't know if you're young or old. I don't know if you have job or not. I don't know if you're just a naive young person in school. I don't know if you're even an engineer/scientist. ... that's a nice tradeoff if you ask me.
One day when you might wake up and realize it would be nice to be able to make a steady living in this world... because having a decent income is a little more important than FULLY optimizing the free market for innovation. If having a little a steady income in our industry reduces the speed of innovation by 10%
Microsoft doesn't force you to buy their products. Can't say the same for public schools. ...
Microsoft doesn't restrict who can program. Can't say the same for doctors and lawyers.
Microsoft doesn't have taxation powers. Can't say the same for government workers.
Heck, Microsoft generally doesn't even abuse the patent system by suing competitors. They tend to only file patents to protect themselves.
I think it's time you looked at the real world and how it operates. It is certainly not a free market system.
Re:Summary (Score:1, Interesting)
MEANINGLESS?!?!?!
What they did 15 years ago is *WHY* they are sitting high and mighty today. What people don't seem to understand here is that Microsoft illegally manipulated the market using the power they gained in other areas to leverage new areas. What people today seem to be saying is "Well, 15 years is so long ago, they paid their fine, let's move on." The problem is that paying a fine is not punishment enough. The fine is for breaking the law. It's extra punishment and suppose to be a reason not to do it again. The real fact is that now the law needs to take away their ill-gotten gains. So Microsoft uses tactics to drive others out of business, or push their way to the top, they pay a fine and get to keep what they took through illegal methods? That's BS pure and simple.
What the US and EU need to do is take away that ill-gotten power and level the playing field for others in the market. I'm not going to go into detail on what Microsoft did that was illegal (and what they still do that should be illegal), because I don't have that kind of time. The real crux of the matter is that Microsoft is guilty of violating anti-trust laws. Laws put into place to prevent companies from actively preventing competition. They are GUILTY, and this stuff goes back more than 15 years ago. They didn't do something illegal 15 years ago and stop, there are years of this illegal activity that helped push Microsoft to the top of several Markets. From browsers, to office suites etc. Even more to the point, the case isn't even closed, so it applies still, even today.
As for IE beating Netscape in features and stability, I totally disagree, but even saying that, one of the things that Microsoft did to Netscape was continually change the underlying system to break Netscape (Those that doubt this might look up information on Win98lite, a project that people started to remove IE that was bundled with Win98. Oddly enough, the current Netscape at the time would install and run normally if you followed these steps). Netscape spent a lot of time fixing their browser between "patches" from Microsoft. IE had a leg up at the very least having direct access to changes in "patches" if not being affected by the changes at all. IE has the benefit of knowing what's around the corner while 3rd parties are left to guess, and even when it's changed, now they have to figure out what the changes are because there was no documentation to go with it. WordPerfect faced a similar problem when it was supplanted by Word.
The information is out there, but there is a ton of it and takes a long time to sort through. I've been working in the IT industry for many years, and computers are my passion. I was a Windows admin for over 10 years, and now work as a Linux admin out of the pure frustration of working with Windows.
BTW, if you're looking for more evidence of Microsoft trying to illegally maintain their marketshare. Simply look for information on protocol hijacking. Where Microsoft takes a protocol that is in use, modifies it, and then doesn't share the modifications. These are the communication lines between systems. These are the methods 3rd party software needs to use to communicate. If you don't properly share them, then you effectively reduce competition, or at the very least competition has to work that much harder to try and work with you. The EU's approach of forcing Microsoft to create and share documentation with 3rd parties on the APIs and other protocols that are required to communicate with their software is a fantastic step in the direction of leveling the playing field. More action is still required to fix the years of behavior from Microsoft.