U.S. Adds Years To Microsoft's 'Probation' 206
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Justice Department has added another two years to its agreement with Microsoft, extending the protocol licensing program that is part of the company's penance for anti-competitive activities. The organization feels Microsoft is providing documentation too slowly to its licensees." From the article: "At one time, the Justice Department and several state Attorneys General had sought a breakup of Microsoft in order to prevent it from abusing its Windows monopoly. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson at one point ordered such a move, though his ruling was later reversed on appeal. Ultimately Microsoft settled with the Department of Justice, agreeing to far more modest restrictions, including the protocol licensing program." Relatedly, regulators have cleared Vista of anti-competitive elements. They examined the OS on concerns an added search box may have given the company a home-field advantage.
Links to EU situation (Score:5, Informative)
and the difficulty of providing it [groklaw.net].
Xix.
Re:Relatedly??? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm all for giving the editors a hard time when they fuck up the English language, but this isn't one of those times.
Re:Bureaucratic waste (Score:3, Informative)
Mainly restrictions on MS's behavior with OEMs:
+ Dell and other OEMs can now load up their machines with RealPlayer, Firefox, Googlebar, etc without worrying about losing their Windows contract.
+ You can buy Linux or other alt-OS machines from major OEMs -- these were very scarse before the trial.
+ In theory, all OEMs have the same pricing, so MS can't threaten them with removing the special dicounts.
That's not very much, but it hits on the core issue of MS's monopoly strategy by preventing them "cutting off the airsupply" to non-MS software.
Re:Bureaucratic waste (Score:4, Informative)
This is the classic incorrect version of the story parroted by fools who get their information from Slashdot posts. In reality, the appeals court threw out much of the judgement againt Microsoft:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_antitrust_
they would do the next best thing and surrender via "a settlement".
The Clinton administration repeatedly tried to settle the case, and the Gore adminisration would have done likewise. Bush probably did go a little easier than the democrats would have however. I am absolutely not a Bush defender, just fighting against moronic conspiracy theories put forward by ignorant people.
Re:What a bunch of Crap (Score:4, Informative)
When the average person violates probation they are giving a probation violation hearing. The judge takes a look at the violation and can give prison time, but can also give community service, depending on the violation.
Re:Uh, no. (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.oregonlive.com/newslogs/oregonian/inde
Re:Microsoft and its so called standards (Score:2, Informative)
To let this, those willing to create a format, should clearly state specifications for these formats, or clearly state that this format is just for a specific application and should not be shared so that users won't use those files for sharing. A .doc file created with 200x version of Microsoft Word is just like the feces of this application.
In Office 12 (the next version of Office), Microsoft will use an XML-based, open standard for documents. The extensions will be .docx, .xlsx, etc.
From http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/office12_insi de_02.asp [winsupersite.com]:
"Word, Excel, and PowerPoint will ship with new native document formats in Office 12. Files created in these new Open XML formats will be demarked with an addition "x" in the file name extension."
So the format will be open in future, allowing other applications to be fully compatible with Office documents. It won't be "just for a specific application" anymore.
Re:Bureaucratic waste (Score:3, Informative)
The appelate court basically threw the whole case out. It threw out the Section one claims. It upheld the bundling claims, but required the government to actually show net consumer harm -- recall that the DOJ and the states did have to concede that the bundling of IE into Windows had consumer benefits. The court set a high bar for accepting such a claim.
Basically, the US looked at the resulting mess, and said "Fooey. We can't get anything out of this." The states, for the most part, said "Fooey. Well, we can get some money out of this." Massachusetts said "We're going to keep fighting this." Reilly got his head handed to them by the District court.
Re:Bureaucratic waste (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Parent is right - but no one listens (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Settled (Score:3, Informative)
The most obvious type of case where a prosecutor would not follow the wishes of a victim is in a spousal abuse case where the abused spouse didn't want to press charges (for whatever reason). So long as the prosecutor has enough evidence to proceed, he or she would be required to press on with the case.
Links to findings (Score:5, Informative)
Penfield's remedies are here [gpo.gov]. The gutted final judgement produced by the DOJ cave-in and the Appeals court kowtowing to MS is here here [usdoj.gov]. It's a mere slap on the wrist. "Pretty please, play nice, now, or at least don't get caught flagrantly breaking the law." I wonder how much $jack the DOJ and US Appeals court judges cost. Less than an hour's profits, I'd bet. Ask your MS pals.
More on this and other MS litigation over here. [groklaw.net]
Re:They called Clinton crazy (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft is not being punished "for succeeding". Being a monopoly is never illegal. It is, however, illegal to use your monopoly status to leverage your way into new markets and to keep competitors out.
Thus, this anti-trust stuff is the middle ground you seek . It's perfectly fine to be a monopoly, but punishes abuse of the monopoly status (e.g. pushing OEMs to sign deals to exclude BeOS boy I wish that OEM licensing deals would see the light of day!).
Re:Slap On The Wrist: Part Deux (Score:3, Informative)
If that's true then this new development must also be political. Who did Microsoft piss off this time?
Re:"High-Priority Update" forces MS's Harshest EUL (Score:3, Informative)
Yes; we agree to a contract covering the WGAN tool, not Windows. The EULA for Windows XP is not affected.
it won't allow you to uninstall the software
The licence actually says "you will not be able to uninstall the software". That is not the same as you aren't allowed to uninstall it; MS are not denying you permission, they're saying that it isn't possible. In other words, they have not provided an uninstallation tool. I see nothing in the licence that forbids you from ripping it out yourself, if you are so able.
If you buy, agree to the terms of use, and install Windows for your company and train your staff to use it and applications you buy for it, your total cost is far greater than the cost of Windows.
As it is for any OS or application; I'm not sure I see the relevance. If you give everyone Linux (whether freely downloaded or bought and paid for), you still have training costs and quite possibly costs for commercial apps. The total cost may be lower (especially if you don't buy the distro or a support contract), but it's still higher than just the cost of the OS.
If you go to your kitchen and find a Microsoft employee eating your ice cream, check your EULA; maybe Microsoft has decided that Microsoft employees can raid your refrigerator.
That sort of crap would be struck down by a court in seconds. Just because something is in a contract (even an honest to goodness, negogiatable, signed on the dotted line contract) doesn't necessarily mean that it's enforceable. For a clearly absurd example, if my employment contract stated that upon leaving the company, I had to give them my first born child as a replacement, that would not be enforcable. For a more realistic example, some/most anti-compete clauses are not enforcable as they contravene restriction of trade laws.
Yes, it's a crap licence, but it's not quite as bad as either you or Ed Foster make out.
Re:They called Clinton crazy (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you literally translate 'being a monopoly' as being identical to 'being successful' then there is clearly a difference here. A monopoly can not be leveraged to gain more monopolies or to push out competition in another area. What everybody else is doing doesn't even come into the picture.
There is no shortage of evidence that Microsoft viewed the netscape platform as a threat to their control via the windows desktop. IE and Netscape raged in a war that continued for years until Microsoft finally put the product directly into their operating system. This was a direct move to leverage their monopoly to gain a browser monopoly.
RedHat may include a browser, but redhat does not have a desktop monopoly. Redhat including a browser does not guarantee that browser will dominate the market and become a monopoly.
By including an application in windows where users are sure to interact with it microsoft essentially fills out the windows blank check with whatever new market they want a monopoly in. That is what is illegal. It is illegal because we have an economic system that depends on everyone competing and nobody actually winning. If somebody wins the system breaks and stays broken. It is a known flaw in capitalism and there nothing wrong with patching the flaw with laws that prevent the damage from spreading.