Microsoft's 12-Step Program 169
NevarMore writes to tell us eWeek is reporting that Microsoft, after almost 30 years of Windows, now has 12 philosophical tenets outlining Windows development. From the article: "Smith said the principles largely come from things Microsoft picked up in the consent decree the software giant signed in settling its landmark antitrust battle with the federal government, but that more recent developments led to the crafting of some of the other principles. The 12 principles are based on three main areas: choice for computer manufacturers and customers, opportunities for developers, and interoperability for users, Smith said."
Let me guess (Score:5, Funny)
They are twelve ways to deny all of those?
Re:Let me guess (Score:5, Insightful)
Pathetic, isn't it? I had expected to see a list of issues like, perhaps
Instead their list of "philosophies" is more like
what they don't mention (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let me guess (Score:4, Interesting)
Quoth the link:
(Just replace the bit about "porting to new machines" with "attracting new users")
Microsoft has permanently stuck themselves between steps two and three.
Re:Let me guess (Score:4, Insightful)
I expect this is his sincere viewpoint. And I would not be so dismissive of this viewpoint. All the technical ills of Microsoft's products are not unrelated to their illegal behavior as regards to their monopolistic power.
This relationship is the reason for the core philosophy of the laws that restrain monpolist power: promote competition. The holder of a legally obtained monopoly can enjoy the fruits of that monopoly, but he cannot use that monopoly to evade competition. He can't use it to prevent new competition from emerging in his monopoly areas, he can't use it to prevent structural changes in the market which may reorganize his monopoly out of existence, he can't use it to undermine competition in other market areas which are competitive.
Companies, even countries, can't really do more than one non-routine thing at once. They cannot put their energies into innovation and improvements, and at the same time turn their products into an interlocking mechnism to keep out and to undermine competition. As long as Microsoft's products are a vehicle for exercising, maintaining and extending Microsoft's monopoly power, they'll never be very good.
So, with respect to Microsoft's products and their future quality, the decision to abide by the law is much more significant than any technological or architectural strategy. It means they are agreeing to be subjected to competition.
While practicing humility.... (Score:2)
Re: Let me guess (Score:2)
Yes, MS produces some crap software, but that's not the real problem. If that were all, then users would be free to choose other software, and the free market would decide; MS would either learn to produce genuinely better software, or lose customers.
The real problem has always been MS's unfair business practices: their tying of one market to another, their embracing and extending of formats and protocols, their strongarming suppliers into not providing
Re:Let me guess (Score:5, Insightful)
So in other words, it's a no-go for free software.
I also found the 12th point interesting:
What a commitment! I think I can pretty much count all the open standards that Microsoft can be said to be committed to support on one hand: the IP stack, DNS and HTTP. Even their FTP implementation is half-assed, to say the least (considering how one cannot get out of the initial cwd), and I doubt anyone would argue that Microsoft actually "supports" any of the web standards (that is, if one isn't viewing support of the version of 10 years ago as a "commitment").The second sentence is interesting in its own right. I, for one, cannot interpret it to mean anything but inventing their own, new standard instead of the ones that already exist and work. "[W]orking to establish standards via ad hoc relationships with others in the industry" doesn't even need a comment...
All the other tenets were pretty well summed up by another poster as "don't poison the customer", "don't shoot the customer", "don't bomb the distributor" and "don't ignore direct orders from a court of law". They are probably reserving the rights to boiling the customer, burying the distributor alive and following order from a court of law at their own pace, however.
Re:Let me guess (Score:3, Informative)
A good recent example of this is the Multimedia Transfer Protocol [wikipedia.org] (aka MTP) which is currently being pushed towards all the media player makers. Granted, there aren't really any such protocols that are really open. So everyone (well, Apple and MS currently, others don't seem to use any rich protocol, just mass storage fi
Re:Let me guess (Score:2)
Re:Let me guess (Score:2)
It could have been worse! (Score:2)
Re:It could have been worse! (Score:2)
Are you sure about this? IIRC the vast majority of OS sales go to corporations (who want DRM or are at best neutral since it doesn't affect them), 3rd party vendors (Gateway, Dell, etc.), and integrators (value-added sales such as embedded systems). Sales direct to public are a minority.
I got my hopes up! (Score:5, Funny)
With the belief in a higher power (Linus) you too can break free from Microsoft dependence!
Re:I got my hopes up! (Score:2)
Re:I got my hopes up! (Score:2)
Re:I got my hopes up! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I got my hopes up! (Score:2)
Step 1 - Download Knoppix.
Step 2 - Burn it into a CD.
Step 2 - Boot the computer with the Knoppix CD.
Step 4 - Locate KPatience at the 'games' menu.
Step 5 - Learn how to play some other 3 kinds of patience.
Step 6 - There is no step 6. No Windows user will ever take that CD out of the driver again. But you may want to buy a new driver...
Re:I got my hopes up! (Score:2)
1) We admitted we were powerless over competition, laws, and other people - that everyone's lives had become unmanageable without our software.
2) Came to believe that trying harder would perpetuate the insanity.
3) Made a decision to turn our back on God as we understood him.
4) Made a searching and scary inventory of our competition.
5) Admitted to God to ourselves and to the human race where the competition
Actions Speak Louder Than Words... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Actions Speak Louder Than Words... (Score:4, Funny)
No, but you need to say it louder
Re:Actions Speak Louder Than Words... (Score:2)
An /. is going to... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:An /. is going to... (Score:1)
30 years? (Score:4, Interesting)
PS - The one-page version of the article can be found at http://www.eweek.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=18381 8,00.asp [eweek.com]
Re:30 years? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:30 years? (Score:3, Informative)
Their 30th anniversary was last year. Microsoft was founded in April 1975.
Re:30 years? (Score:2)
As someone whose 23rd birthday is next week, I can tell you in all honesty there are times when I do feel almost 30. But no, most of the time I feel, and behave, a lot more like a 12 year old. Just like Windows.
Their choice of principles eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
If they do it fast enough they might even manage to avoid getting fined another $1bn by the EU.
Re:Their choice of principles eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Their choice of principles eh? (Score:4, Informative)
Fortunately, WinFS has finally been cancelled, Kerberos has been extended by MIT's authors to work around Microsoft's mistaken "extension", and fortunately or unfortunately SPF has basically been rejected due to the licensing problems Microsoft's "exteionsion" created.
36 Tenets? (Score:4, Informative)
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/19/21
OK, nice philosophy. When's the release date? (Score:4, Insightful)
Surely they're not implying they're already in operation.
Re:OK, nice philosophy. When's the release date? (Score:1)
From the article:
Re:OK, nice philosophy. When's the release date? (Score:4, Funny)
Inspired by Alabama 3? (Score:2)
They sound like a reform plan (Score:5, Insightful)
If Microsoft really takes these twelve items to heart, it could be a big shift for them. It would certainly go a long way to change my perception of the company. I might even consider using Windows again at some point.
The cynic in me says that something is forcing them to say this and that they possibly don't really mean it. The options seem like:
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, don't get me wrong, they're still in it for the money, and they'll never be Google, but is it entirely unfathomable that maybe Microsoft is trying to better the state of computer software as a whole? Many reasons could be cited as to why this would be a useful move for them in the long run, and I don't think that we should just autom
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:2)
However, we will watch them closely to see if their actions provide any
compelling evidence of a change of heart.
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:2)
They have said before they would obey the law. They still haven't done it.
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they are, but you wouldn't know it from these "commandments".
Numbers 1-4 are already a fait accompli from a technical point of view. There's been nothing to stop OEMs or customers from adding their own software as defaults to any version of Windows, apart from Microsoft's shady business practices. Maybe Vista will make the process simpler, but complexity was never what stopped the Dell/Gateway/Toshiba etc of the world from changing defaults.
Numbers five and six are significant, if they happen and are not bypassed in practice, but it's really just Microsoft saying "We're not going to keep breaking the law."
Number seven and eight are non-sequiturs. Were they ever planning to incorporate Windows Live into their OS? Given the security implications, it would be an insane thing to do - so maybe they were... And what about not blocking access to non-MS websites? Gee, thanks guys. I'm glad you've decided to let us keep our Slashdot. Seriously, what the hell were they planning to do that would make it necessary to make that a core tenet?
Nine, they're saying they'll stop breaking the law again.
Ten and eleven are sneaky. They'll license communications protocols and patents "on commercially reasonable terms". Given the extremely flexible nature to the term "reasonable" you can pretty much bet they'll use the licensing terms to block all real competitors, particularly FOSS.
Number twelve, well we've seen from their behavior with ODF that Microsoft is committed to standards, as long as they're their own, and as long as they can retract the compliance if it gets in the way of their format lockin in the future.
All in all, there's a lot implied by the tenets, but the only ones which actually commit Microsoft to any changes are the ones required by law. The rest are carefully phrased to allow plausible deniability. Note also that they've said nothing about their key lockin tool - file formats. If Microsoft were serious about fair play they'd commit, in a legally binding way, to maintain fully open protocols, formats and APIs. They have not done so, so these "tenets" are nothing more than yet more spin and misdirection.
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:1)
I agree with you, there is nothing stopping people from switching, except the fact that people simply didn't realize there w
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:1)
Friends dont let friends drink and post.
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:2)
I don't believe that anybody has ever changed their business practices with a press release. Neither have they done it with a list of a dozen trite platitudes.
Changing a culture just isn't that easy.
(Decide for yourself whether the MS leadership is aware of this or not, which is equivalent to saying whether this is just PR noise)
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:2)
Let's see:
- did they stop their get the fud campaign?
- did they quit redefining "downtime" in their TCO comparisons?
- did they disctontinue the "genuine advantage" spyware program and provide uninstallers?
- are they opening up the document formats and protocols for interoperability?
- Are they offering
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:2, Offtopic)
People can in fact change.
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:2)
Re:They sound like a reform plan (Score:3, Funny)
Absolutely. It'll be just like when Gates announced "Trustworthy Computing" and made security Microsoft's top priority in 2002, and then their products stopped being insecure.
That's eleven more than I knew about (Score:5, Insightful)
MAXIMIZE REVENUE
Analysis of Microsoft's behavior and the characteristics of Windows shows them to be fully and satisfactorily explained by this one hypothetical mandate.
Hear, hear (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:That's eleven more than I knew about (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's eleven more than I knew about (Score:2)
Honestly, they are a public company. If their CEO came out and said "Maximizing revenue isn't our #1 goal" he would be (rightly) fired by the board of directors. If the board refuses to fire him, they would (rightly)
Re:That's eleven more than I knew about (Score:2)
The guiding principle of every company ever (including Microsoft) is to maximize profit. For most companies, this is not same as maximizing revenue, because their products are physical objects that typically r
And the condensed version of their 12 principles (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And the condensed version of their 12 principle (Score:2)
Here they are (Score:5, Funny)
2. Came to believe that an OS greater than windows could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our computers over to GNU/Linux as we understood it.
4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of files with proprietry formats.
5. Admitted to our local LUG and to ourselves the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have Free software remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked the mailing list to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had sent malicious code to, and sent GNU/Linux install CD's.
9. Help such people with the installation wherever possible, except when to do so would result in them being fired.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we had used proprietry programs, formats or protocols promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through slashdot and man pages to improve our conscious contact with GNU/Linux, as we understood it, asking only for knowledge of how to get our hardware working and perform our tasks.
12. Having had an awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other sufferers, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Re:Here they are (Score:1, Troll)
I was with you up to step #11 (Score:2)
If Slashdot were my sponsor, I'd drink myself to death.
Re:Grow up (Score:2)
30 years? (Score:1)
Re:30 years? (Score:2)
MS started in 1975 (from memory), so the ~30 years would be dead accurate in that case...
In any case, Microsoft's backstabbing tactics pre-date Windows...
Microsoft just wants to make money (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft just wants to make money (Score:2)
If this is just marketing talk then they're lying. That's fraud.
Some companies walk the walk. M$ just talks the talk.
It's a real shame that the legal system isn't sophisticated enough to deal with the likes of M$ well.
---
Creating simple artificial scarcity with copyright and patents on things that can be copied billions of times at minimal cost is a fundamentally stupid economic idea.
Re:Microsoft just wants to make money (Score:2)
Everyone should learn at school: Buyer beware.
Re:Microsoft just wants to make money (Score:2)
Lying is not a crime. As long as they aren't promising anything in a sales contract, they can say whatever they like. If you want a promise, get it written in your contract. You are kidding yourself if you believe PR speak can be judged in a court of law.
It's certainly unethical. It's also called truth in advertising and people can go to jail if they break it too much. You're correct in that PR speak is not held to as high a standard as contracts but the standard is there. And as I've already stated the
Developers (Score:4, Funny)
1. Developers
2. Developers
3. Developers
4. Developers
5. Developers
6. Developers
7. Developers
8. Developers
9. Developers
10. Developers
11. Developers
12. Developers
Developers? $500, $500, $500, $500, $500, $500 (Score:2)
If Microsoft wants to attract developers, especially hobbyist developers, then why is it requiring a VeriSign code signing certificate, priced at 499.99 USD per developer per year, in order to have device drivers load at all on Windows Vista 64-bit edition OS?
30 years? (Score:2)
Perhaps if they had hired a few of those philosophy PhD:s currently being gainfully employed in the fast-food industry, they could have gotten them into production faster?
Re:30 years? (Score:1)
hmm... (Score:1, Funny)
1. Idea
2. Marketing research
3. Develop
4. Create a "mysterious" website promo
5. Spend gazillion dollars on marketing
6.
12. Profit
It does not bode well (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft badly needs a reboot with people in charge who can give this company a real vision.
Re:It does not bode well (Score:2)
The strange thing about this statement, is MS has never restricted an OEM from putting literally anything on the start menu. (Have you seen some of the crap companies like Compaq and Dell load on computers?)
Now that I think about it, maybe MS would be better off if they 'did' limit this... (j/k)
obligatory Prestowitz reference (Score:3, Insightful)
no use... (Score:1)
Re:no use... (Score:2)
Where the rules came from (Score:4, Informative)
Am I the only person who saw this?
Translation: We had to make some changes to keep from getting hit by more massive lawsuits, and then thanks to the EU ruling we had to make yet more changes. But we're going to act like it was voluntary because it looks better.
Where in there is "we've figured out some things that customers want and we're going to provide them"? No, this is all "let's keep from being sued again".
Re:Where the rules came from (Score:3, Interesting)
Do not make the mistake of thinking that MS is full of stupid people; they know exactly what they're doing. Just because their aims and methods are not ours doesn't make them any less able.
and what's wrong with that? (Score:2)
And you have a problem with that?
There's nothing in that statement you quoted that indicates they arrived at all the tenets themselves.
These tenets are simply a tool for Microsoft to guide the development of Windows in a direction that they believe will maximize their profits, partially by minimizing fine
I'm tempted to believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
Take Google. It's the "not evil" company. Now, I might be mistaken, but doesn't Google have a similar position in areas like web search and to some extent web mail that MS has in the areas of OS and office? But where's the outcry?
MS has a huge image problem. It's become the "evil" company, it has the status that IBM held in the 70s and 80s, the monopolist who forces his solutions down your throat because you have no choice. Now, we all know what happened to IBM when the "IBM-compatible" PCs hit the market: They lost that market completely. Not because their machines were inferior or (too) expensive (yes, they were expensive but many companies care more for TCO than cost of the machine alone), they lost it with their image as the one who strangleholds you, and the customer fearing the lock-in.
MS is in the same position today. Using an MS client product almost forces you to purchase an MS server, which in turn forces you to buy MS client licenses for the server, which in turn almost forces you to use MSSQL (if for nothing else then for convenience's sake), you have an MS domain controller (because you fear that they just MIGHT change the protocol and your Linux DC won't be able to work it out) and so on.
A lot of companies, and also a lot of governments in Europe, are migrating to Linux because of this. And MS certainly does not enjoy this trend.
So it's not a move to be "less evil". It's simply a move to avoid losing more market share than absolutely necessary.
Re:I'm tempted to believe it (Score:3, Informative)
You STILL don't get it? The outcry was not about MS having a monopoly, but about using this monoploy to illegally gain advantages in other markets.
Re:I'm tempted to believe it (Score:2)
Re:I'm tempted to believe it (Score:2)
I think they missed a few: (Score:5, Interesting)
14. We will not treat the user as a criminal.
15. We will fully respect the user's privacy. As such, we will install a working hosts file and NO Microsoft program can send any information back to us without explicitly stating what will be sent back, why, and who gets to see it. The Windows firewall will also be able to block all incoming and outgoing traffic, including traffic that reports to Microsoft. We will not put "backdoors" into our products.
16. We will fully respect the user's sovereignty over his or her own data. We will never allow the OS or any Microsoft programs to prevent people from accessing, modifying, or distributing data on their computers in whatever manner they wish to.
17. We are not the police. We cannot and will not attempt to stop users from doing any act on their computers that may violate any license, ordinance, or act in their particular region. It is the user's responsibility to comply with all local laws and regulations.
Number 18: (Score:2)
Re:I think they missed a few: (Score:2)
Translation (Score:5, Informative)
And we can get past all that antitrust litigation.
Oh, we forgot to mention the entire open source movement and anything they happen to create. Them and Google. Oh, and Apple. Um... how about if we just limit this to companies we can buy or crush?
Again with the antitrust thing. Of course there's nothing saying you won't buy or destroy the other company, retaliation is completely different.
#$%$^ EU.
Wait, didn't we just say no retaliation? Oh, you meant retaliation against them? Ok, them too.
We had this cool system all ready to go, but the marketing dept said they couldn't find a good way to sell it without pissing off the anti-trust folks.
Ok, so just this one time, we are going to do what we were order to do by the courts. But don't push your luck.
We think there's a lot of money to be made here.
Except to those damn open source folks, we'll make sure the license is way to restrictive for them.
We always have. Just ignore the fact that we then extend them to our own liking. And that process usually means we have to break a few parts of the standard.
So, yeah, nothing to see here folks. Move along.
Ne business API (Score:2)
12 simple points. (Score:3, Funny)
2. Indulge ie Embrace
3. Extend
4. FUD
5. Smart guided FUD via 'grass roots' or strange legal 'problems'
6. Extend
7. Extend
8. Embrace
9. Embrace
10-12 Extend
The spiritual awakening is the extinguish part.
Choice, MS-style (Score:2)
I guess 'choice for users' was to have been the 13th step, but MS thought it would be unlucky.
Well, this sounds all nice and all ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Spin and marketing (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems like just talk to me. Microsoft are aware they have annoyed a lot of people. I think they are sincere in trying to fix that, they know that if they don't people will stop buying their products, however I still see signs they still don't 'get it'. Throughout the article I get the feeling that Microsoft cannot concieve of a world where they don't have a monopoly on the desktop. There is a lot of talk about releasing API documentation so 3rd partys can write software to run on Windows, and about how box builders should be free to install 3rd party software on the Windows boxes they sell. They even state:
This indicates to me that the two products are only partially seperated, unless customers may choose to run Windows Live without running Windows, a statement which is conspicuous by it's absence. I expect what we are seeing here is partly a response to the EU fines, and partly the start of the "Next time will be different" campaign for Vista.
Re:Spin and marketing (Score:2)
Really, even taken in context, that statement has an incredibly high WTF factor. It would be kind of like if I said "Really, our car business is decoupled from our house business. You're perfectly free to buy a house without a car."
WTF? Why would you phrase it that way unless you are trying to dispell rumors (probably founded in
Cable and Telephone companies take note (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cable and Telephone companies take note (Score:2)
With my best tin-foil hat on, I think they've thought about charging people for running non-MS apps on windows machines. And may well do so; of course, bigger companies like IBM will be able to pay some sort of fee - call it a rental. The main controlling mechanism would be WGA which would monitor any applications you use. And it would be forced on you by the EULA and presented as being for your Genuine Advantage.
Of course, you would no longer be able to write your own ap
Is this really an improvement? (Score:2)
This is one of the worse things about Windows IMHO. I like to keep my desktop clean and don't want installs to drop shortcuts and folders on my desktop, in my start menu, in the quicklunch bar, in the system tray and then set it to autolaunch on startup - especially when the application
Re:Is this really an improvement? (Score:2)
Re:AA (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The first step ... (Score:3, Funny)