AOL, Microsoft Squabble Over Control of Online Music 185
Section8 writes: "As if Microsoft wasn't pushing on so many other fronts already (see Part 1 and Part 2), now it seems that Microsoft is seeking to place itself in total control of what format we use on the Internet to view anything. This article in the Wall Street Journal gives some interesting facts about what Microsoft is trying to do out there. Great quote from AOL rep: "[it is] Microsoft's intention to gain as much control over music on the Internet as they have over operating systems on the computer desktop, and we couldn't accept that"." AOL's merger with Time-Warner has given them greater incentive to not use Microsoft's media format... There's also a report on the AOL/Microsoft talks published by AOL.
Battle of the Goliaths (Score:2)
Should be an entertaining watch... (Score:1)
I don't see what the problem is (Score:3)
As long as they use continue to use open standards (http/html, xml, ogg [oggvorbis.org]) to distribute their music, the competitive commercial environment will take care of the rest. If someone believes that Microsoft is distributing money at too high a cost, they can use the same tools to sell music themselves, as any company would do in an open market. The only risk is that Microsoft might try to replace say, html, with their own proprietary system that only runs on Windows. Only then do competitors like AOL and you and me face a serious risk.
I don't use any of their software, but -- who knows -- their services might be good stuff. We all know that most of their endeavours outside software are pretty good (hardware like optical mice, force feedback joysticks, Xbox). Kudos to Microsoft and shame on you if you revert to your proprietary tactics of yesteryear!
Oh my god! (Score:5)
That's shocking! What, have they developed some sort of ultra-secret "explorer for the internet" application that can be used to view web pages?
Is there some "media player for windows" that will be provided with every copy of their OSes?
Nexy you'll tell me they have even built an "encoder" of some sort for this strange new audio technology.
Its a good thing AOL has discovered this secret, nefarious plot and warned us all in advance!...
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Porn (Score:4)
Re:I don't see what the problem is (Score:2)
This is a good exemple of what they are doing behing everybody's back..
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leveraging a monopoly position (Score:4)
Microsoft seems to have decided that it has nothing to fear from the court, and unfortunately it may be correct. However, I prefer to think that the court of appeals hinted that it would not break up the company in order to see how Microsoft behaved once the pressure was off, and that they are taking careful note of the fact that the company is continuing to engage in plainly anticompetitive practices based on its monopoly power.
Tim
Will this help the consumer any? (Score:4)
windows media vs real (Score:1)
How the hell would they do that? I'm a consumer, I want to consume internet music...
Real Media, Quicktime, Windows Media... I can't believe these fools can't agree on a standard format of somekind.
In other news... (Score:5)
(and then I woke up)
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
GREAT! (Score:2)
And don't kid yourselves, both Microsoft and AOL/TW are monopolies, despite whatever you might have heard about regulations being wrong, and another form of 'communism', etc. Whatever the rhetoric, the fact is that our founders understood the need for regulations as a protective measure for consumers, and democracy as a whole. You can read about how their concerns were ignored in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, when restrictions on mass ownership of news/media outlets were all but erased; here [fcc.gov], here [fcc.gov], here [fcc.gov], and here [fcc.gov].
Enemy of my Enemy is my friend??? (Score:1)
Issues with AOL/TW not allowing competitive ISP ads on their cable, and everyone knows the issues with Microsoft.. Which one's the worse?
It looks like for this issue with file formats, we should be supporting AOL, since the Real Player is available for Linux, unlike the Windows Media Player..
Is there any work on a player for Linux that would play the Media Player files, or is there a problem with Copyright/Trade secrets for any potential developers?
don't forget.... (Score:3)
Good for Mozilla (Score:5)
BTW Netscape 6.1beta1 [netscape.com] is now out and it's based on Mozilla 0.9.1 [mozilla.org] it's a MASSIVE improvement over Netscape 6.01 and 6.0 which were quite frankly a joke, therefore Netscape's not dead yet and if we can get AOL to support Netscape/Mozilla then there's a good future for the browser.
Our Strategy (Score:3)
bukra fil mish mish
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Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
Re:umm..it's not some evil plot, it's business (Score:1)
Generic comment header (Score:2)
New poll idea (Score:5)
Which of the following is most evil:
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine! =P
Re:windows media vs real (Score:1)
scary.
This whole thing is making me sick... (Score:1)
I swear I'll never read another article concerning the music media again.
from now on I mind my own business as I proceed to rip all my CDs to .mp3 format, if it dies out it won't be because of me. And yes, I do intend to share!
MP3 or OSS formats (Score:4)
I guess mindshare is everything... and MP3 has it. Sorry AOL/MS.
I will, however, have to reassess the statement that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
How ironic that since we have a government not interested in enforcing anti-trust law, the major force for promoting competition in the sheep-consumer marketplace is the merged corporate monolith AOL/Time-Warner.
What a world...
Re:Enemy of my Enemy is my friend??? (Score:5)
I'm not a big fan of either one, personally. While both are nice for watching broadcast media like NASA TV, I don't like the way many sites use them as a "Thou shalt not download" tool on their media (it feels like a TV station trying to prevent me from using my VCR). Especially when they force me to download a proprietary player to view something they could have easily just encoded as an MPG.
(Anybody else miss the days before the banner ad?)
And as far as who I think we should support, I think we should support the idea of both of them mutually driving each other out of business. While Windows wants to make their own music encoding scheme the new standard, AOL/TW is also trying to fuck with on-line music through the RIAA.
All in all, these two companies were in talks to try to divy up markets, deciding how we can and cannot access parts of the internet, while a new MP3 codec was released.
This is a tough one (Score:2)
Good for Netscape (Score:5)
Try Netscape 6.1 PR 1 [netscape.com], it's much better than the crappy Netscape 6.0 browser, if you've not tried it, give it a go and let them know what you think (select Help > Feedback Center), even if Mozilla based browsers get a 20% market share it should be enough to encourage webmasters to code to standards and write pages to work anywhere.
Can we win no matter what? (Score:1)
Open standards for content is much much more important than bitching about Microsoft Windows. I just wished I could tell you all how to fix this...
Re:Good for Mozilla (Score:3)
What about other operating systems? (Score:1)
That said, the biggest problem I see with all of this is that MS will most likely not make there proprietary formats available to users of other operating systems and stengthening their monopoly as well.
I think that MS should be allowed to create whatever formats they choose to use for their products but they should be forced to either: a) publish the format for anyone to see and use or b) create viewers/editors for alternative operating systems includeing Linux, BeOS, and others.
I like being able to get RealPlayer for Linux, particularly when most streaming video and audio is in Real format. I don't like the idea of not being able to get any streaming audio or video or getting poor quality because everyone has switched to a MS format which is only available to users of Windows.
All I ask of MS is to provide viewers/editors to other operating systems or to make it possible for third parties to create these viewers/editors.
Mod the parent post up. (Score:4)
Let's not waste this opportunity.
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Something is rotten here (Score:3)
Does anything seem funny here. If realplayer and M$ Media Player use different incompatible formats, why would M$ not install it. It does not compete with their product. What I am thinking is that there may be a deeper issue here. One is that they would want to reduce the amount of realplayer formatted files on the net. But why, everyone knows that no one will switch to wma's. It will be either mp3's or something else. Not wma's. I don't see windows winning here.
Also I think there is another thing brewing here, although this one is more of a conspiracy theory, but given the XP integrated CD-R copyright protection, and online checking that only 2 copies of same disk can be installed, it is a possibility. Something tells me M$ will force every player to go through the codec system, meaning realplayer would have to use the codec, thus Windows Media would be able to play any format, and since its preinstalled....(fill in rest here). The funny thing is that given the track record of realplayer for win, I don't think that that is such a bad idea.
On the other hand I would hate to see M$ player be the only player, given that it starts sucking more and more, especially in the RAM department.
Remember, when you are downloading MP3's, you are downloading communism!!!
RE: umm... it's not evil it's just business (Score:4)
Using and/or developing open source software has nothing to do with communism, it has to do with co-operation and problem solving, computing is not like farming or fast food or some other regular business it is more like a science and a technology that is developing very quickly and is just as important to our evolution as say, modern medicine or energy generation
i for one believe that people should work and co-operate together for the advancement of computing not hide there favorite new advances from other brilliant minds like one would hide their new cheese burger recipe.
I do not believe that proprietary software is "immoral" or "wrong" however i do believe that people working together openly to develop new software technologies and sharing ideas and advancments is a great thing and is much more productive than the proprietary development model.
While i do agree that computing is a great source of income and jobs in this world i also believe it is a great technology and it's continued advancment can not be trusted 100% to companies especially these days when most companies fight each other with lawsuits and illegal practices rather than better products and idea's.
Not to mention that the Internet was developed with *our* tax dollars and depends 100% on open standards and protocols. Changing the formats of the internet to only work with your products is no different that changing a national interstate highway to only work with yoru model of car. that is exactly what microsoft is attempting to do. Also if you knew anything about the law you would know that using a monopoly to try and gain another monopoly is illegal.
I do not appreciate being insulted, and called a communist, especially by a person who obvioulsy has no idea what they are talking about
Re:Battle of the Goliaths (Score:2)
Microsoft-AOL-Time-Warner
What about porn (Score:2)
It'd be kinda interesting if... (Score:2)
Of course, there are the usual complaints and caveats: for every content protection scheme, there is a potential hack (though one wonders if open source could do better at content protection); why should there be protection in the first place (though suppliers -- i.e. RIAA -- will never go along with that line of argument IMO); would such an effort result in a fork of OV (since I doubt the main body of developers would go along with such an idea); and so on.
I don't really advocate this, but I think it's an interesting idea nonetheless, and it would at least be a way to put a dent in WMP as a format of choice for the RIAA...
Oh hell, I'll just go back to ripping my own MP3s with iTunes. Rip, mix, burn and all that.
cya
Ethelred
Re:Good for Netscape (Score:2)
Aren't they a little too late? (Score:2)
What truly matters is the LIMITATIONS. Can I play this on another platform? Can I copy this to my RAM player/mp3 cd player/mp3 car stereo/mp3 home stereo? Can I share it with whoever I want? Can I convert it to a future format, or am I forever stuck with the one I have?
Also, most good systems are open standards, think mpg3/4, which are currently the most used audio and video standard (though you need at the very least a wrapper to make a MOVIE with both video and sound, like wmv, divx etc). People can look at that and suggest how to make it better.
Kjella
Its a Microsoft world.... (Score:1)
GO MICROSOFT GO!
Re:Something is rotten here (Score:1)
Re:Good for Netscape (Score:2)
As for normal users: I's like to see them use Netscape as it gives Netscape market share and the bosses at AOL/TW are more likely to allow Netscape people working on Mozilla, if everyone uses unbranded Mozilla then they have no incentive. The improvements in 6.1 show that they've realised that people don't like in your face advertising and endless amounts of links.
As for me, I'll mainly stick with Mozilla as I get nightlies and like to be on the cutting edge.
Re:here is an idea (Score:5)
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Re:This is a tough one (Score:1)
Re:What about porn (Score:1)
A recent study shows that 50% of people staying in major hotels rent at least 1 pr0n movie. Direct TV which carries several pr0n channels is owned by Hughes Aircraft (a division of General Motors).
Re:Something is rotten here (Score:1)
Remember, when you are downloading MP3's, you are downloading communism!!!
Re:Something is rotten here (Score:2)
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Re:don't forget.... (Score:1)
Winamp (Score:1)
A truly great player for things we cherish most (read: mp3)
Why not just bundle that...(besides it is owned by AOL).
M$ will never agree.....
Remember, when you are downloading MP3's, you are downloading communism!!!
don't forget (Score:1)
Re:Good for Netscape (Score:1)
Re:here is an idea (Score:1)
That said, you completely missed the point. I doubt you read what I linked, and you obviously don't understand the difference between a monopolized market and 'competitive capitalism'. Let me try it this way:
AOL/TW vs. Microsoft = Plutocratical [dictionary.com]
Speakeasy DSL [speakeasy.net] vs. Carolina Broadband [carolinabroadband.com] = Capitalistic
If you can't see the difference, let me expand on my point: the first group accounts for over 25% of ALL MEDIA in the country; including TV, radio, newspapers, movies, music, software, and the internet. They have no competition because they control the medium through which their competitors would normally be advertising [slashdot.org]. Once the practice in that story spreads, in places like Charlotte North Carolina (where I live), you won't see any commercials that advertise any product that competes with any product sold by AOL/TW -- because Time Warner provides the ONLY Cable TV service.
And why the hell are you so motivated to be against diversity of choice?? No one here is trying to change the laws from what they were; the Telecommunications Act did that by changing what the laws HAD BEEN FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY. The people who ARE trying to change them, are doing it to put them back the way they were SUPPOSED to be.
Re:I don't see what the problem is -- I do (Score:5)
They are not using open standards to distribute the music, that's the whole point to the article.
The content may be transmitted via TCP/IP, but they are encoding in their own media format (including DRM and being proprietary source just for starters) and trying to kill the Real format.
MS will never do anything with
MS using open standards? I think not. They have subverted or attempted to subvert every single standard they have come near (Kerberos, smart tags, anybody?)
One doesn't trust an addict until they have admitted that they have a problem, apologized/made amends *and* exhibited changed behavior. MS has made no steps whatsoever of this kind. They continue to thumb thier nose at government anti-trust action, lie, deceive and subvert to this very moment.
Well, they don't have a monopoly on endeavours outside software, they are at least required to compete on the merits of the product.
Kudos to Microsoft and shame on you if you revert to your proprietary tactics of yesteryear!
??? Huh? Revert? Yesteryear?
Shame on them? Proprietary tactics? Yup. To this very day. That's what the whole problem is in the negotiations between them and AOL.
And shame on AOL too. They're no angels. They demand proprietary solutions as well. They just don't have quite as large a monopoly to leverage.
Re:I don't see what the problem is (Score:2)
Re:windows media vs real (Score:2)
Re:Something is rotten here (Score:1)
Re:New poll idea (Score:2)
Re:Good for Netscape (Score:2)
It's very simple to write a page to the standards that works in both Mozilla and recent versions of IE with NO browser sniffing code, you may have to ditch support for IE4 or add some code to cater for IE4 too (not difficult), but you should design pages to the standard spec, it'll then work in Mozilla, in recent versions of Windows IE (most standards are supported now) and Mac IE (which is more standards compliant than the Windows version), also not forgetting Opera.
Open-source content protection impossible (Score:1)
For instance, if the consumer is not supposed to make a copy of some streamed content, the player program accomplishes this by simply not giving the user that capability. If a particular media file is only supposed to by playable by a certain person on a certain computer, the playr program accomplishes this by looking at part of the file that gives it such instructions, and comparing them with something stored on the computer.
Obviously, if you had the source code to a program which worked in this way, it'd be trivial examine that source and write a patch which disabled all the content-protection mechanisms. Open-source software simply cannot be used to limit people's freedom.
Re:Porn (Score:3)
He: "Hey, baby, where do you want to go today?"
She: "Ooooh, nice glasses! I love short men! Please fsck me!"
He: "Fsck? No way, baby, haven't you heard, you can get cancer with that stuff? It's defrag.exe or nothin'..."
She: "I suppose I have to register first, huh? Still, that's an Xcellent Penis, I'd pay $30 a month for some of that lovin', hon..."
He: "Yeah baby, you know it's cheaper to get it this way than to buy it outright... 'sides you couldn't afford me without the subscription..."
She: "God I love it when you talk dirty..." [ fade to black ]
Re:New poll idea (Score:1)
Re:This whole thing is making me sick... (Score:1)
Re:MP3 or OSS formats (Score:5)
That's the part that still scares me.
If MS really wanted to take over the world, they'd do to MP3 what they did to AVI.
That is, they'd use the same file extension to represent dozens of codecs, many of which were proprietary.
Download an arbitrary .AVI and ask yourself what you really have. It's pretty tough. YUV? IV31, IV41, IV51? 2.63? MPEG4v2? MPEG4v3? DivX ;-)
Attempt to play an AVI with even one byte screwed up in Windoze Media Player, and it says "Nope, I won't even show you the video up until the corrupt part." (Sometimes you can get around this with File->Properties->Preview in the 'doze explorer, which just shows how brain-dead WindozeMediaPlayer is).
So WTF does this have to do with MP3? Plenty.
People like to swap files that end in the .MP3 extension. All Bill has to do is pay Thompson enough money, and buy the right to stuff whatever crap he wants into a file ending in .MP3, and stuff whatever brains he wants into Windoze Media Player to say "Ah, the file ends in .MP3, but it's actually a WinMedia or RealVideo file. I'll decode it accordingly".
On the encoding front, it'd be easy for him to do the same thing - MP3Pro (different codec, same file extension, albeit with some backwards compatibility) from Thompson is already doing this. Bill could make his "music recorder" tool record in a proprietary codec, but save the file with the .MP3 extension.
Within a month, clueless luzers would flood the pool of MP3s with these Windoze-only files that happen to end in ".MP3", and we'd be in the .AVI situation - "Damn, this thing won't play, what the hell codec do I need today" all over again.
With .AVI, it was inevitable, as we had CPU speeds going from 16 MHz to 1.6 GHz - a factor of 1000 - and similar growth in hard drive sizes. We really can do better video today that we couldn't have fantasized about when the first .AVI codecs were introduced.
But music? No thanks. MP3 at 320 is indistinguishable (for me and anyone I know) from CD. For most folks, MP3 at 192 is "good enough". For anyone - by definition - a lossless compression of the original .WAV is "perfect". We already have most, if not all, of the technology we're ever likely to need when it comes to "How can I make this compressed bitstream sound like the 2-channel stereo recorded on this CD".
All that's left is to screw it up by embedding it in various DRM schemes. I dunno about you, but I think I'll pass on that.
Re:New poll idea (Score:1)
For great justice, go to the AYBABTU history page [retrogames.com] and download a music video or two.
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our tax dollars? ummm Reality Check (Score:4)
This is only true if you are talking about the old internet, the one used by the DoD and the defense industry. That baby was designed for national security and can withstand a nuclear strike. However, the modern internet, optical fiber based, was developed by the major telecommunications companies to increase voice traffic. Data traffic was originally secondary. I seriously doubt the companies like Cisco, Alcatel, and Lucent were using tax dollars to develop their products.
and depends 100% on open standards and protocols
Um, wrong again. Open standards don't really exist in networking or in telecommunications. Every vendor does things differently. The OSI model is NOT widely used and each vendor has its own implementation of what they want to do. Remember IPX? TCP/IP has finally taken over and dominated networking as Novell will now allow a server to run on solely TCP/IP.
Lets get real people.
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We must find the Goldilocks zone.
Re:umm..it's not some evil plot, it's business (Score:1)
Microsoft isn't trying to control anything based on merit or technical superiority.
What a load of shite. The two main things talked about in the AOL/MS discussions are web browsing and multimedia. IE is technically superior to the competition. WMA is technically superior to MP3. WMV is technically superior to Real Video.
Pretend all you want that Netscape's troubles were due to IE bundling instead of the simple fact that their code was crap, but the fact of the matter is that the real reason people switch is because Microsoft puts out a better product.
Cheers,
Doesn't matter (Score:1)
While they may not be truely open source (I still shudder at that name (it should just be GPL folks)), I don't care. The formats have been toyed with enough that they are understood.
Just my 2 cents
Re:GREAT! (Score:1)
I know that a rational argument can be made that Microsoft has a desktop monopoly, but please explain how AOL is a monopoly.
Cheers,
Re:here is an idea (Score:1)
Microsoft and AOL have (mostly) gotten their power fair and square.
Bzzt. Sorry, if you'd read some balanced coverage of the antitrust trial you'd know that this isn't true.Re:I don't see what the problem is (Score:3)
Microsoft has always supported open standards well.
They just don't use them in anything purely Microsoft. Any Microsoft user can easily receive things using open standards. Sometimes it is a little hard for them to send things in open standards.
This is a battle royale over distribution of streaming media. In this case, Microsoft's format is already open. Neither format is a standard. Each side wants control over the server side, not the client side. Real wants to stay alive. AOL wants the streaming server marketplace to stay open. Microsoft wants EVERY server that streams audio to pay Microsoft. The same as EVERY web server.
To do this they will support open standards on their client ends. But the servers will support things propriatary to Microsoft. They merely need adequate marketshare before beginning this practice. Then it will be free client upgrades for everyone, and the server pays the piper.
Once the server is under control, leveraging the client can begin. It is all about making a buck, and slowly screwing the crap out of the consumer. The Microsoft way.
Re:Good for Netscape (Score:1)
Mozilla supports PNG fully and has no problem accessing secure sites, Netscape 6.1 therefore has no problems with these features.
...and anyone who's actually seen IE2 will know this is an obvious troll and not a good one at that
Re:Something is rotten here (Score:1)
Re:Some people just dont understand... (Score:2)
Imagine if it was IBM's OS/2 that became the number 1 desktop? Do you not think that you would be say this instead:
"Slashdot is becoming less and less of a place of information and more a platform for anti-IBM, anti-corporation propaganda."
Who knows in this case if MSFT would have taken a liking to Linux and made their own distro?
You are of course correct in that corps have to make the most money available. The part you did not cover is what happens when it becomes to big and powerful, therebye halting consumer choice, killing off innovation and driving up prices? That is a hallmark of a Monopoly....
So, yes most people here are angry at MSFT for those very reasons.
>Many of slashdot's readers fail to recognize that Microsoft and >AOL are both responsible for making the internet accessable >to the normal, non-techie consumer.
Have we forgotten OS/2 (you know, the one from IBM that got killed off)? AOL had clever marketing, just pour out millions of CD's....Indeed I remember the days before AOL, it was so easy to get connected via Compuserve. And if you were in the UK, Demon Internet was very easy too. Hate to say it, your remark was almost as bad as the one some people make about MSFT and paychecks...Sorry it could have easily been another company. And yes, we could easily be "hating" that other company.
StarTux
Re:Who Cares? (Score:3)
MS just did, that's the point of the article. And AOL wasn't the one forcing or guilting anything. They wanted to purchase a service from Microsoft, and Microsoft started making demands that AOL reduce the value of their product by removing support for a third party Microsoft competitor's media format. AOL declined and let the matter drop. Where is AOL forcing anything? Are the suing to get their software onto the desktop(they would actually have a valid case because Microsoft's demands are illegal)? No, they're simply letting it drop.
More like "Walmart to have clothing department". Yeah, you never see anything like that in real life. Hell, there's even a McDonald's in the one around here, which is probably a more accurate analogy.
Lemme guess, you're one of those right-wing authoritarian feudalists who call themselves free-market capitalists? You seem to know, but simply not understand, that America Online does not produce an operating system that competes with Microsoft Windows. Neither does Real. Let me repeat that for the thinking-impaired in the audience:
AMERICA ONLINE DOES NOT COMPETE WITH WINDOWS
AMERICA ONLINE DOES NOT COMPETE WITH WINDOWS
AMERICA ONLINE DOES NOT COMPETE WITH WINDOWS
REAL MEDIA DOES NOT COMPETE WITH WINDOWS
REAL MEDIA DOES NOT COMPETE WITH WINDOWS
REAL MEDIA DOES NOT COMPETE WITH WINDOWS
You also seem to be under the delusion that AOL is trying to force their way onto Windows when by all accounts(except yours) that is not the case. Microsoft does not need AOL, Microsoft is not in any danger of going bankrupt if they don't get this deal, Microsoft owns the service that AOL wants. It is Microsoft that holds all the cards, and it is one of Microsoft's extra-market demands that is the sticking point in the deal, and it is AOL that chose not to play by Microsoft's rules.
Re:New poll idea (Score:2)
Re:MP3 or OSS formats (Score:2)
damn right (Score:2)
> co-operate together for the advancement of
> computing not hide there favorite new advances
> from other brilliant minds like one would hide
> their new cheese burger recipe.
that's it, i demand 'fatburger' release their cheeseburger recipe under the GPL.
if they refuse, why, i'll just order one 'to go' and reverse engineer that sucker and post it all over the web.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
You don't see a problem? (Score:2)
Re:I don't see what the problem is (Score:2)
Their "innovative" hardware they mostly develop by acquiring companies, or purchasing interests in those companies. I don't recall many hardware innovations they claim over the last 20 years that weren't copies of someone else's ideas or products. Curved keyboards, mice, trackballs, all these things were made by someone else before Official Microsoft Innovative Products came along.
Re:I don't see what the problem is (Score:2)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/imedia/windo
This was largely a play to get all clients to use its format. Otherwise, REAL likely would have dominated the market. Microsoft specializes in giving free products to establish market dominance.
The bottom line is that all clients can READ wma format (if they choose to). REAL format, OTOH, is patented. Therefore, only REAL clients can read REAL streams (or anyone else REAL allows to).
This gives Microsoft an obvious advantage in the server market. Once they own the servers... it is all over.
Re:leveraging a monopoly position (Score:2)
Re:Good for Netscape (Score:2)
Been there, done that, have a personal site [dyndns.org] to prove it. As long as you're not using Nutscrape 4.x or earlier, it dishes out standards-compliant HTML. It's been tested with IE 5.5 and Opera 5.something on Win2K, a fairly old Mozilla on Win98, IE 4.01 and a fairly recent iCab beta on MacOS (7.5.5 on a Quadra 610...old school), and Lynx on Linux. Except for iCab, all the graphical browsers rendered the page more or less the same. The Lynx rendering also looks halfway decent (if I say so myself). I'd attribute iCab's problems to being a beta...it recognizes that the page uses standard HTML and CSS, but doesn't render it properly.
(If my Apache sees that you're using Nutscrape, it runs the HTML through some "moronizer" scripts to make it displayable. It also displays a nag message that you need to get a real browser.)
Re:Will this help the consumer any? (Score:2)
Exactly! It seems to me that AOL/Time Warner isn't anti-monopoly -- it's just that they want to be the ones with the monopoly. People complain, left and right, about how Windows ships with and forces you to install IE. But I've yet to see anyone point out the fact that Netscape's custom install does not let you avoid installing AIM.
Re:You don't see a problem? (Score:2)
If you like Linux [linux.org], FreeBSD [freebsd.org], Apple [apple.com] or any other platform so much, then stay with them and shut up. There are other people who do not feel this way and they [are] concerned with those operating systems being made to look like the end-all and be-all of computing while any interest in a for-profit company must be squashed. Is it hard to understand? It is not about product it is about freedom of choice.
Amazing what your own words mean when turned around just a little bit.
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Re:I don't see what the problem is (Score:2)
In which case THEIR standard will fail. We've seen them fail with things like that before.
Re:damn right (Score:2)
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
short memories (Score:2)
Re:Good for Netscape (Score:2)
AOL and Microsoft might fight little battles over other things, but that particular informal agreement is too important to them to risk. You might see AOL attacking Windows Media Player and bundling Winamp instead, but you won't see AOL dumping IE - the little spot on the default Windows install is too valuable for them to do that (and conversely, having IE bundled with AOL is too valuable to Microsoft for them to dump the AOL icon/software in favor of MSN software).
Re:Scary Thought! (Score:2)
Re:Mod the parent post up. (Score:2)
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Re:I don't see what the problem is -- I do (Score:2)
How is Real an open standard?
How has Microsoft subverted Kerberos? Hint: They haven't.
Why must Microsoft bend over backwards to integrate AOL's crappy software into Windows XP?
You know, if AOL actually used open standards they wouldn't have to build specialized crappy software.
Re:Will this help the consumer any? (Score:2)
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Re:I don't see what the problem is -- I do (Score:3)
In fact, Microsoft - through implementation of HailStorm - is looking to find more virtual realestate to sell off or rent out, since windows desktops have physical dimensions. The solution here will partially be implemented with OfficeXP and will be firther implemented with WindowsXP. By moving services off the desktop and onto servers, microsoft is then only limited by the size of the enviromentally controlled warehouses they use for their server farms.
Back to the main issue of media formats for a moment: I wouldn't be suprised to see a move by Microsoft to implement 'streaming only' restrictions into media recordings. This idea has been played with by several companies and recording industry organizations including the RIAA [riaa.com]. This is discussed in a vary good posting on
I agree that this move by microsoft is yet another anti-competitive behavior, but I have ceased being suprised by Lord Bill's moves, a long time ago
--CTH
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Re:Oh my god! (Score:3)
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Re:I don't see what the problem is (Score:2)
Mutual Legal Release? Please. Backstab me NOW! (Score:5)
Would YOU sign an agreement like that with Micrsoft?
Re:MP3 or OSS formats (Score:2)
That is, they'd use the same file extension to represent dozens of codecs, many of which were proprietary.
I would like to point out that this is by design, not M$ EvilDoing(tm)
AVI, like Quicktime, is not a video and audio codec, but rather a file format that binds various tracks of data together. With AVI, it is audio and video. The actual encoding of the 2 tracks really doesn't matter. The same is true with Quicktime, although it is a lot more flexible.
The Quicktime file format is open, but within that file there can be numerous tracks of different types, text tracks, Flash tracks, as well as video and audio tracks. Those video and audio codecs may be (and often are) proprietary encodings.
Formats such as Quicktime and AVI are *designed* to bind separate tracks of data together, and leave the actual encoding of that to someone else.
This is why when you download an AVI, it may have a mp3 as an audio track, as mp3 is real audio encoding, and it might have a DivX/Mpeg4 video track, which is real video encoding. AVI just binds these 2 together into a single file.
While I admit, confusion would result by appending
Re:Good for Netscape (Score:2)
Microsoft wanted everything their own way and AOL weren't happy to agree, obviously MS thought that icon meant more to them than it actually did.
The first step towards... (Score:2)
It isn't about just music, its about all content. (Score:2)
Re:here is an idea (Score:2)
With GPL this is not true. If you link to GPLed code your code is forced to be GPL. This may not be such a big deal with applications, but it can be a real pain when writing drivers. Linux doesn't have a binary driver interface. This is one of the reasons that you don't see Linux drivers for a lot of hardware that's out there, or that you see open source drivers that are missing large portions of the functionality that is available in the binary Windows drivers. A lot of companies aren't willing to give away to many secrets about technology they spent millions to develop, and the design of Linux combined with the GPL makes it difficult for them to hide that information. You can still do it, but it's more difficult. Your driver breaks as the kernel goes through minor revisions. Kernel patches for other packages can easily be incompatible with your driver. Supporting different distributions is even a challenge, so you end up supporting just Red Hat to keep support costs managable. Supporting Linux drivers is a considerable challenge, and in the end how much more hardware are you going to sell because you have a Linux driver.
You want more Linux drivers, give us driver developers a binary driver interface. There is a price you will pay for them. You will end up with more closed source drivers, which is a serious issue for many Linux developers and users. Not only is there the philosophical issue of closed sourse software, there is the real issue of bugs in drivers can easily crash the kernel. A good binary interface will encourage programming styles which produce fewer bugs, but the simple fact remains that crappy drivers crash kernels, and if the source is closed, the only choice you really have is to not use it if it doesn't work well. Some companies aren't going to write open source drivers, or provide enough information for other to write them. It's up to the kernel developers to decide how willing they are to support binary driver developers. I heard that Linus is against a binary driver interface, though I have that information second hand, so I can't point you to a quote. If this is truely the case I don't expect a large increase in the number of device drivers available in the near future. Linux is a constantly evolving OS, so maybe the right time for a binary driver interface will come.
Re:MP3 or OSS formats (Score:2)
I have found that this has already actually happened.
SoundAmerica [soundamerica.com] used to (and I believe still does) encode .wav files as .mp3, but the file extension is still .wav. What this means, is that Windows Media Player, for which you need this special codec, can play these .wav files, but WinAmp has a hard time, because it thinks these are .wav files when in reality, they're .mp3 files with .wav extensions. (I once renamed one of them from .wav to .mp3, and while the quality was sub-par WinAmp played it fine.)
In all this time, I have wondered who came up with this codec and this idea of making "MP3-encoded .WAV files." I was wondering if Frauhoffer would be interested in finding this out, but chances are, with Patent Madness striking business models these days, they probably already know.
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Chief Technician, Helpdesk at the End of the World
Re:here is an idea (Score:2)
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Re:here is an idea (Score:2)
Why couldn't you just do what nVIDIA did with their kernel space driver and make a binary-only module which is compiled in with the actual kernel interfaces? This would allow future changes in the interfaces while still staying compatable with older drivers if support stops.
(I guess this is rhetorical)
Why must the hardware manufacturers worry about telling people about the interfaces to their hardware which doesn't have to give any information about any closed processes that occur inside?
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