Microsoft is to start shipping a cut-down version of Windows in Europe from January, following the failure of its appeal to the European Court of First Instance over penalties imposed by the Commission earlier this year. Microsoft hasn’t run out of appeal routes, but the Court ordered the company to begin carrying out the Commission’s decision immediately. Also see eWeek coverage.
I can only see good things come out of this. Just imagine a new kick ass application contending for WMP’s spot, that would definitely benifit consumers from all over the world.
Not talking Real or Apple, here but something new altogether.
Uhhh…yeah…this is reaaaaaaly great for european consumers. Now they have to go out and download it.
Merry Christmas
On TV today, a Microsoft Executive (ex Head of DEC UK) said that they would continue to sell BOTH versions of Windows in the stores side by side AT THE SAME PRICE.
How’s that for duplicity?
Ok EU you won that skirmish, but now go to the next battle and outlaw the contracts with Laptop Builders who won’t ship a Laptop without installing a Microsoft O/S. There is no option to have No Operating System.
On Dell’s UK site, Red Hat Linux (RHEL) is listed as being a Microsoft O/S? As Homer Simpson would say Duhhhhhh!
Ok EU you won that skirmish, but now go to the next battle and outlaw the contracts with Laptop Builders who won’t ship a Laptop without installing a Microsoft O/S. There is no option to have No Operating System.
I don’t know about europe, but I bought my laptop without an operating system. http://www.pctorque.com
There’s no contracts for laptops. It is all builders fault and only theirs. IF they want to ship laptop with linux or other OS, nothing is in their path. They just don’t want to do it.
Uhhh…yeah…this is reaaaaaaly great for european consumers. Now they have to go out and download it.
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Not at all necessary. every magazine distributed truckloads of software in DVD these days and customers always can choose whether they actually want WMP or not
This is kinda lame IMHO. Would have been much better to strip WMP and IE.
But I’m sure MS will ship the WMP-free version as buggy, errr… I mean with extra features, so that everyone will avoid it. So then people have an option, a dysfunctional poor-quality OS without WMP, or just the common standard poor-quality OS.
What we really need is competition, I can’t find a single shop in this county that sells PCs without Windows. One shop said they would ship it without windows, but they said that would costs the same price, as they had to pay Microsoft anyway.
Where is the competition in that? I can’t get hold of any decent hardware unless I build the entire system myself.
Competition will never happen without some sort of compatibility (that doesn’t necessarily mean “the ability to run windows apps” – it could also mean a completely OS independant platform.)
If you don’t use WMP, then what do you use? AFAIK, apps like Media Player Classic (decent media player) uses the codecs already built into Windows. Assuming that WMP goes, do the codecs go as well?
I did install mplayer, but it had no user inteface at all other than the command line. So, what is the alternative?
How about this?
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html
Looks like MS got screwed here. Thats what happens when you are successful. I hope that all Linux distros and Mac OS X is forced to remove their media player as well.
gmplayer or one of the other GUI frontends.
VideoLAN has WMV9 support btw, see http://nanocrew.net/blog/technology/wmv9linux.html
I think you should read the EU document about the case.
It is a well written document. And you will understand the
hole thing much better then.
Find it here and there is a PDF one too.
http://www.worldlii.org/eu/cases/ECComm/2004/1.html
A bad news to all europeans…
I think european court should also explain why linux distros have applications distributed with the operating system including media players, and microsoft windows couldn’t have them in their operating system…
I’m hardly about to argue for MS’s business practises, but I do think it’s a bit unfair that OSX continues to ship with iTunes if MS aren’t allowed to include WMP. It doesn’t seem terribly fair to me to expect Microsoft to conform to different rules to everyone else.
Sanctus: “There’s no contracts for laptops. It is all builders fault and only theirs. IF they want to ship laptop with linux or other OS, nothing is in their path. They just don’t want to do it.”
You’re wrong. Microsoft’s pricing of Windows to resellers depends on a bunch of factors, including a hefty discount if they don’t have an alternative OS.
If this wasn’t in place, there’d be a lot more resellers willing to experiment with bundling various Linux distros; as it is it’s a risk they’re not willing to take.
This is good for microsoft, because now they can battle with linux distributions companys that distribute software with their operating system. The rules are for all, not only for microsoft in democracy:)
Then I hope to see a successful Linux(maybe other too) Hardware vendor soon and non-windows user choosing that brand instead. But, maybe I’m wrong, most of all non-windows user build their PC themself, something that could make this business unsuccessful.
When this hardware vendor reach a good market, it could make other compagny think to offer that choice, even if they have a penality on windows liscence. But it can also separate brand, like Apple for Mac and brand X for Windows and some brand Y for linux.
One way or another, isn’t a question of choice?
So aassuming this all works without WMP or its codecs, I wonder if Americans will be able to get their hands on the WMP-less Windows … that would be cool
If this decision applies only to microsoft is unfair it should also apply to others operating systems.
Would going WMP-less break any apps that depend on WMP being on the system, as going without IE would break any apps that use the IE HTML renderer?
Linux distros are other things. Windows without wmplayer will stay at the same price as with wmplayer, so it won’t be cheaper. I’d like to see a version without IE and OE too, because I don’t use them. Linux contains opensource apps, so that is not a race condition for commercial software. At least I think so.
Glad I don’t live in Europe.
I don’t agree with you… i see that suse, redhat, etc… sell their operating systems, and they are not cheap, not even free.
And try to find a suse 9.2 distro to install in your hard drive( not a live distro) for free, without buying the distro at novell, if you can get it…
Just use ffdshow http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/codecs_and_filters… it’s an open source codec that support’s multiple codecs itself, has lot’s of filters, options etc. And then just use your favorite player: mpc, bsplayer, winamp, zoom, radlight, videolan etc.
I will buy windows XP in US using internet for now on… afterall i prefer it in english:) and it will have media player on it:) hehe
Would going WMP-less break any apps that depend on WMP being on the system, as going without IE would break any apps that use the IE HTML renderer?
Yeah it means WMP embedded in MSIE won’t work anymore. Duh? Live with that, we Linsux people faced that agony the past years already! Actually it started last months here, because certain idioys decided to remove their Realplayer streams in favor for WMV-only streams…
I wouldn’t recommend VideoLAN btw. The graphical interface sucks more than MPlayer’s command line or semi-command line GUI. AFAIK, MPlayer doesn’t support WMV9. YMMV.
Yes, there are other choices:
http://www.videolan.org/ = video lan client
http://www.bsplayer.org = bsplayer
Here is a site that brings various opensource projects to the Windows users out there. Yes, there is some actually very nice programs out there.
http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/
http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/
Enjoy the apps.
“If this decision applies only to microsoft is unfair it should also apply to others operating systems.”
How about when another OS controls 90 percent of the market.
“”If this decision applies only to microsoft is unfair it should also apply to others operating systems.”
How about when another OS controls 90 percent of the market.”
How does that make any difference? One OS isnt allowed their media player while others are? That still makes it unfair, no matter what percentage an OS may control.
“Looks like MS got screwed here. Thats what happens when you are successful. I hope that all Linux distros and Mac OS X is forced to remove their media player as well.”
If you want you CAN uninstall Quicktime from Mac OS X to replace it with another media player, as MPlayer. Quicktime is NOT a system component in OSX. OSX works well without it. Quicktime is a component only for apps that need it, if it is.
From Windows XP today you CAN’T uninstall Windows Media Player, even if you or your apps don’t need it.
How about OS’s just having components selectable for install like my Linux Distro. When I install from disc I get a basic command line OS where then I can proceed to install the components I want.
Alternative to WMP how about WinAmp??? Plays vids quite well and all audio. I would assume any windows install would have a dedicated DVD software player as part of the software distributed with their Graphics Card.
Whilst we are at it, can we piss off
Front Page Express
Movie Maker
Net Meeting
Outlook Express
Internet Explorer
Windows Firewall
and have in stall with minimal services needed for basic functinability. Extended services could be turned on with software installation choices but not by default.
Windows needs to be mean and clean. At the moment there is way too much crap in it’s default install that doesn’t need to be on many peoples hard drive.
Half of you people have no clue what you’re talking about, mainly the “Linux distros are allowed to bundle media players, but MS isn’t – that’s unfair” crowd.
The major difference is the Linux distros don’t have a 90% virtual monopoly in the OS market.. oh, and you can uninstall mplayer/xine/gstreamer/whatever..
By bundling WMP with Windows and making WMA its default format, a whole load of people have switched to WMA for no other reason than “its bundled with windows.. ooh! ooh! that immediately makes it better and easier to use”. Now, don’t you go telling me this decision is unfair on Microsoft. Why don’t you go telling Real/Apple/Vorbis people, whose codecs are getting crushed by WMA for no reason other than the bundling of WMP.
Why do they ‘have’ to? Personally, if I were running XP, I’d go out and download Media Player Classic instead. And RealPlayer, for MLB.tv.
BTW, they didn’t lose an appeal against the ruling, exactly. This matter was part of their overall appeal; Microsoft contested that the sanctions of the original decision should be lifted while the appeal progressed, and the EU contested that they should be carried out immediately. The EU won this decision. It has no bearing on the actual appeal against the original case.
“I think european court should also explain why linux distros have applications distributed with the operating system including media players, and microsoft windows couldn’t have them in their operating system…”
Because Microsoft is an incumbent monopoly whose actions can have massive impacts on markets, whereas no Linux distributor is. The effect on the media player market of Microsoft bundling WMP into the operating system is huge; the effect of Mandrake bundling Xine and Mplayer is practically zero. The commercial entities pushing this particular case aren’t Linux distributors, they’re media companies, in particular Real (who dominated the market before Microsoft muscled in using bundling to give WMP an instant huge market share).
By crond:
A bad news to all europeans…
I think european court should also explain why linux distros have applications distributed with the operating system including media players, and microsoft windows couldn’t have them in their operating system..
——————————————-
The difference for me is that MS only bundle their own Media Player giving them a distinct advantage over other Media Player (and associated services) companies. Linux distros on the other hand often come with a bunch of different Media Players, which are often not associated-with/controlled-by the distro.
I don’t think this is specifically about bundling an app, otherwise the calculator (etc/etc) developers of these world would also be suing. It’s more about the power and control MS gets from WMP (streaming/codecs/web content).
Best point is missing:
MS has to lay open some proprietary interface specifications too. Always a good thing because competition is possible.
And some ideas why a Windows without WMP is a very good thing:
The WMV format can’t rule out other formats like Real or Quicktime as easy as the IE ruled out Netscape because of the system bundling years ago. Remember: competition is good for the user.
Monoculture is bad, bad, bad. Look at all the worms and which OS and which browser is affected. People are lazy. If a media player comes with the OS, the most won’t install another one.
It is more difficult to establish DRM (Digital Restriction Management) because there’s no platform that exists on the majority of the computers. DRM is bad for consumers and benefits only the companies.
You can’t legally use the WMV-Codec on other OS. A disadvantage for Linux e.g. if WMV gets more and more popular (not because of it’s quality but the bundling with Windows).
You can’t compare it with the media players that are included in a Linux distro. There are always more than one player included and no Linux distro spreads it’s own proprietary codec with it. And there’s not ONE linux distributions – there are… a lot.
No monoculture like one Windows. No monoculture – no simple target for worm programmers.
or RealPlayer, or Quicktime, or DivX Player. Also, it’s perfectly possible to install codecs without installing WMP (or it was last time I checked), there’s a genuine codec libraries / player distinction as on *nix systems.
http://www.onlinecomputerstore.co.uk/
“I’m hardly about to argue for MS’s business practises, but I do think it’s a bit unfair that OSX continues to ship with iTunes if MS aren’t allowed to include WMP. It doesn’t seem terribly fair to me to expect Microsoft to conform to different rules to everyone else.”
It’s not unfair, because Microsoft is a monopoly, and Apple isn’t. Monopolies follow different rules from everyone else, because a monopoly has serious negative effects on a market economy (go ask Adam Smith). Does iTunes dominate the media player market? Nope.
“How does that make any difference? One OS isnt allowed their media player while others are? That still makes it unfair, no matter what percentage an OS may control.”
As I keep saying, BECAUSE MICROSOFT IS A MONOPOLY. Please go learn some economics. The *reason* monopolies are constrained by laws not applied to other companies is that the actions of monopolies have substantially different results from the actions of normal, competitive companies. This is a basic tenet of market economics. After all, the idea of free markets was a *reaction* against monopoly economics. If you want a free market economy (or some vague simulacrum of it), you have to have monopoly legislation. Every market state recognises this.
maybe ms will add a nag screen that tells the user to download wmp or windows wont work 100%
Bahh, nobody ever forced you to buy windows anyway, no matter how much the zealouts insist they were.
—–
thats not the point. its debundling WMP from windows for the reason that MS is a monopoly in the OS industry and shouldnt be allowed to leverage it against other media players.
Its illegal. thats all
“Does iTunes dominate the media player market? Nope.”
does itunes dominate the online music store market? yes!
so apple should be forced to remove it from osx and the cd that comes with your ipod.
Unbundling WMP does nothing to change windows “monopoly” status at all.
Of course not. You missed the point. This was all about prevention. What the EU Commission’s ruling does is to prevent Microsoft from leveraging their operating system monopoly on the PC desktop to establish another monopoly in the media player segment.
Bahh, nobody ever forced you to buy windows anyway, no matter how much the zealouts insist they were.
Most people don’t buy Windows(retail box). When most consumers purchase a PC from the stores what comes preinstalled? There has been little choice in the matter for the past decade. The average PC user is unaware of the alternatives; probably don’t even understand what an operating system is.
I guess Linux can’t succeed on it’s own merits.
Seems to me its Mircosoft that can’t succeed on it’s own merits. The Microsoft who seems to need resort to using FUD, illegal tactics, vaporware announcements, SCO, Gartner, paid research groups and politicians to compete with others.
Of course not. You missed the point. This was all about prevention. What the EU Commission’s ruling does is to prevent Microsoft from leveraging their operating system monopoly on the PC desktop to establish another monopoly in the media player segment.
Point taken, even though it’s still a hassle for people to download it…and they will.
Most people don’t buy Windows(retail box). When most consumers purchase a PC from the stores what comes preinstalled? There has been little choice in the matter for the past decade. The average PC user is unaware of the alternatives; probably don’t even understand what an operating system is.
Big deal, if people don’t like windows then they still don’t have to buy it installed – period. The average PC user is perfectly fine with windows and doesn’t need linux.
Seems to me its Mircosoft that can’t succeed on it’s own merits. The Microsoft who seems to need resort to using FUD, illegal tactics, vaporware announcements, SCO, Gartner, paid research groups and politicians to compete with others.
Oh yeah, like XP is totally unusable and the only reason that Linux hasn’t already taken over the market is because of SCO, Gartner, and whatever else you can dig up. Do you really believe that stuff? In the real world, XP is fine and people have plenty of choices.
Bah, this is more of “I hate Microsoft because Microsoft is successful”.
If there’s a compelling reason for people to switch platforms than people are free to do so.
Once again, I guess Linux can’t succeed on it’s own merits.
“Most people don’t buy Windows(retail box). When most consumers purchase a PC from the stores what comes preinstalled? There has been little choice in the matter for the past decade. The average PC user is unaware of the alternatives; probably don’t even understand what an operating system is. ”
“Big deal, if people don’t like windows then they still don’t have to buy it installed – period.”
We always come back to this. I don’t know why. But whenever I buy a computer at say Fry’s, I see exactly one model with Lindows pre-installed and a whole load of Wintels. I shouldn’t have buy a pc from some questionable online dealer, I should have a choice when I go to the store as I do with any other product. The only choice I have now is a Wintel or springing for a Mac That’s the point. How many times do we have to say it? I swear, Lumbergh, sometimes it’s like you have two different personalities. One minute you’re a Gentoo user, the next you’re a MS fanatic.
what part of “monopoly is illegal” do you not understand? every capitalist state has legislation that prevents formation of monopolies. think about telephony, fuel, railways, electricity, press, television: no one can control 95% of these sectors, but microsoft controls 95% of OS market and tries to leverage his position to take control of other niches, do you really think that the problem is “envy of success”?
None of the distributors will hire the cast of “Friends” to do their demos or couple of guys to dress up like Neo and Morphius from the Matrix.
Point taken, even though it’s still a hassle for people to download it…and they will.
—
they will also download quicktime and realplayer. fair deal there
“Once again, I guess Linux can’t succeed on it’s own merits. ”
Linux has succeeded long before in various market segements. wake up
“does itunes dominate the online music store market? yes!”
And why? because it’s in OS X? No, because it comes with the ipod. Actually, if the iPod continues to dominate music players to the extent it has so far (unlikely, but possible), it *would* be entirely possible that an antitrust suit would force Apple to open up the iPod / iTunes relationship in some way.
“Bahh, nobody ever forced you to buy windows anyway”
Actually, yes, Microsoft more or less did, with their unfair and anti-competitive vendor licensing agreements. Check your history.
Besides, how a monopoly got to be a monopoly is irrelevant. Microsoft have such a large share of the desktop computing market that they are an effective monopoly in that market. This is an undeniable fact.
AFAIK, it’s not actually _illegal_ to *become* a monopoly. After all, if you release an X that’s fifteen million times better than every other X ever and everyone buys it, it’s hardly right to punish you for doing it. But it IS illegal to use a monopoly market position in such a way as to impede fair competition, which is (as has been described) what this case is all about (to whit, Microsoft’s abuse of its monopoly in desktop computing operating systems to unfairly impede competition in the software media player market).
We always come back to this. I don’t know why. But whenever I buy a computer at say Fry’s, I see exactly one model with Lindows pre-installed and a whole load of Wintels. I shouldn’t have buy a pc from some questionable online dealer, I should have a choice when I go to the store as I do with any other product. The only choice I have now is a Wintel or springing for a Mac That’s the point. How many times do we have to say it? I swear, Lumbergh, sometimes it’s like you have two different personalities. One minute you’re a Gentoo user, the next you’re a MS fanatic.
For the record, I’ve installed Gentoo several times. I’ve been using linux for over seven years (in embedded devices and network protocol converter software) and it’s great for that role. Lately, I’ve been using Ubuntu on the desktop (the best desktop distro I’ve ever used) and brings faith back to me in a really nice Linux desktop. At the same time I don’t limit myself to just linux software. I can run linux and windows at the same time via colinux (http:///www.colinux.com) and I do all the time.
The thing is, I don’t limit myself to just linux software because there are nice things on windows like Corman Lisp, Functional Objects IDE, eclipse runs better on windows, I like C# (on windows and linux), and so VS.NET is nice too. Firefox runs great on Windows.
Now as far your “I can’t find an OSless PC”. Maybe that’s the case for you, but in St. Louis I’ve always been able to drive a few miles to a PC store and get custom built stuff. What’s so “irreputable” about online dealer. I bought my kickass laptop (a Sager 5680) at http://www.pctorque.com and it’s the best system I’ve ever bought (and I’ve bought a view) and I bought it with no OS.
what part of “monopoly is illegal” do you not understand? every capitalist state has legislation that prevents formation of monopolies. think about telephony, fuel, railways, electricity, press, television: no one can control 95% of these sectors, but microsoft controls 95% of OS market and tries to leverage his position to take control of other niches, do you really think that the problem is “envy of success”?
I reject your Microsoft analogy to telephone, gas, electric…(we don’t have monopoly press in the US).
they will also download quicktime and realplayer. fair deal there
I reject the premise that there is inherent fairness in microsoft not being able to bundle their own software. There are choices already.
Linux has succeeded long before in various market segements. wake up
Yes, and why our company uses linux in ALL its products and why i have been programming on linux professionally for over 7 years.
Actually, yes, Microsoft more or less did, with their unfair and anti-competitive vendor licensing agreements. Check your history.
Define “unfair” in respect to microsoft. I still reject the premise that Microsoft bunding is “unfair”.
Besides, how a monopoly got to be a monopoly is irrelevant. Microsoft have such a large share of the desktop computing market that they are an effective monopoly in that market. This is an undeniable fact
I reject the notion that there is not choice.
I refuse to be indoctrinated into a movement that considers software anything more than technical tools.
Merry Christmas
“From Windows XP today you CAN’T uninstall Windows Media Player, even if you or your apps don’t need it.”
That doesnt mean you arent forced to use it. I could just remove all icons from my computer that link to it and its virtually gone. Problem soved. Unless you are just desperate to find new things to bitch about with MS (seems people enjoy bitching about trivial things against MS), then you could still bitch about that.
“does itunes dominate the online music store market? yes!”
An anti-trust french court say no when Virgin asked about it. 🙂
“That doesnt mean you arent forced to use it.”
If you insert an Audio CD in Windows Windows Media Player open itseft.
And you CAN’T remove Windows Media Player.
Even iTunes open itself when I insert an Audio CD.
But if I want I can remove iTunes.
Actually you can remove it, just use system restore to the previous restore point.
Has anyone I mean ‘anyone’ ever questioned why Linux has not taken over the desktop market. In other words, IF Linux was a viable alternative for the desktop market Microsoft would disappear overnight.
The first and major problem with Linux is multi-media, codecs and the list goes on and on. I am not talking about illegal downloads, copied or stolen media players. By the rules and obeying the software rules – Patents….
The second major problem is an Office Suite, and no Open Office does not even come close.
The third and final major blow, standards! Something the Linux community runs from like a nurse trying to give a shot to a patient.
That is why Windows has the commanding lead on the desktop, it works, has multi-media and it is relaxing to use. Last not least, GAMES something I don’t care for but there are millions of people who play them and spend countless millions on them.
Windows has functionality, ease of use, applications, multi-media and you guessed it games.
John
There are a few reasons why Linux isn’t 95% of the market yet, or even 50%.
Firstly (as has been mentioned here a few times), most PC’s come with XP preloaded.
When the general public buys a computer, they don’t get one prebuilt (unless a friend will do it for them), they go to the local computer shop and buy one, just like they would a washing machine or toaster.
Most people who buy computers don’t understand them like some of us do, so the option of re-installing with Linux or something else isn’t an option because they don’t know those options exists. Kind of like replacing the engine your car came with for something better, most people out there wouldn’t bother or simply don’t want to know.
The same goes for what is installed as part of that OS. If there is something there that does the trick, that’s fine. A lot of people out there don’t know that Firefox is an alternative, or think to install a different media player or whatever.
I think the thing we need to remember here is that when we talk about these sorts of things, we need to see it through the eyes of the general public, not through our eyes. The general public doesn’t care about computers, as long as what they bought works then life is OK. This is what MS is counting on.
Yes, the general public does not care nor do they want to change. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it and this is what I have used and I ain’t changing.
MS does have a good operating system, they need to fix some stuff like the rest.
Most of the people (like myself) who are Analyst come home sometimes could careless to even see a computer at all. I run Linux on my home machines, but at work I could run Linux but I would have to use Citrix. Then again sometimes, I don’t care what it is as long as it works!
John
Being a young tech girl I find it amazing how many people are so dug in about an operating system. I am a Unix/Linux admin and I use Windows, I see nothing wrong with it. I was an intern in College that is where I learned Unix/Linux at the Company I work for now.
To me this comparison I hear all the time is no different than a guy with a big 4×4 truck. They always got to be a little better or bigger or something along those lines.
For right now, I do not see the reason for such separtion in the trenches, lets just all use what we got and be happy with it.
😉
“Actually, yes, Microsoft more or less did, with their unfair and anti-competitive vendor licensing agreements. Check your history.
Define “unfair” in respect to microsoft. I still reject the premise that Microsoft bunding is “unfair”. ”
I was referring to the licensing agreements criticised by the DoJ which specifically precluded those who licensed Windows from MS from ever selling a machine pre-loaded with any other OS. Sell a Linux (or SkyOS, or BeOS, or OS/2, or whatever) box, lose your MS reseller license, start sourcing all your pre-installed Windows copies from retail, raise your prices by $100 per box, rapidly go bankrupt. This is fair, how? If Microsoft were not a monopoly and you reasonably expect to exist as a PC reseller without selling any Windows boxes – yes, it would be fine, as it’s simply competition. But Microsoft *is* (and was at the time of these agreements) a monopoly, and it’s simply impossible for any reasonably-sized PC vendor to survive without selling machines pre-loaded with Windows, hence these agreements were an illegal abuse of a monopoly market position intended to restrict competition.
“Has anyone I mean ‘anyone’ ever questioned why Linux has not taken over the desktop market.”
No, no-one has. You’re the first. Here’s your prize. It’s never been an ongoing flamebait topic and subject of many front page articles here on OSNews, or anything. No other tech site has ever pondered the question. Your approach is entirely novel.
In case you hadn’t noticed, that was sarcasm. Now, we were talking about Microsoft’s abuse of its operating system monopoly to influence the market for media players. How was Linux on the desktop related to this, again?
A near monopoly company cannot use his position (as the only competitor) in a market to force another market.
This is the reason, an example:
Your telco give “for free” or “embedded” a broadband connection with your telephone line… who’ll buy another broadband ?
A lot of people (mostly americans) are afraid of that “they’re sentencing in Europe something that is american and it’s already settled in the USA”, well…
Microsoft is an European society too and they have to obey the european rules when working in the european market, this is how the world goes.
Since european (and japanese, australian and so on) industries had, have and forever will obey US laws when they act in the USA the US companies have to deal with european laws (“draconian” or not) in Europe.
Being fair, US companies graciously obey to “less democratic” laws in Saudi Arabia or China in these countries so the problem just doesn’t exist.
US laws when they act in the USA the US companies have to deal with european laws (“draconian” or not) in Europe.
We Europeans have to stick to the sharpened security procautions if we travel to the US, especially after 09-11.The US goverment asked for more information about European travelers amongst others from other continents.The world has changed after 09-11.The software revenue or better the whole market economy is changing at a rapid rate as well.We all have to adapt.Sometimes Americans can be somewhat arrogant.Being military superiour doesn’t necessarily mean you own wisdom.
Was WMP removed because consumers wished it? I don’t think so. I myself had no problem with it included in Windows. Can you remove it completely from the system though? I would have prefferred it if they did this with IE but then again, I think that the option to remove IE is just as good.
I have no problem with bundled apps, what I dislike with Windows is that I am not able to remove the bundled apps.
I see you don’t agree me. I don’t use personally SuSE nor Redhat. Redhat has Fedore Core, and SuSE has SuSE personal. You can download SuSE personal for free, and you can upgrade via SuSE YOU (Yast Online Update) so you can have basically the same system as a SuSE professional with a bit of job, and without the books found in a SuSE box. Believe me, I have a SuSE 7.2 box at home, and it’s books helped me out many times. But don’t think at commercial distributions, try Gentoo, Slackware, Debian, Ubunto or so on. If you are a beginner, try Ubuntu, or Fedora Core 3. They are absolutely free and easy to install and configure. On the other hand: A boxed SuSE contains many comercial apps, such as my suse 7.2 contains VMWare Workstation, some commercial IBM apps and so on. I understand if you want to have the most easily configured system, with the less amount of money put on it. You can try even Mandrake Download Edition, it will cost you the price of 3 blank CDs and the internet connection. Does that cost you $100?
The EU is essentially telling MS that it has to ship a version of Windows that strips WMP — but they’re not saying that OEMs are required to use that stripped-down version of Windows. So what do you suppose most are going to do? I’ll tell you: They’re going to ignore this meaningless ruling and simply including WMP, since their customers want the functionality.
Since european (and japanese, australian and so on) industries had, have and forever will obey US laws when they act in the USA the US companies have to deal with european laws (“draconian” or not) in Europe.
However stupid and irrelevant those laws may be to rational adults.
…amazing how many people are so dug in about an operating system. I am a Unix/Linux admin and I use Windows, I see nothing wrong with it. I was an intern in College that is where I learned Unix/Linux at the Company I work for now.
There’s a lot of bigotry, ego, and projection represented in these forums. You have a good attitude, though. Don’t let the Neandrathals get you down.
Some need competition.What’s wrong with that?
ok here is why Linux can have media players installed with a distro and windows can’t… you have a choice… if u install XP you get WMP reguardless… no asking just done, on linux u not only have the right not to install a media player u can install just the kernel and init script if u wish (ok it won’t do much but it can be done) no OS needs a media player, or notepad or browser because they are not functions of an operating system… all an aoperating system has to do is make sure that programs get to read/write to the correct piece of hardware… thats it… no more no less… so u get your OS and then u personally add what you need… not what someone thinks you need..
hope that cleared things up a little
Merry Christmas
I hope i havn’t offended anyone in my last post.. and before people say “well if no applications for web browsing how can i download <whatever> MS could have a second cd… with a choice of browsers IE, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera. they could even put a recommeneded post next to thier own browser if they wished… same for media players and the like…
just my penny’s worth
and again Merry christmas
Lumbergh, if you use the term `real world’ one more time I’ll seriously go and tell your mother to pick you up. You leave me know choice.
I agree we/users need choice. Monopoly can/will cause problems. I am no MS fan. This is a question for Linux people.
MS did not become what it is overnight. They started at the same place as everyone else. By whatever means (no point in discussing this, courts have already ruled it) they got their market share. Linux was there in early 90’s, if you compare the advances windows made with respect to Linux (be it usability or market share), then I think Linux is responsible for its own state of affairs. In the early 90’s windows 3.x was crappy and so was Linux. Why did Linux loose focus and is still trying to catch-up. Replicate MS apps, look and feel etc..Look at Apple they succeeded in their own way.
People talk about preinstalled OS, why did Linux not do the same when it started out in 90’s. I am pretty sure some OEM’s would have loved to install an alternate OS (free OS) and not fear MS (when MS was not so big). Please don’t say MS already had bank balance etc. I am pretty sure had Linux made advances the same way as MS did, it would have been a different story now after almost 15 years. Please do not blame MS for everything. Yes they are fault, but Linux people should take some of the blame too. Had Linux focused and got their act together, it would have been great. Someone talked about an example where a Fry’s store has one computer with Linux installed where as a whole bunch of them with Windows installed. Simple more people buy Windows computers. Linux created this image about itself as being an OS for the nerds, so why would an ordinary user want to buy a computer useful for the nerds.
I will give you an example, mp3 format. Its (was) almost the dominant format for music, almost everyone adopted it. Similarly Linux (and its other related software) could have done the same once the product is good, people will start using it. I hope I got my point across. Again, I am not talking about MS forcing mp3 out of market, just like it did Netscape. That’s a different story.
Bob
What do I hear, people dont like extra cruft in their software?
No, that is not the reason. The reason is that Windows has a monopoly on desktop operating systems, and Linux does not. Hence the bundling of a media player with Windows distorts competition in the media player market, while the bundling of a media player with Linux does not. I really thought I’d already made this perfectly clear.
I think european court should also explain why linux distros have applications distributed with the operating system including media players, and microsoft windows couldn’t have them in their operating system…
You’re comparing apples and oranges here. Linux distributions bundle lots of software, but those software are produced by different individuals/companies. Mandrake, for example, isn’t the author of Linux (the kernel), nor is it the author of most of the software on their distribution, including the various media players in it.
That highlights a second difference with Windows – there are more than one media players available on a single distro. In Mandrake, for example, you have XMMS, Totem, mplayer, Xine, Amarok, etc.
In other words, Linux distros aren’t trying to force you to use a single media player that is produced by them. Instead, they offer choice by bundling quality third-party media players with their Linux distribution.
the fact that they came preinstalled on the pc. yes linux could have done the same but at 90-91 it was just the basic kernel and some gnu tools, not even a installer. microsoft however had their dos os on the pc from day one. and windows was just a gui running on top of that.
then they shipped windows 95 that was basicly dos and windows rolled into one graphical installer. the startup was basicly autoexec.bat and config.sys just like in older dos, but now there was no win.com line at the end of the autoexec.bat. they even tryed to hide all output from those two files behind a cute logo animation. you could at a time even get win3.1/3.11 to run win95 apps by installing wing and win32 librarys. hell, you could make win95 reboot into a pure dos mode if you wanted to.
i know all this as my first computer was a 486 running dos 6 with win 3.11 on top. i then upgraded it with a soundcard and cdrom kit, extra ram, windows 95 and lastly a new hd.
linux and the net at that time was a complete unknown to me. this shows what kind of market penetration microsoft had at the time.
so microsoft was old hat in the pc world when linux was a twinkle in torvalds eye and some lines of code in a editor.
it was only after they brushed ibm’s os/2 warp aside that you can realy say tho that they had total control. a friend of mine at one time had a box of os/2 warp installer disketts. i think he even used it for some time, and still say it was a interesting experience.
sometimes i ponder brushing the dust of that old 486, fire up the 3 dos disketts i have here somewhere (along with hte 5-7 3.11 disketts) and see if i can bring it back to life
hmm, that reminds me that i have a amiga 500 somewhere to
so basicly linux have been going doing some replication of features until now. yes kde and gnome in basic configs look very much like windows. but that does not stop you from useing windowmaker, afterstep, enlightenment, blackbox or any of the other “desktops”. and both gnome and kde is very flexible in how they are layed out. if you want your taskbar to be vertical on the left hand side and at the same time have the tray in the top right corner of the screen you can have it. i dare you to do that with the basic windows gui.
most changes happen under the hood, rather then on the bodyworks for the user to see.
like all old way it will take some time to change the default os installed on desktops. microsoft products will be with us for a long time yet…
Nobody will ever actually make any money selling media players. Got that? Nobody.
What this is really about is backend media servers — and what drives the infrastructure. The EU knows (cannily) that whoever controls the client will drive dominant standards on the backend.
They’re not so concerned about WMP as they are about future services such as pay-per-view, video recording, digital-rights-management, etc. Since Microsoft can essentially dominate the media player market by virtue of the distribution of WMP with Windows, MS can own these standards. The EU is trying to promote competition in that space.
I don’t have a problem with the EU mandating a version of Windows without WMP; however, I am oppposed to the EU telling OEMs that they can’t ship WMP, if their customers ask for it. After all, it isn’t the EU’s place to choose winners and losers. It just needs to set up the conditions under which a winner can emerge through fair competition.
Arrow rock top 500 still going strong.
http://www.arrow.nl/rock/rock500/
Merry christmas and a happy new year to everybody.
I keep seeing people say “well linux distros shouldn’t be able to bundle media players either”. Am I the only one who notices a difference?
To remove xmms from Red Hat/Fedora I type:
yum remove xmms
To remove xmms from Debian I type:
apt-get remove xmms
To remove xmms from Mandrake I type:
urpme xmms
To remove WMP from Windows I…..do nothing, it is impossible. Get it yet???
Windows bundled WMP to promote their streaming server software over Real Network’s server software to enforce their monopoly in yet another market. Now let’s say Red Hat has a monopoly. Explain to me how in the hell Red Hat is abusing their position in anything by including a media player that only supports open formats which ANY streaming server software (including Microsoft’s) could support??? Anyone have an answer???
Anyone following my drift here???
Anyone who made any of the comments I made at the top of my post care to justify their thinking?