EU Threatens Sanctions against Microsoft

[MKSheppard]

QuickTime is an open format. Windows Media is not.

They both suck shit...

*hugs DiVx codec*

[MKSheppard]

I love the fact that I can play anything in Windows Media Player, etc
without having a goddamned "UPGRADE TO QUICKTIME PRO NOW" nag
screen

[phongn]

Yeah, that damned nagware banner is annoying. And boo to DivX, use Xvid instead

[Solauren]

Wah wah wah, the other programs suck! wah wah wah!

Consider, for a moment, writing software without knowing the full length and breadth of the background system. Well, perhaps I should dumb this down to laymen terms.

Here's a wall. There could be live electrical wires behind it. Here's a saw. Make a closet without cutting any of the wires. Oh, you don't get anything to detect them ahead of time.

Not a perfect analogy, but. QT and RP don't work well because they're going in mostly blind.

Speaking as a computer programmer, that is almost a perfect analogy.

Another way to say it would be an example from work

Boss: "Doug, how long will it take you to reformat this database into our file format?"
Me: "What's it in sir?"
Boss: "It's on this disk" (tosses me the disk)
Me: "That's not what I meant sir"
Boss: "I don't care, just tell me how long it will take, right now"

When you program something specifically for windows like a Media Player, for the most part, you have no fucking idea about alot of the stuff behind it.

That's why most hardware companies made there protocals and data formats, etc, public domain. So when people wrote video games for them, it was easier to do, so a wider range of products worked with each other

There reasoning was, what I feel, is the correct way to look at computer products
If someone has a favourite video game (i.e my Dad and I both love the Civilizations series), they are not going to buy a video card or sound card that does not work with it. When you compare video game prices vs media hardware, the games are cheaper, so it's easier just ot find games that work with your hardware, then find hardware that works with your games.

Easier example: Finding batteries that work in your TV remote, instead of a remote that works with your batteries.

I personally hope that Microsoft is forced to cough up some of the secrets of there operating system. I might be a 'fan' of theres to a degree (I've used Corel Office Suite, I've used MS Office. Prefer MS office. I've used Visual Basic, Visual C++, Turbo C++, lots of variants of Basic and C, and I prefer the Microsoft brands. Can't stand Java. Can't stand any language you can't compile a program into an EXE or equal. However, I prefer Netscape Navigator over Internet Explorer), I think it would be good. It would widen market competion. It would give people choice.

[SPOOFE]

Did you sell your brain to gypsies? Is that what you honestly think this is about?

I fail to see how this is about anything other than "Microsoft selling Microsoft products." Did you even read the article?

"It also would have to either offer a version of Windows without the Media Player, or agree to carry rival players with Windows."

Bolding mine.

Microsoft is using proprietary communications protocols in order to convert marketshare in one product into marketshare in another. This is a TEXTBOOK case of antitrust violations.

What product is being converted? Media? Too vague, as there are dozens of media formats... and Windows Media Player does not play them all. I fail to see how Microsoft's actions can be viewed as anything other than an attempt to make things easier on consumers. Would you claim that car manufacturers that include dashboard CD players in their vehicles are "hurting" companies that sell portable CD players?

They should use fully documented communications standards rather than secret protocols.

Why? There is no necessity, nothing that forces the use of their software. Unlike telephone communication systems, which provide the backbone of American commerce and industry, there is no driving force behind media on one's computer.

Another analogy: Should Microsoft be required to include all "competing" freeware games, including all available different versions of Solitaire, in their product?

Imagine if telephones used a secret communications protocol instead of a publicly documented one, so that you had to buy one particular company's brand of telephones because they happened to design all of the network switches and no one else can build phones that hook in properly.

Poor analogy, as it presupposes that Microsoft is actively preventing any other company from providing access to Media. There is NOTHING in Microsoft's product that prevents the consumer from using third-party software.

In short, people don't HAVE to use Windows Media Player. Microsoft just has to leave the option for other software open, which is has done. It DOESN'T have to spoon-feed those options to its customers on a silver platter.

"Get it, now?"

[Bob McDob]

All hail the almighty Winamp, our last baston of hope and freedom.

Until Winamp 3 was corrupted by the EVIL SATANIC COMMIE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA

[Darth Wong]

Did you sell your brain to gypsies? Is that what you honestly think this is about?

I fail to see how this is about anything other than "Microsoft selling Microsoft products." Did you even read the article?

It is about Microsoft using market share in one market in order to force people to buy its products in another. I read the article, but unlike you, I understood it too.

"It also would have to either offer a version of Windows without the Media Player, or agree to carry rival players with Windows."

Bolding mine.

Right, just as local telcos were forced to allow competition using their own wires and switches when the Bell monopoly was broken up. Result: competition, lower prices, and far greater consumer freedom. But it doesn't remove Microsoft's ability to market its own products, despite your desperate attempts to preserve your strawman fallacy. It could still sell WMP; it just has to either offer choice so that its desktop OS marketshare is not used as leverage, or it has to document its file formats and release its code so that others can crack in.

You have taken a complex situation and distilled it into an extremely simple-minded analogy.

Microsoft is using proprietary communications protocols in order to convert marketshare in one product into marketshare in another. This is a TEXTBOOK case of antitrust violations.

What product is being converted? Media? Too vague, as there are dozens of media formats... and Windows Media Player does not play them all. I fail to see how Microsoft's actions can be viewed as anything other than an attempt to make things easier on consumers. Would you claim that car manufacturers that include dashboard CD players in their vehicles are "hurting" companies that sell portable CD players?

False analogy #1.

If they designed a different, proprietary CD format for these players, pre-installed them in every car regardless of whether the customer wants them, flooded the market with CDs that conform to this standard but not the old one, and then effectively locked out all other CD players as a result, then yes. Again, you distort matters into such a ridiculously simple-minded analogy that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the situation.

They should use fully documented communications standards rather than secret protocols.

Why? There is no necessity, nothing that forces the use of their software. Unlike telephone communication systems, which provide the backbone of American commerce and industry, there is no driving force behind media on one's computer.

Utterly irrelevant, since antitrust laws are not restricted to products which are part of the business backbone. Stop reaching for flimsy excuses to defend your pre-ordained conclusion.

Another analogy: Should Microsoft be required to include all "competing" freeware games, including all available different versions of Solitaire, in their product?

False analogy #2.

The answer in this case would be no, since that type of product can't possibly be used in order to lock out competition in other markets. Yet again, you demonstrate that you have absolutely no idea what this is about.

Imagine if telephones used a secret communications protocol instead of a publicly documented one, so that you had to buy one particular company's brand of telephones because they happened to design all of the network switches and no one else can build phones that hook in properly.

Poor analogy, as it presupposes that Microsoft is actively preventing any other company from providing access to Media. There is NOTHING in Microsoft's product that prevents the consumer from using third-party software.

Actually, the analogy is quite precise, as there is nothing in a telephone which prevents the consumer from using, say, walkie-talkies or cellular phones instead. Nevertheless, if all telephones were restricted to a particular vendor through the use of proprietary communications protocols, it would be an unlawful and harmful monopoly.

In short, people don't HAVE to use Windows Media Player.

I repeat: this is totally irrelevant. Antitrust law is not restricted to products which are you forced to use, and for a good reason: competition is the lifeblood of a free-enterprise system. Monopolies destroy competition just as surely as government seizure of industry.

Microsoft just has to leave the option for other software open, which is has done. It DOESN'T have to spoon-feed those options to its customers on a silver platter.

Wrong. Microsoft has to avoid using market dominance in one product in order to increase market share in another, regardless of what means it is using to do so. The outcome is what matters, and since most consumers aren't savvy enough to install other software, their actions have led to an outcome of monopolization.

"Get it, now?"

Far more than you do, dumb-ass. Your analogies are so hopelessly inaccurate that I'm surprised you can see out from beneath your mountain of bullshit.

[Pu-239]

Yeah, that damned nagware banner is annoying. And boo to DivX, use Xvid instead

Found this on slashdot:

Re:Back to Windows (Score:3, Informative)
by willy_me (wdouglas_MaPs@myrealbox.com) on Friday June 21, @11:03AM (#3743688)
(User #212994 Info)
I believe the trick is to set the date of your computer to a couple of years in the future and then run Quicktime. Click "Update later". Then set the date back to the current date. You won't have to look at those adds for another couple of years.

Oh, and an older version of Sorenson has been released on linux (though of questionable legality like libdvdcss).:
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/06/20/2 ... ml?tid=106

[Xon]

Wah wah wah, the other programs suck! wah wah wah!

Consider, for a moment, writing software without knowing the full length and breadth of the background system. Well, perhaps I should dumb this down to laymen terms.

Here's a wall. There could be live electrical wires behind it. Here's a saw. Make a closet without cutting any of the wires. Oh, you don't get anything to detect them ahead of time.

Not a perfect analogy, but. QT and RP don't work well because they're going in mostly blind.

Speaking as a computer programmer, that is almost a perfect analogy.

You have got to be fucking joking. The Win32 API is open for anyone to look at it, any man & their dog can go & look at it and use the parts they want.

Name 1 thing that WMP does that cant be replicated by 3rd party programs.

Integrat into the shell? Last I check Winzip added its own shell links & icons. And it isnt a hidden API.

The toolbar with WMP9? That should be doable as well (at the very least you can replicate that on a normal taskbar icon).

[Darth Wong]

You have got to be fucking joking. The Win32 API is open for anyone to look at it, any man & their dog can go & look at it and use the parts they want.

That tells you how to write programs to work with Windows. It does not tell you how Windows itself works, nor does it tell you how Windows Server communicates with Windows Workstation for its complex domain communication protocols.

Name 1 thing that WMP does that cant be replicated by 3rd party programs.

Play Windows Media proprietary formats, of which there are several. Just TRY playing any of these on a computer which does not have WMP on it.

Integrat into the shell? Last I check Winzip added its own shell links & icons. And it isnt a hidden API.

You must take the initiative to install this; it doesn't come bundled in. Suppose one company made 98% of all TV sets. Let us further suppose that at the dawn of the DVD era, every TV from this company came with a weird new proprietary digital disc player built-in. Which format would win? DVD or the proprietary format being peddled by the TV monopolist? And we would be looking at a digital video disc monopoly right now.

[Durandal]

There are differences among file formats, codecs and media development API's. Saying that QuickTime is bad because of Sorenson Video is nonsensical. Is Windows Media Player, by that turn, good because it can run XviD?

Comparing the QuickTime file format to DivX is even dumber. One is a file format; the other is a codec that can reside in any file format.

[His Divine Shadow]

It also alleges that Microsoft's inclusion of Windows Media Player in the Windows operating system hurts competing audiovisual software such as Apple QuickTime and Real Networks.

Both alternatives suck donkey shit.

[His Divine Shadow]

Microsoft is using proprietary communications protocols in order to convert marketshare in one product into marketshare in another.

True, but aren't also, the far more crapper alternatives, QT and Real, also proprietary?

It seems we have one somewhat decent version, however it's proprietary, and two ballsucking excuses for streaming media, which are also propietary, and who's only excuses are that the companies are too small to be able to use it for any kind of monopolizing.

Seems the consumers are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Personally, MS ought to make their format free for all, that would certainly improve their image and popularity, leaving the other formats in the dust.

[Durandal]

Microsoft is using proprietary communications protocols in order to convert marketshare in one product into marketshare in another.

True, but aren't also, the far more crapper alternatives, QT and Real, also proprietary?

Both Real and Apple are pushing MPEG-4, which is an open standard, to foster competition. Microsoft is pushing Windows Media to stifle it. QuickTime is, by far, the most capable of the formats in question.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

All hail the almighty Winamp, our last baston of hope and freedom.

Until Winamp 3 was corrupted by the EVIL SATANIC COMMIE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA

ROFLMAO!!!

The crappy thing about QT, Real, and WMx (where x is a variable that could be anything <== oh boy, a redundancy!) is that they all suck in one way or another.

WMx needs Windows to run some of the hidden shit, plus MS got the bright idea of allowing Javascript inside the actual media file (WTF!?), thereby allowing porn-popups to come out of nowhere when you play it.

QT needs a proprietary player (which isn't bad in itself) but the annoying nag screen? Eugh.

Real has Spyware. Real associates with Spyware Companies. Find another codec (or 'acquire' the Real codecs minus the actual player) QUICK!

[His Divine Shadow]

Both Real and Apple are pushing MPEG-4, which is an open standard, to foster competition. Microsoft is pushing Windows Media to stifle it. QuickTime is, by far, the most capable of the formats in question.

Pushing it for what? I mean as I see it they are still using their own propietary formats I haven't been able to play Quicktime or Real on any other player, except in a few old versions of VirtualDub before they where forced to remove it by respective companies.

[Durandal]

Both Real and Apple are pushing MPEG-4, which is an open standard, to foster competition. Microsoft is pushing Windows Media to stifle it. QuickTime is, by far, the most capable of the formats in question.

Pushing it for what? I mean as I see it they are still using their own propietary formats I haven't been able to play Quicktime or Real on any other player, except in a few old versions of VirtualDub before they where forced to remove it by respective companies.

There are tons of different QuickTime player applications on the Mac side. In fact, lots of them allow you to play movies full-screen and encode them. QuickTime is not a player, and it is not a codec. It is more akin to DirectPlay or DirectShow or whatever the hell Microsoft calls it this month.

Anyone can write an application that uses QuickTime for playback and give it full functionality. Apple just lock their player out of those features with a registration code. With all the pissing and moaning Windows users do about QuickTime, you'd think that some developer would have the brilliant idea to write his own player application with full-screen and export capabilities, but apparently there are none other than QuickTime Player. Meanwhile, I have at least 3 different third-party players on my machine. And by the way, if you think that QuickTime Player on Windows is bad, check out Windows Media Player for the Mac sometime.

Anyway, for audio, Apple have supported MP3 and lately AAC, instead of Winblows Media Audio. I'm not sure that MPEG-4 video has taken off quite like they wanted it to, probably because their MPEG-4 video codec sucks serious ass next to XviD and 3ivx (meanwhile, they've got the best AAC encoder, apparently). They're still using fucking Sorenson for trailers, probably because the guy who encodes them doesn't want to get off his ass and actually touch the Cleaner 6 settings screen again -- it was already so much effort for him to "optimize" the settings so that a ridiculously high bitrate delivers quality at 480 width that XviD or 3ivx could give at 640 width and 50% less bitrate with a single pass. Not to mention that it'd probably be playable on slower hardware, unlike Sorenson.

[Darth Wong]

Microsoft is using proprietary communications protocols in order to convert marketshare in one product into marketshare in another.

True, but aren't also, the far more crapper alternatives, QT and Real, also proprietary?

Yes, but they aren't being used to convert marketshare in one sector into marketshare in another. Realnetworks' only market is the streaming media market. Not that I'm a fan of their spyware shit, but people seem to think it's wrong for a monopolist to get convicted of antitrust for doing things which smaller companies can do. They miss the entire point, which is that antitrust is about preventing monopolies, not criminalizing entire classes of business behaviour or product design.

If some electrician goes into a building and deliberately mislabels and miscodes everything so that no one can tell what the hell wires are live and go to which places (so that no one can service the wiring but him), that is really fucking bad but it's not antitrust, because he's just one jack-ass. However, if a big company with dominant marketshare starts doing something analogous, then it becomes criminal antitrust.

Personally, MS ought to make their format free for all, that would certainly improve their image and popularity, leaving the other formats in the dust.

That will happen on the day that Kent Hovind concedes a point.