From: ZalekBl...@hotmail.com (ZalekBl...@hotmail.com) Subject: What should be the outcome of Microsoft antitrust suit. Date: 2000/03/25 Message-ID: <38df501d.1416890@news.bellatlantic.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 602059122 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: typhoon2.gnilink.net 953962563 151.202.101.165 (Sat, 25 Mar 2000 00:36:03 EST) Organization: International Conspiracy, Inc MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 00:36:03 EST Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy There should be a law that a customer must have a right to buy any PC without any operating system installed. This will give a customer choice of any OS, or if someone aleady have Win on desktop, why he/she have to pay to M$ an additional fee for OS on laptop? Zalek
From: darks...@x-mail.net Subject: Re: What should be the outcome of Microsoft antitrust suit. Date: 2000/03/28 Message-ID: <8brcf0$187$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 603606595 References: <38df501d.1416890@news.bellatlantic.net> <8bqurt$hal$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x34.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 216.88.86.82 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Tue Mar 28 22:41:40 2000 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDdarkstar51 Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows 98; LifeLine Communications) Microsoft should have to seperate the Windows OS from Internet Explorer. Everyone should have the option to delete the browser (which you can't do with IE). No company or individual should be forced to use an operating system they don't want to. There are too few types of computers readily avaiable that you can choose the OS that comes with it or no OS at all. Many people buy from chain stores and they come with Win98; and they would not think of putting Linux on there for you. For an open market companies and people need to be given a choice. For all the criminal activities, Microsoft should pay a heavy fine. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.
From: R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <r.e.ball...@usa.net> Subject: Re: What should be the outcome of Microsoft antitrust suit. Date: 2000/03/29 Message-ID: <8brr9u$hcb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Deja-AN: 603680760 References: <38df501d.1416890@news.bellatlantic.net> <8bqurt$hal$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8brcf0$187$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x25.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 32.100.144.95 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Wed Mar 29 02:54:59 2000 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrballard Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.72 [en] (WinNT; U) In article <8brcf0$18...@nnrp1.deja.com>, darks...@x-mail.net wrote: > Microsoft should have to seperate the Windows OS from Internet > Explorer. Everyone should have the option to delete the browser > (which you can't do with IE). IE is a problem in several areas. First, it was used as a cover for shipping most of the binaries for Microsoft Office, which would have been treated as bundling. Most of the ActiveX controls bundled with explorer, including the excel viewer, powerpoint viewer, word viewer, and chart viewer, were effectively a thinly veiled attempt to smuggle in the OLE and COM objects of Windows and make them memory resident. This would then make Microsoft Office appear to have a smaller footprint, but not a smaller price-tag. It would also assure Microsoft of control of the underlying infrastructure, application programmer interfaces, and run-time libraries. Had Microsoft simply stuck with an enhanced version of Mosaic, and complied with the original terms of the original NCSA license agreement, I wouldn't have been terribly upset. But Microsoft's use of an Open Source project to perpetuate it's own proprietary technology without the consent of the thousands of people who contributed freely to Mosaic and NCSA/Apache for the express purpose of userping public standards with it's own tightly controlled standards is unacceptable. This is why I proposed an injunction preventing Microsoft from interefering with, or preventing the publication of, industry standards, especially when competitive standards have been published, or the related standards have been published. For example, the IETF publishes specifications for nearly every protocol used on the internet, except for the proprietary stuff used by Microsoft. There was a reason for this in 1982 and it's just as valid today. It was believed that regardless of how good the security system was, if traffic went across the internet that couldn't be indentified, traced, and audited, then the entire infrastructure was vulnerable to attack. Ironically, by keeping the specifications open, including the DES encryption technology, it became possible to manage the traffic of millions of computers and to identify hostile users and dangerous hosts. The CERT organizations has been able to trace and stop numerous willful and accidental denial of service attacks, security breaches, and publication of informtion like credit card numbers and calling card numbers. With the introduction of ActiveX controls, there have been more breaches of security, more invasions of personal privacy, and more examples of fraud and corruption by supposedly trusted people. > No company or individual should be > forced to use an operating system > they don't want to. This is currently out of the scope of the current litigation, but the DOJ or the FTC should examine Microsoft's role in corporate policies that mandate Microsoft Operating Systems, Microsoft Office Suites, Microsoft Explorer as Browser, and Microsoft servers. Even in situations where the choice was required to go to a competitive bidding process, the bidding process was ignored and the contract was simply awarded to Microsoft. This includes numerous federal contracts. Corel recently overturned one decision when it was shown that a contract that required mandatory open bidding was never even put through the bidding process. These activities should also be investigated and prosecuted, possibly under RICO statutes, but these issues were not presented during the case, and may dependent on whether Microsoft is legally defined as a monopoly. In any settlement, Microsoft must accept that it currently is a monopoly and has used that position to extend that monopoly into other markets. That one point is critical. It means that Microsoft will be subject to all provisions of the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act in all future dealings and operations. The settlement should be a "probation", not an amnesty or a pardon. If Microsoft violates that probation, the plea bargain is off, and the full force of the law would be available. If on the other hand, Microsoft is able to slide away without accepting the Findings of Fact, all evidence gathered to this point would no longer be relevant in any future antitrust case. With Microsoft now extending it's monopoly into mass media (imagine if Microsoft decided to merge with General Electric). Microsoft already has strong ties in the form of MSNBC, CNBC, and all NBC web sites. Microsoft/Bill Gates also has substantial interest in Primestar, which is now part of Dish Network, and in several cable companies. In most cases the percentage held is enough to be influential, and enough to start a proxy fight, but not enough to show up on the SEC radar. > There are too few types of computers readily > avaiable that you can choose the OS that comes > with it or no OS at all. Perhapse the best solution would be to install ALL of them on the master disk, and then allow the user to format the partitions that weren't needed. With 40 gigabyte drives, there's room for about 10 different operating systems, and still have room for a huge "common area" (a Fat32 partition?). > Many people buy from chain stores and they come with Win98; and they > would not think of putting Linux on there for you. Many people buy their clothes at K-Mart too. This doesn't mean that there aren't people willing to pay a little extra for tailored suits, designer labels, and a bit more personal attention. The same is true with Computers. Sure, there might still be a huge market for CompUSA (the K-mart of Computer stores) but there might be room for "botique" stores that would install Linux for you, that would let you choose from a menu applicatons. Certainly companies like Dell that give you your choice of video cards, sound cards, hard drive sizes, CD-ROM speeds, and preinstalled RAM size wouldn't mind spending an extra 30 seconds adding Linux (actually, all disks could be mastered with Linux, but for Windows-only systems, Dell would simply format the Linux partition as a "D:drive". > For an open market companies and people need to be given a choice. Actually, in a competitive marketplace - you might have several choices. You could have several operating systems installed, and perhaps even have them running concurrently. > For all the criminal activities, Microsoft should pay a heavy fine. The activities described in the findings of fact imply much more than just civil (lawsuit penalties), but each executive involved would be entitled to a jury trial. We have seen numerous examples of fraud, extortion, blackmail, and racketeering within the summary. Of course, the judge can only rule on the charges presented by the prosecution. The judge could also add contempt charges. Microsoft should probably do anything to prevent a final ruling which would not grant conditional forgiveness of previous activities. We have several examples of perjury, admissions of extortion, and justifications for blackmail. Ironically, in many cases, Microsoft didn't even deny the activities, but merely attempted to justify their acts as necessary or typical. It is unlikely that anyone would be prosecuted for perjury based on testimony given in a civil case (it almost never happens). But it would be appropriate to determine whether criminal activities have been committed (again - with the goal of probation rather than prison). Ultimately, Microsoft must accept a plea-bargain, not an exhoneration. The DOJ and the AGs cannot and should not accept any settlement that allows Microsoft to claim that it did nothing wrong. If Microsoft want to take it's chances with the Supreme Court, then Microsoft should stop stalling and accept the ruling, and realize that their next appeal will be directly to the Supreme Court. Microsoft has been stalling and delaying long enough. > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy. > -- Rex Ballard - Open Source Advocate, Internet I/T Architect, MIS Director http://www.open4success.com Linux - 60 million satisfied users worldwide and growing at over 1%/week! Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <er...@visi.com> Subject: Re: What should be the outcome of Microsoft antitrust suit. Date: 2000/03/28 Message-ID: <HKgE4.614$75.14347@ptah.visi.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 603731040 References: <38df501d.1416890@news.bellatlantic.net> <8bqurt$hal$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8brcf0$187$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8brr9u$hcb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Priority: 3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 954308647 209.98.178.171 (Tue, 28 Mar 2000 23:44:07 CST) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 23:44:07 CST Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy R.E.Ballard ( Rex Ballard ) <r.e.ball...@usa.net> wrote in message news:8brr9u$hcb$1@nnrp1.deja.com... > IE is a problem in several areas. First, it was used as a cover for > shipping most of the binaries for Microsoft Office, which would have > been treated as bundling. Most of the ActiveX controls bundled with > explorer, including the excel viewer, powerpoint viewer, word viewer, > and chart viewer, were effectively a thinly veiled attempt to smuggle > in the OLE and COM objects of Windows and make them memory resident. Sounds plausible, like many of your statements until reality is checked. IE does *NOT* ship with viewers for powerpoint, word, or excel. You need to download those seperately. > Had Microsoft simply stuck with an enhanced version of Mosaic, and > complied with the original terms of the original NCSA license > agreement, I wouldn't have been terribly upset. But Microsoft's > use of an Open Source project to perpetuate it's own proprietary > technology without the consent of the thousands of people who > contributed freely to Mosaic and NCSA/Apache for the express > purpose of userping public standards with it's own tightly > controlled standards is unacceptable. Microsoft bought a liscense to SPYGLASS moasic, not NCSA mosaic. Spyglass was granted the exclusive right to resell liscenses for NCSA mosaic by the NCSA. > For example, the IETF publishes specifications for nearly every > protocol used on the internet, except for the proprietary stuff > used by Microsoft. There was a reason for this in 1982 and it's > just as valid today. It was believed that regardless of how good > the security system was, if traffic went across the internet that > couldn't be indentified, traced, and audited, then the entire > infrastructure was vulnerable to attack. And which protocols might those be? There aren't many of them. Even many of the protocols Microsoft developed or co-developed exist as RFC's. PPTP for instance. > With the introduction of ActiveX controls, there have been more > breaches of security, more invasions of personal privacy, and more > examples of fraud and corruption by supposedly trusted people. The only security breaches that I'm aware of relating to ActiveX was when the controls were installed improperly and marked safe for scripting when they were not. Can you name some?
From: jer...@netcom.com (Jeremy Allison) Subject: Re: What should be the outcome of Microsoft antitrust suit. Date: 2000/03/31 Message-ID: <8c2t5j$tsm$1@slb2.atl.mindspring.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 604961230 References: <38df501d.1416890@news.bellatlantic.net> <8bqurt$hal$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8brcf0$187$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8brr9u$hcb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <HKgE4.614$75.14347@ptah.visi.com> Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy "Erik Funkenbusch" <er...@visi.com> writes: >And which protocols might those be? There aren't many of them. Even many >of the protocols Microsoft developed or co-developed exist as RFC's. PPTP >for instance. There are *hundereds* of them - maybe even thousands. All the code generated from the IDL files that define the protocols MS uses (running over DCE/RPC, which is a published standard) to manage NT domains, NT users, NT machines, Exchange servers... the list goes on. All of these are used as hidden proprietary wedges to drive the adoption of Microsoft servers due to the fact that Microsoft clients only support these protocols. *That's* the real monopolistic practice that needs to be curbed by law. In addition, the modifications to the DCE/RPC security system that MS made (to use NTLMv1, NTLMv2) need to be published. Yes I know Luke in the Samba Team has reverse engineered many of these, but that's not the point. MS should publish the IDL for these protocols, and the modifications made to DCE/RPC to support the Microsoft proprietary security protocols. That's what *I* mean by "full and open disclosure of the Windows API's" :-). Someone once said that "if Microsoft had invented the Internet, we wouldn't have protocols, we'd have API's". Regards, Jeremy Allison, Samba Team.
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <er...@visi.com> Subject: Re: What should be the outcome of Microsoft antitrust suit. Date: 2000/03/31 Message-ID: <tHbF4.1385$75.30296@ptah.visi.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 605052474 References: <38df501d.1416890@news.bellatlantic.net> <8bqurt$hal$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8brcf0$187$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8brr9u$hcb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <HKgE4.614$75.14347@ptah.visi.com> <8c2t5j$tsm$1@slb2.atl.mindspring.net> X-Priority: 3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 954550105 209.98.171.48 (Fri, 31 Mar 2000 18:48:25 CST) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 18:48:25 CST Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy Jeremy Allison <jer...@netcom.com> wrote in message news:8c2t5j$tsm$1@slb2.atl.mindspring.net... > "Erik Funkenbusch" <er...@visi.com> writes: > > >And which protocols might those be? There aren't many of them. Even many > >of the protocols Microsoft developed or co-developed exist as RFC's. PPTP > >for instance. > > There are *hundereds* of them - maybe even thousands. > All the code generated from the IDL files that define > the protocols MS uses (running over DCE/RPC, which is a > published standard) to manage NT domains, NT users, > NT machines, Exchange servers... the list goes on. That's ONE protocol, not hundreds or thousands. And it's not a proprietary one, since it still understands DCE/RPC. You just can't use the extensions. The protocol is the same many of those, they just use different data formats. MAPI is pretty well defined for instance. > All of these are used as hidden proprietary wedges > to drive the adoption of Microsoft servers due to > the fact that Microsoft clients only support these > protocols. *That's* the real monopolistic practice > that needs to be curbed by law. They "only" support these protocols? How is it that Lotus Notes works then? > In addition, the modifications to the DCE/RPC security > system that MS made (to use NTLMv1, NTLMv2) need to be > published. Yes I know Luke in the Samba Team has > reverse engineered many of these, but that's not the > point. I see nothing wrong with them adding extensions as long as they still understand the base protocols. > MS should publish the IDL for these protocols, and the > modifications made to DCE/RPC to support the Microsoft > proprietary security protocols. IDL is not a "protocol", well, only in the most nit-picky universe it is. It's a data format. If you start calling all data formats protocols, then file formats are protocols. > That's what *I* mean by "full and open disclosure of > the Windows API's" :-). I see nothing wrong with Microsoft adding extensions. Everyone in the industry does it. Sun does. HP does. IBM does. And often those extensions are considered trade secrets. > Someone once said that "if Microsoft had invented the > Internet, we wouldn't have protocols, we'd have API's". Probably.
From: jer...@netcom.com (Jeremy Allison) Subject: Re: What should be the outcome of Microsoft antitrust suit. Date: 2000/04/01 Message-ID: <8c3l33$o5g$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 605072777 References: <38df501d.1416890@news.bellatlantic.net> <8bqurt$hal$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8brcf0$187$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8brr9u$hcb$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <HKgE4.614$75.14347@ptah.visi.com> <8c2t5j$tsm$1@slb2.atl.mindspring.net> <tHbF4.1385$75.30296@ptah.visi.com> Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy "Erik Funkenbusch" <er...@visi.com> writes: >That's ONE protocol, not hundreds or thousands. And it's not a proprietary >one, since it still understands DCE/RPC. You just can't use the extensions. >The protocol is the same many of those, they just use different data >formats. MAPI is pretty well defined for instance. The on the wire format used to control an NT Domain controller is *not* documented. That's a protocol in my book. As are the others. They are protocols layered on top of DCE/RPC, in the same way that DCE/RPC is layered on either SMB or TCP or UDP. But they're all protocols. >They "only" support these protocols? How is it that Lotus Notes works then? Lotus provides their own client and server programs. They work on other systems as well as Microsoft. But we're not talking about Lotus clients - we're talking about Microsoft clients - you're changing the subject here. >I see nothing wrong with them adding extensions as long as they still >understand the base protocols. But we're discussing punishment for a predatory monopoly as defined by law here. That's part of the punishment, publishing the extensions. >> MS should publish the IDL for these protocols, and the >> modifications made to DCE/RPC to support the Microsoft >> proprietary security protocols. >IDL is not a "protocol", well, only in the most nit-picky universe it is. >It's a data format. If you start calling all data formats protocols, then >file formats are protocols. Not true. IDL formats *are* over-the-wire protocols. NFS is defined this way, as is the portmapper protocol, nlm and other parts of NFS. The entire protocol is defined in IDL files with the extension of .x. You are squirming here, as you are trying to get Microsoft off the hook of having to document their over-the-wire protocols. Doing so would allow competition in the server market - the one Microsoft is attempting to use their client side monopoly to take over. I don't understand why you don't want this. Don't you think it would be good for customers if they had the choice of buying a non-Microsoft domain controller, or Exchange-like server ? One that would interoperate perfectly with the popular Microsoft clients ? What is the gain you get from not allowing this ? My gain in allowing this to happen is the further extension and use of Samba as server software, I have no problem admitting that. What benefit do you get by helping Microsoft prevent this ? >I see nothing wrong with Microsoft adding extensions. Everyone in the >industry does it. Sun does. HP does. IBM does. And often those >extensions are considered trade secrets. Sun, HP and IBM are not predatory monopolies being punished. Microsoft *is*. That's what we're discussing here (look at the subject title :-). Publishing these over-the-wire protocols is a fitting punishment to allow competition. >> Someone once said that "if Microsoft had invented the >> Internet, we wouldn't have protocols, we'd have API's". >Probably. And that would be a *bad* thing, as far as computing progress is concerned. Regards, Jeremy Allison, Samba Team.