How Europe's Mandated Browser Ballot Screen Works 169
CWmike writes "After an 11-month legal face-off, Microsoft and European antitrust officials signed off yesterday on the ballot screen concept that will give Windows users a chance to download rivals' browsers. But now that the battle's over and the ink has dried, it's time to look closely. Some FAQ examples: What's Microsoft promised? How will it work? How many browsers will be on the ballot? Who decides which browsers? Who will see it?"
Quit making it so complicated (Score:4, Interesting)
Write a 'Portable Application" that is not integrated with Windows System files to web browse to any web site and download any file and then run it. Default the startup page to a Google search for "web browsers" and let the user pick which link to follow and download. Then the 'Portable Application" can be deleted if the user so desires.
I would suggest that the 'Portable Application" be a FOSS web browser like Firefox and licensed from the Mozilla Foundation to work as a one time downloader. Then all web browsers have that annoying feature to detect that it is not the "Default browser" and ask the user to make it default and sets the default to "Yes and never ask again" so the user picks a web browser, downloads it, make it default and then if they want they can download a different web browser later on.
The whole DOJ and EU problem with Windows is that IE is the built in default web browser that is integrated with Windows system files so it cannot be removed. Just make the Windows 7 N-edition versions with the temp 'Portable Application" web browser that can download whatever web browser the user wants and give a system message that a temp web browser will be loaded to find a suitable web browser the user can download and install and then set as default.
That is just about as simple as you can make it. If you make the third part web browsers part of the Windows 7 install DVD they will be old versions and prone to vulnerabilities and skip some FOSS web browsers and any other web browser that comes out after the Install DVD is made.
Re:Quit making it so complicated (Score:4, Funny)
Write a 'Portable Application" that is not integrated with Windows System files to web browse to any web site and download any file and then run it. Default the startup page to a Google search for "web browsers" and let the user pick which link to follow and download. Then the 'Portable Application" can be deleted if the user so desires.
Gee what would we call this innovative portable application? How about "browser"?
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It's one thing when people who feel they have the requisite knowledge choose to locate an alternative browser and install it. If every user had to use Google to locate what they thought might be a web browser and then attempt to install it successfully, a significant percentage would go straight off the cliff.
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Then we'd need another "portable application" to let the user search for a search engine to use so the operating system wouldn't give an unfair advantage to Google.
Please make it more complicated (Score:2)
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When I buy a computer I don't want to chose between twelve versions of windows, I want some Linux options, or a least a no OS option.
And you're part of a tiny, tiny minority. The vast majority of people don't think of the operating system as different from the hardware. They think of the entire unit as "the computer." Very few people selling to consumers is realistically going to see a benefit to offering a softwareless computer. I'd like to put the blame for that on Microsoft, but realistically, that's just people. Microsoft made the PC affordable and easy enough for anyone to use, which made it possible for the PC market to flouri
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And you're part of a tiny, tiny minority.
Most tech-literate businesses will get software-free PCs and load up whatever OS they have a support contract for be it Windows XP, Red Hat or Ubuntu. So, no, not a tiny minority.
The vast majority of people don't think of the operating system as different from the hardware.
And I'm sure most people think of the components of a car as the same thing as the car itself. Yet that isn't an excuse to not sell car parts.
Very few people selling to consumers is realistically going to see a benefit to offering a softwareless computer.
Its a lot easier to test. Rather than making sure that all the components of Windows are installed, that all the crapware is installed, dealing with disks, etc. That means less labor an
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Rather than making sure that all the components of Windows are installed, that all the crapware is installed, dealing with disks, etc.
Do you know how a disk image works? It's really very little more work to image a hard disk than to just put a brand-new, blank one in there.
You are kidding right? IBM (who had a near total monopoly on computer systems at the time) needed an OS, so MS basically bought DOS from a couple of guys who made it and licensed it to IBM.
True.
DOS was -terrible- but due to IBM's monopoly its what people used,
True -- and that should be a period, not a comma.
when people realized they could build an IBM-compatible machine the clones started coming out and they wanted software compatibility so they licensed DOS too.
See, here's where you're missing a key piece of information:
Microsoft managed to sell DOS to IBM... but not as an exclusive arrangement. Because of this, Microsoft could then turn around and sell DOS (and later Windows) to any IBM clone who wanted it.
Without this, it wouldn't have mattered -- those IBM clones would'v
more to the point, is this really necessary? (Score:4, Insightful)
My computer experience tells me you've got two kinds of users. Idiots and non-idiots. The former category is a lost cause and will just use IE anyway because that's what they know. The latter category is already smart enough to procure an alternate browser without the help of a splash screen.
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So explain very gradual changes in adoption of browsers other than IE.
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Those are the lost cause. Imagine trying to explain chmod or sudo to them.
Re:more to the point, is this really necessary? (Score:4, Funny)
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You still haven't addressed how over half of Europe ended up using alternative browsers already (BTW why do you limit yourself and those you're trying yo convert to FF?...) and through very gradual process.
The way you draw the distinction idiots vs. non-idiots (does that make you feel better?) paints the issue of browser share as virtually impossible to modify.
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Sorry, missed change of poster ;)
But why do you limit yourself only to "techno" kind of phobia in determining whether somebody is an idiot? Why not all kind of phobias? After all, whatever the problem people have with their particular kind of phobia is, it's surely a matter of being close minded, right?
And purely of their making, no outside circumstances have influenced this...
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Hm, you have a point; we should also throw in identity-phobia...
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Why not just change the icon? And why do you change things for people they clearly do not want. You are forcing you choice upon them just as Microsoft does. I give people the alternative and if they don't want it, fine by me, but please do not come by and ask for any further help.
Good idea if it is being done by an informal tech support person (one of us on a friend's PC).. For professional support, not a good idea. The customer has not invited you to change their browser for them. As to why? Ever work on a PC owned by an autoclicker? All those "Your browser is infected with a really really nasty virus.. Click here to fix this" windows" and the "make your internet connection faster"popups still show up, but not nearly as much on Firefox. IE7/8 may have improved, but the problem st
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Yep and if I was living in Europe all those idiots who I would've sneakily converted to Firefox will now get this ballot pop up and change themselves back to IE. Will be interesting to see the before and after browser popularity stats.
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The Ballot screen only appears for people who have IE as their default browser. If you have switched them to Firefox, they won't see it.
In any case, I would expect most non-geeks to choose "Google".
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The first category probably wouldn't even realise they are working with FF or Safari instead of IE.
Re:more to the point, is this really necessary? (Score:5, Insightful)
My computer experience tells me you've got two kinds of users. Idiots and non-idiots.
This is a common mental mistake of Slashdotters. Of course there is a scale of various levels of knowledge. Perhaps even more importantly, a person can be an expert in some subjects and an idiot in others.
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Something most slashdotters should be intimately familiar with (myself l;sdkjfaiosuoas included).
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Ignorance doesn't equal idiocy.
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Giving people a selection doesn't work, people are lazy..
You need to not only give them a selection, but also explain the pros and cons of each option, and even then they might still be lazy and stick with what they know...
The damage is already done, if you had given people a choice the first time they ever used a computer, especially with a decent explanation, then the situation would be very different today.
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Or more importantly, it's not necessary because Netscape failed because it was crap, not because of Microsoft's situation, and Firefox is killing Microsoft's marketshare even though IE has the same supposed advantage over it that it had over netscape.
Opera are pushing this because their browser is in the non-factor segment of the market when the real solution is to just do as Firefox did- build a better browser, and spend some time convincing people to adopt it.
I actually feel sorry for Microsoft because th
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Netscape fell very quickly because it was not only crap, but also microsoft played dirty against them...
The difference between current versions of ie and firefox/opera/safari/chrome is actually much greater than the difference between ie/netscape, microsoft's inertia and dirty tricks are the only thing keeping them in the game right now.
If you take away their unfair/illegal advantages, ie would be fading a lot faster than it currently is.
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Yeah, because knowledge about computing has everything to do with intelligence, eh?
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Depending on how its presented, there is a good chance people (who would normally only use IE) might see Google Chrome and go "I know Google, I use it to find stuff all the time, I am going to pick the Google option"
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The ballot screen is Europe only (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The ballot screen is Europe only (Score:4, Funny)
The bad news is that, the screen is to appear only for users in Europe. I hope the US anti-trust takes hint a from their European counterparts and mandate in the US too.
I believe deliberate, artificial market segmentation is a violation of the sherman anti-trust act. It merely needs to be actually pursued by the justice department.
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You mean things like region encoding of Movies is actually illegal?
Huh.
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Modders, release your points.
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Heh, yeah. Coming to compliance with a (megalomaniac) government's regulations within their territory screams of artificial market segmentation. Next thing you know all U.S. Windows retail boxes will come in English + French, 'cause Canada mandates it. And they'll only accept rubles as payment, 'cause Russia mandated that. Next thing you know it's going to report back to the Great Firewall of China 'cause, well, that's what it took to get it sold over there.
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I disagree. The really bad news is that this let's microsoft off the hook completely for the mess they have created.
No matter which browser you choose on this ballot, IE is still going to be present on your machine and ready for internal idiots or external criminals to use. This changes nothing whatsoever.
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I disagree. The really bad news is that this let's microsoft off the hook completely for the mess they have created.
It was no fun [wikipedia.org] dangling on that hook while it lasted, however:
"In March 2004, the EU ordered Microsoft to pay €497 million ($794 million or £381 million)"
"In December 2005 the EU announced that it believed Microsoft did not comply fully with the ruling, stating that the company did not disclose appropriate information about its server programs. The EU said that it would begin to fine Microsoft €2 million (US$3.20 million or £1.53 million) a day until it did so."
"On 12 July 2006, the EU
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Removal is nigh-impossible for Microsoft to do now.
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Well, they can't remove the HTML rendering engine because so many things depend on it. But by and large they hook directly into the engine, they don't call iexplore.exe (which is essentially a frontend to it). So it may well be practical to remove that.
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Disable but not remove.
Removal is nigh-inconvenient for Microsoft to do now.
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How about the same - for computers? (Score:4, Interesting)
I really think the EU is missing the point in this "anti-trust" case: the fact that the consumer doesn't have a choice in what OS comes with his computer doesn't bother anyone?
Re:How about the same - for computers? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really think the EU is missing the point in this "anti-trust" case: the fact that the consumer doesn't have a choice in what OS comes with his computer doesn't bother anyone?
I think the reasoning is that it's not illegal to have this sort of monopoly (on OSes), but it's illegal to abuse it in such a way that you leverage it in order to dominate other markets, like browsers. Since they leveraged the Windows monopoly to make IE a dominant browser, the government is focusing their anti-trust efforts on browser choice specifically. At least that's what I think their reasoning is, though I'm no lawyer.
Re:How about the same - for computers? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a law student that has taken Antitrust law, I can confirm that that IS the logic. Essentially, it is not illegal to maintain a policy by historic accident, market preference, or even government fiat. However, it is illegal to leverage your monopoly in one area to create a monopoly in another field or to use anticompetitive tactics to maintain your monopoly.
For example, if MS refused to sell Windows 7 licenses to companies that also sold pre-installed Linux computers, that would likely be an antitrust violation, because MS would be maintaining its monopoly by anti competitive means rather than maintaining it as a result of mere customer preference.
However, IE would not be in the dominant position it is today if it weren't for MS's use of its OS monopoly to create a monopoly in the browser market. The EU wants users to have a choice of browsers to prevent just this behavior. Europe also generally has much higher Firefox penetration than the US, so I would not' be surprised if this does have an impact.
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The EU believes that simply making it obvious to users that a) there are choices and b) that installing and using another browser is easy to do, and in no way abnormal or dangerous.
If MS thought that the ballot screen wouldn't affect it's IE user base, than it wouldn't have fought so hard to ban it. In fact, they offered to sell the OS with NO BROWSER as an alternative to providing a ballot screen!
In addition, MS has refused to provide a ballot screen to non-EU users. North America, for example, will NOT ge
No Opt-Out in Europe (Score:5, Informative)
Nonsense, there is no such thing in "Europe" because each country has its own system! Europe is not a country, not even the EU member states have central administration for transplants. You are just making things up.
You cannot possibly claim 80-90% participation when there is no European common ground on transplants. And there certainly is NO "opt out" system in Europe as a whole. There are only national systems! Your claim is an outright lie. I also checked with the European Transplant Coordinators Organisation.
Further research shows that just within the EU (27 out of 50 countries in Europe) there are wildly different figures. The Nordic countries show a high degree of willingness to donate organs, but there is still no opt-out system. In fact you absolutely have to choose to opt-in and get a donor card!
I quote from the European Union's report on organ donations: "Donation rates and transplantation activity varies widely between the Member States, ranging from 33.8 deceased donors per million of population (pmp) in Spain to 1 deceased donor per million population in Romania. Only Spain and few others Member States have succeeded in increasing significantly the number of donors. These increases are linked to the introduction of better organisational practices".
http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_threats/human_substance/oc_organs/docs/fact_figures.pdf [europa.eu]
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*cough* Request to Mods - I don't see anything remotely trollish in the parent post.
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If I want to sign up for a 401(k), a newspaper subscription, a contract for my cell, a subscription to cable, a savings account or would like to receive weekly issues of hairy midget feet illustrated, I will indicate so on some kind of form the respective company is happy to provide. I like my non-neutral starting point. I like to be free to enter in any kind of obligation if and when I choose to; not at the whim of, well, whomever you'd like to decide for you.
Donating organs is, as far as I understand, pre
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Your views on being free to make a choice are completely valid, and I share them. As I said, the opt-out system is NOT my idea, and in fact I oppose it. I would prefer either an opt-in system or one which requires you to make a choice for the reasons you eloquently described.
As for the ballot screen, there is a reason that the EU is going after MS for its browser, and not for Paint, Windows Media Player or Notepad. They had and continue to hold a significant monopoly in the browser market. That market is ex
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This is the first time I've been marked troll. I fail to see how it's a troll. Seems to me like it's "-1 Disagree", but whatever. It's Slashdot.
Anyways, I want to respond to a few points. Yes, I know Europe is not a country! I was referring to Europe as each country has different policies, but many of the nations that make up the EU and Europe do have opt-out systems.
If you think I'm full of shit, have a look at this article and graph from Harvard and tell me it's a total coincidence:
Graph: http://www.iq.ha [harvard.edu]
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That's actually neither "opt-in" nor "opt-out". In that system, you are forced to choose, whereas in either of the former systems, you can do nothing. Sunstein argues that many people would rather the decision be made for them because the topic of organ donation brings up terrible thoughts of one's death and mutilation. I don't really buy that. As far as I'm aware, in the US, you are not asked. You have to ask to be an organ donor.
However, if you die in a hospital, the doctor will likely ask your family to
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I was never asked if I wanted to be a donor in NJ. I doubt all of Europe is opt-out, but that seems to be the dominant position.
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I certainly did not have that experience in my high school. Then again, my high school was sued and eventually lost in the Supreme Court on a constitutional free speech matter, so I doubt they would do something that would open them up to liability like that.
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As far as I'm aware, in the US, you are not asked. You have to ask to be an organ donor.
FYI, since DMVs are state-run bureaus, that subject is up to the state to decide. In California, you are given a Yes/No option on every Driver's License registration and renewal form.
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Yes, I'm aware. I should have been more clear in my original post. I was talking about the practice on average, rather than the practice of each state. I'm sure there are MANY variations among the 50 states and District of Columbia.
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To be clear, Sunstein argues against the model you discussed because he believes that forcing people to simply elect a choice may have 2nd order externalities - in this case - the psychological harm of having to think about your potential death.
Sunstein actually spoke to my Behavioral Law & Economics Class at Yale Law School, taught by one of his colleagues, Christine Jolls. I proposed precisely the system you described, and that was his response. I don't buy it. I think asking people maximizes liberty,
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Another way to look at it is by
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whenever i'm at the dmv and person after person responds "no" i always want to pipe up and ask them "why?" but it would be horribly out of line. i just can't understand the reasoning.
There's a pretty strong perception that doctors won't try quite as hard to save a person if they are an organ donor, because the organs need to be harvested before any damage is done to them. I don't know whether or not there's any basis to this fear.
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The problem is not just that IE is installed by default, but that MS long time has prevented resellers to install another browser, let alone make another browser the default.
Yes it's easy to install another browser, but it's even easier to use the one that comes installed by default, is used by other parts of the O/S for various display tasks, and will nag you to become the default every time it's invoked even if not for browsing the Internet.
Partly thanks to this policy of having IE installed and prevent
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Politicians or other middle men may get a commission (or other benefits) from Microsoft in order to promote the use of Windows. Browsers don't cost anything, and so politicians can play the political game of fairness.
Consumers do have a choice (Score:2)
The problem is they don't want a choice. There are plenty of other operating systems for PCs, Linux of course being the one everyone around here would think about. However consumers don't seem to want any of those. There is just next to zero demand for Linux on desktop systems. Companies have tried it, and their sales have been abysmal. Workstations and servers are a different story, and indeed you find it often IS an option. However on the desktop, people want Windows.
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Hear, hear. That's true. I've seen some preinstalled linux machines, most were some obscure distros, and none of them properly detected the resolution in wide monitors. This certainly gives a bad impression about Linux.
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Not fair if Lynx is missing (Score:4, Insightful)
Their hegemonic empire will not be torn down in the name of equality if Lynx isn't included in the list of choices. They should also be forced to include alternatives to Paint and Notepad. That they have the audacity to continue bundling these applications is a slap to the face of every righteous EU official. They may also want to look into rumors that Apple is bundling a single web browser into their own OS at the expense of other meritorious alternatives.
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Apple actually bundled MS IE for many years, until MS announced it would discontinue support.
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Just to add a little clarification: MS discontinued support for Mac IE when their contract with Apple ran out. Apple had a new browser in development for some time before that because they knew Mac IE would be discontinued. It's not as if MS changed course.
Re:Not fair if Lynx is missing (Score:5, Informative)
And yet again, someone misunderstands antitrust laws. If you accept that a free market is a good thing, then you also need to accept that regulation is required to keep it free. Without competition, free markets cannot function; monopolies are dangerous and anti-competitive, and mean prices rise for customers in the long run.
Having a monopoly isn't illegal. Having two monopolies isn't illegal. Bundling isn't illegal. Having one monopoly, then using bundling with that monopoly to gain a second monopoly, and to prop up your monopolies via mutual lock-in IS illegal. A monopoly isn't 100% of a market; it's a large enough share such that it is utterly dominant. 90% of the market is more than sufficent in microsoft's case.
Apple does not have a monopoly in the desktop OS market, nor is safari a browser monopoly so bundling is ok. Neither paint or notepad have a monopoly in the image editing or document editing markets, so again bundling is A-OK. Free market competition is not threatened by them at this point.
Microsoft have a desktop monopoly. By bundling IE as the default 'free' browser (i.e. the price is included in windows) they gained a monopoly in the browser market. This in itself is not nececessarily a problem, but given microsoft's habit of also including custom extensions to the spec that promote lock-in, i.e. ActiveX it becomes a problem. Take a real world example; in Korea, online banking almost invariably requires activex, because 'everybody' has it. By having activex tied to the IE monopoly, which is tied to the windows monopoly, it means in order to do online banking there, you need to buy windows. Browser competitors and OS competitors are almost entirely locked out of the market, damaging customer choice and competition. And with no competition, microsoft can charge what the hell they like.
The same applies to the proprietary codecs bundled as part of media player; there was a real danger a few years ago that streaming video and audio online would gravitate to the WMV and WMA standards, which defacto only work in windows (patents providing lock-in), and mainly in IE. So by bundling media player's proprietary codecs with windows 'for free' there was a danger that microsoft would also gain a monopoly in the streaming video/audio market, and again harm competition and ultimately prices. As it happened, flash ended up winning, but it could have gone very differently, and may still if agreement cannot be reached with HTML5 for cross-platform support.
Providing a popup choice at first install may not be my preferred solution, but at least it means microsoft don't get an automatic free ride from customers with windows and IE who don't bother to look into the alternatives because they already have a bundled solution.
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They should also be forced to include alternatives to Paint and Notepad.
Riiiight... because if you have Paint and Notepad, why on earth would you want any other graphics or wordprocessing software? Adobe must be quaking in their boots (and guess who pwn3s the wordprocessing market anyway). Oh, plus, those apps were part of Windows since before Windows had any market share (pretty sure they were in Windows 1.0 in the late 80s). IE, however, was parachuted in circa Windows 95 when the MS monopoly was at its height and Netscape, Opera et. al. had established businesses producing
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In the last US vs MS anti-trust case
Well, its a good job we're talking about the recent EU rulings and not the decade-old US case then, isn't it?
Since Windows 2000 & merging with NT codebase, Windows is not a single user OS, making that definition invalid.
What! You mean MS used their dominant position in the single-user OS market to gain a dominant position in the multi-user OS market? The varmints!!! Can't take your eyes of them for a minute...
Since server hardware and PC hardware is almost similar thesedays (x86/x64 servers anyway..) you can't really differentiate via hardware either.
No, but since desktops and servers are bought for very different purposes you can differentiate the markets quite easily...
I dare say if you define the market as operating systems that run on powerpc compatible PCs, Apple would be a monopoly..
Newsflash from 2005 - Apple uses Intel chips.
its understandable you don't really deal with facts.
Yes, I always wear special goggles which s
Too many choices overwhelms (Score:2)
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Thats MS's desire. Its been shown that when people are overwhelmed with choices they go with what they know.
No, that's not really their desire, but they did acquiesce and that does happen to be a known phenomenon that will likely somewhat mitigate the effects that the browser ballot screen is intended to have on Internet Explorer's market share. MS's true desire is to keep the status quo and not let any consumer have an easy chance to choose anything else but their product. Evidence is that they have fought tooth and nail ever since the EU proposed the ballot screen and only gave up after spending oodles of cash
Ballot? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ballot? It's a menu.
Nice choice of words trying to spin this as a democratic / freedom / choice thing.
It's simply MS being forced to help their competition.
Whether or not you agree with the reasoning behind it is irrelevant - there's no reason to call a simple fucking menu a ballot.
I believe that IE should be the only browser provided by MS, and no menu should be forced upon them. But IE should be completely removable (in Vista and 7 not XP; XP needs it for updates) via the ol' add/remove windows componen
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Voting doesn't necessarily mean majority-rule.
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Well, that assumes that it actually works properly. Perhaps they'll overcomplicate things and you'll never be able to be sure about which browser you're actually going to end up with.
I just had a great idea for the EU regulators: force Microsoft to install a randomly-chosen browser as the default on every new install of Windows. That way you'll get a nice even distribution of browser usage and everyone will be happy.
Waste of Time (Score:4, Insightful)
...for most users I'd imagine. The number of people I've seen close Norton/McAfee messages that say "For Gods' sake man, you're trial-ware virus subscription have expired - your computer could literally be ass-raped any minute!" leads me to think most users won't give a shit about other browsers.
What happens if you close the ballot screen? Nothing I suspect. This'll just be a case of all but mildly technically curious people closing it and clicking the blue "E" anyway.
Anyway, after all this I think it's for the good. If nothing else it makes Apple seem a little more evil; I hope all the fanbois realise the same shake-down will happen to their beloved MacOS X should ever come close to the domination it apparently deserves.. Anyway, I for one don't miss the days of pure IE domination & 'marque' tags floating around, so again this is a good thing.
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There is a common misunderstanding in your post.
The ballot screen is there not because of MS' market domination but because MS abused of that dominant position.
If Apple ever gets to dominate the market and doesn't abuse of it, Apple will never be forced to place a ballot on screen.
Again: the EU is not punishing MS for being successful but because of what they did to win against competitors.
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...for most users I'd imagine. The number of people I've seen close Norton/McAfee messages that say "For Gods' sake man, you're trial-ware virus subscription have expired - your computer could literally be ass-raped any minute!" leads me to think most users won't give a shit about other browsers.
Yeah, those users are funny. If you ask them whether they have antivirus software installed, they'll say "Yes, I think I have Norton... but oh yeah, that reminds me, I get this popup every time I turn my computer on, and I have to close it. Do you know how to fix that?"
Read, people! It's not that hard!
The choice will be too late (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words the user will have already been using the machine for some time, they will have got used to clicking the IE icon and ... this pesky ballot appears ... oh, well, these mysterious things happen, just wait for it to complete ... go back to using IE as he was used to.
This should have been included at first boot time, along with asking you for your timezone, etc.
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The first thing that Windows 7 does after install is to run Windows Update.
Way Too Many Browsers (Score:2)
How many browsers will be on the ballot? Twelve altogether, but just five on the first page.
The first five are Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, Microsoft's IE, Mozilla's Firefox and Opera. On a second screen, the ballot will list AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and SlimBrowser.
Seriously? They should just have stuck with the first five. Plus IE will *still* be installed by default, so this won't solve anything.
How they choose (Score:2, Informative)
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Ya know, if you are going to go for the cheap one line first post you might as well make the joke yourself. At least that way you'll get a few funny mods on your way to the /dev/null of -1
Let me try one: In Soviet Russia, EU anti-trusts YOU.
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In Soviet Russia, the joke' s on you.
Re:The proper Solution: (Score:5, Insightful)
Makers of x86 applications should have been mandated to produce a (Generic) Linux, Windows, and OSX port of all their software.
that will swiftly and very effectively kill off most FOSS projects, as OSS developers do so as a hobby, and often have no clue about the operating system they DONT use.
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Most OSS projects already run on all those platforms and more besides (solaris, bsd etc)... If you write an app for linux it can usually be made to run on other unix systems like osx with little or no effort.
It's typically only closed source applications which remain single platform.
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Re:The proper Solution: (Score:5, Insightful)
Makers of x86 applications should have been mandated to produce a (Generic) Linux, Windows, and OSX port of all their software. That means Quicken, that means Adobe, that means, everyone else. Makers of hardware needed to be mandated to make a Windows, Linux, and OSX driver for their device.
I don't think that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.... but it's damn close.
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Makers of x86 applications should have been mandated to produce a (Generic) Linux, Windows, and OSX port of all their software.
That would be a pretty shitty way to do it, as you would end up punishing everybody except Microsoft. A proper solution would simply be to force Microsoft to open up all their documentation or even source code, to make it easier for competing products to stay compatible.
In general I never really liked focusing so much on the browser, as Microsoft really isn't doing anything wrong there, they are just doing the same thing everybody else does, as a browser these days is simply expected to come bundled with th
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...and yet you suddenly forget, on Slashdot, that other browsers had a hard time largely due to practices of MS.
And no, it isn't a case of "well, but only Opera has such pitiful market share of all the alternatives" BS. You seem to also forget that Europe is not US; there are countries here where Opera is far ahead of FF, for example. And Safari generally doesn't exist.
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Ahh, yes, because it's so hard to imagine the world is not homogeneous...
Ukraine, Opera is the number one browser with 35%, ahead of IE:
http://www.ranking.com.ua/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.html [ranking.com.ua]
Russia, number one among alternatives to IE, with 27%
http://www.rankingru.com/en/rankings/web-browsers-groups.html [rankingru.com]
And in most of the countries in ma backyard, flags of which you can see at the top of above webpages, it is between 5 and 10%, quite respectable.
And in all except one Safari almost doesn't exist, with
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Where is Apple monopoly in the Smartphone or OSX apps market?
Re:This just in from Opera (Score:4, Informative)
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Maybe the option was that Microsoft would pay the web designer customers the BILLIONS that special-case handling of the hill of poop called IE 6 inflicted upon them, and the setback to the web look that their feet-dragging in supporting CSS properly has caused...
Imagine if everyone used Paint instead of Photoshop? People already use it because they do not know of free, better-featured alternatives there either, but bitmap graphics software is not as important to world trade as the browser is.