WinXP SP2 delayed; anti-trust issues to arise?

[Dale]

The Windows kernel is NOT UNIX. Just what the hell are you on?

From here.... http://www.os2bbs.com/os2news/OS2Warp.html

"The Windows NT kernel was partially based on the OS/2 kernel that they created with IBM, and Windows 95 also borrows heavily from this code."

And OS/2's kernel is? Good boy, based on UNIX for Mainframes!

The GUI was designed by MS, with some help from IBM, for OS/2, you're right -- fail to see the implication behind this.

Because the GUI was developed for OS/2 (but not released, IBM changed it).

NetBios/NetBuei: Okay, I am mistaken. They aren't Novel's. From here..... http://whatis.techtarget.com/definit...212633,00.html

"It was created by IBM for its early PC Network, was adopted by Microsoft, and has since become a de facto industry standard."

Still not MS's.

Messaging: Messaging, as in the technology behind Microsoft Exchange. They bought it from Lotus (ccmail).

Command interpretor: DOS is the standard command-line interpretor in Windows (all versions). What was DOS written for? Originally for IBM mainframe systems as OS/2's command-line interpretor.

Not so stupid!

[Dale]

So really, all the underlying components of windows pretty much belong to IBM or others. Lucky they have that cross-licensing agreement with IBM eh? Or we'd have no windows. Which would mean no free browser to download Mozilla with!

[Dale]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
He was saying how silly it was to take away everything MS bundled! Have you no sense of humor whatsoever?!!

This is exactly what I'm saying. What's the point of taking away all these bundled components of windows, which technically weren't even theirs to begin with, and create a useless product? You going to take away all the components of every other product ripped-off other companies? No, it'd quite simply cause a collapse of society and the economy.

MS a monopoly, who cares? When 95% of PC's run windows, I'm going to write programs for windows. Simple business. You steal ideas to make money.

Welcome to capitalism!!

[Asher]

Originally posted by Dale
From here.... http://www.os2bbs.com/os2news/OS2Warp.html

"The Windows NT kernel was partially based on the OS/2 kernel that they created with IBM, and Windows 95 also borrows heavily from this code."

And OS/2's kernel is? Good boy, based on UNIX for Mainframes!

OS/2's kernel was not based on UNIX for mainframes.

http://www.os2bbs.com/os2news/OS2Warp.html

Your own source says it was built "from the ground up" -- they used concepts from the high end servers (time-slicing, etc), but NOT the code.

Because the GUI was developed for OS/2 (but not released, IBM changed it).

Why does it matter who it was developed for, when Microsoft developed it?

Command interpretor: DOS is the standard command-line interpretor in Windows (all versions). What was DOS written for? Originally for IBM mainframe systems as OS/2's command-line interpretor.

Excuse me? DOS predates OS/2 by MANY years, and it certainly was not written for IBM mainframe systems first, but for IBM's "new" personal computers.

If you want to make a real argument against MS' "technology", talk about DR-DOS and its purchase to form DOS. The stuff you try to pull in your post is inaccurate and just silly.

Not so stupid!

No, still quite stupid.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Dale
This is exactly what I'm saying. What's the point of taking away all these bundled components of windows, which technically weren't even theirs to begin with, and create a useless product? You going to take away all the components of every other product ripped-off other companies?

As I've already debunked them all, I'm just going to repeat myself.

NT's kernel was loosely based on OS\2's, which IBM primarily developed. Fortunately, virtually all of that legacy code has been replaced in Windows 2000 and 2003. Hell, virtually all of NT has been rewritten since NT 3.0.

Windows' GUI was developed by MS and MS alone. Your argument that they did it "for" someone else (in reality, it was in a parternship, where MS was responsible for the interfacing) is laughable.

It's absurd for you to claim "most" of Windows' technology isn't theirs to begin with.

What's even more baffling is you haven't actually used the real cases where MS licensed other people's technologies and built on it to make a dominant product: Internet Explorer w/ Mosaic, and DOS with DR-DOS.

[Dale]

Windows GUI MS's alone? Not quite. Didn't you even READ the article? It clearly states that MS started working on the GUI of OS/2, grabbed all the good technology for it, dumped OS/2 v2 on IBM half finished and implemented these technologies in windows. DDE, OLE (ActiveX now) and COM are all IBM's, the fundamentals of windows. DDE looks after windows messaging (internal and external), OLE looks after graphics implementation (even in Win XP, ME, 2003), and COM does the command-line interpretation (even NOW).

So what don't you get? Microsoft flogged these critical 3 elements from IBM to make windows work.

As for partnership, no partnership. Xerox paid Microsoft to create a GUI platform for their high-end terminal printers. Windows v1 was born. Xerox didn't want it though, and even though MS didn't own the license or idea for it (it was Xerox's) they went ahead and released it under their own name.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Asher

Okay. I want you to think real hard on this one.

Programs need to interface with hardware. To do this, some kind of operating system (or at the very least, virtual machine) needs to handle this.

In order for this to happen, programs need a consistent interface that behaves the same across all platforms.

Even in the very unlikely event of someone making a cross-platform specification for system calls, windowing systems, etc -- every system will have its own quirks, and will require enormous resources for any program to be QA tested on tons of various OSes. Not to mention how glacial the development pace of operating systems would become, somewhat like what killed OpenGL for gaming in favor of DirectX.

Another option is to have a standardized virtual machine. But in this case, you're just trading a monopoly of an OS with a monopoly of a VM. The .NET runtime, BTW, runs on Windows, MacOS, BSD, and Linux. So you can run Windows .NET programs on many platforms...

So anyway, as you can see, the operating system industry is absolutely a natural monopoly. It's the only way to:
1) Keep technology advanced
2) Keep development costs down
3) Ease confusion at the end-user level with consistent-behaving computers

Of course, it's technically possible to force 100 different OSes into the market, but it'd just make everything chaotically terrible...

I still didnt say u could resopnd to me. hush.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Dale
Windows GUI MS's alone? Not quite. Didn't you even READ the article? It clearly states that MS started working on the GUI of OS/2, grabbed all the good technology for it, dumped OS/2 v2 on IBM half finished and implemented these technologies in windows. DDE, OLE (ActiveX now) and COM are all IBM's, the fundamentals of windows. DDE looks after windows messaging (internal and external), OLE looks after graphics implementation (even in Win XP, ME, 2003), and COM does the command-line interpretation (even NOW).

I'm not going to bother going into debunking these (which I could), because the point is moot.

COM, OLE/ActiveX, and DDE are all obsolete now in Windows, and they were never IBM's in the first place.

And just so you know, the source you mention is being somewhat liberal and misleading with the term "derived" -- COM and OLE/DDE were partially based on some theoretical research IBM was doing for OS/2, but never implemented.

Not to mention the first releases of all three were pathetically borderline-useless.

You'll also have to find more sources than an OS/2 fanboy site with cleverly worded sentences implying something else.

For example, the article implies DDE was an "IBM Technology". DDE first appeared in Windows 2.x in 1987, well before OS/2.

And the reason that they "still today maintain a crosslicensing agreement" is not because " because they still used so much of their technology" is used, but because...well...the agreement kinda expires in 2010(?), not whenever MS feels like it should end.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Asher

No, it wasn't -- what got MS the "guilty" verdict was the internal memos, the OEM licensing restrictions, and the bullying of Netscape -- which is why all three were addressed in the settlement while IE, WMP, etc. are allowed to be bundled legally.

So you WERE correct when you said the courts already dealt with this and made a decision, so why is it that people continue to whine about it? It's even better when people such as yourself use the case as part of your argument, since it goes against it.

Asher, here is a portion of a summary of the DC Circuit opinion. I see you are in a major state of denial.

"Microsoft’s contractual and technological binding of IE and Windows violates Section 2. By commingling the IE software code as an irremovable part of Windows, the Court found, Microsoft sought to prevent OEMs, who would face increased support costs if they offered more than one browser, from offering Navigator or any other rival to IE. The Court further found that Microsoft’s commingling of IE and Windows code had no procompetitive benefit, and served only as an strategy to exclude competition."

http://164.109.59.52/library/pdf/clientalertanti.pdf

[Asher]

Did you actually read it closely?

Half of it is about the OEM licensing **** we've already discussed.
The other half is about making IE non-removable, which MS remedied to the satisfaction of the court by removing all references to it from a Windows installation.

There is a reason the courts did not order MS to split IE and Windows. That much is painfully obvious, but you seem to be in a "major state of denial" by somehow ignoring the fact that the court did not order MS to split the two, and allows it to legally continue shipping the two together.

It's really quite simple when you stop denying the obvious.

[Asher]

Oh yeah, and this quote from the very PDF you linked to pretty much ends the whole IE discussion:

The Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s conclusion that
Microsoft had attempted to monopolize the market for browsers.

Case closed.

PS:

The Court characterized platform software markets as
“pervasively innovative,” and asserted that “tying in such markets may produce efficiencies that courts
have not previously considered.” The Court also noted that integration is common in the platform
software market, even among firms without market power -- and firms without market power have no
incentive to bundle unless there are efficiency gains to be realized. In light of these facts, the Court stated
that it “[could] not comfortably say that bundling in platform software markets has so little redeeming
virtue, and that there would be so very little loss to society from its ban, that an inquiry into its costs in
the individual case [can be] considered [ ] unnecessary.” The Court remanded the case for evaluation of
Microsoft’s tying arrangements under the rule of reason.

[Dale]

I hate it when a whole post gets lost!

Anyways, what I was saying is COM/OLE/DDE are all still strongly used. COM(+) by C++ programmers, OLE/OCX (ActiveX) by Java/VB programmers, and what do you think DirectX 7 & 8 (the networking component) uses? DDE! DDE is the link between client apps and server apps. They ain't obselete. Thought .NET will eventually change that I suppose.

Oh, and DDE was released on windows 3.x, DDL (Dynamic Data Linking) was used in 2.x. I had a link copied from msdn.microsoft.com, but lost it (see first line).

Also found a page (through searching google of course, to the REXX.org page) stating that REXX (IBM's mainframe script language, and yes before both OS/2 and windows) supports DDL (the father of DDE, OLE, OCX, COM and COM+).

Are they reliable webpages?

[Ned]

Asher, you should quote the whole sentence and not just the portions of the sentence you like. The sentence does not end with a period after the word "browsers."

[Asher]

Originally posted by Dale
Anyways, what I was saying is COM/OLE/DDE are all still strongly used.

Yes, but that doesn't make it not obsolete.
.NET doesn't use any of the above, and COM/OLE/DDE are deprecated in favor of .NET.

Oh, and DDE was released on windows 3.x, DDL (Dynamic Data Linking) was used in 2.x. I had a link copied from msdn.microsoft.com, but lost it (see first line).

Same technology, different iteration.

Also found a page (through searching google of course, to the REXX.org page) stating that REXX (IBM's mainframe script language, and yes before both OS/2 and windows) supports DDL (the father of DDE, OLE, OCX, COM and COM+).

What's funny is you just contradicted yourself...

You say "butbutbut, Win2.x didn't have DDE, it has DDL!"
then
"butbutbut, REXX had DDL, and therefore DDE, blahblah"

IBM and Microsoft were partners, it's called a cross-licensing agreement for a reason. IBM uses MS tech, MS uses IBM tech. Seeing how woefully primitive DDL was, which you admit was the "grandfather" to DDE, and how DDE appeared in a Microsoft product before an IBM one, and how DDE is the one still used today...I think it's more apt to give MS far far more credit to Windows than IBM. But hey, that's just me.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Ned
Asher, you should quote the whole sentence and not just the portions of the sentence you like. The sentence does not end with a period after the word "browsers."

The other part doesn't change anything, so to make the post more succinct I removed it. It's typical legalese.

The fact remains: