retort from PJ@Groklaw
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| gus3 Feb 28, 2010 11:44 PM EDT |
Quoting:So Microsoft admits it is behind the investigations that have been initiated. They make it sound like they just answered some questions, but the truth is, I remember very well Microsoft predicting this was going to happen. It *could* be a coincidence, I suppose. Snort. Anyone can lodge a complaint, and when that happens, it has to be investigated to see if it's legitimate, I suppose, so anyone who wants to harass a competitor certainly can. By the way, would you like to know why more people use Google? I can tell you why I do. Because their algorithms work better and you can find what you are looking for reliably and quickly, and Google Search worked better FROM THE VERY FIRST DAY it was made available to the public, before there was any effect from any numbers of users.http://www.groklaw.net/newsitems.php this comment (c) 2010 Pamela Jones |
| dinotrac Mar 01, 2010 8:25 AM EDT |
Yeah, sure... But that's more or less the same thing Microsoft would have said lo those many years ago. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 01, 2010 9:43 AM EDT |
Yeah, I had to add this: "Tied their adwords stream to search results", really? That your COMPLAINT? When is Microsoft releasing Office for Solaris? Office for Linux? Office for BSD? No? Because it's Tied To Windows. When is Microsoft releasing Internet Explorer for Solaris, Linux or BSD? No? Because it's TIED TO WINDOWS. Media Player? IIS? Silverlight? How about a $50 Microsoft Windows API implementation, like a WINE that works, that allows me to use Microsoft products directly and successfully on other platforms? No, because every product Microsoft makes is carefully, deliberately and with malice and forethought, Tied To Windows. Just in case anyone from Microsoft ever reads these comments, let me tell you that I tried MSN search, I tried Bing, and they simply didn't work for me. Microsoft's products tend to be heavy on graphics and light on results, which is the exact opposite of what I am looking for. Around 1995, I wrote that if Microsoft were smart and released Office for Linux and other OSs, they would utterly OWN the office for a century. But no, you stuck with this idiot "Everything On Windows" policy (whoever thought that up should have his stock options canceled). When I.E. came out, had it been released for Win, Mac, Lin, BSD, etc, again Microsoft would have owned the browser space. But no, "Everything On Windows." Microsoft created OpenOffice, FireFox and Desktop Linux through your own avaricious policies. The hypocrisy of this article, Mr. Heiner, is legion. That this hypocrisy is endemic to everything Microsoft puts out is one good reason I have not used or advocated any Microsoft product since Win95. |
| TxtEdMacs Mar 01, 2010 10:28 AM EDT |
Bob, I do not remember the product name of the original Internet Explorer, however, it was a borrowed product, which might have worked on several OSs. The deal was that the owner of the browser product and MS meant to compete with Navigator and then were to split the profits when MS sold it to users. But MS innovated; they gave it away free until they wrote a new browser version that was called Internet Explorer. These guys are geniuses, they should write a book about screwing any and all: enemies, allies, friends, family ... whoever or whatever. YBT |
| jdixon Mar 01, 2010 10:47 AM EDT |
If memory serves me correctly, IE was released for Solaris. Ah, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_UNIX) confirms that IE4 and IE5 were released for Solaris and HPUX. And IE up through IE 5 was avalialbe for the Mac (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_Mac). |
| jdixon Mar 01, 2010 10:48 AM EDT |
> I do not remember the product name of the original Internet Explorer, however, it was a borrowed product, which might have worked on several OSs From memory, Spyglass, the commercialized version of Mosaic. And yes, Mosaic supported multiple OS's. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 01, 2010 11:02 AM EDT |
Excellent. Thank y'all for the list of exceptions. Txt, it was called Internet Explorer from the start, but yes it was a renamed Spyglass. That was 6 months after Win95 was released, when MS cherry-picked the BSD TCP/IP stack and dropped it into Windows, quietly adding it to the Win95 CDs being sold. The launch of I.E. as a free download was also during the whole "exporting encryption" bru-ha-ha that Phil Zimmerman instigated, and the HELL my ISP went through as the primary download site for I.E. trying to use reverse DNS to verify what country the downloader was coming from... I have lots of good reasons for being an unabashed anarchist. Governments ruin everything they touch! Personally, I just ftp://ftp12.netscape.com/ and pulled down their latest Navigator without paying for it. Hey, there's a statute of limitations, right? |
| dinotrac Mar 01, 2010 11:22 AM EDT |
BobR -- The whole Spyglass fiasco was a great example of Microsoft screwing their partners with dishonest business practices. They licensed the Spyglass Internet tools, but did so on a percentage of proceeds instead of per-copy license. Then, of course, they bundled IE for free. |
| jdixon Mar 01, 2010 1:28 PM EDT |
> Personally, I just ftp://ftp12.netscape.com/ and pulled down their latest Navigator without paying for it. Hey, there's a statute of limitations, right? Netscape didn't care. They offered a (from memory) 30 trial period for anyone to try the browser, but they never enforced that. We did actually pay for a copy though. We probably still have ther license somewhere around the house. Of course, the original Netscape was also merely a heavily modified Mosaic. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 02, 2010 9:46 AM EDT |
> Then, of course, they bundled IE for free. Too bad "abuse of contract" doesn't hurt. To paraphrase Werner von Braun in _The Right Stuff_, "Our lawyers are better zan zeir lawyers." > Of course, the original Netscape was also merely a heavily modified Mosaic. I liked that Netscape worked as a file browser, too. It gave me a chance to "browse" through the SunOS file tree and learn where things were much easier than typing "ls -al" over and over. > Of course, the original Netscape was also merely a heavily modified Mosaic. I wouldn't be surprised if all the early browsers were that way. I remember on Win31 a browser that had a lizard in the upper right that changed colors while the page was loading. I've always associated that with the "Geko" rendering engine, even though I don't have any evidence of a relationship. One of he nice products killed by Microsoft's sudden inclusion of an IP stack, browser, Outlook, etc, was by Ipswitch: http://www.zid.com/products/software/ipswitch/rs_cybersuite.... ...but it must have been a pre-1.0 version I was working on before Gates discovered the 'Net, because it came with the WinSock IP stack, a telnet HOST(command line on Windows, a decade before MS!) that worked well, FTP and SMTP servers, as well as all the clients. I wonder if the floppy out in the garage is still viable? In fact, it turned a lame-butt Win95 system into quite a viable small business client/server, add Netscape and stir vigorously, which is what "we" were trying to build with Ipswitch for our ISP clients when MS's conversion to IP undercut everybody. And it was right about that same time I converted myself over to Linux, which had all that stuff already. Neither I nor the systems guy who introduced me to Linux were successful in convincing anyone else to use it, or to even recommend it to our customers. It was, after all, the Win95 "rage" time. |
| jacog Mar 02, 2010 11:04 AM EDT |
Windows 95? You mean the first fully multitasking operating system in the world? S'true because Bill said so. |
| dinotrac Mar 02, 2010 11:26 AM EDT |
jacog - The funny thing is that neither Win 95 nore Win NT were the first true multitasking OS from Microsoft. Windows 3.0 actually had proper multitasking, but only for DOS programs! DOS programs were run in DOS boxes that, unlike Windows programs, were mutlitasked on a preemptive rather than cooperative basis. I can't remember now, but it may even have been possible to adjust the time slices. |
| gus3 Mar 02, 2010 11:54 AM EDT |
Uh, no it didn't. If a DOS-based program running in Windows 3.x didn't do something to call a standard BIOS or DOS service (file I/O, screen I/O, etc.) then it could effectively deny CPU to all other programs. The standard interrupts were hooked, to give Windows an entry point into the DOS program's execution path. There was no timer-tick preemption in Windows three-point-anything. |
| dinotrac Mar 02, 2010 12:01 PM EDT |
gus3 - Sorry, but DOS boxes were time-sliced. |
| jdixon Mar 02, 2010 12:07 PM EDT |
> Windows 3.0 actually had proper multitasking, but only for DOS programs! And the Tandy Color Computer with OS-9 predated all of Windows and MS-DOS. A full real time, preemptive multitasking, multiuser OS in 64K. Sigh. OS-9 info at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS-9 MS-DOS timeline at Computer Nostalgia: http://www.computernostalgia.net/articles/ms-dosTimeline.htm |
| dinotrac Mar 02, 2010 12:29 PM EDT |
Yeah -- The COCO was pretty amazing for its time. Kind of like a poor man's Amiga, except that it came first, so.... maybe the Amiga was a rich man's COCO... |
| jdixon Mar 02, 2010 12:34 PM EDT |
> ...maybe the Amiga was a rich man's COCO... More like, yes. Though from what I understand, the Amiga's video capabilities surpassed anything else available at the time. |
| dinotrac Mar 02, 2010 1:18 PM EDT |
jd - Amiga was amazing for its time, and just got better as it went. I believe the Amiga 1000 that served as host to the Video Toaster and started to give high-priced video hardware a serious run for the money. |
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