FINALLY an Intelligent Judge overlooking the MS vs DOJ case!!!!

I am glad that Kollar-Kotelly has a clue as to what's going on, and what evidence should be heard by the court.

If this pans out, it will be a lot of egg on Bill Gates' face, considering he himself less than a month ago testified that such a modular and customizable Windows would be impossible from an economical standpoint (does anyone buy that?) and from a technical standpoint (which is just plain false, IMO).

From: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-901661.html:
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WASHINGTON--The federal judge overseeing the Microsoft antitrust case said on Tuesday that she wants to see a version of the Windows operating system that has removable features.
Over the objections of Microsoft, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said she would allow nine states seeking stiff sanctions against the company to have a computer expert demonstrate a version of Windows he has developed that can be customized.

Kollar-Kotelly scheduled the presentation for May 15.

A modular version of Windows is a key demand of the nine states who have rejected a proposed settlement of the four-year-old case as too weak.

The states say a modular version of Windows would level the playing field for non-Microsoft software trying to compete with Microsoft's continued practice of attaching features to the operating system like its Web browser and multimedia player.

But the software giant says it would be technically impossible to offer multiple versions of Windows and would create havoc for consumers and the computer industry.

The non-settling states told the judge that Virginia-based computer testing consultant, James Bach, had built his modular version of Windows using Microsoft's own technology.

Bach, who has worked as a contractor for Microsoft, had created the new version using Windows XP Embedded, a commercial version of Windows designed for specialty devices such as cash registers and automatic teller machines.

Bach will testify that his modular version of Windows was "robust and reliable," Kollar-Kotelly said, citing the states' submission.

The states named Bach as one of two witnesses they want to call at the end of the case to rebut some of Microsoft's arguments.

Microsoft attorneys strongly objected, saying the states should have brought Bach into the case earlier when they were presenting their initial case.

Kollar-Kotelly agreed in part. She said the states' attorneys hired Bach in February, but had made a "tactical decision" not to call him earlier in the case.

But the judge said it was important to hear from someone who had actually "sat down and tried" to create a version of Windows that could be customized.

"I'm going to allow Mr. Bach's testimony primarily for the reason that I think the information should be presented to the court," Kollar-Kotelly said. "I should have it."

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But the software giant says it would be technically impossible to offer multiple versions of Windows and would create havoc for consumers and the computer industry.

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Umm, doesn't Microsoft already have multiple versions of windows? So if they are required to offer a modular version, they will still have their bloated version also. So they charge $200 for XP Home, $300 for XP Pro, and $1000 for XP modular....whos going to buy that?

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Originally posted here by souleman


Umm, doesn't Microsoft already have multiple versions of windows? So if they are required to offer a modular version, they will still have their bloated version also. So they charge $200 for XP Home, $300 for XP Pro, and $1000 for XP modular....whos going to buy that?

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Nope, I don't think you quite understand what's going on. The judge is asking to see if it's possible, and if that's true, she may rule that Microsoft has to sell a customizable form of windows so that OEMs can strip it down and load other things onto it (say Opera, instead of IE).

It's all about the OEMs in most cases, because OEMs make up something akin to 85% of all desktop computer sales. There would obviously be pricing provisions put into place.

The most offensive thing I find about this is that Win98SE cost me $75 when it was new, but parts were more expensive. Microsoft is single-handedly fixing the cost of a PC by jacking up the price on their OSes.

Another side of me wonders why Microsoft feels the need to jack up the cost of Windows. I'm wondering if it's perhaps that they're in deeper trouble financially than they've let on. Microsoft has avoided paying Taxes in the US for a number of years now, thanks to some creative accounting. Microsoft has also managed to inflate their stock price a few times with purchases of and/or folding some companies. It may also explain their increased OS releases. Up to and including Win98, we were 4 years between OS upgrades (NT 3.51 - NT4 was 4 years dead on IIRC). Now we're at two years (Win2K/WinME in '99 and WinXP in '01).

Time will tell, I suppose.

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Originally posted here by chsh

The most offensive thing I find about this is that Win98SE cost me $75 when it was new, but parts were more expensive. Microsoft is single-handedly fixing the cost of a PC by jacking up the price on their OSes.

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Microsoft was also known for striking "bundling" deals with PC suppliers... basically the PC would be sold with Windows and MS would get a $70 or $80 cut or whatever on a new PC price. If the user didn't want Windows installed on their new machine, that was fine, they didn't have to have it... but MS would still get their royalty/cut anyway.

Practices like that pretty much drove out competiting OS' bundling such as OS/2 and Linux.

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Another side of me wonders why Microsoft feels the need to jack up the cost of Windows. I'm wondering if it's perhaps that they're in deeper trouble financially than they've let on. Microsoft has avoided paying Taxes in the US for a number of years now, thanks to some creative accounting. Microsoft has also managed to inflate their stock price a few times with purchases of and/or folding some companies. It may also explain their increased OS releases. Up to and including Win98, we were 4 years between OS upgrades (NT 3.51 - NT4 was 4 years dead on IIRC). Now we're at two years (Win2K/WinME in '99 and WinXP in '01).

Time will tell, I suppose.

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Well, OS' like Linux are finally starting to show that there really is an alternative to the almighty MS in the PC market - in short, they have more competition, so they have to ship more often if for nothing else to make it look like they're doing something... in reality, I'm not so sure that it's possible to "out code" MS' "programming farms" (simply in-terms of volume).

I think (hope) that some computer users and network managers are starting to get smart and realize that there really is an alternative to MS (then again, I'm biased... I've run reasonably-sized companies on 100% Sun networks, for example)...

...and, well, MS isn't stupid - they're not just going to sit down and let people "catch up."

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modular and customizable Windows would be impossible from an economical standpoint and from a technical standpoint .

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Guess bills never used Linux.
-Linux is modular and it’s stable.
-How can it be impossible form an economic stand point when you have a monopoly?

I don't see why MS couldn't be more modular, to some extent it's modular already. IIS for instance you can choose not to install on your Win 2000.

What lacks modularity is the shell, Explorer. It's integrated into the OS and cannot be removed. Explorer is actually very similar to Linux GUI shells KDE & Gnome, they've all got a web-browsers integrated with the shell. KDE & Gnome can be removed though.

On windows you can choose not to use Explorer, but find other shells that will do the same job. But you can still run applications that use Explorer (like word & excel) because Explorer's always there. If there was a way to uninstall Explorer you couldn't run these applications, and my guess is that it's this MS is afraid of: Users choosing another shell, and therefore also has to use applications designed for that shell. It would make it more likely users choosing other kinds of software for their word-processing & such. At least if someone came up with a better, more usable shell which they patented. Then MS would be left with only an OS kernel to sell to their customers, and the monopoly would be broken. MS' nightmare come true.

Go modular! Whee!
Goodbye sneaky hidden virtual-machine scripting! Goodbye evil "Would you like to register..."

If this doesn't go through, one of these days (when I'm bored enough/know enough) I will completely disassemble a Windows OS disc, document everything, and reform it into a new, usable, and free OS.

So I desperately hope they pass this, cause I would really like to be spared the headache. ;)