![]() It may be “possible”, but it’s a simple matter. I’ve yet to see MS actually block a rival’s product from installing, so they’re not limiting choice. Which IMHO is sufficient grounds to ‘regulate’ it a bit. A decision by MS affects and influences lots of ordinary Joes. The only real difference is MS is big, linux distros are small. Windows media player is good as well, as there’s lots of media available on that internet.Īnyone who tries to distinguish between linux bundling and windows bundling is just going to trip themselves up in their own contradictions IMHO. I mean, how else would I have gotten to download Firebird? And its perfectly reasonable for them to use IE as the default browser within ‘their’ applications like MSN messenger as they ‘know’ IE is installed and works for MSN messenger’s purpose.Ī simple document editor is of course a good editor, and some simple games aren’t hurting anyone. Sure it could just be hardware abstraction layer with IPC and context switching, but who provides just that anymore.Īs long as a company does not prevent you from including and is not bundling in packages (increase cost…like some cable companies), I really don’t have a problem with reasonable bundling. The technical debate on what is an operating systme is largely pointless. Is X part of the ‘linux operating system’ (whatever that is)? How about Windows media player? What belongs in an operating system? Countless hours of my life have been spent in this dribble. ![]() I dislike IE – on my Windows machine, I can’t help but use it and patch it, even if I switch to Opera. I like iTunes, again I’m not required to use it. I like Office but I’m not required to use it. So I like Safari, but I’m not required to use it. ![]() When MS integrated the browser INTO the OS, so that, even if I hide the icons and install Mozilla and make it my default everywhere I can, the IE engine is still being used in many places where I can’t make that change (Explorer, Outlook, Help Files, etc (I think all of those use IE to render – you get my drift)) So, I can use OpenOffice or Mozilla because it comes with my distribution, and I likely will because that is easiest, but I am not stuck with it. The implication is that I have the option to not use it, but the fact that it is there may make me inclined to use it because that is easiest. I have no problem with any OS maker shipping a browser, office suite, media player, etc WITH their OS. I think there needs to be a differentiation between something being ‘part of the OS” and something that is bundled with it. One of the reasons Microsoft has been able to get away with so much, in my opinion, is because of a serious lack of familiarity with software development on the part of the US judiciary. I’m also aware of the argument that Microsoft, being a legal monopoly, is obligated to behave under a different set of rules, and I agree with that assessment, but I think the above two points are also important. #2 is false because even with Microsoft’s method of so-called “integration” of applications, it’s really only the end-user application interface that poses the main competitive risk to third-party applications.Įven though MSIE’s libraries might still be “integrated into the OS” Microsoft-style for use with the help system, the desktop, etc., the ability for PC vendors to remove the user-visible portion of the MSIE application and replace it with a copy of Mozilla or Opera (for example) would go a long way to removing the huge competetive advantage that MSIE currently has in the market, largely due to being bundled (or as MS would say, “integrated”) with the OS. Formal separation of software components in a complex project (be it an application or an OS) is a good thing for a number of reasons - having discrete components can make testing easier, it can make it easier to identify and address bugs (and test the fixes), and it generally makes for a more robust design. This is known as “compartmentalization”, and is a basic tenant of computer programming that many of us learned while getting our degrees in CompSci. Other OSes such as Linux and OS/2 use this method. #1 is false because it’s still possible to include additional functionality which is used by other programs as a set of separate application libraries. Microsoft tends to bundle an application into its operating systems by arbitrarily intertwining application library functions with system library code, and then using the specious arguments that (1) there was no other way for them to include the software in a meaningful manner, and (2) the removal of the particular application means that all of its related DLLs must also be removed.
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