In a public environment, yes. But, Windows Update is not a public
environment. It is a very specific task that MS, or anybody else, can
force you to use there product to update with.
Here you are wrong IMO. In case of
Windows Update - "get IE or get lost"
we have a legally defined (at least in the US) schema of OS producer
enforcing a particular middleware (browser) onto OS users by means of
limiting the functionality of the said OS if an alternate middleware
is used.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ)
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
....
As the foregoing discussion illustrates, Microsoft's campaign to
protect the applications barrier from erosion by network-centric
middleware can be broken down into discrete categories of activity,
several of which on their own independently satisfy the second element
of a § 2 monopoly maintenance claim. But only when the separate
categories of conduct are viewed, as they should be, as a single, well-
coordinated course of action does the full extent of the violence that
Microsoft has done to the competitive process reveal itself. See
Continental Ore Co. v. Union Carbide & Carbon Corp., 370 U.S. 690, 699
(1962) (counseling that in Sherman Act cases "plaintiffs should be
given the full benefit of their proof without tightly
compartmentalizing the various factual components and wiping the slate
clean after scrutiny of each"). In essence, Microsoft mounted a
deliberate assault upon entrepreneurial efforts that, left to rise or
fall on their own merits, could well have enabled the introduction of
competition into the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems.
Id.
While the evidence does not prove that they would have succeeded
absent Microsoft's actions, it does reveal that Microsoft placed an
oppressive thumb on the scale of competitive fortune, thereby
effectively guaranteeing its continued dominance in the relevant
market. More broadly, Microsoft's anticompetitive actions trammeled
the competitive process through which the computer software industry
generally stimulates innovation and conduces to the optimum benefit of
consumers.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ)
FINAL JUDGMENT
06 June, 2000
....
3.c.
Knowing Interference with Performance. Microsoft shall not take any
action that it knows will interfere with or degrade the performance of
any non-Microsoft Middleware when interoperating with any Windows
Operating System Product without notifying the supplier of such non-
Microsoft Middleware in writing that Microsoft intends to take such
action, Microsoft's reasons for taking the action, and any ways known
to Microsoft for the supplier to avoid or reduce interference with, or
the degrading of, the performance of the supplier's Middleware.
....
3.g. Restriction on Binding Middleware Products to Operating System
Products. Microsoft shall not, in any Operating System Product
distributed six or more months after the effective date of this Final
Judgment, Bind any Middleware Product to a Windows Operating System
unless:
i. Microsoft also offers an otherwise identical version of
that Operating System Product in which all means of End-User Access to
that Middleware Product can readily be removed (a) by OEMs as part of
standard OEM preinstallation kits and (b) by end users using add-
remove utilities readily accessible in the initial boot process and
from the Windows desktop; and
ii. when an OEM removes End-User Access to a Middleware
Product from any Personal Computer on which Windows is preinstalled,
the royalty paid by that OEM for that copy of Windows is reduced in an
amount not less than the product of the otherwise applicable royalty
and the ratio of the number of amount in bytes of binary code of (a)
the Middleware Product as distributed separately from a Windows
Operating System Product to (b) the applicable version of Windows.
....
7. Definitions
....
d. "Bind" means to include a product in an Operating System Product
in such a way that either an OEM or an end user cannot readily remove
or uninstall the product.
....
i. "Default Middleware" means Middleware configured to launch
automatically (that is, by "default") to provide particular
functionality when other Middleware has not been selected for this
purpose. For example, a default browser is Middleware configured to
launch automatically to display Web pages transmitted over the
Internet or an intranet that bear the .htm extension, when other
software has not been selected for this purpose.
....
q. "Middleware" means software that operates, directly or through
other software, between an Operating System and another type of
software (such as an application, a server Operating System, or a
database management system) by offering services via APIs or
Communications Interfaces to such other software, and could, if ported
to or interoperable with multiple Operating Systems, enable software
products written for that Middleware to be run on multiple Operating
System Products. Examples of Middleware within the meaning of this
Final Judgment include Internet browsers, e-mail client software,
multimedia viewing software, Office, and the Java Virtual Machine.
Examples of software that are not Middleware within the meaning of
this Final Judgment are disk compression and memory management.
....
And yes, I am well aware that the Civil Action No. 98-1232 was
contested by Microsoft, revised and put on hold in many of its parts.
So the current Microsoft position is if it was some temporary mind
blinding of judges or some plot led by some technically clueless hard-
coded democrats and commies
In fact AFAICT Microsoft was just left
on probation, like a guy first time caught driving without license.
But, answer this. Do you think Mozilla should be sued to force them to
allow people to update Mozilla Thunderbird from within Microsoft
Outlook? The principle is the same.
You are making it sound as if I'm staying _for_ Firefox and Mozilla
Foundation against Microsoft. It is not true. What about say Opera?
What about other UAs - lesser known but still existing? For it even
IETab workaround doesn't work, as it is Gecko-specific plugin. Also
despite IETab remains the main reserve option, it still sucks. Such a
great way to "not using IE": by running it in chrome mode and by
inserting it output area into Firefox interface
:-(
