Microsoft getting soft?

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by orwell

While I agree with forcing them to be open, the EU also forces ridiculous stuff on microsft. Selling a version without it's own Media Player? WTF? Isn't there a case where they want to force them to discontinue bundling IE with Microsoft? Sure, nobody may like it, but uh, without some sort of client already installed, how are you going to go online to get one you like? Pay for IE? Pay for a boxed copy of Firefox?

I hear ya, but being secret with your protocols for sharing network drives or printing on shared printers so that Linux boxes have a hard time connecting without reverse engineering the protocol is also just as and even more so rediculous.

This is what MS opened up - simply because they have been forced to. If MS played nice with it's products and didn't try and close out the likes of Linux, then I'd have to totally agree with you, but this part here is something only a monopoly would pull. Imagine if Linux locked out its protocols from Windows? It doesn't work that way.

Am I making sense?

-S