TidBITS#654/04-Nov-02
=====================
The Microsoft antitrust case has finally drawn to a close, and
Adam explains the settlement. Derek Miller joins us with a look at
how a PowerBook and a slew of Mac software helped him single-
handedly publish a daily conference newsletter, a task that had
taken previously taken three people. In news, TidBITS won the
latest Best of the Mac Web survey (yay!), Stairways Software
released Interarchy 6.0, and we offer another solution for
blacked-out iMacs.
Topics:
MailBITS/04-Nov-02
Final Judgment in Microsoft Antitrust Case
Doing Three People's Work with One Mac
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-654.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2002/TidBITS#654_04-Nov-02.etx>
Copyright 2002 TidBITS Electronic Publishing. All rights reserved.
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From your friends at <http://smalldog.com/tb/> 802/496-7171
* DEALMAC: Sharp VL-NZ100U MiniDV Camcorder for $349 after rebate. <- NEW!
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MailBITS/04-Nov-02
------------------
**TidBITS Wins Best of Mac Web Survey!** Many thanks to everyone
who voted for us in Low End Mac's recent Best of the Mac Web
survey. Although we came in sixth in the raw number of votes,
we were first in overall ranking, edging out MacSurfer and
VersionTracker. Mac OS X Hints and As the Apple Turns filled
out the top five. I'll take quality over quantity any day, and
I'm incredibly pleased that you saw fit to give use the highest
percentage of "Excellent" votes of any site in the survey. Now,
of course, we have nowhere to go but down, so we'll just have
to work all the harder to maintain our top of the heap ranking.
Thanks again for the support! [ACE]
<http://www.lowendmac.com/botmw/fall02/botmw.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06956>
**Interarchy 6.0** -- Stairways Software has released Interarchy
6.0, the latest version of their popular file transfer and network
testing software. New features in Interarchy 6.0 include full
support for Secure FTP (SFTP) in Mac OS X, queues that let you
collect multiple actions and run them sequentially, delayed
transfers that run at a later time, repeating transfers that
run on a regular schedule, new column and hierarchical views,
verification of Web site links, and support for bookmarks and URL
management. Interarchy 6.0 also boasts a new file transfer engine
that supports very large files (up to 9 exabytes, a ludicrously
theoretical measurement at the moment), long filenames (up to
255 characters), and long URLs (up to 2,502 characters). For those
people who missed the loss of Interarchy's network testing tools
in Mac OS X, they're back in Interarchy 6.0 and can be scheduled,
added to queues, and run on a repeating basis. Interarchy 6.0 is
compatible with Mac OS 8.5 through Mac OS 9.2.2, and is also
native under Mac OS X. New copies of Interarchy 6.0 cost $45;
discounts are available for owners of previous versions and
upgrades for those who purchased Interarchy after 25-Jun-02
are free. An unlicensed version is available through 04-Feb-03;
it's a 3.1 MB download in English, French, and Japanese. [ACE]
<http://www.interarchy.com/>
<http://download.interarchy.com/>
**Using VGA Monitors to Fix Blacked-out iMacs** -- In "Update
Firmware Before Installing Jaguar!" in TidBITS-653_ we outlined
an arduous hard drive-swapping process to recover iMacs that had
been rendered unusable by installing Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar. If an
affected iMac has a VGA video output port, an easier option may
be to connect it to an external VGA monitor. If the external
monitor mirrors your iMac's display, you should be able to update
the system's firmware directly without attempting to dismantle
your iMac... or paying for a motherboard replacement. [GD]
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06973>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1783>
Final Judgment in Microsoft Antitrust Case
------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
On Friday, 01-Nov-02, the four year-old antitrust case brought
by the U.S. Department of Justice and 18 states and the District
of Columbia drew to a close with a ruling by U.S. District Court
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. Judge Kollar-Kotelly essentially
accepted the proposed settlement between Microsoft and the Justice
Department and nine states, making relatively few substantive
changes. Unless they challenge it on appeal, her decision also
ends the effort by the states dissenting from the original
proposed settlement. (See our article series tracking the
progress of the long-running case.)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1152>
In reading Judge Kollar-Kotelly's opinion, I was struck by three
things:
* She said that the court's role was not to re-try the case, but
to evaluate the proposed settlement and determine if it was in
the public interest. Plus, the fact that the case exists only
because it was brought by the government informs the court's
evaluation of the proposed remedies. That means that even if she
would have imposed more stringent remedies on her own, she must
"accord deference" to the government's predictions as to the
effect of the proposed remedies, and determine, based on those
predictions, whether those remedies are in the public interest.
* She made a significant distinction between terminating
Microsoft's monopoly and terminating the illegal maintenance of
that monopoly. Monopolies are not inherently illegal, and the fact
(agreed upon by all parties) that Microsoft gained its monopoly
legally means that remedies (such as breakup of the company) to
terminate the monopoly aren't warranted. Instead, the proposed
settlement aims to terminate the illegal maintenance of the
monopoly.
* She drew attention to the fact that there's a difference between
the commingling of functionality (such as building Internet
Explorer's functionality into Windows) and the anticompetitive
effect of that action. The commingling of code is not the problem;
the effect it has on competition is, and thus the remedies must
address the effect, not the act. She also commented that
preventing the commingling of code could harm third-party
developers that depend on such functionality.
Let's skim through the final judgment. You can read the entire
document and Judge Kollar-Kotelly's 101-page opinion (prefixed
with her comments about the dissenting states) here:
<http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/FinalDecree.pdf>
<http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/StateSettlement.pdf>
**Anti-Retaliation** -- A number of clauses prevent Microsoft from
retaliating against or threatening retaliation against an OEM
(Original Equipment Manufacturer) if the OEM is developing,
distributing, promoting, using, selling, or licensing any software
that competes with Windows or any Microsoft middleware product.
(Middleware is software that other developers can use to run
applications and that could easily be ported to other operating
systems; examples are Web browsers and Java virtual machines.)
Also protected from retaliation or threat of retaliation is the
act of shipping a PC that either includes both Windows and another
non-Microsoft operating system, or can boot with more than one
operating system. This last part ensures Microsoft cannot prevent
OEMs from selling PCs with Linux pre-installed or as an option.
Along with OEMs, independent software vendors (ISVs) gain
protection from Microsoft retaliation or threat of retaliation,
either for developing, using, distributing, promoting, or
supporting any software that competes with Windows or Microsoft
middleware. Plus, Microsoft may not enter into agreements that
require an ISV refrain from developing, using, distributing, or
promoting competing software.
(Judge Kollar-Kotelly added the bit about threatening retaliation
to the language in the proposed settlement because she felt that
was a significant concern, despite the government's claim that
banning the act of retaliation itself was sufficient.)
As a variant on the protection, Microsoft may not enter into
agreements that require a company to distribute, promote, use,
or support Windows or Microsoft middleware exclusively or in some
fixed percentage, unless the company in question can practically
provide equal time to a competing product. Apple falls into this
category because of the 1997 agreement in which Microsoft agreed
to keep working on Microsoft Office in exchange for Apple making
Internet Explorer the default browser, avoiding Netscape
Navigator, and not promoting other Web browsers. That sort of
agreement would now violate the terms of the settlement. (One
limitation on this restriction: it doesn't apply if Microsoft
licenses intellectual property from the third party and if the
intellectual property license is the primary purpose of the
agreement. This latter clause was Judge Kollar-Kotelly's addition;
she didn't want every agreement to turn into a sham intellectual
property license.)
**Uniform Licenses** -- This provision in the settlement requires
that Microsoft issue uniform licenses to OEMs licensing Windows.
In essence, this clause ensures a fair playing field for licensing
Windows, although there are several exceptions for different
language versions of Windows, for volume discounts, and for
various marketing-related discounts (as long they're distributed
uniformly to OEMs of varying sizes).
Judge Kollar-Kotelly took slight exception with this section
because she felt that uniformity wasn't necessarily in the best
interests of all licensees, and presumably, the public. However
her concerns weren't sufficient to suggest an alternative.
**Flexible OEM Licenses** -- Many of the complaints about
Microsoft stemmed from the company's restriction of how OEMs
could modify the look of Windows. The settlement addresses
this by forcing Microsoft to allow OEMs to:
* Install and display icons, shortcuts, or menu entries for non-
Microsoft products, although Microsoft may restrict such placement
to locations that make sense for the product type in question.
* Distributing non-Microsoft middleware by installing icons of any
size or shape on the desktop as long as those icons don't impair
the functionality of the interface.
* Launch non-Microsoft middleware automatically after boot or
while connecting to the Internet. Microsoft may restrict this
behavior only if the product in question replaces or drastically
alters the Windows interface. (Judge Kollar-Kotelly changed the
original wording, which allowed such automatic launching only
for products that replaced Microsoft middleware that were
automatically launched at that time, and if the product either
had no interface or used an interface similar to that of the
Microsoft middleware.)
* Offer users the option of booting other operating systems before
Windows starts up.
* Present an Internet access provider offer during the initial
boot sequence. Judge Kollar-Kotelly removed language requiring
that OEMs comply with Microsoft's technical specifications, in
part because tech support costs aren't borne by Microsoft.
**API & Communication Protocol Disclosure** -- To prevent
Microsoft from taking advantage of private APIs in its middleware
products, the settlement requires Microsoft to disclose the APIs
(Application Programming Interfaces; the hooks applications use
to connect to middleware or an operating system). Plus, Microsoft
must also make available, via reasonable and non-discriminatory
licensing terms, the communication protocols used by any product
Microsoft installs with Windows and that communicates with a
Microsoft server operating system, such as Windows 2000.
In this section, Judge Kollar-Kotelly made one significant change
by reducing the time before which these disclosures must be made
to three months, down from twelve months and nine months, for the
API disclosures and the communication protocol disclosures,
respectively.
Some of the feedback to the court about the proposed settlement
argued that Microsoft must issue royalty-free licenses for these
communication protocols; in her opinion, Judge Kollar-Kotelly
disagreed, saying that Microsoft's liability didn't require it
to give away significant amounts of valuable intellectual
property rights.
There is one significant limitation to this requirement that
Microsoft disclose APIs and license communication protocols.
Microsoft does not have to reveal anything that would compromise
anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights
management, encryption, or authentication systems. Similarly,
Microsoft can make licenses related to these type of systems
conditional on the licensee having no history of software piracy
or willful violation of intellectual property rights, having a
reasonable business need, meeting reasonable standards for
verification of the authenticity and viability of its business,
and agreeing to submit the related software to third-party
certification of specification compliance.
**End User Control** -- In an attempt to give end users more
control over their computing environments, the settlement requires
Microsoft to allow end users and OEMs to enable or remove access
to Microsoft or non-Microsoft middleware through icons, shortcuts,
and menu entries, and by controlling automatic launching. Plus,
end users and OEMs may designate non-Microsoft middleware to
replace Microsoft middleware.
Similarly, Windows itself may not automatically alter the OEM's
configuration of icons, shortcuts, and menu entries without asking
for confirmation from the user. That confirmation cannot happen
until 14 days after the first time the user turns on a new
computer, and any such automatic removal must include both
Microsoft and non-Microsoft products. This particular section
is aimed at protecting the Windows Desktop Cleanup Wizard, which
removes unused icons from the desktop.
**RAND Licensing of Microsoft IP** -- If intellectual property
licenses are required for a company to exercise the options
provided in the settlement, Microsoft must license that
intellectual property using reasonable and non-discriminatory
(RAND) terms. The licenses can be narrow in scope and may be
non-transferable, but Judge Kollar-Kotelly struck without comment
a clause that would have required the third-parties to license
back to Microsoft certain intellectual property rights related
to the exercising of these options.
**Compliance & Enforcement** -- Perhaps the most significant
change Judge Kollar-Kotelly made is in the Compliance and
Enforcement Procedures section. Initially Microsoft and the
Justice Department had proposed a Technical Committee of three
independent people, one appointed by each side and the first two
selecting the third. Though it's difficult to see what concern
Judge Kollar-Kotelly had with this proposal, in the final judgment
she replaced the Technical Committee with a Compliance Committee
made up of at least three members of the Microsoft Board of
Directors who are not present or former employees of Microsoft.
This approach maps the method proposed by the dissenting states,
so it's possible she adopted it to throw them a bone.
A major aspect of compliance is a Compliance Officer appointed by
the Compliance Committee. The Compliance Officer's duties include
distributing and explaining the settlement to all Microsoft
officers and directors, providing annual briefings on the
settlement, tracking Microsoft's compliance, certifying annually
to the plaintiffs that Microsoft has remained in compliance, and
reporting any violations to the plaintiffs.
Enforcement authority remains with the plaintiffs, and includes
the states. For coordination, the plaintiff states must form an
enforcement committee, and no individual state may take action
without first consulting the enforcement committee. Jurisdiction
and power to issue further orders or directions remains with the
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; something about
which Judge Kollar-Kotelly felt strongly, so much so that she made
it explicit in the final judgment.
**Next Update in Five Years** -- Although most antitrust decisions
remain in place for at least ten years, the settlement calls for
termination after only five years due to the fast pace of the
industry. However, the plaintiffs can apply to the court for a
one-time extension of up to two years if Microsoft has engaged
in a pattern of willful and systematic violations.
The final judgment is certainly far weaker than the dissenting
states had proposed and hoped for, but in essence, they set their
sights too high, and received almost nothing they wanted. The
judgment is thus widely seen as a victory for Microsoft, which had
faced the possibility of a breakup. The remedies, though arguably
an appropriate attempt to terminate the illegal maintenance of
Microsoft's monopoly, are unlikely to slow Microsoft down much
at all. Whether or not other companies are able to compete with
the Microsoft juggernaut even after these remedies are in place
remains to be seen.
But Judge Kollar-Kotelly will be watching to make sure the
playing field remains level; at the very end of her full 344-
page discussion, she quoted Machiavelli in saying, "Let it not
be said of Microsoft that 'a prince never lacks legitimate
reasons to break his promise,' for this Court will exercise
its full panoply of powers to ensure that the letter and the
spirit of this remedial decree are carried out."
<http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/Lit11-1.pdf>
Doing Three People's Work with One Mac
--------------------------------------
by Derek K. Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
As I packed for a trip last June, my wife looked into my
suitcase. She noted that while she usually brings extra clothes
and accessories when traveling, "you seem to pack wires." Sure
enough, my shirts, pants, and toiletries were shoved into a
corner, overwhelmed by an Ethernet hub and cables, a USB
trackball, a keyboard, headphones, and assorted unidentifiable
Mac flotsam. She hadn't yet seen my briefcase.
I was preparing for three long days in a Toronto hotel putting
together a daily newsletter for the large annual conference of
the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS). I would attend sessions,
take notes and photographs, write and edit articles, and lay out
three four-page issues, distributed overnight to the hundreds
of physicians attending, with highlights of the previous day
and pointers for the new one.
<http://www.cps.ca/>
A year before, in 2001, I had also been the editor in my home city
of Vancouver. But in 2000, it had taken three people from another
firm to do a similar job.
**Sharpening the Axe** -- Abraham Lincoln reportedly said that,
given eight hours to chop down a tree, he'd spend six sharpening
his axe. My experience at the previous CPS conference prodded me
to take Abe's advice. I've never owned a laptop, so I started by
renting a PowerBook G4 from Vancouver's Mac Station a few days
before my flight.
<http://www.macstation.com/>
Simply installing the software I planned to use - the latest
versions of Mac OS X 10.1 and 9.2, fonts, flash card reader
drivers, iPhoto, iTunes, Palm Desktop, WordSmith, Photoshop,
GraphicConverter, PageMaker, Acrobat Distiller, BBEdit, Office X,
Toast Titanium, FTP software, Samba X, Mozilla, and Internet
Explorer - took the better part of a day.
<http://www.palm.com/software/desktop/mac/>
<http://www.bluenomad.com/ws/prod_wordsmith_details.html>
<http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/>
<http://www.lemkesoft.com/us_gcabout.html>
<http://www.adobe.com/products/pagemaker/>
<http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/>
<http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit.html>
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/officex/>
<http://www.roxio.com/en/products/toast/>
<http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/xamba/>
<http://www.mozilla.org/releases/>
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/ie/>
Only PageMaker, Acrobat Distiller, and my older Photoshop 5 had to
run in Classic mode. Everything else ran natively under Mac OS X,
which I was determined to use because it multitasks properly. Next
came documents from my old Power Mac G3, including newsletter
templates, logos and photos, and MP3 files.
Finally, I tested: Could I write an article in BBEdit or on my
Palm IIIxe and transfer it cleanly into PageMaker? Would photos
import from my borrowed Canon PowerShot G2 digital camera via the
card reader and GraphicConverter?
<http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_g2-review/>
Would PageMaker export PDF files with all fonts properly embedded?
Could I burn readable CD-Rs? Did email and FTP work? Could I see
Windows machines on a network? If possible, could I do things in
multiple ways in a pinch - Word instead of BBEdit, Toast over Disc
Burner, GraphicConverter rather than Photoshop, broadband or
dialup?
Whew! I was wiped out.
I over-prepared because I had almost no margin of error, and some
things that had gone well out of sheer luck the year before might
not go so smoothly half a continent away. Of course, I still had
to fly out and do the job. And I seemed to be developing a cold.
**Leaving on a Jet Plane** -- My luck persisted on departure day.
My cold was holding off. I found no lineup for my discount Air
Tango flight's automated check-in. Security cleared my bag full
of wires, and I had an empty chair next to my window seat.
Toronto was a muggy 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit).
The sky poured rain like a bathroom shower over my airport hotel,
where I spent my only free night checking email, double-checking
my preparations, having a swim, and compiling a short slide show
in iMovie using photos I'd taken on the plane, to mail back to my
wife and kids.
At home, we've had a DSL Internet connection since 1998, and it
has spoiled me. Watching the movie upload take 15 minutes to crawl
its way through the hotel's dialup line would be a sad lesson for
my next few days. High-speed Internet connections have not yet
spread widely enough in hotel chains for the wired (or wireless)
business traveler.
**Hit the Ground Running** -- The next morning, a bus brought me
to the Westin Harbour Castle, on the Lake Ontario waterfront.
It was too early to check in to my room, so I said hi at the
conference office, locked the PowerBook to a desk, and got
started. I found it easiest to wander the conference centre
with the G2 camera in one hand and my Palm and its folding
keyboard in my pocket.
<http://www.starwood.com/westin/search/hotel_detail.html?propertyID=1084>
<http://www.palm.com/products/accessories/keyboard/>
I took plenty of notes in the WordSmith word processor (see my
review in TidBITS-604_) and shot hundreds of photos.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06621>
As at many large conferences, several meeting sessions ran
concurrently at a time. Sometimes I sat in on an entire session -
such as a particularly interesting seminar on how premature babies
frequently become blind during infancy and childhood. In other
instances, I flitted between sessions, noting key snippets and
taking a few photos. The Canon G2's wide-aperture lens and
reasonably powerful flash were especially helpful in the dark
seminar rooms.
Once I was able to move into my hotel room, I set up a mini-
office at the provided desk (see the photo below). Alas, although
there was a fresh Ethernet jack in the wall, the hotel hadn't yet
connected it to anything. Dialup it would be. I tried to configure
my setup as ergonomically as I could. I wanted to avoid the
consequences of the previous year, where I had perched a PowerBook
1400 on a table and given myself a repetitive strain injury in
my wrists. I had taken months to recover fully (TidBITS published
a number of articles on the topic years ago that are still
relevant).
<http://www.penmachine.com/westin_office.html>
<http://www.penmachine.com/journal/2001_06_01_news_archive.html#4220179>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1222>
<http://www.tifaq.com/archive.html>
**The Digital Grindstone** -- The next three days fell into a
solid routine. I spent the morning and afternoon moving between
sessions. During breaks I returned to my room, synchronized my
Palm, and transferred photos to the PowerBook. After dinner
I wrote articles, cropped and resized pictures, and gradually
filled up the PageMaker template. Around 9 or 10 at night I would
proofread and edit onscreen, then call in Elizabeth Moreau, my key
CPS staff contact, to look over the "beta" version before making
last-minute changes and distilling the final PDF file.
CPS had arranged a cost-effective but convoluted printing process.
The Westin has a Business Centre in the basement, but its main
facility is at another downtown hotel a couple of kilometres away.
<http://www.ibcbus.com/>
I was to email them the print-ready PDF no later than 11 PM, at
which point they would print it there from a Windows computer,
photocopy it, and drive it back to the Westin for distribution in
the middle of the night. I finished the first issue by 10:55 PM -
lots of time. But while the file was only a few megabytes large,
it took an excruciating twelve minutes to dribble through the
dialup wire. I resolved to finish earlier the next evening.
It turned out that, unlike the direct-from-digital copies made
at Kinko's the previous year, the greyscale photos I had prepared
didn't copy well on the Business Centre's equipment. So the second
night I tried a halftone screen. The resulting PDF for the second
newsletter was a slightly larger file - too big for my email
gateway, which tried to bounce the whole document back to me
through the glacial dialup line. I aborted the download, phoned
the friendly guy at the Business Centre downtown, burned the PDF
to a CD-R disc instead, and walked the two kilometres to meet him
and deliver it by hand at midnight.
The next morning, the super-fine screened photos looked even
worse. So for the final issue, I tried a very coarse screen,
which worked acceptably and shrunk the PDF significantly for
a flawless (for once) email transmission. Although I never was
happy with how the photos printed, people still liked the writing
and information. You can see the final PDFs yourself, along with
their 2001 counterparts, on my Web site:
<http://www.penmachine.com/cps_samples.html>
**Lessons** -- The high-end PowerBook and camera were worth the
effort and expense, since being able to generate PDFs quickly,
as one example, kept me from being horrendously late with my final
files, especially after the second night's email runaround. My
attention to ergonomics and obsessive pre-trip planning saved
my wrists and sanity, respectively. Being able to run several
computationally intense tasks simultaneously was a great help.
(The PowerBook 1400c I had rented in 2001 couldn't even play MP3s
with only the media player running.) Tylenol Cold Daytime is
remarkably effective medicine, but it keeps you up if you use
it at night. And I really don't like dialup anymore.
<http://www.penmachine.com/journal/2002_06_01_news_archive.html#77825205>
My bag full of wires also wasn't wasted. On my last day, as a side
project, I used it to hook up the PowerBook G4 to the Business
Centre's high-speed Internet connection, then download and
conglomerate several PowerPoint files into a single presentation.
I put it on a hybrid CD-R that a rushed physician could read on
her laptop when presenting later that afternoon, all in less time
than downloading the files through dialup would have taken.
The CPS staff were happy I could accommodate the extra request
between my newsletter work. By the time I flew home and took some
lovely aerial photos on the approach to Vancouver, my clients had
offered to fly me to Calgary next year. Even though it involves
several 16-hour days in a city distant from my family, the job
does pay well, and meeting the challenge is fun, especially by
showing that one man and a Mac really can do the work of three
people, sometimes.
<http://www.penmachine.com/photoessays/2002_06_aerial/>
[Derek K. Miller spends his days in Vancouver with his two
preschool-age daughters, his weekends playing drums in a retro-
sixties band, and his other time writing, editing, and hanging out
with his wife, who still wonders about all those wires. He has a
weblog too.]
<http://www.penmachine.com/>
PayBITS: Interesting article? Why not toss Derek a few bucks
via PayPal so he can buy his own PowerBook and camera next time?
<https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dkmiller%40pobox.com>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
$$
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