Building a Better World through Technology
co-founder Mozilla
( from the LizardWrangling Archive )
I’ve proposed a change in the current policy for how we grant commit access to the main Mozilla source code repositories. The details are in the mozilla.governance newsgroup, which can also be read through a browser at http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.governance/browse_thread/thread/68bdd4d7f82d4c03?hl=en#
Feedback welcome in the newsgroup or here.
This potential principle has received the most criticism from the Mozilla community to date; there appears to be little support for this principle as a basis from legal requirements from the EC. This is quite different from agreeing that:
In fact, the ongoing drag on the web’s functionality caused by IE’s limitations remains an enormous problem. We agree on the problem.
The concern is that regulating compliance with standards is fraught with negative side effects and it’s hard to see how to avoid them. To start with, the standards in question would need to be identified. Opera points out that Microsoft has itself identified some standards but having Microsoft determine the standards doesn’t serve as a long term solution. Second, this principle would put enormous stress on the standards-setting process. This process is difficult in any case, with a variety of different players trying to agree on technical direction and specification. If Microsoft is legally required to implement a specification, then it is hard to see the process ever coming to a conclusion. Third, there is the question of how one determines compliance with a standard. Implementations almost always have bugs, some are serious, some are in the nature of the process. Someone would need to test and evaluate. Setting that up is complex and may well be a bad precedent.
Over 90% of the personal computer operating systems in the world are Windows. As a result, application developers often use Microsoft tools to help write programs that work with Windows, and with related technologies or products that are integrated or often used with Windows. Microsoft has a history of using its tools to lock out other products. For example, Microsoft web development tools have often resulted in code that only works with IE. The application developers may or may not even be aware of this. They use a convenient tool provided by the operating system vendor, and end up helping extend the operating system monopoly to other products.
Examples of tools to which this principle would apply include Microsoft Expression Web and Microsoft Office Sharepoint. One might also include Silverlight and related development tools, or tools that do things such as embed MS Office documents in web pages.
This principle asserts that Microsoft cannot cause web or application developers to create IE-specific content by default.
I will be heading back to Brazil very shortly. From April 14 to 16 I will be in Rio de Janeiro to participate in the World Economic Forum on Latin America, and after that I will head to São Paulo to connect with our Latin American community.
On April 17 I’ll be visiting a LAN house with Bruno Magrani, who works with our Portuguese-speaking community, as well as Guillermo Movia, who works with our Spanish-speaking community members. April 18 will be devoted to a day-long meeting with Mozilla’s Latin American community leaders on the general direction of the Mozilla Project in Latin America, the individual projects people have been working on, and probably some strategizing for FISL. I’m looking forward to these discussions immensely and to catching up again with some of the folks I met last year.
I’m also very interested to meet new contributors to Mozilla and those interested in creating an open, participatory web whether or not Mozilla has been your focus. If you are interested in attending this meeting in São Paolo, please contact Bruno (bmagrani at mozilla dot com) or Alix Franquet (alix at mozilla dot com).
One of the results of the Windows / IE integration is that millions of people believe that the “blue e” icon IS the Internet. They are unaware of of Microsoft’s control over their online lives through this blue “e” or that they have additional choices. This principle asserts that Microsoft should participate in correcting the misconception that it has created. The monopoly of Windows and Microsoft in people’s computer experience means there is no other entity that can substitute for Microsoft here.
Mozilla has done an amazing job at educating some people about this. We do this through community and word of mouth. But Mozilla’s ability to reach some portion of people is not remotely the same as Microsoft’s ability to reach everyone. Microsoft touches every single person who starts up a PC and touches those people, over and over and over again.
There are a number of ways in which this principle could be implemented. Some could involve providing information about other browsers in Windows, which are included in principle 3. There are certainly options beyond Windows, which is why I’ve made this a separate principle.
In the past the EC has levied fines against Microsoft. A number of people have suggested that these fines could / should be used to educate people about their ability to have some control over their browser and resulting Internet experience. I don’t know what kinds of structures EU law would impose on how this can be done. So it’s possible this is something the regulatory structure doesn’t allow.
I’ve been traveling and on vacation the last couple of weeks and so have been silent here. There are a couple more posts about the EC I want to turn to, interspersed with some other topics.
As to the EC, the potential principles I haven’t yet addressed are below. In addition, I want to address why I believe there are significant competitive issues even though Firefox is gaining marketshare.
Microsoft has also used a range of techniques to encourage the distribution channel (often known as “the OEMs” for “original equipment manufacturers”) to ship IE. The OEM distribution channel is a funny thing. When I started working in this industry I assumed that the OEMs would pay software vendors for the right to distribute a piece of valuable software. But it turns out that’s backwards. The software maker pay the OEMs to include software on the OEM’s machine. So first the vendor makes the software, then they pay someone else to distribute it. The OEMs get to include software in their distribution packages for less-than-free — they make money by including software. This is because the distribution channel — the ability to actually get human beings to look at a piece of software — is so valuable. Software vendors end up paying for their products to reach people, and hoping to make money afterwards. For many product-focued people I think it is hard to internalize just how critical the ability to get people to pay attention to the product is, and how “distribution” can outweigh product quality in building success.
(This distribution channel is *so* valuable that Microsoft’s early efforts to promote IE in the 1990’s included threatening the OEMs with the loss of their ability to ship Windows (and thus the end of their business) if the OEMs didn’t ship IE exclusively. This practice stopped after the US judicial system determined a set of these sorts of practices to be illegal.)
Historically, software vendors generated revenue on upgrades and the licensing of subsequent and additional products. Today the models are diverse and complex, and may also include revenue-sharing between OEMs and software or service providers. For example, if you use a desktop search functionality, chances are high that the company you bought the machine from is getting a piece of revenue from the search provider.
This principle does not challenge these general business models. Like the other remedies, it is tied to the monopoly status of Windows, which requires all PC OEMs to work with Microsoft. In addition these programs cannot be matched by others because the Windows monopoly gives Microsoft a raft of unique tools. This principle prohibits the use of those tools to promote IE in ways that are unavailable to other browser manufacturers. It asserts that Windows monopoly status cannot be tied to financial incentives that further damage browser competition. Some examples of what this might mean are below. There are undoubtedly many others.
A complication of this principle is that it’s difficult to understand the complex relationships between Microsoft and the OEMs. There are a lot of details involved. It could be that one would agree intellectually, but find oneself unable to implement effectively. That’s again why I’ve separated out principles from remedies and implementation.
In summary, the OEM channel provides a way for a company with a lot of cash to pay to close off competition. This principle asserts that a monopoly position plus the ability to pay to foreclose competition in related functionality is too much.
Some examples of what this might mean in practice summarized below from the earlier post.
Another way of thinking about this is : How much distribution advantage can Windows provide to IE? If one answers “as much as Microsoft wants with no limits” then this principle wouldn’t be implemented. If one answers “Windows can’t provide any distribution advantage to IE” then one would likely end up supporting a remedy that requires Windows to install a browser separately, based on a consumer’s decisions. If one answers “some” then one look to a of “must carry” remedy; a remedy that has been reported as of interest to the EC. Or one might look to some of the other options listed above.
One complication is the balance between encouraging competition and encouraging ease-of-use for the consumer. One might believe that a monopoly product like Windows should not provide any distribution advantage to IE, and yet simultaneously question whether an operating system without a web browser makes sense. Intellectually the principle might be right, but the remedy hard on consumers. I suspect many in the Mozilla world find ourselves looking at this dilemma.
Another complication is Microsoft’s long history and impact within the computer industry. Some of us have lived with Microsoft’s dominance for many cycles of the industry. To this group, the newer participants who believe Microsoft is a reasonable company that behaves within normal parameters are naive. To the new participants, the old-timers are weighted down by history and baggage and don’t see today clearly. It’s difficult to cross this divide.
One thing is clear. The ubiquity of Windows has meant the ubiquity of IE. As a result, millions of people believe that the blue “e” icon on their desktop IS the Internet. Changing that is a long, hard job. And until we do we magnify the difficulty of bringing competition to the browser space.
Microsoft has used Windows to make competition in browsers difficult in a variety of ways that aren’t obviously apparent to a consumer. These techniques are generally apparent only to other developers. Some of these will seem small when considered alone. But taken together these add up to a significant burden for other browser makers, and a significant advantage to IE.
Windows has provided technical advantages to IE through techniques such as those listed below. This list is not meant to be conclusive. It is meant to illustrate the range of ways in which Windows can and has made it difficult for other browsers to provide a competitive experience on Windows.
The ubiquity of Windows brings this artificial competitive advantage for IE to almost every single person using a personal operating system. Redressing this setting will help refocus competition on the merits of the browser itself.
To go further with this principle we should identify all the ways Windows provides technical advantages to IE. If you’ve got examples please feel free to leave them here (we’ll review comments to previous posts for examples already given) or provide them by whatever means you feel comfortable with.
As I look at this principle (“Windows can’t provide a technical advantage to IE”), I’m sure that there will be a set of comments asking (a) why can’t Microsoft do whatever it wants with Windows, and (b) if there are limits on Microsoft, what about Apple? So I’ve added this post to address those questions.
The answer is the monopoly status of the Windows operating system. With over 90% market share for a decade or so, the concern is that this dominance allows Windows to damage the structure of competition. This concern is reflected in anti-trust laws. So this would not apply to Apple unless and until Apple has a monopoly or dominant position with the desktop operating system (today its market share is in the single digits).
It may be that many of the people saying Microsoft should be able to do whatever it wants are both familiar with anti-trust law and reject the entire idea. That’s a different discussion than the one I’m focused on. I’ve focused on two topics that bracket the legal decisions:
There’s an obvious question in the middle of these: Does the harm caused by the integration of IE into Windows violate EU competition/anti-trust law? That’s the classic “application of law to the facts of a case” at the heart of a legal decision. I know a lot about the factual difficulties of competing but much less about the precise application of European Union law.
The EC has signaled its preliminary conclusion that the integration does violate EU law and that remedies are likely to be imposed. I feel it’s important to try to have our experience and expertise reflected in the EC’s deliberations. Thus my focus on the difficulties of competing with IE in the current setting, and on the principles that might guide our thinking on remedies.