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Then you will have to make it illegal for Microsoft to have products like Microsoft Office or XBox that it has not opened up.
by GeekyBear 3y ago
Then you will have to make it illegal for Microsoft to have products like Microsoft Office or XBox that it has not opened up.
- 0xFF0123 3y agoI would understand the argument that the office doc file format should be public and understandable, but I don't see an argument that the program itself should be open.
- GeekyBear 3y agoI believe the argument that grandparent comment made was that "once your product has a commanding share of the market, it should be illegal, as it's clearly anticompetitive by that point"
- thfuran 3y agoMicrosoft Office so obviously is not like the only way to install software on a computer that I can't help but think this isn't entirely good faith.
- nradov 3y agoThe Office document file format is public and understandable. Many other products have implemented the standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML?wprov=sfla1
- sensanaty 3y agoI don't think anyone would be against breaking up M$ a bit. Why wouldn't you want some proper M$ Office alternatives? Xbox is a bit trickier presumably because of PC gaming and Sony/Nintendo, though considering it's M$ I say fuck it and force them to open it up anyways.
- nradov 3y agoBreaking up Microsoft wouldn't necessarily produce more proper Office alternatives. And we already have multiple alternatives from Apple, Google, and LibreOffice. Those don't have all the same features but they're good enough for basic tasks.
- throwaway2037 3y agoWhat alternatives for MS Office exist from Apple? Also, I will get lots of hate here: If you are a regular MS Office user, LibreOffice is just terrible. Try to use it for a few weeks... ugh.
- nradov 3y agoApple gives away Pages, Numbers, and Keynote as free MacOS applications. As for LibreOffice being "terrible", that may be true for some users but it hardly implies that Microsoft has a monopoly on productivity software.
- insane_dreamer 3y agoI much prefer Apple Pages, Numbers, Keynote to MS Office -- even after years of first using MS Office and being highly fluent in it
- bsder 3y ago> Breaking up Microsoft wouldn't necessarily produce more proper Office alternatives. Oh, it absolutely would. Break Microsoft into the "Office Apps" and "Office EMail" and "Public Email" pieces and prevent them from talking to one another by backdoor APIs. You will get all manner of competitors popping up once the APIs required to do what is needed are all public. The biggest problem in competing with Microsoft is the integration. If you force Microsoft, itself, to have to use the same public integration as everybody else, screaming will ensue.
- nradov 3y agoWhich backdoor APIs are you referring to? I have done extensive Office scripting and everything you can do through the UI can also be done through the public COM API. I've never found anything missing.
- CydeWeys 3y agoNeither of those have a commanding lead on their respective markets. The videogame market is very competitive (and Xbox isn't even the largest player), and as far as office products go, more people use Google Docs now than Microsoft Word.