5 ms·

You could also prosecute the establishment that keeps a valet with an abominable record on staff. Microsoft took no steps to force-eject them from their ecosys

You could also prosecute the establishment that keeps a valet with an abominable record on staff. Microsoft took no steps to force-eject them from their ecosystem, despite their long history of issues.

rk06 2y ago
Can Microsoft legally ban a competitor for percieved incompetence? I doubt it . partiuclarly seeing how much competence is shown with windows and MS teams software
- sim7c00 2y ago
  Microsoft assigns driver levels to these guys etc. and allows them to load kernel mode components as protected etc.. If they do not allow that - CS cannot cause such damages. ofcourse, as you pointed out, this will then turn into some lawsuit blaming MS for killing competitors, even if they do it to try and protect their customers. wonderful world.
freeopinion 2y ago
Just to be clear within the analogy: are you expecting the auto manufacturers to "force-eject" any hotel on Park Ave that has a record of valet mishaps? Or did you mean individual cars should force-eject the valet? If a Caesars Entertainment property in Macao has enough incidents, should GM update the firmware on their automobiles to force-eject valets at Caesars Entertainment properties in Las Vegas? Now imagine that GM actually operates valet services in Macao and Las Vegas. Should they be allowed to force-eject valets from competing services? I am not a Microsoft apologist. I think they should do better. I think Linux and FreeBSD should do better. I personally avoid Microsoft products. But I place more blame on people who use MS products than I do on MS. After all, I never intend to hand my beat up old Corolla over to a valet so why should I have to pay for a "valet mode" feature that Toyota is forced to build into all their cars? Isn't it reasonable that motorcycles, 18-passenger vans, and scooters don't need "valet mode"? In my book, the auto manufacturer is lower on the list of culprits than the valet, "the establishment that keeps a valet with an abominable record on staff", and the vehicle owner. But some place like Car and Driver could definitely prioritize encouraging GM or Toyota to develop valet modes over berating owners; so I don't mind a place like HN shooting a few arrows at MS. Unless the general public follows their lead and lets bad guys off the hook by shifting too much focus to somebody lower on the list.
- mejutoco 2y ago
  > Just to be clear within the analogy: are you expecting the auto manufacturers to "force-eject" any hotel on Park Ave that has a record of valet mishaps? Or did you mean individual cars should force-eject the valet? Not OP, but I think the analogy here is the hotel "fore-ejecting" (firing) the valet with a history of doing joy rides. That seems very reasonable.
  - lucianbr 2y ago
    In the analogy, it seems Microsoft is a car manufacturer. The hotel is the company that bought software from CrowdStrike. The problem is that Microsoft should not control who has access to which APIs, that is a huge can of worms, and actually called anticompetitive by the EU from what I understand. At MS level, either they publish APIs or not. If published, anyone should be able to write software for them. This is especially bad if MS themselves also sell security software that uses the same APIs. It would literally mean MS deciding who is allowed to compete with their security software.
    - mejutoco 2y ago
      I think it works better (please allow me to change it) if Microsoft is the hotel. Crowdstrike is the restaurant inside the hotel. The restaurant is serving poisoned food to the guests, who assume it is a decent restaurant because it is in their hotel. Also the restaurant has their own entrance without security and questionable people are entering regularly, and they are sneaking into the hotel rooms and stealing some items, breaking the elevator. At the same time, the hotel is in a litigation process with the restaurants association, because in the past they did not allow any restaurant on their premises. The guests, naturally, do not care about this, since their valuables have been stolen, and they have food poisoning. The reputation of the hotel is tarnished.
      - PretzelPirate 2y ago
        > if Microsoft is the hotel I don't think this works since Microsoft isn't the hotel. The hotel in your example chooses which restaurants are inside, but Microsoft doesn't. In this example, Microsoft is the builder who built the hotel building for a 3rd party. That 3rd party decides which restaurants it wants to partner with, as well as any other rules about what goes on in the building. If the builder came around and made changes to ban the 3rd party's restaurant partner, that would cause a ton of issues and maybe get the builder sued. Microsoft can't decide what can and can't run on their platform - the most they can do is offer certification which can't catch everything, as we just saw with Crowdstrike since they decided to take a shortcut with how they ship updates. Microsoft also had to allow for equal API access so they don't get sued by the EU.
cratermoon 2y ago
Back in 2006 Microsoft tried to keep 3rd party vendors out of their ecosystem. <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2006/10/7998/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2006/10/7998/> As a result of a complaint to the EU Microsoft was required to let them have kernel access. <https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/22/windows_crowdstrike_kernel_eu/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/22/windows_crowdstrike_k...>
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  Microsoft was required to let them have the same access their own software used. Which seems fair to me. Microsoft can remove those APIs entirely, they just can't restrict them.
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
> Microsoft took no steps to force-eject them from their ecosystem, despite their long history of issues. I’m pretty sure anti trust law doesn’t allow Microsoft to go anywhere near that kind of action, even if they wanted to be more Apple like.
Ekaros 2y ago
Problem is that the establishment here is well the establishment. That is the state itself. Or at least one of them. As somehow MS is in position where for any slight anti-trust thing they will be prosecuted. Our system is setup to allow these actors in...

rk06 2y ago

Can Microsoft legally ban a competitor for percieved incompetence? I doubt it . partiuclarly seeing how much competence is shown with windows and MS teams software

sim7c00 2y ago
Microsoft assigns driver levels to these guys etc. and allows them to load kernel mode components as protected etc.. If they do not allow that - CS cannot cause such damages. ofcourse, as you pointed out, this will then turn into some lawsuit blaming MS for killing competitors, even if they do it to try and protect their customers. wonderful world.

freeopinion 2y ago

Just to be clear within the analogy: are you expecting the auto manufacturers to "force-eject" any hotel on Park Ave that has a record of valet mishaps? Or did you mean individual cars should force-eject the valet? If a Caesars Entertainment property in Macao has enough incidents, should GM update the firmware on their automobiles to force-eject valets at Caesars Entertainment properties in Las Vegas? Now imagine that GM actually operates valet services in Macao and Las Vegas. Should they be allowed to force-eject valets from competing services? I am not a Microsoft apologist. I think they should do better. I think Linux and FreeBSD should do better. I personally avoid Microsoft products. But I place more blame on people who use MS products than I do on MS. After all, I never intend to hand my beat up old Corolla over to a valet so why should I have to pay for a "valet mode" feature that Toyota is forced to build into all their cars? Isn't it reasonable that motorcycles, 18-passenger vans, and scooters don't need "valet mode"? In my book, the auto manufacturer is lower on the list of culprits than the valet, "the establishment that keeps a valet with an abominable record on staff", and the vehicle owner. But some place like Car and Driver could definitely prioritize encouraging GM or Toyota to develop valet modes over berating owners; so I don't mind a place like HN shooting a few arrows at MS. Unless the general public follows their lead and lets bad guys off the hook by shifting too much focus to somebody lower on the list.

mejutoco 2y ago
> Just to be clear within the analogy: are you expecting the auto manufacturers to "force-eject" any hotel on Park Ave that has a record of valet mishaps? Or did you mean individual cars should force-eject the valet? Not OP, but I think the analogy here is the hotel "fore-ejecting" (firing) the valet with a history of doing joy rides. That seems very reasonable.
- lucianbr 2y ago
  In the analogy, it seems Microsoft is a car manufacturer. The hotel is the company that bought software from CrowdStrike. The problem is that Microsoft should not control who has access to which APIs, that is a huge can of worms, and actually called anticompetitive by the EU from what I understand. At MS level, either they publish APIs or not. If published, anyone should be able to write software for them. This is especially bad if MS themselves also sell security software that uses the same APIs. It would literally mean MS deciding who is allowed to compete with their security software.
  - mejutoco 2y ago
    I think it works better (please allow me to change it) if Microsoft is the hotel. Crowdstrike is the restaurant inside the hotel. The restaurant is serving poisoned food to the guests, who assume it is a decent restaurant because it is in their hotel. Also the restaurant has their own entrance without security and questionable people are entering regularly, and they are sneaking into the hotel rooms and stealing some items, breaking the elevator. At the same time, the hotel is in a litigation process with the restaurants association, because in the past they did not allow any restaurant on their premises. The guests, naturally, do not care about this, since their valuables have been stolen, and they have food poisoning. The reputation of the hotel is tarnished.
    - PretzelPirate 2y ago
      > if Microsoft is the hotel I don't think this works since Microsoft isn't the hotel. The hotel in your example chooses which restaurants are inside, but Microsoft doesn't. In this example, Microsoft is the builder who built the hotel building for a 3rd party. That 3rd party decides which restaurants it wants to partner with, as well as any other rules about what goes on in the building. If the builder came around and made changes to ban the 3rd party's restaurant partner, that would cause a ton of issues and maybe get the builder sued. Microsoft can't decide what can and can't run on their platform - the most they can do is offer certification which can't catch everything, as we just saw with Crowdstrike since they decided to take a shortcut with how they ship updates. Microsoft also had to allow for equal API access so they don't get sued by the EU.

cratermoon 2y ago

Back in 2006 Microsoft tried to keep 3rd party vendors out of their ecosystem. <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2006/10/7998/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2006/10/7998/> As a result of a complaint to the EU Microsoft was required to let them have kernel access. <https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/22/windows_crowdstrike_kernel_eu/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/22/windows_crowdstrike_k...>

Dylan16807 2y ago
Microsoft was required to let them have the same access their own software used. Which seems fair to me. Microsoft can remove those APIs entirely, they just can't restrict them.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago

> Microsoft took no steps to force-eject them from their ecosystem, despite their long history of issues. I’m pretty sure anti trust law doesn’t allow Microsoft to go anywhere near that kind of action, even if they wanted to be more Apple like.

Ekaros 2y ago

Problem is that the establishment here is well the establishment. That is the state itself. Or at least one of them. As somehow MS is in position where for any slight anti-trust thing they will be prosecuted. Our system is setup to allow these actors in...