Remember when Microsoft was filed with anti-trust suites? They had a dominant market position with Windows and used it to bundle Internet Explorer, which other browser makers said was unfair competition.
Good thing saintly Google’s motto is “do no evil” otherwise they might be hit with a similar suite. Oh wait…
“The online giant [Google] has used its dominant online search and advertising businesses to shut out competitors and enter new markets with products and services that could never have otherwise stood on their own.”
Well, that’s online services. Its not like they’re doing it with operating systems like Microsoft did, right? Oh wait…
“it is dumping the Android OS into the market for free; not surprisingly, that system went from also-ran to dominant market leader in less than two years.”
So when Microsoft sells cheap XP licenses for netbooks, an OS that was over a decade old at the time, it’s price dumping. But when Google does it with their new OS, it’s not?
Comments
Google aren’t viewed as a inherently good company by Linux users (qualities like good or evil usually don’t apply very well in these matters). The paradox is that those you criticise the most tend to be the ones most critical of Google as well. I believe you’re mistaken in this matter.
The same goes for IBM, Oracle and others. They may rely on Linux and also support average Linux users by contributing resources and code. Still they are companies with a purpose to earn money, so don’t trust them as friends.
Didn’t we benefit from the fact that Microsoft lost total control of the browser market? I at least see some of the common standards established after that as a benefit for all independent of operating system. On the other hand I agree, Google has to be criticised and need to improve some aspects of their business.
There should be a TM for CompetitionIsOneClickAway, because let’s face it, people like Google Search. Maybe Google should start redirecting, say, 1% of searches to competing search engines and see how fast users complain about less-relevant-than-google search results.
I personally tried Bing for about 5 months, I seriously tried to like it, but whenever I got nothing relevant in the first Bing results page, I found one on Google. I’m currently going through the exact same thing with DuckDuckGo. It works most of the time, but I find myself going to Google about 2-3 times every day.
As for Android, it’s not bundled with Google Search, and Google Search works exactly the same on Android, iOS, BlackBerry OS, and WP7. I fail to see the analogy with Windows+IE. (For the record, I have no problem with Microsoft charging pennies for Windows XP on netbooks)
Also, Android is open source1, so if some company likes it but dislikes Google, they can use it and make whatever changes they want with it. Heck, Microsoft could’ve forked it, called it WP7, and charged $15 for it with no problems.
One more thing. IE was given for free to end users, Android is given for free to vendors. The problem IE competitors were having is that most end users don’t know what a browser is, and will use whatever is thrown at them. You just can’t argue that vendors don’t know what an OS is, and will use Android instead of WP7 just because it’s free.
[1] Yeah yeah, I know it’s not 100% open source, but that’s besides the point.
“The paradox is that those you criticise the most tend to be the ones most critical of Google as well. I believe you’re mistaken in this matter.”
This site criticizes different parts of Free Software (even if some people here don’t realize it) (Oh, and I’m deliberately using Free Software here to differentiate it from Open Source. I’m not entirely sure what people here criticize about Open Source). Here’s a quick rundown, which is by no means comprehensive:
1- Extreme Free Software: Can be summarized in one word: Stallman. His logic is simple, “my definition of freedom or death”. There are really few people who both A) Actually know his opinions, and B) Agree with them. This category is what you describe in your comment. This article is not about them.
2- Fanatical Free Software: These people think they know Stallman’s opinions and agree with him, but they really don’t. The main logic here is more about destroying proprietary software (or rather, the biggest companies like Microsoft) than anything else. As a hypothetical situation, if Microsoft released an open source program, and a small company released a competing closed source program, they would root for the latter, while claiming that Microsoft will sue you if you use the former. If you want an example, look no further than Adam_King.
3- Enterprise Free Software: Companies using Free Software and Open Source for their own purposes. The main criticism here is that #2 don’t realize this and assume these companies are somehow interested in Free Software for the good of humanity.
I personally think that Free Software people not fitting in #1 and #2 are only a hair different from Open Source people.
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“The same goes for IBM, Oracle and others.”
In the eyes of many FOSS communities, I believe Oracle has moved from the “companies using Linux” list to the “evil corporations working to destroy your freedoms” list ever since the Sun acquisition. The only positive thing they say about Oracle these days is Btrfs.
Our resident trolls Adam King and Need2BFree have touted Google and IBM as champions of freedom because they have open source labs.
It’s unlikely that they actually like either company and it’s just an AnythingButMicrosoft™ thing.
Further reinforced by the fact that Microsoft has their own open source lab that contributes to arguably one of the most important open source projects on the web, JQuery. Yet the evangelists pay no heed.
And what about Yahoo, they have several popular open source projects, hold workshops and conferences, but because they’re not going to “kill Microsoft”, the loons don’t care.
I’ve a quite relaxed opinion about Stallman; I don’t hate his opinions, just as I don’t hate the opinions of his opposer. I might agree with some of his general ideas, but I disagree when it comes to label code with an ideology. Certain things are easier done with open-source, and also gives customers better long time support (a simple example is drivers for printers), but a working/developing model shouldn’t be confused with an ideology, not in my opinion.
Hence we get a clash and touchy subject when talking about the GPL licensed Linux kernel. I suppose that even the ones not liking Linux as an operating system, would agree that Linus himself is quite pragmatic. He did choose a license to fit his developing idea, but he has never claimed to have bought a whole concept of a license being part of an ideology (I mostly find hints about the opposite).
Stallman probably did something useful in providing an alternative license. I don’t see a problem in that, because it’s up the coder to choose what license fits his/hers purpose. Personally though I wished it had been limited to a license and not politicised.
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Another funny twist is that few seems to hate Microsoft the way Larry Ellison does. So if someone simply hates Microsoft for whatever reason he/she should join Larry in his rage.
I don’t necessarily hate his opinions since everyone is entitled to them. I don’t agree with all of them and I think his rhetoric loses the message in all his noise.
What I DO hate is the fact that there is a throng of goofballs willing to indoctrinate themselves and blindly follow the man. People who, in most other situations, consider themselves smart. People who would laugh at organized religion, yet seem desperate for a leader.
The same goes for people who become the cheer squad for a company or brand which owes them nothing and would gladly leave those people out in the cold if it meant making another billion.
“The paradox is that those you criticise the most tend to be the ones most critical of Google as well. I believe you’re mistaken in this matter.”
I believe this is the funniest joke you have made thus far.
@Joe:
Oh, I don’t know though.
And stop being pointlessly obnoxious to the man. He’s had the courtesy to come over from Piestar and perform his stand-up in front of a hostile audience. And he does it with good grace, and all, which is far more than you can say for Need2BAdam.
Be rude? Sure. But none of that silly LHB stuff, please. We are all mature Limburgers here.
@Kim:
“Google aren’t viewed as a inherently good company by Linux users”
I’m nominating that one for your best joke yet.
@LeMonco:
No, wait, this one:
“The same goes for IBM, Oracle and others. They may rely on Linux and also support average Linux users by contributing resources and code.”
News, news, news:
IBM Confesses That They Rely On Linux!
Ellison Jettisons Stanford Blonde.
“Ditsy Trust-Fund Chicks are all right when you’re in your forties,” says Larry, “but I finally feel secure in myself. Now, I dream of nothing but Linux!”
“I was just an average Linux User,” said Dwayne Canteloupe III as he snacked on small scurrying beasts passing by in the gutter, “until I finally understood the massive Power Snort Hit GAAAAAHHCK! I feel better now that I got from IBM and Oracle and others contributing cocaine.”
Oops, a small spelling mistake there.
Kim, if you’re out there, your wacky ideas for a sit-com are fabulous. You have a quirky talent. But you need an editor, like me, to sell them to the Majors.
@IMGX64:
“You just can’t argue that vendors don’t know what an OS is, and will use Android instead of WP7 just because it’s free.”
No, but you could argue that vendors chose Android because it was FreeAsInSpeech™ rather than FreeAsInBeer™, and therefore the vendor could piss around with any given bit of it as much as they wanted.
Result: insane market fragmentation.
Solution: Android is now FreeAsInBeer™.
Now vendors have a choice. You get one standard OS which is FreeAsInBeer™ and quite possibly crap. You get another standard which is FreeAsInTenBucksMate™, and, to be fair, might be equally crap. And then you get iOS, which isn’t so much free as impossible.
It’ll be interesting to see where we go from here.
I don’t mind the sarcasm and irony in my address. Personally I view it as pointless puffs of steam, but it probably fills some kind of purpose for some. At Piestar I at first just added comments to explore the for me unfamiliar rage, and at times rudeness. I admit it wasn’t an admirable reason, but since then I’ve also got intrigued by some of the arguments. Let’s see what stuff I learn.
Sure, I’m happy to have you as an editor, DrLoser. Could you proof read what I write as well? Why not help a foreigner on hostile ground?
Isn’t that pretty much what I’m doing?
“I at first just added comments to explore the for me unfamiliar rage, and at times rudeness. I admit it wasn’t an admirable reason, but since then I’ve also got intrigued by some of the arguments. Let’s see what stuff I learn.”
Wow. You just described why I’m here.
@IMGX64
> As for Android, it’s not bundled with Google Search, and Google Search works exactly the same on Android, iOS, BlackBerry OS, and WP7.
From what I have heard, and seen on the Android devices I have used, you can’t (easily) change the default search engine on Android… I don’t think the question is whether Google makes their results appear differently on different platforms, its the “does the user have a choice” question. Now I don’t think the user should be asked which search engine they want to use, but there should be an option to change it somewhere.
As for Bing, yeah, I have been using it since it launched, and there have been a few instances where Bing didn’t turn up anything I wanted, but Google didn’t either most of the time. There are certain subjects that Bing doesn’t seem to handle well, but I can’t remember what they are… I do know they (Bing) have horrible filtering (e.g. adult content).
Go ahead, www.bing.com/images search for “Yahoo,” you should find some images parents would love for their children to see :-P
But Google now is just embedded in everyone’s brain. “Google it!” No one thinks to say “Bing it!” and it just sounds weird, maybe because it is against the norm, though I am betting saying “Google it” was as well. I can’t remember in the earlier days of search, except that Ask Jeeves was rather popular…
“you can’t (easily) change the default search engine on Android”
That’s still not “using their monopoly to enter new markets” as the court was saying, that’s using the new markets to.. err, promote what they already have 90+ percent market share in.
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