You guys may have seen this on /., but it's worth repetition.
Microsoft's new plan to support their own application strategy, the
desire of the RIAA, and the desires of partners like RealAudio is to
cripple support for MP3s at the platform level:
Microsoft, for example, plans to severely limit the quality
of music that can be recorded as an MP3 file using software
built into the next version of its personal-computer
operating system, Windows XP. But music recorded in the
Redmond, Wash., software company's own format, called
Windows Media Audio, will sound clearer and require far less
storage space on a computer.
Check out this *amazing* quote from Dave Farber, former CTO of the
FCC!
"The industry doesn't want [MP3] pushed, and Microsoft and
RealNetworks don't want it pushed. The consumer is going to
eat what he's given," says David Farber, the former chief
technologist at the Federal Communications Commission.
cf. http://www.canoe.ca/MoneyWSJ/wsj2-dow.html
This kind of thing is why you can't own app space and OS space.
jb
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 29 2001 - 20:25:39 PDT