Again, simple kindergarten manners: If you think there is any reason people might object to what you want to be doing with/to their stuff, ask first and be prepared to hear "no".
Well, the point is to make an application available to the user; the changes are required by how the OS is designed. It's an accident of history that things like PATH in Windows are world-writable. Things like Metro apps have far less ability to modify the wider system.
The tech company response to this kind of application infighting is likely to be more sandboxing and lockdowns. Everything will move in the direction of an iOS like model where the platform owner can just veto apps and ban developers, as that's the only way to deal with "abuse".
Unless the adults aka the state steps in and orders them to do their jobs instead of bullying each others and the users they are supposed to serve.
You really do not want what you are asking for.
In the same way I want the police to take over the sex trafficking business from the mafia. So no.
> You really do not want what you are asking for.
I believe I know my mind better than you do.
Wanted or no, it is the end result you will get.
> I believe I know my mind better than you do.
I believe you do, too. What I am questioning is if the end result is what you think it to be.
Surely you can substantiate that claim?
Chrome is not part of the OS.
> It is pretty unlikely that legally it would be possible to have such fine grained differentiation between replacing and appending.
It's not only possible but easy to differentiate between installing software which includes registering it in the appropriate places and changing user settings for anticompetitive reasons. Unlike some corporations' customer support departments, the court system is not only staffed by actual humans with brains, they're even allowed to use them.
> And I'd prefer voting with my wallet than to forcing tech companies to involve legal in the development process.
I prefer solutions that have a chance of working, but to each their own.
Legally irrelevant. If that was relevant, Microsoft wouldn't be attacked for bundling IE.
> It's not only possible but easy...
Please tell us how, then. Preferably in a way unlike the whole GDPR cookie policy fiasco.
> I prefer solutions that have a chance of working
Where you can impose your wishes on other's product choices? This is not a company usurping its monopoly, it's a niche product tweak.
> Legally irrelevant. If that was relevant, Microsoft wouldn't be attacked for bundling IE.
I would argue that this shows that it is legally relevant. Because it is possible to say that IE is not part of the OS but an application, we can talk about “bundling” products together at all. If IE and Windows were one indecomposable unit, I don’t think the EU would have had a case.
They never were. But is very successful and impressive PR by MS that you think that this is what the problem was.
Those devious Microsoft PR execs at the Justice Department...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
United States v. Microsoft Corporation, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001),[1] was a noted American antitrust law case in which the U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally maintaining its monopoly position in the PC market primarily through the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers (OEMs) and users to uninstall Internet Explorer and use other programs such as Netscape and Java.
“ The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Windows operating system.”
So yeah, follow your own advise. Because if you would, you'd find gems like this in the actual court case I cited:
"After trial, the court found Microsoft had violated Section 2 by unlawfully maintaining its monopoly in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems (“OSs”) and by unlawfully attempting to monopolize the market for internet browsers, and that it had violated Section 1 by illegally tying its Windows operating system and its Internet Explorer (“IE”) browser."
What is this, a court of law?
> Please tell us how, then. Preferably in a way unlike the whole GDPR cookie policy fiasco.
You don't get to blame the GDPR for those pointless pop-ups webmasters choose to display that are not even remotely compliant.
> Where you can impose your wishes on other's product choices? This is not a company usurping its monopoly, it's a niche product tweak.
Microsoft is the one which tries to impose its choices on others. In any case it wouldn't be me but us, we live in a democracy.
MS Office and Google search aren't niche products either.
You're talking about legislature (i.e. state stepping in). What did you think this was about? Crossfit?
> You don't get to blame the GDPR
Of course I do. Badly designed laws need to be blamed.
> MS Office and Google search aren't niche products either.
But ProPlus is. Either you are deliberately conflating the issue or you don't know what you are talking about.
What the law currently happens to be is irrelevant to the question what it should be.
> Of course I do. Badly designed laws need to be blamed.
Please tell me how those pop-ups reflect a design flaw in the GDPR.
> But ProPlus is.
It's a version of Office.
I advise you to take a civics course. This is literally not true.
> Please tell me how those pop-ups reflect a design flaw in the GDPR.
In short: GDPR failed to correct the incentives and lead just to more boilerplate disclaimers. Some of GDPR is good, but this part definitely isn't.
> It's a version of Office.
Yeah... That's the definition of a niche product. Because, it's targeted at niche audience.
Honestly, I'm not interested of arguing with you anymore. When people start throwing platitudes against facts, that's the time I lose interest.
It would be easier if you explained to me how this possibly can be not true.
> In short: GDPR failed to correct the incentives and lead just to more boilerplate disclaimers. Some of GDPR is good, but this part definitely isn't.
The incentives people think the GDPR sets are obviously broken but what about the ones it actually does set as written? The law is fine, the enforcement is disappointing so far.
> Yeah... That's the definition of a niche product. Because, it's targeted at niche audience.
If Office is targeted at a niche audience then everything is a niche audience.
I'm sure someone will say you should only install applications you trust, but where does that trust come from? How can I judge the trustworthiness of an application if I can't use it first? Must I trust some third party like a community of repo maintainers --not to mention corporate run repos-- and pretend that they all must have my best interest at heart and never make mistakes? Am I required to believe in the fantasy that once trustworthy software will always be so?