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The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) submitted this filing as part of our 3 part Tunney Act filing. The other two parts are our legal analysis and an economic analysis by nobel winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) submitted this filing as part of our 3 part Tunney Act filing. The other two parts are our legal analysis and an economic analysis by nobel winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Actually, this is a private antitrust suit. You should let your views be known here:
The Honorable J. Frederick Motz
Chief Judge
United States District Court for the
District of Maryland
101 West Lombard Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201

and you can email here:
robert_wolinsky@mdd.uscourts.gov

The DoJ is not involved with this as it is a private suit. Two letters that we wrote can be found here and here.

If you have a problem with the DoJ proposed settlement, there are places you can file your comments too. They have been listed repeatedly here.

Actually, this is a private antitrust suit. You should let your views be known here:
The Honorable J. Frederick Motz
Chief Judge
United States District Court for the
District of Maryland
101 West Lombard Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201

and you can email here:
robert_wolinsky@mdd.uscourts.gov

The DoJ is not involved with this as it is a private suit. Two letters that we wrote can be found here and here.

If you have a problem with the DoJ proposed settlement, there are places you can file your comments too. They have been listed repeatedly here.

There is nothing wrong with having market share or perhaps even being a monopoly. But when you abuse your position to foreclose competition, not only does that hurt competition (which hurts consumers) but is illegal.

That is great that you had that option to choose your OS. However, most people buy their computers through major OEMs and don't have the luxery of building a system and compiling their own OS on the system. They have a system with Windows pre-installed, whether they know they have another option or not. An average user is not going to dl an iso and re-partition their drive to put another OS on it. They are not going to purchase another OS (even for super cheap) at CompUSA when their is an OS right there. And OEMs are not going to offer another OS pre-installed because of MS retalitory conduct (and that part is illegal).

So, the user brings their computer home and it has windows preinstalled. Included is a web browser so the user is not going to dl netscape/opera or whatever else. Also included is a media player (hard bolted into the browser) so they are not neccesarily going to dl another player. Not included is Java, so develepers will stop java development (don't believe me, why do so many web builders, aside from laziness, code pages for IE that look wierd on different browsers).

Another key consideration is office. In a business, files are transferred in MS formats. Why would a company put on an OS that can't handle applications that they need? MS will not port office to linux for this specific reason (and as good as Star Office is, it can't handle conversions flawlessly).

I would suggest that anyone who questions what MS did is illegal read Judge Penfield's findings of facts. Or read this article for a basic summary This details all the ways that MS broke the law. Contrary to what MS says, a conservative 7 Judge Court of Appeals upheld the majority of this decision and found MS behaved illegaly.

What MS does is limit users choice. They do this by taking one monopoly and leaveraging that into another monopoly. I could care less what OS people use, what browser people use, and what software people use. But I do like to have a choice as to what to use, and I like venture capitalists to not fear investing in technologies that MS already is competing in , intends to compete in, or may just so happen to decide later to compete in. As Barksdale, now a VC, said in his letter, a VC will not invest in a technology if MS ever has an intention to use their monopoly to "compete" (read destroy) that technology. And while the open source community is great, VC is also neccesary otherwise these technologies will wither on the vine.

There is nothing wrong with having market share or perhaps even being a monopoly. But when you abuse your position to foreclose competition, not only does that hurt competition (which hurts consumers) but is illegal.

That is great that you had that option to choose your OS. However, most people buy their computers through major OEMs and don't have the luxery of building a system and compiling their own OS on the system. They have a system with Windows pre-installed, whether they know they have another option or not. An average user is not going to dl an iso and re-partition their drive to put another OS on it. They are not going to purchase another OS (even for super cheap) at CompUSA when their is an OS right there. And OEMs are not going to offer another OS pre-installed because of MS retalitory conduct (and that part is illegal).

So, the user brings their computer home and it has windows preinstalled. Included is a web browser so the user is not going to dl netscape/opera or whatever else. Also included is a media player (hard bolted into the browser) so they are not neccesarily going to dl another player. Not included is Java, so develepers will stop java development (don't believe me, why do so many web builders, aside from laziness, code pages for IE that look wierd on different browsers).

Another key consideration is office. In a business, files are transferred in MS formats. Why would a company put on an OS that can't handle applications that they need? MS will not port office to linux for this specific reason (and as good as Star Office is, it can't handle conversions flawlessly).

I would suggest that anyone who questions what MS did is illegal read Judge Penfield's findings of facts. Or read this article for a basic summary This details all the ways that MS broke the law. Contrary to what MS says, a conservative 7 Judge Court of Appeals upheld the majority of this decision and found MS behaved illegaly.

What MS does is limit users choice. They do this by taking one monopoly and leaveraging that into another monopoly. I could care less what OS people use, what browser people use, and what software people use. But I do like to have a choice as to what to use, and I like venture capitalists to not fear investing in technologies that MS already is competing in , intends to compete in, or may just so happen to decide later to compete in. As Barksdale, now a VC, said in his letter, a VC will not invest in a technology if MS ever has an intention to use their monopoly to "compete" (read destroy) that technology. And while the open source community is great, VC is also neccesary otherwise these technologies will wither on the vine.

go here

This could have some real teeth in it and is not riddled with the loopholes that plague the M$/DoJ crafted settlement

With out shilling too much here, may I recommend this document, Anatomy of a sellout on our website.

You can tell from the title what our take on the settlement was. We are also planning on putting up more documents by weeks end including a primer on the tunney act and how it relates to this case. Also, expect a real nice re-design of the page by the end of this week or early next week. If anyone wants some documents right away to draft their comments, email me. My name is Gabe and you can easily get my addy off the contact us link. I am just hesitant for spam reasons to put it here.

As to questions of if this will make a difference: while it is clear the DoJ sold out, (and I can refer you to specific articles here, or read Rep. Coyners letter that discusses some of that) these comments will be used for the Judge to determine if the agreement is in the public interest. The Judge is not biased one way or the other, and a strong showing of letters, esp. from tech sophisticated people will help prove to her that the agreement is in ffact not in the public interest.

With out shilling too much here, may I recommend this document, Anatomy of a sellout on our website.

You can tell from the title what our take on the settlement was. We are also planning on putting up more documents by weeks end including a primer on the tunney act and how it relates to this case. Also, expect a real nice re-design of the page by the end of this week or early next week. If anyone wants some documents right away to draft their comments, email me. My name is Gabe and you can easily get my addy off the contact us link. I am just hesitant for spam reasons to put it here.

As to questions of if this will make a difference: while it is clear the DoJ sold out, (and I can refer you to specific articles here, or read Rep. Coyners letter that discusses some of that) these comments will be used for the Judge to determine if the agreement is in the public interest. The Judge is not biased one way or the other, and a strong showing of letters, esp. from tech sophisticated people will help prove to her that the agreement is in ffact not in the public interest.

With out shilling too much here, may I recommend this document, Anatomy of a sellout on our website.

You can tell from the title what our take on the settlement was. We are also planning on putting up more documents by weeks end including a primer on the tunney act and how it relates to this case. Also, expect a real nice re-design of the page by the end of this week or early next week. If anyone wants some documents right away to draft their comments, email me. My name is Gabe and you can easily get my addy off the contact us link. I am just hesitant for spam reasons to put it here.

As to questions of if this will make a difference: while it is clear the DoJ sold out, (and I can refer you to specific articles here, or read Rep. Coyners letter that discusses some of that) these comments will be used for the Judge to determine if the agreement is in the public interest. The Judge is not biased one way or the other, and a strong showing of letters, esp. from tech sophisticated people will help prove to her that the agreement is in ffact not in the public interest.

Our website has a pretty comprehensive section on this whole issue including press releases on the EU action, the EU release, a FAQ on the statement of objextions, a timeline of proceedings, a summary/primer of EU antitrust enforcement, and other info. It is being updated through the day and will continually be updated as warrented. Check out the EU specific stuff here!

So the FSF is gonna sue for the damages caused by the several bucks of loss they would sustain on the $36 share of stock they bought in order to file the suit?

They'd be laughed out of court.

W2K is not a part of this case, but it IS a continuation of the same tactics demonstrated to be in violation of trust law. W2K embraces and extends Kerberos, network file sharing, DNS, .... It's a Blueprint for Domination". In the data center world, we are already feeling pressure to change the way we do business, simply because of the way W2K works. While other platforms can play in a W2K world, the objective is simple: Windows 2000 server and Active Directory rule the enterprise.

This is why this case needs to be expedited. By the time the appellate court wades through it, and it gets appealled again to the Supreme Court (and don't think MS won't want the S.C. to here it if they lose in appeals), W2K will be firmly rooted exactly where Microsoft wants it. Then, if they lose, the arguments start about where to break it up. Can you split apart Windows 2000 Server (OS) apart from Active Directory (application) into seperate companies (and still have anything work)? Look, you can't break it apart here! Oh, and Exchange 2000 is tightly integrated in Active Directory, so we have to keep that too. And Back Office is .....

Welcome to inovative integration.

Thanks. BTW, since posting the initial question above, I found another interesting item at the Computer & Communications Industry Association: Microsoft Windows 2000: Blueprint for Domination.

Thanks. BTW, since posting the initial question above, I found another interesting item at the Computer & Communications Industry Association: Microsoft Windows 2000: Blueprint for Domination.