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It took time to add links to the footnotes of the text of the decision. Over time, in the way Groklaw works, the footnote text will become links to text versions of the associated documents, which link to the official court PDFs, and a link to the blog post will appear in the summary page here, or a child page. That's how Groklaw does things. The members contribute to fund the purchase of the documents from the court. Groklaw was a tiny bit slower than Ars Technica this time but in the fullness of time GrokLaw makes a better record that the Library of Congress has deemed worthy to record. This is certainly the best recorded copyright infringement case ever, and that's solely because of GrokLaw. Not only that, but the thorough documentation makes it a case study in all forms of intellectual property litigation and even all forms of extended litigation practice. Pamela isn't the fastest always, though she usually is because this case is a specialty - but her site is the definitive record of this series of court cases. Groklaw doesn't have the attention deficit disorder that /. suffers from, nor does it tolerate certain types of troll, nor obscenity. Pamela might have chosen the slashdot moderation system instead of the one she did given an adequate education and foresight in blogging and technology - but she didn't. She's not a geek like us, she's a paralegal and the decision point was more than seven years ago. It's a paralegal's blog and given the persistence and popularity of her site she chose well. Groklaw might have obsessive compulsive disorder in that it follows religiously minutia on a court case most people don't care about, but that's a different issue. Groklaw is thorough. It's a worthy reference for this specific topic, and the only one worth mentioning.

The site is also producing text-based documentation of the Comes V. Microsoft collection of documents. In Comes, the plaintiff forced production of a vast collection of documents that offer an interesting view into the internal operation of the Microsoft monopoly, and published them on their website which closed when Microsoft settled. Most of these documents were captured, and are being indexed by the Groklaw team. This is a worthy endeavor that could use help if you're interested.

Groklaw has no advertising - it's fully funded by its interested members (in this group I am proud to stand) and supported with servers and bandwidth by ibiblio because it's a noteworthy and popular endeavor that promotes openness. Ars Technica reports on major events in the case, and references their other articles on the case. Ars does this to attract page hits that drive their advertising funding. It's in no way similar to the way Groklaw works.

Groklaw is notable not just for this case but in providing an exemplary example to follow for documenting a notable legal case. This has never been done before in this way and Pamela Jones deserves considerable respect for inventing this method of preventing a miscarriage of justice. What these cases need more than anything else to secure justice is the full light of public knowledge of what's happening. Had that public awareness and thorough documentation provided by GrokLaw not been the case, an unpleasantly different outcome was almost certain.

For me GrokLaw is not just about this case though that is a prime focus now. It's about how we, the common geeks through our collective memory and obsessive attention to detail can derail the attempts to halt progress by seasoned lawyers who are ignorant of how things actually work, and inattentive to when they were inven

"It probably wasn't intentional, most likely.."

Yea, lets give them the benefit of the doubt, after all in the entire history of the company they never once sabotaged the technology to shaft a competitor, especially one that relies on their technology.

"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language"

'Windows NT, OS/2 2.0 including a "bad app" that corrupted other applications and crashed the system'

'The demos of OS/2 were excellent, crashing the system had the intended effect -- to FUD OS/2 2.0'

we have a torrent http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3620152/iowa
mirrir of http://iowaconsumercase.org/

Information must be free

When I first tried to read the comments, I got /.'s familiar "nothing to see here..." message, which also describes the site that hosted the documents from the Iowa case. Going to the site hosting the documents now results in a login request.

Gates explains that implementing AWT was a disaster for Microsoft because Java apps look as good as windows applications, see http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_5879. pdf Read how Gates dislikes JFC at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6109. pdf Read about plans to 'undermine Sun' at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6114. pdf Then read Microsoft's view on implementing JDK 1.2 (to quote 'no fucking way') at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_2708.p df So who limited the JDK to 1.1.18 ?

Gates explains that implementing AWT was a disaster for Microsoft because Java apps look as good as windows applications, see http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_5879. pdf Read how Gates dislikes JFC at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6109. pdf Read about plans to 'undermine Sun' at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6114. pdf Then read Microsoft's view on implementing JDK 1.2 (to quote 'no fucking way') at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_2708.p df So who limited the JDK to 1.1.18 ?

Gates explains that implementing AWT was a disaster for Microsoft because Java apps look as good as windows applications, see http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_5879. pdf Read how Gates dislikes JFC at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6109. pdf Read about plans to 'undermine Sun' at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6114. pdf Then read Microsoft's view on implementing JDK 1.2 (to quote 'no fucking way') at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_2708.p df So who limited the JDK to 1.1.18 ?

Gates explains that implementing AWT was a disaster for Microsoft because Java apps look as good as windows applications, see http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_5879. pdf Read how Gates dislikes JFC at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6109. pdf Read about plans to 'undermine Sun' at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6114. pdf Then read Microsoft's view on implementing JDK 1.2 (to quote 'no fucking way') at http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_2708.p df So who limited the JDK to 1.1.18 ?

Hardware + software = device. No amount of mindless drooling by Gartner "analysts" will change that. Sure, the OS may get smaller, and Nathan Myhrvold's much feared vision of the "Megaserver" (see here) may be fulfilled - oh wait, it already has. But at the end of the day, a device with some semblance of UI presentation to get the "'net goo" off of the Interweb tubes to the glass will still be required. And to print. And to play audio, video, and store info locally. Because at the end of the day, sure you can store stuff up in the cloud. But it has to come down at some point or another in order to be useful enough to even keep. Hence, an operating system (or embedded OS, whatever) is necessary.

You must have less than 10Y computer exp. or you've been living in a closet.

"Embrace, extend and extinguish" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and _extinguish

Check out what they did for DR-DOS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsof t#Suits_by_private_companies

Confidential Microsoft memo: "Lets steal the Java language"
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011107/PX_2768.pdf

I just found that when I load http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_7264.p df in Preview.app on Mac OS X, it appears simply to be a scanned copy of a print-out (not only from the distortion but also it is obvious pixelated as you zoom in), but I am able to select, copy, and paste the text. When this PDF was made, was some sort of OCR process performed that includes the results or did Apple quietly introduce this functionality into their viewer?

The other possible explanation is that they just used a really fucking awful font. No, even worse than Comic Sans.

I just found that when I load http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_7264.p df in Preview.app on Mac OS X, it appears simply to be a scanned copy of a print-out (not only from the distortion but also it is obvious pixelated as you zoom in), but I am able to select, copy, and paste the text. When this PDF was made, was some sort of OCR process performed that includes the results or did Apple quietly introduce this functionality into their viewer?

• Who is a convicted monopolist ?
  (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Micr osoft
  and: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?refe rence=IP/04/382&format=HTML&aged=0&language=&guiLa nguage=en )
  
• Who is still under investigation in at least U.S. and Europe markets ?
  (see: http://ww.iowaconsumercase.org/ )
• Whose mint new operating system is in direct competition with Apple's Mac OS X ? (see: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/macosx_leopar d_preview.asp )
• Who is trying hard to enter the mp3 player market with an iPod-killer ?
  (see: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/54786.html )

"Looking out beyond that I think our work on natural interface (I mean by this our
research work on putting speech/handwriting/linguistics/learning together in a bayesian framework) is the Only concrete thing that can happen fast enough with enough volume to make 200mips chips look bad then make 500mips chips look bad, then make l200mips chips look bad... etc..etc.. This is what Intel needs from the software market."

http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_3876. pdf

I guess we already know this, but Microsoft partnering with Intel to sell more chips by developing technology that can only work with faster chips? What a surprise.

"we are far from done on the browser front. We are--at 30% but Netscape has shipped a good product far ahead of us and still verysavvy and veryInterested in kaeping their stock price up. We need to execute on 1E4. surpass 50% share, and be setup to continue the share gain via great distribubon and product before we pull the plug."

http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6092. pdf

When he says 'pull the plug' is he talking about stopping development of IE once they reached a certain marketshare and netscape was dead? Kinda like they did..?

http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_7264.p df From the Microsoft Co-President of the Platforms and Services Division to Bill G and Steve B

I tried going through it manually, and then noticed there were countless emails, most of which were boring. A much better approach is to google through the emails for keywords like this.

In doing so, I noticed the first hit is a document outlining their strategy for partially breaking networking compatibility with Linux. "Our Linux Strategy"

Another document from January of '99 describes Linux's greatest strength over NT as its flexibility, and its greatest weakness as its ease of use (although nearly every usage problem specifically mentioned no longer applies in modern Linux distributions). It also describes two of their worst-case scenarios being that IBM and Sun adopt Linux. One quote of interest is, "There is the very real long term threat that as MS expends the development dollars to create a bevy of new features in NT, Linux will simply cherry pick the best features an [sic] incorporate them into their codebase. The effect of patents and copyright in combatting Linux remains to be investigated."

I tried going through it manually, and then noticed there were countless emails, most of which were boring. A much better approach is to google through the emails for keywords like this.

In doing so, I noticed the first hit is a document outlining their strategy for partially breaking networking compatibility with Linux. "Our Linux Strategy"

Another document from January of '99 describes Linux's greatest strength over NT as its flexibility, and its greatest weakness as its ease of use (although nearly every usage problem specifically mentioned no longer applies in modern Linux distributions). It also describes two of their worst-case scenarios being that IBM and Sun adopt Linux. One quote of interest is, "There is the very real long term threat that as MS expends the development dollars to create a bevy of new features in NT, Linux will simply cherry pick the best features an [sic] incorporate them into their codebase. The effect of patents and copyright in combatting Linux remains to be investigated."

For the original go herehttp://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/8000/PX 08636.pdf

From: Jim AIIchin
Sent: Thursday', November 13, 2003 10:D3 AM
To: Amlr Majld~mehr
CC: Will Poole; Michele Freed; Pieter Knook; Harish Naidu; Chris 3ones (WINDOWS); Linda
Subject-" RE: sucking on media ptayers

i think I should talk with Jobs. Right now, I think I should open up a dialog l~or support of the
iPOD. Unless something changes, the iPOD will drive people away from WMP.

jim

From,' Amir Majidimehr
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 10:01 AM
To: Jim Atlchm
CC:-" Will Poole; Michele Freed; Pleter Knook; Harish Naldu; Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Dnda
Averett
Subject: RE: sucking on media players

Now you feel our pain ~ We have been unsuccessful in the past to convince these vendors to
open their eyes and accept that there is better software out there than what they ship with these
things. Of course, some are betler than others but none are a match forApple. For good or bad,
the message ~s finally getting through 9with retailers threatening to sell iPod) but we are not
weihng for that. Tomorrow, we have an entire crew descending on Creative and after that,
Samsnng and Rio to get them motivated to build the "right" device. We are putting incentives on
the table in the form of cash, technical support, direct interface to developers, early access code
for 9.1, etc. In other words, we are going all oul and hoping that at least a few will listen If none
do, then it is lime for us to roll up our sleeves and do our own hardware ®.
We are also pushing them on ID. Interestingly enough, some have devices lhat are pretty much
clones of iPod in all respects but worTy about challenges from Apple. Still, we are giving them
motivation to try harder.
As you allude to below, we also have work to do on our end to make synchronization better. But
to do that, we need to have devices that suppor~ our new MTP protocol so we don't quite have
anything to give you just yet. Our target is to unveil the synchronization capabilities at CES in
eady January. So we may be able to give you a sneak peak sometime in December. We would
lave to have your feedback dudng that process.
BTW, while the Dell is not substantially better frem usability side, il is at least prettier than the Zen.
Finally, while not a substrtute, we hope that Portable Med~a Genter will be a well executed device
with support for meladata which is very useful given its color screen (there are some complicated
rights issues that we have to sor~ out first). Some of the UI design elements appear to be even
better than iPod (as far as cascading menus is concerned).
Amir

Wow! OS/2 Crush plan:

http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/2000/PX0211 9.pdf

In this document, they talk about leaking information to "Spencer or Cringely" to continue the smear campaign against Digital Research. The referenced Cringely is likely Robert X. Cringely (and confirms a lot of what I've suspected about that particular column anyway). But who is Spencer?

Also on the same website is the testimony Bill Gates gave in the US v. Microsoft case.

I am still a very big fan of us putting the source code of the key parts of IE out on the Web (without commercial reproduction rights) so that Universities who want to "extend" browsers use ours for their experiments. -- Bill Gates (1995) http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_2494. pdf

Bill Gates: http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/122106/PLEX0_6114. pdf

"Who should Avie be working with? Do we have a clear plan on what we want Apple to do to undermine Sun?"

The Apple guy's complaint back to Bill that IE4 is screwing with the .mov extension is priceless. I wonder how many similar emails Novell will send because of their deal.

http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011907/PLEX1025.pd f

This looks like a document about internal testing of Dr DOS, and it looks like they had good reasons to warn people who were about to run windows on Dr DOS (as in - the crashes you will experience are their product, not ours)

We are engaged in a FUD campaign to let the press know about some of the bugs.
We'll provide info a few bugs at a time to stretch it out

the proof is in the pudding

Not even the rhetoric from a "Women's study" class can prepare the reader for the contents of those letters. All the diabolical "power" talk is like a script from a bad movie. Start anywhere and you get there fast. They really are sick.

The first thing I looked at had this nonsense:

To gain power, IBM's got to take it away from Microsoft, and our power starts with DOS. ... We are engaged in a FUD campaign to let the press know about some of the [DR-DOS] bugs.

You might recall later evidence from the Novel DR-DOS lawsuit, where Microsoft later killed DR-DOS off by making Win3.1 not work with it and then blaming DR-DOS in BBS postings. Nice.

The next thing seems to indicate witness tampering in the same power struggle.

The next random look has more opinion manipulation trough astroturf:

User story placement - developing and placing MS-DOS related stories in key publications, both trade and vertical, to communicate that corporations have a large investment in MS-DOS and will continue to trust in it. Develop user profiles?

And it goes on and on. The targets today are the ones that survived, IBM, Novel, and friends but now include the free software that everyone but M$ has agreed to use because it's better. Instead of fudding BBS, they are here and in the newspapers and TV networks they purchased for the purpose. If these dorks spent half the time wasted on improving their product, they might have a product that works. Instead, they have focused on marketing, "power" and other crap that's ended in DRM and botnet hell. No one should trust M$ for anything and everything they touch is suspect.

Not even the rhetoric from a "Women's study" class can prepare the reader for the contents of those letters. All the diabolical "power" talk is like a script from a bad movie. Start anywhere and you get there fast. They really are sick.

The first thing I looked at had this nonsense:

To gain power, IBM's got to take it away from Microsoft, and our power starts with DOS. ... We are engaged in a FUD campaign to let the press know about some of the [DR-DOS] bugs.

You might recall later evidence from the Novel DR-DOS lawsuit, where Microsoft later killed DR-DOS off by making Win3.1 not work with it and then blaming DR-DOS in BBS postings. Nice.

The next thing seems to indicate witness tampering in the same power struggle.

The next random look has more opinion manipulation trough astroturf:

User story placement - developing and placing MS-DOS related stories in key publications, both trade and vertical, to communicate that corporations have a large investment in MS-DOS and will continue to trust in it. Develop user profiles?

And it goes on and on. The targets today are the ones that survived, IBM, Novel, and friends but now include the free software that everyone but M$ has agreed to use because it's better. Instead of fudding BBS, they are here and in the newspapers and TV networks they purchased for the purpose. If these dorks spent half the time wasted on improving their product, they might have a product that works. Instead, they have focused on marketing, "power" and other crap that's ended in DRM and botnet hell. No one should trust M$ for anything and everything they touch is suspect.

Not even the rhetoric from a "Women's study" class can prepare the reader for the contents of those letters. All the diabolical "power" talk is like a script from a bad movie. Start anywhere and you get there fast. They really are sick.

The first thing I looked at had this nonsense:

To gain power, IBM's got to take it away from Microsoft, and our power starts with DOS. ... We are engaged in a FUD campaign to let the press know about some of the [DR-DOS] bugs.

You might recall later evidence from the Novel DR-DOS lawsuit, where Microsoft later killed DR-DOS off by making Win3.1 not work with it and then blaming DR-DOS in BBS postings. Nice.

The next thing seems to indicate witness tampering in the same power struggle.

The next random look has more opinion manipulation trough astroturf:

User story placement - developing and placing MS-DOS related stories in key publications, both trade and vertical, to communicate that corporations have a large investment in MS-DOS and will continue to trust in it. Develop user profiles?

And it goes on and on. The targets today are the ones that survived, IBM, Novel, and friends but now include the free software that everyone but M$ has agreed to use because it's better. Instead of fudding BBS, they are here and in the newspapers and TV networks they purchased for the purpose. If these dorks spent half the time wasted on improving their product, they might have a product that works. Instead, they have focused on marketing, "power" and other crap that's ended in DRM and botnet hell. No one should trust M$ for anything and everything they touch is suspect.

In economics there is a well-understood concept called switching costs how much it costs for a trading partner to change partners. Our philosophy on switching costs is very clear we want low switching costs for customers who want to start using our platform, and we want to provide so much unique value that there are in effect high costs of deciding to move to a different platform. There is a name for this: it is called Embrace and Extend.
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/010807/PLEX_5906.p df

This is what happend with Kerberos in Active Directory. Vendor-Lock-in at it best.

http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011107/PX_2768.pdf

"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language."

"Bill. I thought you were an uber-hacker."

Ha, after watching these DOJ testimony tapes of Bill Gates, you could conclude he doesn't know a thing about what his company was doing, what e-mail was sent to him or what the definition of an operating system is to name a few. Watch Bill dance around even the most simplest questions trying to spin his company in a favorable light.

Of course they will never admit it, but I belive it's true. I don't usually belive to conspiration theories, but after reading these (old) emails:
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/9000/PX0928 0.pdf (pdf warning)
I think is very probable that microsoft adopts aggressive marketing strategies to compete with linux.
I hope the link is not too old, the dates are, but I've seen it a couple of days ago for the first time.

From the same people who brought us
http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX0309

Before mocking the poster perhaps you could do a little research, the transcript for the January 12 proceedings are online: http://www.iowaconsumercase.org/TP011207.txt

starts on page 6806

It's like you're going out with a girl; forgive me, blank, it goes the other way also. You're going out with a girl, what you really want to do is have a deep, close and intimate relationship, at least for one night. And, you know, you just can't let her feel like that, because if you do, it ain't going to happen, right. So you have to talk long term and white picket fence and all these other wonderful things, or else you're never going to get what you're really looking for. So you can't let them feel like pawns, no matter how much they really are.

I can only imagine the kind of respect they have for their customers because I quit using their software around 1999. It was bad enough then and now you know why.