DoJ Rejects Microsoft Settlement

Quite a number of people have written over the last few days regarding the BBC news report that the Department of Justice has apparently rejected Microsoft's proposed settlement. Unless something is reached today, this means it will be up to Judge Jackson to decide what to do on the 28th.

Comments

Thanks MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a frequently made statement that MS did the world a favour by bringing the windows desktop to the consumer. I think it is uttered repeatedly without the consideration of what the world could have been like if computers had remained something of a black art.

Enabling millions of people to use a computer without having to learn a thing about them is not a service to IT. I get the feeling that a lot of users, having strained to figure out the perils of the taskbar, thought to themselves, "Great! Now I can ask some <i>real</i> dumb questions."

So thanks MS, for making sure most of the computer hardware produced in the world will be wasted on some some lazy bozo, to perform such useful tasks as finding and storing pr0n. Not to mention passing on that e-mail from Bill Gates about the disneyland tickets to every person he's ever met.

Thanks for wasting countless man-hours as trained professionals answered questions like "What's a cursor?"

Thanks for making it possible for Intel's shoddy 8086 architecture to mutate into the leviathon, overheated, overpowered, underdesigned, hacked together monstrosity we call pentium.

Thanks for MS Bob. That was a laugh.

Thanks for a horde of standards shattered and torn in the wake of your monopolistic greed.

Thanks for the death of Netscape. They weren't great, but at least they tried to read the RFCs.

Thanks for the Melissa virus, and all it's friends. You made that all possible.

Thanks for keeping IT dishonest. Now that everyone saw how well it worked, we can follow your business model. Lie, lie, lie.

Thanks for Visual Basic, and a horde of programs designed to make managers think they can produce code without hiring programmers.

Thanks for helping IBM put the final bullet into DEC's dying corpse.

Thanks for winmodems.

Thanks for the Blue Screen of Death. And memory leaks. And all the other bugs you couldn't be bothered to fix.

Thanks for DDoS attacks.

Above, thanks for all the morons who think you brought something to the IT industry. Pop quiz: If I come to your house and give you ten bucks, then steal your car, are you going to sit around saying, "Well, he did bring me ten bucks."?

Wake up. MS didn't do anything but lie and steal and hinder real development. If they hadn't brought computing to the common man, some other loser would have. Say, Apple. Or Xerox. Or even Amiga.

Re:Another victory for the forces of mediocrity.

[Roblimo]

More aptly, what if 95% of all popular music was controlled by only four or five record companies and those companies formed a trade association whose main purpose was to keep its members' products selling for high prices instead of allowing "the market" to determine what a given song was worth?

The end result would probably be wholesale music piracy using technology the record companies couldn't control.

Not that anything like this could ever happen in real life, mind you; this is just Monday morning speculation on Slashdot...

- Robin

Re:What truely is the benifet of this lawsuit?

[SgtPepper]

First of all, let me just say that that was a very well thought out post, and very well spoken. There's just one point I'd like to discuss..it's when you say here:

Microsoft has NEVER prevented anyone from making a compatible system, had they done that it would have been anticompetitve

This right here....this is exactly what they HAVE done. This is the whole crux of most of our feelings behind Microsoft. Why has WINE been in development so long and still can't run 80% of the software out there ( Disclaimer: Percentage exactly unknown, last time I checked though it was still a large amount of software that either didn't run or was buggy ). In fact you back this up later on in your post with:


Sure it may not be an OPEN standard, but gee golly sir when i go to the story and there is 400 games and 1000s of applications i can run on my computer. THAT IS A STANDARD!

A closed specification ( or "Standard" ) is meant for one thing....to prevent compatibility, so you can be the only kid on the block with those nifty APIs. Which change...from release to releast from Service Pack to Service Pack. Now I'm not making any kind of suggestion on how evil Microsoft is, or what should be done to punish them. But I /do/ think they try to prevent others from being able to interface to Windows in a fully compatible, open way. Full Disclouser of all Windows APIs and Protocols would be, in my opinon a very satisfactory resolution to this whole mess.

Ah well, thanks for listening, and again, nice post :)

Sgt Pepper

How Quickly we forget

[FreeUser]

Wow, the Microsoft paid moderators appear to be out in force. Lest we forget, and be drawn in by the many reasonable-sounding platitudes of forgiveness, lets debunk a few myths:

• Microsoft can never take Linux away from us, even if they crush it commercially. Not True. Remember Win-modems? Win-printers. Microsoft had embarked on a strategy to get hardware manufacturers to produce hardware "optimized" for Microsoft operating systems (where "optimized" was defined as "usable only by thier (approved) OSes"). MS was hard at work creating a world where developers of emerging operating systems, such as Linux and FreeBSD, would not have been able to get programming specs for device drivers at any price. Fortunately for the proponents of Open Source, being put under a microscope and subjected to public view forced Microsoft to suspend this strategy, at least temporarilly.
  
• Microsoft didn't do anything wrong, it is a company's fudiciary responsibility to make as much money as they can, any way they can. Not True. It is not a company's fudiciary responsiblity to violate federal anti-trust legislation in order to maximize profits, or, indeed, to violate any law whatsoever. In fact, a company has a fudiciary responsibility to abide by the law, lest shareholders lose money as a result of legal consiquences, such as, say, an anti-trust trial brought against them by the Department of Justice.
  
• Forcing Microsoft to release Windows Souce would remedy their behavior. Not True. Others have commented on the quality of the code, and the (lack of) value in having it avialable. More to the point, Microsoft could simply relelase the source to Windows 9x, then simpy turn around and push win2k or some other product, in much the same way they de-emphasized DOS once the Consent Decree was reached in the mid-nineties.
  
• Breaking up Microsoft would be bad for computing. Not True. Whether MS were broken up vertically, such that multiple companies were competing with one another in offering Win 9x/NT/2k, Office, etc., or horizontally, such that one entity markets the OS, another Office products, another internet products, and so on, the end result would be a more competative, and hence more robust, marketplace. This is good for the consumer, good for the competition, and ultimately good for the technology. Ironically, if the breakup of AT&T and subsequent boom in the telephony industry is any indication, it would also be very good for MSFT stockholders.
  
• Microsoft can be trusted to abide by whatever agreement (if any) they come to with the DOJ or the court. Not True. The Consent Decree clearly demonstrates the lack of good faith Microsoft has brought to the table in all of these negotiations. How many people remember the original reason the current anti-trust trial came into being in the first place? It was because the DOJ was accusing Microsoft of (gross) violations of the Consent Decree, in which they agreed (among other things) to stop requiring vendors to pay for a copy of the OS on each computer shipped, whether or not the OS was actually installed. Microsoft's response was that "this is Windows 95, not DOS, and therefor not covered in the consent decree." Caldera later proved that Windows 95 was nothing more than a fancy program running on top of DOS 7.0. Interstingly enough, shortly thereafter, hardware manufacturers started offering other operating systems in addition to Windows.
  
• Microsoft is popular because it is easier for non-techies to use. Not True. I personally have several examples (a pilot friend, a sister, a mother, and a friend's grandmother) of people who were very uncomfortable with computers running windows because, whenever it would crash, they felt they were making mistakes. The result - they were afraid to use the machine much for fear of "breaking" it. In all cases they found Linux running X and gnome or KDE to be far easier to use, because it works reliably and consistently. They work in confidence that, unless they are doing something as root (and teaching them to understand what that means took all of about 30 seconds), they cannot break the machine. Net result - they are using their machines more, with greater confidence, and, though still illiterate by our standards, they are picking a few things up while being able to get the work done they need to. Most of all, they are no longer afraid of their machines.
  
• Microsoft is committed to Open Specifications. Not True. Examples far too numerous to mention (Java, W3C, etc.) left to the reader. ("Embrace and Extend", etc.)
  

Whatever the solution the judge comes up with, I think the absurd platitudes from the hoards of paid Microsoft astroturfers hear have every reason to fall upon deaf ears. We've heard it all before, and most of us see as clearly through the lies and propoganda today as we did when this all started a few years ago. If you must insult our intelligence by spewing such nonsense here, don't come crying to daddy when the followup posts are a little hot under the collar.

Re:What truely is the benifet of this lawsuit?

[NMerriam]

Microsoft has NEVER prevented anyone from making a compatible system, had they done that it would have been anticompetitve

DR-DOS was compatible (and superior in every way). MS purposely, actively and consciously used several mechanisms to stop it, up to and including per-processor licenses (which were illegal) and purposely incorrect error messages...

What truely is the benifet of this lawsuit?

[cybrthng]

Tell me. As a consumer, how will i be any better off with Microsoft being sued? Driving the costs up because of lawsuits? Fragmenting a stable market with many more buggy programs?

I for one, USE linux. Let me say that again. I USE LINUX. and I also Use Microsoft. I don't consider them the Evil Empire, since in my time with computers i have used other OS's such as OS/2, FreeBSD and Solaris and for the Desktop *I* chose to run Windows.

I don't understand how people can pick at microsoft for writing the OS and the Applications. After Microsoft will sun be next? Will they have to split the processor division from there OS division? Doesn't that give them unfair advantage in the market? Or is it because the consumers who don't know about Sun and other Systems out there don't think to sue them too?

Flame me all you want, slashdot is about opinions and not about whats right or wrong.

But my opinion is, let them exist. Let the CONSUMER Choose. NOT a lawyer. I feel you are doing the BIGGEST Injustice by making my choices for me in court. Microsoft has NEVER prevented anyone from making a compatible system, had they done that it would have been anticompetitve. But simply existing without anything better or no one stepping up to the bat does not make microsoft an evil empire.

Sure some of you don't like the "Windows Tax" when you buy a new PC. But for the average consumer, why would they want to go out and choose something else that there friends or neighboors don't use? Why would someone want to choose something that is Niche when they can choose something that is a standard? Sure it may not be an OPEN standard, but gee golly sir when i go to the story and there is 400 games and 1000s of applications i can run on my computer. THAT IS A STANDARD!

I would feel sorry for the thousands of employees, the foundations that Gates supports, the 5,000+ college students that could loose scholarships, the grants and donations to the city and areas of which microsoft works (redmond receives lots of support from microsoft).

I'd feel sorry for all the ASP's, Developers and people who make a living off software because that is what the chose.

You have always had a right to choice. I'm just curios why you think it is YOUR right to make my choice now?

SGI, Sun, Sparc, Alpha, Mac, Amiga, RISC OS, RS2000, Aix, FreeBSD, NeXT, DOS, Novell DOS, CPM, TRS 80. They were all your choices. You chose a PC witch Built its foundation in Windows. You didn't Choose a 10,000 dollar Sparc to not run Solaris on it, so why should it be any different here. Like i said, Sun will be under the radar next, hell RedHat could get sued for anticompetive faults with Microsoft coming up and saying they're dumping there product for free to saturate the market.

I believe the rights of the consumer belong to the consumer, not to Hypocrites, people who are anal about things (fuck you to people who will pay more attention to my spelling rather then *MY* opinions).

Like i said, i use linux. I run HP-UX systems, i have a few dozen Sparcs, and yes i have 250 Windows Workstations on the floor and yes, i have a few dozen linux workstations. So yeah, as an educated consumer i know what fits MY bill. And my employees know what fits there own. So let it be.

A fair punishment for MS

[haggar]

I will not list all the things MS is guilty of. I will rather let my fantasy flow in the direction on how would I punish that evil corporation.

So, IMO, opening up the source of windows-es is not enough, because we know MS will try to give us the code that is not totally valid ("oh, you meant the source of THAT version of Windows? We thought you meant Windows 3.0 - OK, OK, ..." repeat previous 10.000 times). Or they will edit the sources so that the comments are missing. Or they will flatly forge it.

Breaking Microsoft up won't work, either. They have been preparing themselves for this since about 2 years. They have formed the communication paths between an OS and an application company to be. A vertical breakup (two or more smaller microsofts, which would compete among each other) won't work for the same reason, and then once the breakup is complete, these mini-microsofts will focus on either the OS, or one application.

Federal monitoring of their activities? That will never work, or it will work as well as the UN monitoring of the Iraq nuclear and bio-weapons labs.

So what, then? Well, here is my proposal (apply ALL themeasures in the list):

- Fine them to pay US$ 100 bln, to be distributed to MS products licensees. For home users, that would amount to approximately a grand/person.

-All the upper management jailed to serve sentences of 20 to 40 years, depending on their position. Alchin would get 30, Gates and Ballamr get 40 (each). VPs would get 25, etc.

-The word "Microsoft" would be fobidden from use on posters, T-shirts and other advertisements, and placed in the same cathegory as the symbols of the Nazy era.

-Federal agents would break into the Microsoft premises, and remove the material with the source code. It would be published in it's entirety, on the Internet, with possibly many mirrors, with noone holding the license rights. Or maybe something like the BSD would be ok. (MS will be forced, of course, to renounce to any copyrights).

-the MS campus in Redmond would be transformed into "The Museum of Monopoly" (I like this one) and the upkeep will be payd by the Bill Gates foundation (I like this even more) forever.

The current MS employees (the ones that didn't make it to the jail) will have the option to work in the Museum of Monopoly. It means, the janitors will be pretty much in place, the only problem are those people who made all those buggy products. (Add Access 2000 to the list of "most buggy")

OK, I have my flame-protector suit on, go ahead :o)

Wow, such FUD and flamebait!

[Christopher Whitt]

Where do I start?! I should just keep my mouth shut, but I can't resist...

Tell me. As a consumer, how will i be any better off with Microsoft being sued? Driving the costs up because of lawsuits? Fragmenting a stable market with many more buggy programs?

Well, tell me, as a consumer, how much worse off are we because MS used their monopoly to crush companies like Netscape and many others that would have brought choice and lowered prices in consumer software?

I don't understand how people can pick at microsoft for writing the OS and the Applications...But my opinion is, let them exist. Let the CONSUMER Choose. NOT a lawyer. I feel you are doing the BIGGEST Injustice by making my choices for me in court.

Well, you may be a little preturbed that you may not be able to get Win2002 at the same level of quality and low cost that you're used to, but what about the injustice to all those people who couldn't choose their OS or browser because MS effectively blackmailed PC suppliers and bought out or crushed competitors.

The real beef is not that MS writes an OS or applications, remember, but that they use their monopoly position in the OS market to unfairly compete. If this is in fact true (that's Judge Jackson's job) then they deserve to be punished for robbing the consumer of potential better and cheaper options.

Sure some of you don't like the "Windows Tax" when you buy a new PC. But for the average consumer, why would they want to go out and choose something else that there friends or neighboors don't use? Why would someone want to choose something that is Niche when they can choose something that is a standard?

I just don't see how that is relevant. The point is not that MS is standard. Everybody agrees they are (at least for Joe Average). The problem is that they use their position to effectively prevent Joe Average from having options and choice.

I would feel sorry for the thousands of employees, the foundations that Gates supports, the 5,000+ college students that could loose scholarships, the grants and donations to the city and areas of which microsoft works (redmond receives lots of support from microsoft).

Sure MS gives money to lots of worthy causes. What they give back, though, is a tiny portion of what consumers never should have spent. Just think of all the scholarships, grants, libraries and public projects that could have been supported if instead of buying thousands of site licenses for MS-everything, universities, schools, and municipalities everywhere could have had access to standards-based interoperable PC OS's, which would have allowed cheaper and better application software. Think of all the developer man-years that have been chewed up in porting applications to stay compatible with each obscure API change in MS software.

Sure this is all hypothetical. We'll never know what could have been. The point is that many people believe that MS forced the market down the road we're on by unfair business practices.

You have always had a right to choice. I'm just curios why you think it is YOUR right to make my choice now?

I'm not making your choice. I just don't want MS to make my choice for me.

I believe the rights of the consumer belong to the consumer,

Well, you got that right at least.

Back to schoolwork - see ya!

A little story...

[Raunchola]

"Microsoft is popular because it is easier for non-techies to use. Not True. I personally have several examples (a pilot friend, a sister, a mother, and a friend's grandmother) of people who were very uncomfortable with computers running windows because, whenever it would crash, they felt they were making mistakes. The result - they were afraid to use the machine much for fear of "breaking" it. In all cases they found Linux running X and gnome or KDE to be far easier to use, because it works reliably and consistently. They work in confidence that, unless they are doing something as root (and teaching them to understand what that means took all of about 30 seconds), they cannot break the machine. Net result - they are using their machines more, with greater confidence, and, though still illiterate by our standards, they are picking a few things up while being able to get the work done they need to. Most of all, they are no longer afraid of their machines."

Here's a little story for you...

My parents are probably the definition of the clueless newbie. They can run programs and surf the Internet, and that's about it. They use Windows 98 SE on their computer at home, and you know what? They have yet to tell me about getting a Blue Screen O' Death. Windows may stall on them, it may freeze on them, but they haven't gotten any of the problems that Linux zealots claim every Windows user experiences. In spite of these occourences, they still use Windows.

Why?

Because they know that they can run their favorite programs and get work done. You can preach all about how Linux is the best and how reliable it is. But if my parents can't send e-mail, use programs like TaxCut and Word, play their games, or use their digital camera, they will not use Linux. My parents have a hard enough time dealing with figuring out how to send attachments or how to format a document in Word. You think they want to deal with the fact that their printer or digital camera isn't recognized under Linux?

My parents are able to work in confidence, as you put it, because they know that they can't "break" the computer unless they tried. It took myself a few minutes to explain to them what they should and should not do. And it's worked. I haven't come home from school to the sound of "The computer is broken!" My parents aren't afraid of their computer, hell, they've been doing more work on it now than they have before.

My parents aren't the only people to be used as an example. I have several friends and other family members who are quite happy with Windows. They haven't told me about having a system meltdown either. So much for Linux zealotry.

My points here? Linux is a good OS, there's no denying that. But if people can't run their favorite programs and use their hardware under Linux, they won't use it. The average clueless newbie could give two shits about stats which prove that Linux is reliable, they want to know if those stupid games someone sent them via e-mail will work. And if they can get their work done, they're happy, regardless of what OS they use, be it Linux, FreeBSD, or God forbid I say this in such a Linux-centric setting...Windows.

...expecting this post to be moderated down to (-1, Pro-Microsoft Opinion)...