Jackson Sends Microsoft Case To Supreme Court

[Xorian] us a coverage on c|net (and here's a AP story on Yahoo) saying that Jackson has referred the Microsoft Case to the Supreme Court, skipping the appellate courts. 'Course, the Supreme Court doesn't have to take it if they don't want it, and since it's close to the end of the term, they might not get to it this term even if they did take it.

Comments

Re:is there wagering?

[mtphoto]

Yeah. Splitting up MS could be the best thing to happen to the company. Both would still maintain the respective monopolies (OS on one, Office and IE in the other). The would be leaner, more directed (how many companies have benefited from spinning off sectors).

Reality Check

[a42]

I hate to be the one to bring reality into the picture, but has anyone stopped to consider:

Q:What exactly happens when Microsoft gets split in two?

A:We go from one company with a "monopoly" on desktop OS and the desktop applications markets to two companies each with a "monopoly" over a piece.

How is that any better?

Re:Reality Check

[demon]

Because Microsoft is leveraging one monopoly to hold onto another? Pull them apart, and the whole thing could crumble. (I'm not saying that they'll just disappear. Just wait and see.)

Re:Reality Check

[Pig Bodine]

In particular, the applications company won't be able to take a loss in the market for applications for a non-Windows OS to keep other operating systems from being viable working platforms and bolster the dominance of Windows. If they did, they could potentially open themselves up to stockholder lawsuits (not to mention the conduct remedies which will ban collusion between the two split-up companies). Also, it will be in the financial interest of the OS company to encourage the development of third party applications by any company; same as above with respect to stockholder lawsuits.

This will potentially result in more applications for other other operating systems and more non-Microsoft applications for windows, increasing competition for both applications and operating systems. Increased competition, might force companies to adopt open standards to ensure interoperability. Personally, I think the break-up is probably going to be a huge benefit to consumers, software companies, free software and probably even to MS stockholders (in the long run).

Re:Reality Check

[Phroggy]

The market share of Windows will drop to 50%? Please! I really doubt that the market share will change significantly, especially in the short (

It will be at least two years before the split takes effect anyway. A couple years after that, their market share will be on its way down to 50%. Please understand that I'm not trying to suggest that Windows will drop to 50% market share by this Christmas.

Yes, the OS part will only have Windows but what more leverage do they need? They can (and will) still force it onto OEM's in the same ways they do now. The only difference is that by protecting their monopoly they won't be doing anything that the Justice Department can do anything about.

The Final Judgement puts serious restrictions on Windows, Inc. Many of Microsoft's current tactics (offering cheaper rates to cooperative OEMs, threatening to withhold licenses, charging royalties for computers that don't ship with Microsoft products, etc.) will be made illegal.

Call me wacky, but I'm starting to really believe that a breakup would be good for Microsoft.

It will, but it won't necessarily be good for Windows' market share.

--

Re:Reality Check

[Phroggy]

Not quite. First, Windows, Inc. won't have a complete monopoly. They'll be weakened by this case, just as Linux and Mac OS are really taking off. They'll still have a large market share, but it will probably drop down to 50%.

Also, as was already pointed out, Microsoft leverages their two monopolies to protect both of them. That will stop. Microsoft (the new apps company) will still have monopolies to leverage, but Windows won't have anything but Windows.

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Re:Reality Check

[a42]

The market share of Windows will drop to 50%? Please! I really doubt that the market share will change significantly, especially in the short (<2 years) term. Corporations who have bought into the Microsoft way of doing things are not going to throw away their investments just because the same company doesn't make Office any more.

Yes, the OS part will only have Windows but what more leverage do they need? They can (and will) still force it onto OEM's in the same ways they do now. The only difference is that by protecting their monopoly they won't be doing anything that the Justice Department can do anything about.

Call me wacky, but I'm starting to really believe that a breakup would be good for Microsoft.

Re:Reality Check

[a42]

Close, but no cigar. Maintaining the monopoly is not what started this whole thing. What opened the can of worms was allegations (some true, some not) that they had attempted to unfairly leveraged their OS monopoly into other markets. Subtle, but important.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[ooky]

me. I hate MS Exploder. And windows sucks the big one whether its 98, NT, or 2000. I've used em all. Office is pretty good, tho - no arguments there. Are you a MS shareholder or similar, or just a devil's advocate?

Re:How Predictable

[cpt kangarooski]

I'm browsing with Netscape. I started out using an Apple IIe. Currently, I have and use a Mac. (Call me Nemo)

MS has not made computing any more accessable to people than anyone one else, particularly. DOS was a clone of CPM. Windows was a clone of the Mac. (and other sources)

If OS/2 had caught on, you wouldn't claim that Windows made things accessable; there's a big difference between accessability and popularity.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Fiwer]

well if all the other crackers sucked, who would care?

Re:How Predictable

[Dman33]

Anon because it's too much trouble to login

I doubt that!
Anyway, I do agree with you that Microsoft helped the computer industry in ways that nobody else has. I have been reading these posts though and I really do not see too many that are all "Yippee!". Actually, I see some intelligent posts here that are getting appropriately modded up. What is the stick up your ass about anyway?
The general picture I have from reading the preceding posts is that many people are glad that this will not be stuck in appeals for 5+ years. Many people are scared of the precedent that this might set, but they are hopeful. I really do not see what you are bitching about...

Re:OT: 1st Amendment

[rking]

Yes, it is the first amendment. He was quoting the first amendment.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[wrenkin]

Nabisco isn't in the same position! Were you not listening when the Findings of Fact were released? Crackers are a world away from an IP monopoly.

I'm getting a little scared.

[pen]

The confidence displayed by Microsoft officials concerning the trial and accusations are really beginning to scare me. The way they act is as if the whole trial is just a big misunderstanding. I'm beginning to wonder if they're expecting Bush to somehow pressure the courts or the DOJ into either dropping the trial or doing something else that would favor Microsoft. Does anyone know if something like this is possible? From what I know, Bush is totally pro-Microsoft regarding the trial...

--

Re:I'm getting a little scared.

[piku]

The trial is a big misunderstanding. It's a moron government getting into something they have no idea about.

Re:I'm getting a little scared.

[pen]

Yeah, what would a government know about protecting its citizens from illegal monopolies, right? They keep forgetting that the government was created to protect the corporations!

--

Re:Spirit of the law... Letter of the ruling

[orpheus]

Well, we simply can't conduct this thread without a link to the actual ruling at the DoJ site. (PDF only)

Here's the actual text, as sloppily transcribed by ol' stumblefingers (me). Beware of possible typos.

[BTW, is 'general public importance sufficient to meet the standards of 15 USC 29(b) -- gotta check!]


Upon consideration of the joint motion of the plaintiffs for certification pursuant to 15 USC 29(b), and the opposition of Microsoft thereto, it is, this 20th day of June, 2000.

ORDERED, that the Joint motion by the plaintiffs for certification pursuant to 15 USC 29(b) is granted and that this court hereby certifies that immediate consideration by the Supreme court of the appeal taken herein is of general public importance in the administration of justice' and it is

FURTHER ORDERED, that the Finalk Judgement of June 7, 2000, is stayed in its entirety until the appeal therefrom is heared and decided, unless the stay is earlier vacated by an appellate court.

(signed)

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Samus]

MS started out as only a OS company suckering many into developing for it. Then they decide to start releasing applications when consumers and businesses are already hooked. Since they owned the OS they had the advantage. It wouldn't have been any kind of violation if they hadn't used that advantage. If the types of meats and cheeses one could use were very dependent on a cracker and the entrance to market barrier were very high and it was extremely difficult for users to switch crackers then it would be bad for Nabisco to level a cracker monopoly against competing meat and cheese companies.

Sorry in advance for replying to a troll. I just couldn't help myself...

"What are the three words guaranteed to humiliate men everywhere?

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[kwsNI]

Yeah, first it's rioting, but then the Debian crowd would start fighting with the SuSE crowd and the Mandraker's would think they were better Red Hatters than the Red Hatters and it's turn into a big-ass bar fight.

kwsNI

Re:An interesting situation

[CombatWombat]

I don't believe there is any "wording" when the Supremes decline to hear a case. They just refuse and that's it.

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[Silverhammer]

wait until you see 8000 angry penguins in time square

Already seen it. Remeber the climax of 'Batman Returns'?

Re:OT: 1st Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, apparently you have a problem with comprehension. *That* was the text of Amendment I to the United States Constitution. And just what do you think the 1st amendment is admending?

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Fiwer]

There's no alternative. Windows isn't bad, it's not perfect but not bad.

Re:Decision

[Chris Johnson]

"Give them enough rope to _prove_ I was right about them."

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Chiasmus_]

Or if Nabisco were somehow able to convince String Cheese companies to make cheese that was only Nabisco-compatible.

I've had cheese compatability issues in several of my ham sandwiches before.. damn Subway

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Diomedes01]

If 90% of all people only bought Nabisco crackers (i.e., Win9x, etc), and a store decided NOT to sell them, then another store down the street would take all of their business.

However, I'm sick of arguing over an analogy. It's a sign of weak logic. If you wish to argue the actual MS case, then fine.
---------
"There's no swimming in the heavy water, no playing in the acid rain.

Re:How Predictable

[Timex]

Bloody figures an AC would try to kiss up to M$.

-I- for one, had a TI 99/4A for a first-computer. when one of my sisters dumped soda on it (thereby destroying it), i bought an Apple IIgs. i still have it. it is antiquated, but it's a neat little machine.

i only got an IBM "clone" in the early 90s because i took over a friend's BBS for him. for the record, we didn't use WinDOZE; we used PC-DOS. i can't remember the name of the multi-tasker we used, but it was text-based...

When the BBS went away, i shifted to Linux. that was back when Linux was still 0.99pl10. i haven't looked back since.


Just another computer geek....

What This All Means

[WillAffleck]

First - The Supreme Court may not take the case. Why? Because they don't want more appeals going to them. But, their egos may come into play, and they may recognize that this truly is an important case. And since probably three of them are retiring soon, this may swing the vote so that they decide to take the case and go out in a blaze of jurisprudential glory.

Secondly - Microsoft continues to act as if it thinks it can win the appeal and never did anything wrong. If this is the true feeling, expect them to start making everyone's lives miserable. If this is just a posture, they may continue to mind their manners (a bit), which means Open Source will grow.

Thirdly - Microsoft is hoping Bush will get elected. Lots of slush money heading the GOP's way. Not that a President could do anything about this, but since George W lacks morals, they may be hoping he'll indulge them in dirty tricks like slashing the anti-trust department's budget. Personally, I figure this is a waste of money, since George W is just as likely to spend it anyway, lose the election, and say Never Mind.

[yes, I own MSFT, RHAT, CSCO, AOL, and so I have vested opinions. But since I don't wear a vest very often, this is meaningless.]

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Penrif]

"sucked" is an objective term. The point is choice.
For the record, it's my opinion that Microsoft brand crackers suck. Them Macintosh, Linux, BSD, and BeOS ones have their own distinctive tastes, each considerably better in most occasions than those *other* ones.

And this thread is way to long and offtopic. If you feel the need to continue it, feel free to e-mail me.

Re:OT: 1st Amendment

[Diomedes01]

Maybe you folks haven't realized that the 1st amendment IS part of the Constitution (hence it is an Amendment - something that modifies an original document).

As soon as the Bill of Rights was ratified, the amendments took affect and become part of the Constitution.
---------
"There's no swimming in the heavy water, no playing in the acid rain.

Yes he can.

[catseye_95051]

There a specific law that speaks to this... the "Antitrust Expidition Act". It has been invoeked twice before, both cases involving Standard Oil.

It exists for the same reason that this decision is a good one. Part of the theory of the law, as set down by precedent, is that it is the duty of a judge to make decisions that reduce the cost of litigation to society. it is oen of the many things he or she ahs to weight when making a decision.

It is clear in this case that no matter what the Aplellate Court ruled, it woudl be apealed to the supream court. By asking the Supreams to hear it directly, he saves society the cost of one whole pointless round of court action.

Re:Yes he can.

[catseye_95051]

Are you sure? I was sure I read Standard Oil, but the writer may have been mistaken.

**shrug**

Re:Yes he can.

[donutello]

This CNN story says it's AT&T. I think the law was enacted in 1976, well after the Standard Oil case.

*shrug* not that it really matters anyway

Re:Yes he can.

[donutello]

Actually the two times before that it has been invoked are in the AT&T case, not the Standard Oil case.

Re:Thank god

[Fiwer]

Name another good GUI.

Too long and offtopic

[Fiwer]

hehe I can agree with that

Re:Oh jeez...

[Andrew Cady]

Students aren't "muzzled". There are certain realms where it is acceptable to promote religion, and certain realms where it is unacceptable. Into the latter category fits any speach sponsered by government entities, including public education facilities. That students may be elected by a majority is entirely irrelevant -- the entire purpose of the first amendment, and in fact the constitution itself, is to prevent a tyrannous majority from infringing the rights of a minority. The bill of rights outlines certain rights that *a majority may not strip from a minority*.

Nobody is preventing students from saying whatever they want on their own, when they are without any sponsorship from any part of the government.

Re:is there wagering?

[istartedi]

I'm seriously interested in whether there is a website, or something that allows gambling on the outcome of all of this.

Yes, it's called E-Trade

The regular .sig season will resume in the fall. Here are some re-runs:

uh...

[Phexro]

what about the announcment that msft was going through the appeals process with the normal appeals courts?

if that really happened, is jackson really able to override the normal processes like that?

--

Re:uh...

[slickwillie]

Jeez, you better tell JJ about this before he wastes any more time!

I think the two actions are pretty much independent, i.e. that the Apellate Court just agreed to take the case, and Jackson asking the Supreme Court to take it directly. If the SC rejects it, then it will go to appeal (then back to the SC).

Re:uh...

[um... Lucas]

No. The appeals court simply said they'ed take the case, and if they got it, all of the judges would hear the case rather than the three random ones which would be chosen. Since (presumably) more than half the judges in the appeals court have sided favorably with Microsoft in the past, this was viewed as a win for Microsoft. That way, there isn't a chance that the 3 random judges would be the 3 that dislike them.

However, with Jackson's ruling, if the Supreme Court decides to take the case, the Appeals court gets completely by-passed, in the interest of speeding up resolution of the case before it adversely effects things like the economy, etc.

Re:I'm GLAD

[narf]

(- this is a joke, moron! Everyone knows that NetBEUI is not routeable!)

I wouldn't put it past Microsoft.

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[Ig0r]

I think that they already had their first when seeing a certain (hot) young actress in SW:E1 :)

--

Re:God damnit!!

[KillerBees]

You are on the wrong site my friend. What did you expect? For all of slashdot to thank you for your enlighting words? Hey, why don't you go give your $$$$$$$ to billy gates and let him crap in a Windows 2000 box for you.

I tried reading this thread

[delmoi]

But it was so full of flames that it wasn't even worth reading. Mac Zealots, M$ Zealots, Anti M$ Zealots. Can't you people just grow up and realize that the way that you think isn't necessarily the only way to think? It would make the world a much better place.

Re:Oh jeez...

[Cheetahfeathers]

The term 'God' is not universal across all religions. There are many that would disagree with it. Animists, Goddess worshipers, atheists (the religious belief in the lack of a deity) are all examples. Having a government sponsored, supported, or stated position for God and is on the same level as this. It is wrong and should be seperated from the State.

One Nation Under God.
In God We Trust.

I do not trust in this God, and I do not want to live in a nation under him. My religious rights, stated to be respected by the US, are being ignored by this same union.

Churches are exempt from taxes? I'll form the Church of the Holy Dogdrool. No, they won't accept that as a proper church just because it has only one member? Blatent discrimination... if they are to state _any_ sort of criteria for a church beyond not breaking other laws (such as murder), then I don't see how they can state this is not a state approved religious discrimination.

I think churches need to get _no_ special treatment like tax breaks.

Re:God damnit!!

[warmi]

Yeah, there is always some stupid ass that will mark anything pro-microsoft down.
I understand your frustration ...

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[technos]

Come on! Dude got a blow job in the oval office, and got caught.. That's it..

Nothing like the Theodore Roosevelt, who almost got his ass kicked for misuse of funds. Or Nixon, who was a real dumb ass.. Or George Bush, who worked for the CIA..

Re:Thank god

[cpt kangarooski]

Even if it hurts the industry immediately, there are two other issues here.

First, the industry will recover. Computers will not suddenly stop functioning b/c there is more competition. We are very very likely to see an even greater number of cool new things come along. If monopolies were good, why don't we have one big company that does everything? Do you really believe that it would be good?

Second, MS broke the law. They broke many laws. Then they almost certainly perjured themselves in court which is in itself an extremely serious charge. Should they be allowed to get away with this merely because they're a big company? Hell no. Everyone is under the mantle of the law. MS is not an exception.

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[warmi]

Al Gore is an idiot but Nader ?
You might wanna take trip to Russia and see "Naderism" in its full glory.

Re:Yay!

[studerby]

And why wouldn't the supreme court take this case? How could this not be considered unimportant?

Some "legal scholars" are thinking that The Supreme Court will decline the case so they can let the Appeals Court "develop the record", in other words thrash out what's important and what's not. If there's some flagrant trial court error, it might never need to go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court generally tries to limit the amount of work it takes on...

If this were a "normal" Supreme Court case, I'd figure the "legal scholars" were right with that analysis, but between the national importance of the case, and the fact that anti-trust cases are fundamentally different from most other types of civil cases, I wouldn't bet either way myself (though I'd prefer a fasttrack resolution to this, I'm getting tired of explaining why M$ is being sued to my non-geek friends and relatives...)

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[warmi]

who created crack. .
-------------------

Which, of course, was dropped all over place from black helicopters.

all punishments are stayed

[konstant]

More importantly, Judge Jackson also issued a stay for the "immediate" behavioral remedies that were to be imposed within 90 days of his ruling.

This means that Microsoft, even if ultimately the appeals process does not support it, will remain unmodified and unrestricted until all appeals are exhausted. This process may take upwards of two years.

Personally I wish the SC *would* take it, so that we could get this behind us. I'm sure I'm not the only person tired of hearing about it. However, the signs are that the Appellate Court will be assigned the task of reading through the evidentiary record rather than the SC, simply as a matter of expediency.

-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!

Re:all punishments are stayed

[Kwil]

For one, I'm glad the Judge has stayed the punishments. Not because I don't believe MS deserves to get punished, but because this action puts a great big hole in MS's cries of how the judge has been biased against them since day one.

It's a little hard for MS to go to the appeals court and claim that Jackson's had it in for them all along when he's stayed the decision that would split them up.

Very canny move, I think.

However, I am surprised that he's trying to toss it up to the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeals made their eagerness to take it so obvious. The stated reasons he gives are certainly valid, but I'm thinking he's hoping that the Supreme Court might look a little askance on how fast Appeals jumped on this.

All in all, I'm quite impressed with the way Jackson's handled the whole thing. He's had them slip the knot twice now, it looks like he's making sure that won't happen again.

Kwil

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[jacobm]

From what I've heard, Al Gore has been much more publicly pro-Microsoft than George W. Bush. It's part of his whole "I like technology, layperson!" campaign. That isn't to say that Gore would be a bad president- I'll likely be voting for him myself, in fact- but it isn't fair to assign every belief you dislike to your political opponents or to scrub your political favorites into cute little cherubs.
--
-jacob

Re:Thank god

[catseye_95051]

"If it were'nt for them Pcs woudld pretty much be non-existant."

One word: CP/M

"Those who do not study history are doomed to fail it." -- anonymous on blackboard

Re:I dont think so...

[demon]

I don't think it's a matter of 'can'. Looks like he just did. And besides, it sounded like, from the majority understanding before, that this was not only doable, but the likely outcome. It just gets pushed from the federal appeals circuit directly up to the top.

Of course, of the Supreme Court declines to hear it, I don't know what'd happen next.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[nphinit]

Yes, insult my credibility, it's the easiest way to look like you know what you are talking about. No need to argue the facts or provide an alternate opinion, just claim your opponent is ignorant. Brilliant.

Re:Judge Jackson - Janet Reno's bitch?

[catseye_95051]

Studying history can clear up many misconceptions.

In this case there was a very good article over at www.cnnfn.com that looks backwards over this case. It points out that Jackson is a Regan appointed judge and generally quite conservative. In specific point of fact when this case began he made a number of comments that indicated he leaned towards Micrsoft and corproate america in general. he referred to Microsoft as a "highly efficient" organization with clear respect and said he was loathe to intefere with such an important engien of the american economy.

That he ended up ruling so harshly against them is clearly a result of just how badly they did in court and the undeniable fact that they have been acting as an abusive monopoly. The word he used most recently to describe them was "incourrigable."

Micrsoft made their bed and are lying in it. History quite clearly shows that blamign this judge for being "too liberal" borders on ludicrous.

Re:Thank god

[Diomedes01]

I don't agree that it will hurt the industry. Yes, it may hurt MS revenues, but it opens up the playing field for more companies to compete fairly, and those companies will generate more revenue.

Your trickle-down argument sounds a bit like Reaganomics to me...
---------
"There's no swimming in the heavy water, no playing in the acid rain.

Re:Oh jeez...

[warmi]

Dude, you would love old Soviet Union.
You missed your boat ...

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[mhatle]

Unfortunatly there are two sets of APIs. The public version that is expanded on MSDN. And then the internal MS version. I.e. MS Office has been notorious from using publically undocumented APIs to imporve performance and integration with Windows.

The number one remedy I like is that MS must publish their APIs in a timely mannor to all parties..

Open Coverage

[WillAffleck]

I wonder what our chances of an open courty session, or daily access to transcripts as they hear the case?

Very little. This is the Supreme Court, and they don't do that. Unless someone smart sneaks in a webcam (hint, hint) that records and a nice MP3 player that records. Bring lots of batteries.

Oh, if you get caught, I hear the prison stay is not that fun.

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[ThatGuy47]

i would be amused to see a turf war break out in times square between different flavors of linux...

would make for more interesting graffiti, in any case.

Re:I'm GLAD

[ethereal]

How can Congress stop the trial? The Supreme Court regularly overrules Congress and the President, the only check that Congress has on the Court is the confirmation of nominees to the bench and possibly their funding. You can bet Congress isn't stupid enough to cut funding for the courts. If the Court wants to hear the case, no one in the country can legally stop them short of a settlement before they hear it.

Hmmm... although they did pass the DMCA, so I suppose they must be fairly stupid already.

Re:Moderators??? WTF???

[lilnobody]

The 'offtopic' selection of moderation is there for a reason, but why would I waste a point modding it down when its at zero already?

nobody

Re:I dont think so...

[mduell]

s/can/cant

Mark Duell

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[DaveWood]

Read my other posts.

Re:Oh jeez...

[warmi]

However, goverment has no problem with sponsoring art which sole reason is to offend religion ( aka NY case )

Re:Oh jeez...

[greydmiyu]

As so many others have pointed out, it is right there in the first ammendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

In the recent case against student led prayer at school sporting events the case is quite clear to anyone familiar with those words.

The problem was not with the students praying, the problem was that the student led prayer was done so under encouragement from the school and using school equipment. By encouraging it and providing the equipment they have violated the clear statement "...shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

Conversely they also made it quite clear in their opinions (from what I heard of the reports this morning) that students are perfectly free to pray before, during and after class or such sporting events. That cannot be infringed upon under the second half of that first statement "...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

I just find it ironic that the people who cry foul every time religion runs amok with the first ammendment they do so crying freedom of speech without understanding what the first ammendment really says. Even those that know that it contains the words "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" seem to skim over the words "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" to try to make their point.

For them to enjoy the freedom of speech part they have to understand that they also do not get to force the state to subsidize their religion through any public funding. Most don't. That is why most religious group don't get that the PA system, built and maintained by public funding, cannot be used for religious purposes (any religion, not just Christianity which was the case in this instance) for just that reason. It is a form of governmental subsidy.

Re:Judge Jackson - Janet Reno's bitch?

[werdna]

Its just you. Or your notion of "newsworthy" is sufficiently unfocused. In fact, Judge Jackson bent over wildly at many junctures to the benefit of Microsoft throughout the pretrial, trial and interim motion practice. Microsoft was given liberal leave to introduce whatever evidence they wanted, including falsified video tapes, and then afterwards an opportunity to substitute the "real ones."

Of course, after the final verdict, it is routine for the judge to grant the victor the relief they sought. Perhaps that's what you forgot.

The long and short of this is that Microsoft lost, the judge decided the case and, in the end, thinks he is right about that decision and doesn't intend to reconsider. That galls some folks who thought he might give back with one hand what he took with the other, but who cares?

I think the fact findings are probably incontestable as a matter of law, and the findings of law raise close and difficult legal questions. In view of that, a bright judge made some tough calls, and didn't equivocate in the face of tough personal crticiism

This is called judicature. Its a good thing, not a bad thing.

Re:We'd all have Macs and bitch about Apple monopo

[larkost]

umm... beyond the extreme speculatatory nature of the post, there are a few problems with this post:

1) CP/M and DOS were only two of the competing OS's on the intel hardware at that point, basicly who-ever IBM chose to liscence to attach to their mainframes was goign to win. DOS did not win because it was technicaly supperior to its compeditors, but because IBM chose it.

2) Your point on SCSI is more than a littel misleading. In the days of SCSI 1 there was no real standard. Every SCSI product was engineered for the server that it was made for. Apple came out with products that worked with it's computers (duhh), and not everyone elses hardware worked. Apple was not differnt in this, they were just the only one in the comsumer space using SCSI, so took the heat. When SCSI 1 finally came together (with an industry consortion includig Apple), Apple was right there (in fact their old devices were complient to the new standard).

and 3) There were more cloners than you think, just in the US: Motorola (StarMax), PowerComputing (PowerTower, PowerBase), UMAX, Mactell (sub-licencee of UMAX), IBM (never brought out a product), etc... And there were a number of licencees in Asia.... the redux on that who saga is that no-one was making money, and it was killing Apple, so they made the right buisness decision, and stopped. Remember, IBM has been loosing money on their personal PC buisness for a long time, and been using it as a loss-leader for their Buisnes Services and Big-Iron divisions. Apple has never had these divsions to fall back on (although we will see how far iServices goes).

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[fgodfrey]

Who wants netscape? How about those of us who don't wanna use Windows?

Here's a few more ways they hurt the industry: they continue to do nothing to fix the problems with Outlook security so virus after virus sweeps across the country. To use analogies from the auto-industry, if your car had a "feature" where you could accelerate *really* fast but if you went a bit too fast, it blew up, and car after car blew up and people died and the company did nothing to fix it, this would be called "Gross Negligence." Microsoft calls this "inovation".

Here's another one - not distributing Windows media. So that means that if I buy a PC and choose to upgrade it, I am no longer able to use a legally licensed copy of the software that I own?!?!?!

Basically, Microsoft is so large, that *any* application that they choose to integrate and sell with the OS will win. Can you give me an example of a Microsoft ap that has lost to a competing product in the last few years? *That* is how they hurt the industry - if I have the most fantastic word processor ever written, I don't stand a chance of beating Word.

Lastly, you would do well to explore some other OS's. Your bias towards M$ products is making me sick... I use Unix only, every day (ok, so I'm a Unix kernel programmer). My machine *never* gets rebooted. By never, I really mean never. The only time it goes down is when the power goes out. I'm not saying that Unix (Irix in my case) is the best OS that can possibly be written, but it's a whole lot better than anything from Microsoft in terms of stability. When I really need productivity, I use a Mac.

Re:Oh jeez...

[cpt kangarooski]

You're way off-base, dude.

No one is preventing students from speaking because they might say something religious. Rather, the school may not endorse religious speech. As the decision says: The delivery of a message such as the invocation here--on school property, at school-sponsored events, over the school's public address system, by a speaker representing the student body, under the supervision of school faculty, and pursuant to a school policy that explicitly and implicitly encourages public prayer--is not properly characterized as "private" speech.

Obviously, if the student wants to say anything else they may. And if the student wants to say something religious, they may, provided that they don't do so in their capacity as a student officer, that they don't do so with the supervision of faculty in their official capacities, that it doesn't use exclusive school property (e.g. the PA system, which is not free to use) and that it's not at school sponsored events.

Seems pretty clear to me.

Not so scary. . .

[werdna]

First of all, understand that a 3-judge panel found 2-1 in favor of Microsoft on an unrelated antitrust issue having to do with a court order related to the original settlement. The relevance of the dicta in that case remains to be seen, but we are talking about only 2 judges in seven, and one who has already dissented.

That was, for those who missed it, the point of last week's order from the Circuit court -- not that they would "take the appeal," (they had to), but they would consider it as a complete panel of seven judges (a few recused themselves, or it would have been more).

Actually, the thing about an automatic en-banc hearing is that the seven judge panel can even reverse the prior three judge panel ruling, something a new three-judge panel could not.

Re:Not so scary. . .

[Anomalous Canard]

I'm beginning to think that it makes more sense for the case to be heard by the court of appeals. (See my user profile for plenty of opinions why it should go to the SC) The SC takes the summer off. They will be off from next week until the first Monday in October. The Appeals Court can get a lot of work done on this appeal between now and October. Conceivably, they can have a ruling to pass up to SCOTUS for review by October. It just seems like a more efficient use of time.

Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected

Re:Not so scary. . .

[aphrael]

They will be off from next week until the first Monday in October

Probably. There are two obstacles: (1) there are about a dozen and a half cases not yet handed down, so unless they're all handed down next week, the recess doesn't start until sometime in July (this isn't abnormal). (2) in *rare* cases the court meets in summer session --- as an example, see the Nixon tapes case.

Re:Hell skip the supreme court...

[mikpos]

Bah. The People's Court is such a waste of time. In order to *really* get results, you need to go to Judge Judy.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Fiwer]

Why would I, a home user, user Unix?

Re:Thank god

[catseye_95051]

Hmm lesee...

MSDOS ... a CP/M clone because gates wnated to sell Basic to IBM and Gary Kildall (Digital research) wouldn't play ball.

Windows... an attempt to copy the success of the GUI as proved by Apple. Coudl be seen as a rip-off of many other such attempts (ie Digital Research's GEM) or all (including the mac) as Rip-offs of teh Xerox Star.

If we didn't have MS-DOS and Windows we'ld most likely have CP/M and GEM. Same difference.

Show me how MS HAS innovated and made any difference on a technical level??

"Those who don't study history are doomed to fail it.' -- anonymous on blackboard

Re:Wrong

[warmi]

Be specific. When you talk about server market, agreed. But desktop, consumer market is completely different story. There is nothing out there now better than Windows. Mac, so praised for the greateness of its UI ( which I dispute ) technically is even more behind than Windows.
What's out there ?
Being monopoly has its minuses too. Microsoft cannot abandon their user base and start from scratch (like BeOS.) This is one of the reason why Windows has so much junk in it. Still, given current competition one can hardly find anything more usable than Windows (again, we talkin about typical desktop machine.)

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[Rombuu]

Thank goodness.

Not that I needed another reason to vote for Bush, but it never hurts.

Re:Oh jeez...

[Rakarra]

First of all, I propose the banning of the tag "insightful" from this discussion. It's no longer possible to be insightful about Microsoft.

How ironic that you were quickly moderated as "insightful." :)

Direct Appeal to supreme court (legal cite, quote)

[orpheus]

MircoSoap ph33rz me!

[Honestly, each time I tried to submit this from a Windoze machine -four tries- the box crashed! Then I switched to a Linux machine and the ISP went down. Fortunately I have a backup ISP. Chill, Bill, it ain't that incriminating!]

Here's the specific section, 15 US Code 29(b), covering "what happens next". It's short and clear.


TITLE 15 - COMMERCE AND TRADE
CHAPTER 1 - MONOPOLIES AND COMBINATIONS IN RESTRAINT OF TRADE
Sec. 29. Appeals
(b) Direct appeals to Supreme Court

An appeal from a final judgment pursuant to subsection (a) of this section shall lie directly to the Supreme Court, if, upon application of a party filed within fifteen days of the filing of a notice of appeal, the district judge who adjudicated the case enters an order stating that immediate consideration of the appeal by the Supreme Court is of general public importance in the administration of justice. Such order shall be filed within thirty days after the filing of a notice of appeal. When such an order is filed, the appeal and any cross appeal shall be docketed in the time and manner prescribed by the rules of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court shall thereupon either (1) dispose of the appeal and any cross appeal in the same manner as any other direct appeal authorized by law, or (2) in its discretion, deny the direct appeal and remand the case to the court of appeals, which shall then have jurisdiction to hear and determine the same as if the appeal and any cross appeal therein had been docketed in the court of appeals in the first instance pursuant to subsection (a) of this section.

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[DonkPunch]

It's a plot.

Signal 11 is saving up Karma for the Great Slashdot Retaliation. Someday, he will grow tired of reading the same drivel, the same points of view, and the same whining. On that day, he will engage the full force of his massive Karma and begin trolling the living daylights out of Slashdot.

Not all Slashdotters have become moronic, some of us are suffering Karma hits on a daily basis for pointing out stupidity. We look forward to the day Signal 11 joins us. With the combined Karma of Signal 11 and Bruce Perens, we will be unstoppable! We will return Slashdot to its former glory!

I am merely a scout in this revolution. My hard-earned Karma is a mere drop in the bucket compared to Sig's. My role is to distract and annoy the moderators while Signal 11 grows larger and more powerful. Someday, my Karma will be entirely burned out and I will no longer be able to post at +2. It is a sacrifice, but I know history will record the name of "DonkPunch" as a hero. I therefore make this sacrifice with pride.

So, keep the faith, AC. One day soon, Slashdot will be redeemed!

(Or you could just read kiro5hin instead. Make no difference to me.)

nope...

[SvnLyrBrto]

Signal 11 is a karma whore.

YOU are a troll, AC.

john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!

Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if

re: Bah

[mincus]

This is ridiculous, this isnt about the right thing, its about politics, and agendas.

Jackson is only trying to send it to the supreme court, because he knows that MS has a better chance of getting a decision diffrent than what HE wants, in the appeals court.

bah
.mincus

Re:Oh jeez...

[crumley]

First of all, I propose the banning of the tag "insightful" from this discussion. It's no longer possible to be insightful about Microsoft.

Oh, the irony! At the time of this writing the above post is marked as "insightful".

So does that mean if I say that the "funny" tag should be banned from this discussion, then this lame post will be marked as "funny"?

Re:Oh jeez...

[Grond]

Horribly offtopic, but I figure it's worth what little Karma I have.

With regard to the recent Supreme Court decision... What was banned was not school-sanctioned prayer. What was banned is allowing students to elect someone to speak for them because they might say something religious. Now that is outright censorship. The Supreme Court has essentially said that, unless the message is sanctioned by the school system, nothing can be said by students in an official capacity, even if the students organize and elect the representative. The decision is not about separation of church and state, it's about muzzling students for fear that they might say something disagreeable. Yet where is the furor over this? I find it amazing (or maybe not so amazing, given the general air of the place) that /. defends porn (even in libraries and schools) but not outright censorship of students.

Also note that it was a 6-3 decision and that the Chief Justice wrote a scathing dissenting opinion that truly exposes the decision for what it really is: the pigeon-holing of religion as a purely private matter rather than the basis for American society as it was in the beginning.

As far as separation of church and state goes, well, what little seperation is implied is there to protect religion from the government, which includes censorship. Furthermore, be suspicious of Thomas Jefferson as a Constitutional scholar--he wasn't even in America while it was being written and ratified!

Re: Is British Columbia still an option?

[kelzer]

if Microsoft splits up a lot of businesses will be spending even more money on software that works less well and that doesn't interface that great.

Why is this a foregone conclusion? I've heard a lot of people bring this up as an argument against breaking up Microsoft, but I honestly don't get it.

Why would Windows cost more if the company is split up?

Why would Office cost more if the company is split up?

Why would having one standard published Windows API that's equally accessible to everybody result in software "that works less well and that doesn't interface that great"?

Somebody please explain it to me.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[warmi]

Your credibility was insulted when you refered to all Americans as stupid.
You did exactly the same thing you are acussing him of.

They can still make requirements

[delmoi]

I know that MCI/worldcom had to make consessions to the EU in order to merge. We could like ban M$ software in the US or something if the Govt really wants to stop them...

Breakup of the most valuable company in the world

[Andrew Cady]

Or second most valuable, depending on how CISCO is doing today. This is definitely a matter of national importance, in that it could have profound effects on a major section of the national and world-wide economy, especially in the long-term. Also, in the interests of justice for Netscape et al -- or even MSFT, if you fall into that camp -- this really should be settled as quickly as possible, which is the main reason why I think this is a Good Thing.

Re:more than microsoft

[Pig Bodine]

Don't worry. This all takes place in the context of antitrust law. Antitrust law only kicks in when a company has and abuses monopoly power. These definitions will be relevant to a potential split-up of microsoft, and maybe as a precedent if some other company reaches a similar size and power and uses that power to leverage their way into the domination of the same new markets that Microsoft did. Otherwise this will have no impact on any other company. MS may want you to think that this will impact all companies, but it just ain't so.

Re:An interesting situation

[ceymick]

First of all, unless the Supreme Court decides to take this case, there's won't be one word for from them to "read into." When cert is denied, it's just denied. The Court does not say why, nor could it really, because there are just too many. Plus, it would defeat the purpose of denying to hear a case if the Court said why it was doing so.

Second, there are far fewer "tricks" that MS could "pull" on the appellate level. Basically there is straight brief filings, and oral arguments. That's it. Sure, there are appellate "tricks," but nothing like there is on the trial level.

Third, I wouldn't expect the Court to say that Jackson was prejudiced. It takes a helluva lot of bad stuff for an appeals court to say that a lower judge was prejudiced. From what I've seen of this case, maybe he was prejudiced in the "lay" sense of the word, but not in the legal sense of the word. Not to mention, an appeals court will not just look at Jackson's behavior, but will look at an "tricks" or rudeness that occurred in the courtroom.

I fully expect most of Jackson's legal findings to get reversed, but not because of any prejudice. The Supreme Court, especially (but this is just as true for the Appeals Courts), if they've got the votes, can make the opinion support whatever outcome they want. Considering the conservative stance this court has taken, and the smart individuals in that conservative group, I expect that should the Court take this, we'll see MS not getting broken up (although I hope Jackson's other business practices survive).

And yes, I called them smart. Say what you will about Scalia, he puts out the best written opinions by the Court (just so happens about %97 of them come out the wrong way).

Re:What the..?

[/]

Basically, the moderators got a good chuckle out of "llamas hemorrhag[ing] out of [one's] ass" but realized that if they moderated it as funny, they'd be slammed in metamoderation, because humor is far from universal. "Insightful" comments are rarely touched.

DoJ's future

[GrouchoMarx]

Maybe part of it is also that Jackson is aware that the Presidential election is coming up fast. I have the distinct feeling that a Bush-appointed Attorney General will not be as interested in persuing the case "at voter expense" (and all that blather). If this case goes through the Appelate Courts, it could end up not makng it to the Supreme Court until the NEXT term after this one.

Of course, most of the Supreme Court now was appointed by Reagan or Bush I, and I have very little faith in them at all these days.

--GrouchoMarx, voting Gore

Re:is there wagering?

[Thomas Charron]

Unfortionatly, regardless of what happens, MSFT is still worth it's stock price.

Actually, two baby bills is worth *MORE* money seperate then together. Think about it..

Now, they will be able to move their products into new territory. The app side can take over office apps on every machine on the face of the earth, regardless of OS.

The OS side will be able to move their system to even more platforms, as they are no longer stuck in deals with hardware makers for their apps to take advantage of specific hardware capabilities within their application..

It's a scary, scary world..

Re:This could be good or bad.

[rking]

Now if the student was just grabbing up a group of friends or even using his/her own megaphone to pray, that would have been ok.

Assuming, of course, that the school is equally tolerant of people shouting any set of religious beliefs throgh a megaphone, not just those of a particular favored religion. Sound likely? :)

Re:Oh jeez...

[grappler]

I personally couldn't ge glader to see the court's decision on school prayer. I don't like seeing the "free speech" card played in this one because then the bible thumping republicans pounce on it, as if a kid going to the microphone on graduation day with backing from the administration to say some born-again prayer for the benefit of the "saved" in the audience were protected speech. Blech.

You know, it's the parents and sunday school teachers of those kids that do it - they send there kid up there, and you know what they're thinking: "hehe, we got around the rule! it's the kid that's saying the prayer, so it's free speech". In general need of a smack.

I read a summary of the decision, and it looked great to me. Didn't read the actual text though.

What I don't understand is why THREE JUDGES were AGAINST it. That's the legacy of those twelve years that we had Reagan and Bush, I suppose.

Vote for Harry Browne. He won't win, but it'll make more of a diffence (to increase the legitimacy and recognition of the Libertarian party) than anything else you can do with your vote.

--
grappler

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[Overt Coward]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

The activist Supreme Court has had this ass-backwards for decades, and the balance of the Court has remained such that they are not inclinded to revisit their mistakes (except to compound it as they did recently -- Renquist's dissent points out the fallacy of the majority opinion quite eloquently).

The court has turned the meaning of this protection around by prohibiting public displays of religion (though they typically only enfoce this against the Christian sects, other religions are deemed to bring a proper "diversity" to public life) instead of adhering to its proper intent, which is that the federal government could not create a state religion and tie the rights of citizenship to membership within the state religion. The authors of the Amendment were quite accepting of the individual states having an official religion, but because the states had different sects, they didn't want the federal government to choose one over the others. The Fourteenth Amendment, though, later prevented the states from having established religions.

The current SC decision is awful in light of the fact that the majority ruled that because a student-elected speaker might choose to use the platform to do something even remotely religious. Of course, the speaker could also simply read a poem, talk about the environment, or make an impassioned speech about homosexual rights. In none of the other cases would the school have been held culpable for the words spoken by an individual. The school had no control over what the stuent would say, and could therefore not even be held to tacitly endorsing the student's viewpoint.

The hostility toward religion, especially Christian religions, in current society is troubling. I mean, Pat Buchanan is attacked for being a right-wing fundamentalist, but Louis Farrakhan is not similarly labeled a left-wing Muslim. This despite the fact that both men are dangerous demagouges who use their religion as a hook to entice new folloers.

--

Re:more than microsoft

[ceymick]

Depends who you talk to on the Supreme Court regarding how important precedent is. But remember, as another reply has said, Jackson defined these in his findings of fact, and the Court is unlikely to touch these.

Re:Is British Columbia still an option? Not!

[mmccune]

I couldn't see all those M$ millionaires forking over most of their money in Canadian taxes. Also, M$ itself would pay corporate taxes. Thanks to generous US tax loopholes, M$ is no longer paying federal income taxes.

Besides, the US could still make them pay for their crimes (abusing monopoly power is a felony) by imposing fines on the US distribution of M$ products or simply hold M$ executives in contempt of court. I don't think Pearly Gates and Steve Embalmer would do to well as Bubba's bitch in jail.

In other words IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!

Re:Thank god

[KillerBees]

Macintosh? You mean those cute looking things they have in computer stores? The ones that have a commercial about "changing your decor" to match them? There's some real machines!

I thought you were ripping on GUIs? But, your comments on Macintosh are about their case? Great comeback, you really showed that guy that the MacOS is lame...

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[jafac]

no, more likely, Signal 11 is waiting for the day he can sell his account on eBay. Higher karma=higher bids.

If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[DonkPunch]

Darn. You're right.

Re:Oh jeez...

[Anonymous Coward]

Students aren't "muzzled". There are certain realms where it is acceptable to promote religion, and certain realms where it is unacceptable. Into the latter category fits any speach sponsered by government entities, including public education facilities. That students may be elected by a majority is entirely irrelevant -- the entire purpose of the first amendment, and in fact the constitution itself, is to prevent a tyrannous majority from infringing the rights of a minority. The bill of rights outlines certain rights that *a majority may not strip from a minority*.

Since when are schools parts of the Goverment? Last time I check the Independent in Santa Fe Independent School District (where all this took place, I live not too far away) means it is a seperate entity. I do not see how a school comes into place as part of the state (in Seperation of Chruch and State -- last time I checked, was for to make sure the goverment did not become like the Puritan goverment). If making religious references can be banned, why cant I get students preaching about how some crappy band or some stupid group banned (OK, not a great example, hopefully the point is still there) on the basis that "It may offened others who do not hold such views"?

Supreme Court?

[1DeepThought]

Quick disclaimer to start with. I am from Australia thus don't know US justice system particularly well so please forgive me some errors. I think that this is a case that the Supreme court would have to take. Surely the importance and magnitude of this decision is to high to leave to a lower court. I do realise that the lower courts would normally do work that the supreme court rely on. However, they must see the importance of this decision. Once they see the importance (from a legal standing) and realise that it will end there anyway surely they will compelled to take it. If they know the situation, the importance and possible costs I don't think they can justify not taking it.

Re:Oh jeez...

[mtphoto]

If you read the brief, they said the reason was the disclaimer was not sufficiently neutral. While the implicit definition of "separation of church and state" can be argued. "Freedom of religion" can quite easily be applied to the disclaimer stating the possibility to explore other biblical alternatives. The problem is not that religion is involved, but that the apparent official view of the institution favors one form over another.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[styopa]

I am going to play devils advocate for this one.

The Appellate court may have sided with MS in the previous ruling by Judge Jackson against MS, but that does not necessarily mean that they are firmly in MS's pocket. There are some key points as to why I believe that they are not.

1) They have decided to see this one En Blanc, unlike the previous two trials. But three of the Judges have been disqualified from sitting on the case due to conflict of interest. They are obviously trying to show that they are taking this case with the utmost seriousness.

2) That seriousness was also shown in their haste to accept the trial. As soon as MS had submitted their request for appeal the case was accepted, no waiting at all. They were expecting this, and have obviously started getting ready for the apeal.

3) Most of the Justices were appointed during the Reagan era. Now most would say that this would help MS, but it actually hurts them. Although they are conservative judges who most likely want to help big business, they also know that monopolies hurt business and hurt the economy and therefore are more likely to side against a monopoly.

Perhaps in the previous two appeals they didn't feel that the case was strong enough, or the punishment severe enough. Perhaps they have been waiting for MS to even more blatently abuse its power so that when it gets caught they can rule for a harsher penelty then what had been submitted before. Perhaps not, perhaps they will continue to side with MS. I'm just speculating here.

If one goes by the rulings from the previous cases then it seems obvious that they will rule in favor of MS, but that does not necessarily mean that they will. This isn't just about integrating IE into Windows anymore, this is much bigger and will have a much larger impact on the economy then the previous cases. The Justices have obviously been following the case, they know how MS acted throughout the trial. Not just one or two Justices but all of them, and they are informed enough to stop 3 of them from sitting due to conflict on interest. If they follow their conservative background then they will rule in favor of the economy, which is against MS.

We also may never know how they would rule if the Supreme Court takes it.

Only time will tell at this point.

Re:Is British Columbia still an option?

[spiral]

> ...perhaps Microsoft could become incorporated in Canada...

Sigh. MS is already incorporated in Canada, and many other countries too. Take a quick look here.

As for officially moving the headquarters to another country, MS officials have denied all rumors. It simply wouldn't be cost-effective for them to move all their assets (esp. developers) -- anything left behind would still be fair game.

Re:is there wagering?

[grappler]

So? More power to 'em.

It was leveraging one monopoly to try and get another that started the bad blood to begin with. If they keep the OS and apps separate, and compete legitimately, that's great if they do well. I think that it would very much benefit the industry and the consumer to break up the company.

--
grappler

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[Tejota]

I read it too. Even better, I understood it.

What wasn't a hole? How about the fact that it didn't contain any facts? How do you dispute an opinion piece without a single fact to back it up? It was basically a bully pulpit.

It made a bunch of broad generalizations, but didn't back them up with anything but rhetoric.
(it's a real word, look it up).

He found that MS didn't foreclose Netscape from the market, yet at the same time was guilty of predation. How? He didn't say.

Trial evidence clearly indicates that MS made NO headway in taking market share from Netscape until AFTER they had a better product. (IE4).

He found that MS tried to split the market with Netscape. How exactly? No MS executive was at the meeting. Just a bunch of engineers. How many companies do you know of where rank and file engineers are empowered to make deals like that?
I can gurantee that that is NOT the case at MS.

Not to mention that the evidence was mere heresay.
The smart money says that a MS engineer said something like: "You can maybe make money selling Netscape for the Mac or Unix, but Windows is going to have a browser built in. In a little while there isn't going to BE a separate browser market on Windows."

I guess you could take that as an offer to split the market, but you'd be wrong.

Re:Eh?

[fgodfrey]

I don't, honestly, care if MS opens their API's. I was responding to the "who would want Netscape" point, though I wouldn't mind if they opened the specs on .doc so I could read 'me on Unix.

Which Outlook problem: How many #$@$$@#- VB script viruses have there been in the last few weeks???? I certainly call it a security problem to have my mail reader auto-run a script which could toast anything on my system. If anyone comes out with a mail reader that does the same thing on Unix (ie, can run a shell script) I'll consider *that* a security hole too.

Internet Explorer now, by many reports (I don't use it) is better than Netscape now. It was certainly *not* better at the point that it won. It also was only originally available on one platform. The Mac port sucked *majorly* in its first few versions (dunno where it's at now), and the Solaris port still sucks from what I here. I'll definetly concede Quicken, though - I had forgotten about it. Oracle makes a better database, but they are steadily losing market share (from what I hear from people I know in Oracle) to Access - the book isn't closed on this one yet. I guess I have to concede PhotoShop since i don't even know what PhotoDraw is.

As for the final point, I am sickened every time I see someone agree with a party line completely. I certainly don't agree with every descision SGI makes (and I even work for them) nor every descision Sun makes, or Apple. Irix does, of course, need a reboot to upgrade the kernel. However, since it never crashes, I don't exactly feel a pressing need to reinstall very often. I can say the same of my Solaris box which I've owned for 3 years now and hasn't crashed once in the entire time I've owned it (except when I did something really stupid with the hardware). Your experience with Win2k seems, by all accounts, to be the exception rather than the rule.

I will spare you (and everyone else) my thoughts on the relative scalability for large servers between Unix and WinXX, since it's really off topic. In fact, 90% of this thread including what I posted is off topic...

The timing...

[Colin Winters]

I was listening to NPR last week, and they said that the Supreme Court is churning out a lot of decisions, like they do at the end of every term. By the time all of the paperwork even gets to the Supreme Court, it's very likely that they'll be in recess. And although I'd like to blame Microsoft for this delay, I don't really think they could have orchestrated the decisions so that there could be another delay.

Colin Winters

Its probably not a close question - here's the law

[werdna]

Article III provides that the Congress can determine (except for cases in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction), the jurisdiction of the Court. It is probably the case that everyone is entitled to at least one appeal (except in the original jurisdiction case).

The text of Title 15, Section 29, United States Code, follows below, there are two sections, one, section a, providing for review by the court of appeals, but "except as otherwise expressly provided," and another, section b, providing that direct jurisdiction "shall lie" (not may lie) with the Supreme Court. Inded, it appears that the Congress expressly considered the possibility of conflict by having a notice of appeal timely filed while a district court certifies direct jurisdiction.

I bet that the Supes get it if they want it. I'm also betting that they think the language of the statute is plain beyond cavil in this regard.

Sec. 29. Appeals

(a) Court of appeals; review by Supreme Court

Except as otherwise expressly provided by this section, in every civil action brought in any district court of the United States under the Act entitled ''An Act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies'', approved July 2, 1890, or any other Acts having like purpose that have been or hereafter may be enacted, in which the United States is the complainant and equitable relief is sought, any appeal from a final judgement entered in any such action shall be taken to the court of appeals pursuant to sections 1291 and 2107 of title 28. Any appeal from an interlocutory order entered in any such action shall be taken to the court of appeals pursuant to sections 1292(a)(1) and 2107 of title 28 but not otherwise. Any judgment entered by the court of appeals in any such action shall be subject to review by the Supreme Court upon a writ of certiorari as divided in section 1254(1) of title 28.

(b) Direct appeals to Supreme Court

An appeal from a final judgment pursuant to subsection (a) of this section shall lie directly to the Supreme Court, if, upon application of a party filed within fifteen days of the filing of a notice of appeal, the district judge who adjudicated the case enters an order stating that immediate consideration of the appeal by the Supreme Court is of general public importance in the administration of justice. Such order shall be filed within thirty days after the filing of a notice of appeal. When such an order is filed, the appeal and any cross appeal shall be docketed in the time and manner prescribed by the rules of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court shall thereupon either (1) dispose of the appeal and any cross appeal in the same manner as any other direct appeal authorized by law, or (2) in its discretion, deny the direct appeal and remand the case to the court of appeals, which shall then have jurisdiction to hear and determine the same as if the appeal and any cross appeal therein had been docketed in the court of appeals in the first instance pursuant to subsection (a) of this section.

Re:Thank god

[sethgecko]

Windows remains the only decent, GRAPHICAL, OS

Since when does widespread use equal quality? More people drive Ford Tauruses than BMW's. Does that mean that Tauruses are the only decent cars?

Re:BUT....

[catseye_95051]

The opinion of Rich Gray, who is a lawyer who writes commentary for the San Jose Mercury news, is that, while this IS a legitimate legal issue, in the end the Supream Court can override it and get whatever they feel like requesting, including the state cases.

Heads I win...Tails I win

[Anonymous Coward]

I though of a clever way of making this a 'no lose' situation for me. I buy some call options on Microsoft stock. If Microsoft loses in the supreme court, I lose a little bit of money for the call options but Microsoft gets punished. If Microsoft wins, then their stock goes up and I get more money.

Re:Heads I win...Tails I win

[jcapell]

Or Microsoft stock just sits there, and your options expire worthless.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[aufait]

Most of the Justices were appointed during the Reagan era.

The press keeps pointing to this to indicate that they would lean towards Microsoft. However, it should be pointed out that Jackson was also appointed by Reagan. Didn't help Microsoft during the trial.

There is also another reason to think that they might not back Microsoft on its third appearance.

A couple of days ago, the New York Times ran an article describing some of the background stuff that occured during the trial. In it, they described how Boise read the appealate court's opinion on a plane trip to LA. He read it and reread it. By the time he arrived in LA, he was estatic.

When he called the other DOJ lawyers, they couldn't figure out why he was so happy about a ruling in which they lost. He explained to them that the appealate court had given them a road map to show them what the DOJ has to prove in court in order to have the case hold up on appeal.

Also, Jackson specifically addressed the appealte court ruling in his findings. He included Supreme Court rulings backing his position. He has also apparently studied the ruling and tailored his opinion to meet their previous objections.

I can't understand why the press portrayed yesterday's appelate court ruling as a major victory for Microsoft. True, they ignored the DOJ's request to summarily dismiss Microsoft's motion and put the appeal on the fast track. However, they also explicitly said that they would suspend the schedule if Jackson sent it to the Supreme Court (as if there was any doubt that he would).

It's all about the microsurfs

[Signal 11]

You know, if the supreme court turns Microsoft down, they'd better be sure to release the opinion AFTER 5:00pm. Not because of the stock market or anything stupid.. but because massive numbers of computer geeks would likely set fire to their systems and party like there was no tomorrow out in the streets. You thought the Lakers rioting was bad.. wait until you see 8000 angry penguins in time square! :D

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[Signal 11]

No, that's when they get off wo... oh.. I see what you mean..

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[Signal 11]

Yeah, but they lost.. and I want my troops to have a more positive outlook.

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

["Zow"]

Except that many angry penguins don't get up until 17:00. . .

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

OT: why does your user info display some new user instead of yourself? How do I get your user info?

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[Sloppy]

Have you ever listened to the great metal band Manowar?

One of the many reasons I love Manowar is that they go "too far." Listen to 'Kings of Metal' and you'll laugh yourself to tears at their boundless cheesiness. Or listen to 'Achilles: The Agony and the Ecstasy', and stare slackjawed in amazement at how gratuitously long it is, and how pointless the drum solo is. And then there's the lyrics to 'Pleasure Slave.'

I mean this all in a good way. I love Manowar.

I would love them less if they ever showed any restraint.

And that's why I think it is so damned funny that Signal 11's trivia post got marked up as informative, and then I laughed twice as hard when you bitched about it. Don't you see? The moderators are Manowar fans too. The next time I moderate, I am going to use up all my points on marking up Signal 11 posts. I know this alone won't put me into the same league as Manowar bassist Joey DeMaio, but it's a start.

Manowar, Manowar, on the road
When we're in town, speakers expode
We don't attract wimps 'cuz we're too loud
Just true metal people, that's Manowar's crowd!

---

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[Signal 11]

It's an on-again-off-again bug.. I've told rob about it. It's a referential integrity issue in slashdot's database - namely a hiccup in the code allowed a second person to register "signal 11".. so now there are *literally* two signal 11's on slashdot. If you click on user info and get 7608, that will be me. If you get something like 23098 it'll be the new guy. I'm suspect of foul play, but rob's been alerted.

Eh, for now, just use the UID in user info to see if it's me.. and kudos to whatever troll pulled that hack off...

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[Darchmare]

Um, it's not informative to tell the Slashdot community that there is a bug in the system, and that their accounts may be spoofed next?

Seems to me that some people like to rail against certain users, no matter how good the post may be. 'Karma Whore' is turning into another 'FUD' - a term so overused that it loses its intended meaning.

Then again, I'm pry just karma whoring, right?

- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[linzeal]

What's scarier; A bunch of blood and testostorone sport fans bent upon exclaiming the victory of their arbitrarily favorite team through violence or a gaggle of geeks with their respective causes (GPL, Linux, BSD) uniting against a common enemy with a supposedly common response of violence?

As anarchists found out during the WTO there is nothing mutual about the pathos of those involved in reactionary politics and there is an even further division upon those who place direct action as the catch all and be all of their political voice.

Chris Welsh

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

This is newer yet than 23098 - it's 202783, so there must be three signal 11's! I suspect how he did it is related to how I have my username - it's 11223^H^H^H^H^H, not 11223. I've been playing around with inserting special characters into usernames, and I've been noticing others doing the same.

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[Anonymous Coward]

a hiccup in the code allowed a second person to register "signal 11"

No, it was a mistake to let the first person register that name.

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[gorilla]

That sounds like a missing unique index on the user table.

Unfortunatly, as the user info is keyed by userid, it seems to always pick up the 202783 userid.

Re:It's all about the microsurfs

[CoderDevo]

And just like a CIO, the only complaints against him come from anonymous sources. hahahaha

Silly AC, find something to fight for, not against. And get a name.

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[jafac]

sold drugs! George Bush sold drugs, then instituted the "war on drugs", so he'd have a monopoly. Yes, there was some association with the CIA there, who created crack. . .

If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!

Re:Thank god

[Fiwer]

But of course :) If anyone can explain to me why people think Microsoft didn't revolutionize the computing industry, and basically create PC's as we know them today, please do.

Sham argument

[DaveWood]

X agrees with Y who disagrees with Z. Whatever. Argue the points on their merits or get lost.

I will debate you until you hemorrage llamas from your ass that Microsoft has been, and continues to be a pernicious monopoly. They may have single-handedly set the industry back 10 years. Now, whether or not others will simply step up to continue to cause trouble, well, that's Murphy for you. But if the ruling comes down right, it will at least set a better tone for the future.

Re:An interesting situation

[/]

It depends. Often the dissenting Justices will write out their dissent, and sometimes members of the majority will in turn write a concurrence that responds to that dissent. Look at Callins v. Collins (1994), for example: the Supreme Court lifted a stay of execution "without comment", but Blackmun wrote a lengthy dissent (in which he admitted that the death penalty as applied is inconsistent with notions of due process) which was preceded by Scalia's fiery concurrence with the majority (which appears first by convention as a majority concurrence, although logically it would seem Blackmun's opinion should precede it, as Scalia's was entirely a rebuttal).

It would surprise me if the Supreme Court turned away the case completely without a peep; the emotions on this one are just riding too high.

Spirit of the law...

[theseum]

I don't think that Judge Jackson was actually doing this because he thought that it was such a "matter of national importance." I think it may have had something to do with the number of times appealate courts have reversed his descisions... I thought that the deadline for him to do this had passed?

Re:Spirit of the law...

[Biff Cool]

I think the deadline was for the DOJ or MS to fasttrack it to the Supreme Court. He can probably do it anytime he wants.

Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.

Re:Spirit of the law...

[Mr. Barky]

Well, Microsoft has repeatedly said that if they were to be broken up the whole economy would collapse or some such nonsense. By their own argument, it seems, the case is of national importance.

I think it is hard to argue that it isn't of national importance. After all, it affects virtually every computer user (even if you don't buy MS's products!).

Re:Oh jeez...

[drivers]

atheists (the religious belief in the lack of a deity)

Atheism is not a "religion." The concept of an agency outside of nature with the ability to reach into natural law and to control events is supernaturalism, the foundation of any religion. The existence of that agency is based on subjective faith and belief systems. An Atheist has no belief system.

(paraphrased from American Atheists: www.atheists.org )

Re:I'm GLAD

[jafac]

This was because MS bought Bungie. They finally realized that if they don't act soon to stop the monster, they'll buy something else pivotal, like Cisco, and make routers that only work with NetBEUI.
(- this is a joke, moron! Everyone knows that NetBEUI is not routeable!)

If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!

Let's hope the SC takes it

[Noer]

If they don't, and it gets kicked back to Appellate court, the court of appeals will be pissed at Jackson, and will probably be even more biased towards MS than they already were.

This Supreme Court should, I think, agree with Jackson, but if this lasts into a (shudder) "dubyah" term, I think the Silver Spoon Boy will try his hardest to politicize the case and influence it in MS's favor.

Whatever happened to separation of Executive and Judicial brances??

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[shri]

Every human wants his 15 minutes of fame. The appellate court is no different. The judges on the court would welcome a landmark case which would make history (since the supreme court rejected it, its unlikely to get sent back to them again, IANAL disclaimer).

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[technos]

They were the first to push it.. They also have the distinction of developing LSD and synthetic TXP.. b

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[gwalla]

I think the fungus that lives on wheat and produces the stuff might like a few words with him too.

---
Zardoz has spoken!

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[TomV]

They also have the distinction of developing LSD

If the CIA 'developed' LSD, then I reckon Dr Robert Hoffman of Sandoz Labs in Switzerland might like to see you take the quotemarks off the word 'Innovate' when discussing M$

TomV

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[DonkPunch]

Wow, that was one of the most militantly stupid babblings I've seen on /. in a while.

How did you draw the conclusion that an appeals court would be "pissed" at Jackson? Odds are they wouldn't care one way or the other. The Supreme Court refuses to hear far more cases than it accepts.

As far as seperation (this is a government lesson, we'll talk about your spelling later) between the Executive and Judicial branches, Presidents have appointed federal justices since the Constitution was ratified. Why? Because that's how the Constitution says it should be done!

You're welcome to shudder at a "dubyah" term. However, if your ignorance is typical of his opponents, I shudder at that.

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[LaoK]

"Silver Spoon Boy"? You mean the Senator's son who grew up in Washington D.C. (before he helped invent the Internet)?

Oh, yeah, I forgot... first he grew up to be a tobacco farmer, then he invented the Internet...

LaoK

"It's 'controlling legal authority' time!"--Judge Thomas P. Jackson

Re:Let's hope the SC takes it

[Jbrecken]

This Supreme Court should, I think, agree with Jackson, but if this lasts into a (shudder) "dubyah" term, I think the Silver Spoon Boy will try his hardest to politicize the case and influence it in MS's favor.

Whatever happened to separation of Executive and Judicial brances??

Well, since one of the parties in this case is the Dept of Justice, the new head of the Executive branch could simply order his Attorney General to settle the case, in terms that favor Microsoft.

This Term

[mjparme]

The Court is done with oral arguments this session. The session ends June 30 so even if
they decided to hear the case it won't even have the possibility to be heard until October when the next session begins. The only thing the Court is doing know is releasing opinions on cases they heard during the current session. And they still decide if they will hear certain cases too.

Re:Thank god

[larkost]

According to a factoid that ran on CNN today, 50% of American have access to a computer, as of 1999. I think this one shoots down the rest f the numbers....

Thank you

[DaveWood]

That was a very helpful response - exactly what I was hoping for.

I realize my own impression of the Appellate in that circuit is very vague. I'm glad there are /.'ers who understand it better than myself.

Here's Hoping they Take It

[DG]

I, for one, sure hope the Supremes take the case, and do so quickly.

Microsoft hasn't demonstrated that it is willing to play nice in the interim, so the sooner this is delt with, the sooner the bad behaviour can be stopped - and that is the whole point, isn't it?

I'd sure like to live in a world where the big bully isn't constantly trying to co-opt standards, disrupt interoperability, and generally screw users for the sake of its own profit.

A little swift justice here would be just indeed.

Re:Here's Hoping they Take It

[quonsar]

I, for one, sure hope the Supremes take the case, and do so quickly.

No shit. The sooner the better. I have it on good authority that Dianna Ross despises Bill Gates.

======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16

Re:Thank god

[Zagato-sama]

This is interesting, I was under the impression that PCs (x86 machines) were highly customizable in both hardware and software departments.

I can choose from a variety of thousands of pieces of hardware to build my PC out of.

I can disalow any form of remote logins. My privacy is as secure as I wish it to be.

I can install any of the dozen operating systems available on the x86 platform.

I had no idea Microsoft was denying me all of these options. I guess I was duped. Thanks for letting me know that I've been deluding myself all this time.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[fgodfrey]

I didn't say "switch to Unix". I said look at what else is out there. There's a lot out there other than Unix and Microsoft (MacOS and BeOS come to mind). In fact, *any* time you get entrenched in something, start looking for what else is out there 'cause somewhere out there is the thing that's going to replace what you are using now...

Re:more than microsoft

[Tejota]

What, are you high?

He defined the browser as 'middleware'.
but he never defined 'middleware' in any way.

"Whatever 'middleware' is. I'm sure that browser is part of it"

Ya, that's real helpful...

MS repeatedly asked the DOJ to specify what specific files comprised IE. and the DOJ never did. Jackson certainly never did.

Re:Makes no sense to most Non-Americans

[JamesKPolk]

Flamebait?

I am now certain that I have better places to spend time on, than slashdot.

I'm out of here.

Re:Eh?

[fgodfrey]

Oh - two last points and I'll shut up. On the media deal, I *can't* go and buy from another OEM since MS intends to force *all* OEM's to do this. How does this help consumers? If it had always been done this way, I suppose I would accept it, but people are now expecting to get a Windows license and they are not getting it.

The other point is about your Solaris vs. Win2k - if you are rebooting Win2k and not Solaris, you're not really comparing up-times. I consider a forced reboot to be almost as bad as a crash. Worse if I'm forced to reboot on a regular basis.

BUT....

[child_of_mercy]

There is a jurisdictionl hitch as the Expedition law predates by 2 years the law which allowed State Attorney's-General to file federal anti-trust suits.

So the 19 State cases against MS may have to be taken through the appeals court while the DOJ case goes straight to the Supreme Court.

Which may be a big problem, or may not

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Tejota]

No. MS does none of these things.
Where do you get your information?

These allegations have been floating around /. for months, but there's simply no truth in them.

do your homework...

-1 (Irrelevant)

[MaximumBob]

Now let's hope they don't ruin the industry by splitting Microsoft up... after all, if it wasn't for them PC's would probably be pretty much non-existant.

So what? Standard Oil was largely responsible for the advancement of the oil industry when it was broken up. Same with AT&T for the telephone industry. It's completely possible for a company to give an industry its start, and then use the position it gains from that to dominate that industry.

Yes, MS helped create the PC industry. That doesn't mean that splitting them up now would ruin said industry. I believe what the court has found, to this point, is that they've been using illegal practices which HURT said industry.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[warmi]

Examples please.
Anything you can reffer to . Industry press, articles, anything that shows example of what you are describing.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[CmdrPinkTaco]

Since you are going through here basically just restating what people have just said, but only in a microsoft light, I will attempt to play this game with you while maintaining an OS neutral stance.

Microsoft was punished because they aggressively attempted to eliminate the consumers right to freedom of choice. To Microsoft, interoperability and network communication means communication and interoperability with other microsoft products. They are not concerned with allowing other users, programs, applications etc.. to function with in their domain. It is not about which operating system is better (which seems to be your stance), it is about dominating and attempting to destroy a market (which is the DOJs stance).

Since you don't seem to grasp this concept, and you apparently don't read court breifs, I have attempted to explain this to you. I realize that you are either:

a) a pro microsoft person who doesn't see things any other way
b) someone with nothing better to do than to attempt to ruffle the feathers of some known alternative OS supporters
c) a troll who also has characteristics of b)

but I feel it necessary to explain this to you since I also have nothing better to do right now, and you are annoying me with your blatant aggrivation.
------------------------------------ --------

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Fiwer]

How are they hurting the industry now ? Innovating? Making Windows 2000, an AMAZINGLY good product? Boosting our economy? Giving thousands of talented programmers good jobs, with great opportunity to advance?

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[warmi]

There is no "understanding troughout the industry" as to what you are trying to sell here.
Microsoft leverages its monopoly but in a different way. For example their Office team used to come up with new controls etc .. which would be introduced as a standard Windows feature at the time new Office was comming out.
This kind of stuff but I yet to hear about undocumented stuff that MS apps are using all the time.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[warmi]

Sucks as what ?
Server OS , desktop OS , multimedia machine ?
Compared to what ?

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[FuddyDuddy]

Nothing was said about including netscape or any other browser! Let MS include their browser, I don't care, I like IE, but quoting the previous post:

They tied their software into their OS in a way that noone else could compete with, not okay. That's extension of monopoly power. That's illegal.

Would you please make a convincing argument for once instead of just repeating the same old crap. You never seem to pick up on the point of the opposing argument.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[KillerBees]

So why read slashdot?

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[warmi]

Quicken, my friend, did the impossible.
They beated MS stuff for years despite OS bundling etc...

But beyond that ... I can't find any so you might have a point here.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[warmi]

Yes, but the fact remains. IE is better product than anything Netscape ever had.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[MstrFool]

Nope. But if they make the cracker so that it will break more if I use cheese made by some one other then Nabisco {tm} then it will if I use thier cheese then I have a big problem with it. Microsoft {tm} had been shown to be operating in this way {DrDOS any one?}. That is why I suport a slapdown for them.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[TomV]

MS started out as only a OS company suckering many into developing for it. Then they decide to start releasing applications when consumers and businesses are already hooked.

No. Microsoft started as a Developer Tools / Language company (Altair BASIC onwards). They got into OS when IBM asked them to tender for a BASIC interpreter for their new PC product, and Gary Kildall of DR was arrogant enough to not have the common courtesy of turning up for his appointemnt to discuss OS's, letting Bill say 'oh yes of course we can do you an OS', which they then bought from a third party in what later became the standard MS way.

And when you look at the scripting, the VBA in every app and so forth, I sometimes wonder if they still see themselves as a devtools company.

TomV

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[MarkKomus]

"How are they hurting the industry now ?"

Blackmailing distrubition companies (like Dell/Gateway) into not distributing software like Netscape or else they'll be charges a fortune for windows.

Not opening their API to everyone so their other apps have an unfair advantage over any other company out there.

That a start?

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[talesout]

There's no alternative. Windows isn't bad, it's not perfect but not bad.

With such well thought out reasoning (There's no alternative?) I have only one thought regarding you.

For those that have the time, go search usenet for someone going by the nick simon777. He has also used other nicks, but this is his most common. Comp.os.linux.advocacy is his usual haunt. He spends countless hours a day posting as simon/steve/mike/amy/etc. telling Linux people that there are no alternatives to Windows and that there is absolutely no reason to use anything but Windows.

Most posts are just like this one.
Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. Only Microsoft and Bill Gates truly know what you want. If you feel you want something else, then you just don't understand yourself quite properly. Don't fear, Bill Gates will rescue you from yourself and show you the one true way.

Yeah, whatever. Pull the other one, maybe you shake lose a little more change.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[talesout]

I know many home users that use BSDs and/or Linux. You would be suprised with the number of useful things you can do once you get past that "reinstall every 90 days" crap.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Diomedes01]

Umm... did you pay any attention whatsoever to this case? They tied IE into the OS in order to ruin Netscape, then had the gall to lie repeatedly under oath to the court. This is just the tip of the iceberg, however. If you truly think that Microsoft is innovating, then I can feel only pity for you. Just look at the callous disregard they showed by "extending" the Kerberos protocol WHILE they were in trial for anti-trust allegations! Absolutely ridiculous. Get with it.
---------
"There's no swimming in the heavy water, no playing in the acid rain.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Fiwer]

Why should they open their API? It is *THEIR* API, is it not ? Who wants Netscape anyways ?

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Penrif]

They tied their software into their OS. Netscape ruined themselves by letting MS make a better browser than them.

Myself (and the court) seem to remember this a little different than you. They tied their software into their OS in a way that boosted performance, okay fine. They tied their software into their OS in a way that noone else could compete with, not okay. That's extension of monopoly power. That's illegal.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Fiwer]

and why is that ? Because you guys are so jealous of Bill Gates it makes you sick?

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Fiwer]

So, should nabisco include another company's crackers when they sell you a pack of Triscuits?

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Fiwer]

They tied their software into their OS. Netscape ruined themselves by letting MS make a better browser than them. Perhaps being bought by AOL was the end for them?

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Diomedes01]

No, not at all... But what if Nabisco were to tell all the convenience stores that they would charge them more $ (or not sell to them at all) unless the stores ONLY sold Nabisco crackers?

That's the difference...
---------
"There's no swimming in the heavy water, no playing in the acid rain.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Sand_Man]

No, Einstein, they should allow the Triscuits to be compatable with non-Nabisco meats, cheeses, spreads etc. They should also not illegally force all other cracker manufacturers out of business, or only allow the other crackers to be topped by Nabisco products. Pay attention.

Damn, now I am hungry.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Fiwer]

Then the stores would need to decide if they really wanted Nabisco crackers, huh ?

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Diomedes01]

Yes, you're 100% correct. Everything that Microsoft has done wrong was fabricated by people who envy Bill Gates...

What planet are you from? That man's hubris is astonishing, and yours is almost as bad.
---------
"There's no swimming in the heavy water, no playing in the acid rain.

Re:-1 (Irrelevant)

[Penrif]

Meanwhile the customer gets fscked. Not a good outcome if you ask me (or the law).

Re:This does actually speed things up

[firstpostacct]

You mean late in their next tour? I thought this was their last one... Diana Ross is kinda old by now...

P.S., the Supremes rule in EVERY case!

Re: Bah

[briancarnell]

Exactly, which is probably the best reason for the SC *not* to take the case. The entire motive for appealing to the SC is clearly not because of any importance of this particular case (as if the SC is going to be able to resolve this faster than an appellate court), but simply because the judge and DOJ fear a negative outcome in the appellate court. Regardless of what you think about MS, this is still a pretty straightforward antitrust lawsuit. The only reason it seem so earth shattering is because there have been so few such actions over the past couple decades.

That sort of politicking is unworthy of second rate lawyers looking for friendly judges, much less the Supreme Court.

You have to wonder how these slashdotters would feel if say Napster loses its case and the judge and plaintiffs attorneys tried to skip over the next level of appellate courts because of its past sympathy for Napster-style IP arguments, in favor of a higher court suspected of being far tougher on those who challenge the corporate hegemony. People would be having fits about how unfair the system is, but because it's the evil Microsoft, it's considered the only way to fly.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[DaveWood]

Americans are stupid, that's why they use Microsoft. But stupidity isn't illegal, and no law will make people smarter. It's just none of Uncle Sam's business.

Spoken like someone who knows none of the issues, facts, or law.

Efficiency is measured differently in court . . .

[werdna]

The primary consideration of the Courts, however, will not be effiiciency of time, but rather the judge-made notion of "efficiency of judicial resources." The most likely theory to be considered by the Court is this: (1) If the Court is of the view that it is possible that a decision of the COA would finally dispose of the issue, they will probably remand. (2) If the Court is of the view that they would take the appeal regardless of what the COA decides, they will probably take it directly.

Time will tell how they articulate their decision (or even if they will say why), but I betcha' that's how they make the call. And you will hear the mantra "judicial efficiency and interests of justice" somewhere therein.

Oh jeez...

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

First of all, I propose the banning of the tag "insightful" from this discussion. It's no longer possible to be insightful about Microsoft.

Secondly, the Supreme Court has been (in all honesty) smoking crack lately. While I agree about 50% of the time with their decisions, their explanations are screwed up. The case about school prayer made reference to "protecting the first admendment" - but the first admendment makes no reference to seperation of church and state! It's as if they're just spewing blather instead of making a well-reasoned decision. I hate to see what's in store for the Microsoft ruling... mayhap Microsoft had a "1st admendment right" for this and they're protecting the "1st admendment?"

Either that or Microsoft has been shipping them the 3$ crack in preperation for this ruling...

Re:Oh jeez...

[TheReverend]

I think the "Interesting" tag should also be banned.

This is yet another pathetic attempt to increase my karma. ;-)

Re:Oh jeez...

[Sloppy]

I think a new mutant version of the "I know I'm going to get marked down for this" strategy has appeared.

Oh well. I think the "troll" tag should be banned from this discussion.

---

Re:Oh jeez...

[luckykaa]

Sorry, I'm not american. didn't realise those existed. How annoying that they managed to increase projected costs by 300%

Re:Oh jeez...

[aphrael]

What was banned is allowing students to elect
someone to speak for them because they might say something religious.

Did you *read* the decision? The majority was quite clear to state that while the *form* of the system they overturned was "choose if we should have a speaker and then choose who it should be", it was nevertheless understood implicitly by everyone involved that it was about religion. (This is in much the same way that, while Syria has "elections", the outcome is preordained).

Chief Justice wrote a scathing dissenting
opinion that truly exposes the decision for what it really is: the pigeon-holing of religion as
a purely private matter rather than the basis for American society as it was in the beginning.

That's not the way I read the dissent: as far as I could tell, his argument --- which I think has merit, by the way --- was that it was unreasonable to challenge the law *before anyone was given a chance to speak* --- ie., even if you grant that religious invocations would be unconstitutional, you should have to wait until someone actually gives one before challenging the law, which didn't happen in this case, as the law was challenged *immediately*.

Re:Oh jeez...

[aphrael]

Since when are schools parts of the Goverment?

In California at least (and it may differ in your state), schools are run out of local districts whose governing bodies are elected (in elections paid for by the county government) with money given to them by the state (out of tax revenue collected by the counties and appropriated by the state), and children are required by state law to attend.

Since they are wholly funded by the state and are run by elected officials selected in *exactly* the same manner as city councilmen and county supervisors, how are schools *not* part of the government?

Re:Oh jeez...

[Cheetahfeathers]

Atheists have the belief of non-existance of deity. It is belief in something without evidence. Agnostics are the ones without the belief system (agnostic = I dunno, basically).

Not to say that I don't agree with the sentiment of atheists. I would no more believe in a god without evidence of that being than I would in any other object, such as fairies or the easter bunny.

But saying 'it does not exist' is a belief. Saying 'as far as I know it does not exist, but it could', is not a belief, it's simply lack of knowledge.

Re:Oh jeez...

[drivers]

The terminology I use is that agnosticism is the belief that the existence of god is unknowable.

Atheism is merely the absense of belief in a god.

I would call many people who call themselves agnostics, "atheists." I would also call some buddhists atheists as well, as many of them have no belief in deities.

However, I know that many people who think they are agnostics say that atheism is the positive beleif that there is no god. In atheism discussions we usually differentiate that definition as "strong atheism" as opposed to "weak atheism."

See also: George H. Smith's "Atheism: the case against god." I've seen it in bookstores, but you may just want to check it out at the library.

Since this is the web, this would be a quicker intro to the terminology, including the differences between weak atheism, stroung atheism, and agnosticism.
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html

I look forward to your reply.

Re:Oh jeez...

[luckykaa]

While I agree about 50% of the time with their decisions, their explanations are screwed up.

Since generally about 50% of people will agree with the Supreme Court in any given case, I propose that this costly organisation is replaced by a coin which is tossed on any controversial issue. This will reduce costs dramatically, with a maximum initial setup cost of 25 cents.

Re:Oh jeez...

[TheMeld]

The separation of church and state is implicit in the 1st ammendment. The 1st ammendment guarantees not only freedom of speech, but the freedom to practice your own religion provided that you don't stomp on anybody else (so religions that practice mass murder don't get special exception from the laws of the land). Implicit in the freedom to practice your religion is the right to be free from other people forcing your religion on you. To put things that are particular to any religion or group of religions into a school or other government-sponsored setting is (for good reason) considered to be trampling the rights of the people who don't practice that religion. Hence the separation of church and state.
-Matt

Re:Oh jeez...

[Shadowlion]

This will reduce costs dramatically, with a maximum initial setup cost of 25 cents.

Not necessarily. Now we have those fancy Sacagewea dollar coins. So, if you look it another way, the maximum initial setup cost has now ballooned four-fold into $1.

Re:Oh jeez...

[SteveM]

The first Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Which part of "...shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." don't you understand?

Now there does seem to be a conflict between "... make no law ..." and "...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." or even with the bit about free speech.

But one could also argue that the students can pray all they want and that they can can do it in public, but that they can't do it under state, i.e. government, sanction.

I tend to side with the surpremes on this one. Protecting the rights of those of minority faiths or even non-believers seems more important to me especially when each and every student can still pray as much as they want.

Steve M

Re:Oh jeez...

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

Actually, it's explicit in the constitution. The 1st admendment has nothing to do with this. They weren't in any way, shape, or form protecting the 1st adnmendment - just the constitution.

Re:Oh jeez...

[greydmiyu]

Which is why government shouldn't fund many things it does fund now. And?

I'll be the first to point out that government, especially federal, has overstepped its bounds by a WIIIIIDE margin. However, people calling foul when government is curtailed because it was something that they wanted at the expense of others, esp. when it comes to something as simple as the first ammendment, just chaps my hide.

Re:Oh jeez...

[Malcs]

"Mayhap"? Lisa, is that you?

Re:Thank god

[KarmaHo]

Oh gee, maybe IRIX? But then again, all those professional animators and artists don't know shit about a usefull working environment, now do they?

In other news - no behavioral remedies yet...

[marick]

The other thing the judge decided today is pretty annoying if you ask me: (Quote from CNN.com)

However, he also agreed to postpone a series of restrictions on Microsoft's business practices, which had been set to go into effect in September, pending the outcome of the appeal.

The latest development in the case takes some of the pressure off of Microsoft, and legal experts said it is unlikely that the high court would decide if it will hear the appeal until its next term, which begins next fall. But of more immediate concern to Microsoft were a series of restrictions on its business practices, which Jackson said were designed to prevent it from punishing hardware and software companies working on competing products and favoring companies that exclude Microsoft competitors. The order also required Microsoft to disclose technical information about its operating systems to independent hardware and software companies so that those companies can design products that are compatible with Windows...

Microsoft had said the restrictions would have a "devastating" effect on its business because it would have to shares its software source code with competitors, redesign all of its operating systems, and comply with price controls.

It had been generally expected that Jackson would deny Microsoft's request for a stay of those restrictions. But in his order Tuesday, Jackson agreed to postpone his entire final judgment until after Microsoft has exhausted its appeals.

I was really excited about the behavioral remedies . Now they don't really matter much at all.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[aufait]

He found that MS didn't foreclose Netscape from the market, yet at the same time was guilty of predation. How? He didn't say.

and

Trial evidence clearly indicates that MS made NO headway in taking market share from Netscape until AFTER they had a better product. (IE4).

I seem to recall an email from a Microsoft executive that said they wouldn't be able to make any headway against Netscape until they started to leverage the desktop. And wasn't IE4 the first version that you couldn't uninstall without hosing your computer?

Re:Thank god

[Biff Cool]

Since PC's do exist now, it won't really hurt the industry at all. There's no reason to bow down to MS and chug, just cause they produced a marketable product.

Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.

Re:Thank god

[Validus]

You want a list of other good GUI: OS/2 MacOS BeOS KDE GNOME I will give you that Windows has some innovative ideas(not many) but it is in no way revolutionary.

Re:Cool

[jelizondo]

I believe Judge Jackson is following the correct procedure allowed under the law. It's not a question of taking or not the heat, it's a question of following the law.

Re:MacOS

[KillerBees]

The MacOS and Windows were both ripped off from Xerox, so don't give me that "Windows stole mac" crap

Well, if the MacOS sucks...and since the MacOS and Windows have the same the ancestry. Wouldn't Windows suck? Or is it all the Microsoft "innovations" that made it not suck?

DOJ had better hurry

[/]

Earlier today, the House voted to rescind much of the DOJ's funding for its civil suit against the tobacco industry, prompting the DOJ to announce that if it did not receive the necessary funding, it would have no choice but to drop the tobacco case. The House reversed itself just moments ago and reinstated the funding, but the message is clear: Congress is willing to set a precedent and inject itself into DOJ lawsuits and exercise a financial veto in politically unpopular ones.

Albeit, Microsoft does supply much smaller amounts of political contributions/bribes, and the Microsoft case is much more progressed and would require less funding to continue (especially once it reaches the Supreme Court), but the implications are still scary, were members of Congress (especially from Washington) to wake up and realize what power they can hold over this affair.

Yay!

[Valur]

I for one am quite happy that they pushed this to the top. Perhaps it will neutralize some of Microsoft's stall tactics.

And why wouldn't the supreme court take this case? How could this not be considered unimportant?

Re:Yay!

[M$ Mole]

The issue isn't whether the SC thinks this case is important...they know this is important. But, historically speaking, the SC does not like to take the time to wade through all of the documents and procedures necessary for an initial appeals process. They usually prefer to have the Appellate Court work through the tedious work so that they can better render an appropriate decision in a more timely fashion.

There is only one Anonymous Coward

[attobyte]

He/She/it posts all the messages. So lets just start Anonymous Coward at -2 so we dont have to see them.

Who cares about changing your threshold

If we did it for a week or two maybe they would leave and never come back.

atto

Hell skip the supreme court...

[AntiPasto]

and go to The Peoples' Court.

----

Re:Hell skip the supreme court...

[Anonymous Coward]

and go to The Peoples' Court.

That's not what the people want. What the people want is....the people's champ. They want the Great One to lay the smack down on Bill's roooody poo...*crowd - CANDY ASS!*. And they will all be chanting the Rock's name...*ROCKY! ROCKY! ROCKY! ROCKY! ROCKY!*.

Bill Gates. You have your lawyers. You have your ugly-stick face all over the Rock's television. You have your millions and millions of dollars. Well the Rock says that's nothing compared to the millions...*AND MILLIONS* of the Rock's fans...of the people's...fans.

When the Rock comes to Redmond, in the people's car, wearing the people's shirt, bringing the people's anger, he's going to do...this...for the people. He's going to TAKE that Windows 2000 CD. He's gonna shine that coaster up reallll nice. He's gonna turn that sum-bitch sideways, AND STICK IT STRAIGHT UP YOUR CANDY-ASS!

IF YA SMELLLLLLALALALALLALAAAA!...what the ROCK! *is cookin'*....isssss cookin.

Re:Thank god

[Noer]

Microsoft's only 'revolution' was when it conned Seattle Computer Co. out of DOS and sold it to IBM. Absolutely, that revolutionized the industry by having a competitor to the Apple Computer that was more mass-marketable.

On the other hand, since then, all MS has done is stomp all over other companies, buy some of them out, and call their products 'Microsoft Innovation.'

If Microsoft truly competes on its merits, and makes both great apps and a great OS, then a split shouldn't hurt it. The only way in which a split will hurt it, is if it has in fact been basing most of its Windows apps on undocumented features of the Windows OS/APIs, thus wielding monopoly power unfairly and keeping competitors from standing a chance.

So, if the breakup hurts MS, it's because MS was doing things it shouldn't have, and it couldn't survive in an environment in which it actually had to compete on its merits.

Kinda like a leap of faith, eh??

Why this is really good

[Shotgun]

Do people not recognize M$ behavior for what is really is? They're waiting, not for a change of political leadership, but for a change in technological leadership. It's been the same pattern they've used for years. You keep your enemy tied up until you bring out something different. You pooh-pooh the advantages of OS/2 VoiceType while frantically developing competing technology. You proclaim UNIX as too heavy, while working day and night to develop symbolic links.

They're trying to use the same technique here. Every motion they put forth has a request for more time. Meanwhile they're trying to move everyone to a differenct platform that is not part of the case. Once they have leveraged their desktop monopoly into a server monopoly (where the money is at now anyway) they'll thumb their colective noses at the DOJ and laugh the tails off.

Putting the case before the SC will get resolution while it still matter...before M$ can harm other areas of the industry.

Re:I'm GLAD

[shandrew]

Judge Jackson is just trying to shave off 5+ years of court cost to the public, most of which don't even care if M$ is a monopoly or not.

The court costs are a very minor aspect in a case such as this. Every day, the US loses millions of dollars in its economy because of inefficiencies created by the monopoly pricing power of microsoft. Every day, Microsoft earns millions in excess profit because of its abuse of monopoly power.

Obviously, Microsoft wants the case to drag on as long as possible, so they can continue to earn their millions of monopoly-derived money.

Everyone else's best interest is served by having the case proceed as quickly as possible.

Re:more than microsoft

[scrytch]

> For the purposes of being an application platform, he correctly identified the browser as middleware.

So I guess HTTP is forever divorced from the OS. But NFS and CIFS are by virtue of ... what, not being HTTP? ... that they can be used with mount(2). But with HTTP it's a "browser" and therefore it has a market that must be protected against the OS.

Correct my ass.

Re:Cool

[Hendershot]

It looks more like he doesn't want M$ to appeal his findings into the ground. Two years of appeals would just mean that all the money and trouble spent on this trial would be wasted.

Re:Is British Columbia still an option?

[quintessent]

If I remember correctly, the Government's recommendations which were accepted by the judge included the provision that Microsoft cannot do anything to frustrate the remedies imposed on them. This would presumedly include leaving the country. Pulling a George Washington and trying to sneak everyone out by boats one night would be quite a task.

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[bugg]

but Louis Farrakhan is not similarly labeled a left-wing Muslim.

I don't know what crowd you hang out with, but Farrakhan is seen as a whacko by everyone (regardless of race) and _is_ labeled as a left-wing religious fanatic.

Nation of Islam? Show me the Nation of Islam on a map! :)

Re:Thank god

[shandrew]

This is interesting, I was under the impression that PCs (x86 machines) were highly customizable in both hardware and software departments.

Please tell me how many quality notebook x86 machines you can buy without buying windows bundled with the computer.

Yes there is...

[BlueUnderwear]

...it's called the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE). Not only can plainly buy or short stocks (very boring), but there are also options. Options give you the right to buy (or sell) shares (the underlying) at a future date for a given price (the strike price). Your gain is the difference between market price and strike price. If the thing doesn't turn out in your favor, you just don't exercise the option, and you only lost the price of the option itself.

Example:

January 2000 puts on Microsoft (MSQMJ) are currently priced at $3/4. You buy a package of 100 contract (which you pay $75). Suppose Microsoft gets slammed by the Supreme's (and that they are quick enough to be done until the third Friday in January...), and crash to $40. Your strike price will be $10 lower than the market price, so you pocket the difference: $1000. You just made $925 (the $1000 you made minus the $75 you paid for the options).

If on the other hand it doesn't work out, and they'll hover around $55, it is not interesting to exercise (you'd lose $500 doing so). So you let your option simply expires worthlessly, and you just lost $75 rather than $575.

N.B. In reality, options are actually rarely exercised. What really happens is that as soon as the market price falls below the strike price (for puts), they appreciate tremendously: in our example of Microsoft tanking to $40, the MSQMJ options would be worth $10/option, at which time you'd simply sell them.

The big advantage of put options over short sells is that you can get no margin calls: i.e. you don't get into trouble if Microsoft climbs to $95 before crashing back to $40. Their disadvantage however, is that they do expire: so if for instance the court is slower than you expected, you lose.

Racists

[MultimanZ]

Took those Jacksons long enough. If Billy was a brother you know this case never would have occured.

Re:Thank god

[session]

You're telling me that the government holding a gun to your head telling you that you need to break up your company is a solution? I agree MS broke the law. I agree something should be done about it. Breaking them up is not the answer.

They broke up Standard Oil company. Are we any better off? I don't exactly like fixed prices by OPEC.

They broke up ALCOA, which single handedly made prices drop amazingly for aluminum foil. Did consumers benefit? No, they ended up paying more for the same product.

Hell yes I think Microsoft should pay. What they did was uncalled for. I don't think they should be broken up though.

The difference between the MS case and the cases stated above is supposedly innovation. "Software" isn't a fixed product. Well neither is oil.

Maybe I'm just not as easily steered towards the Open Source bandwagon as everybody else. I love programming and I LOVE open source code, but I'm failing to see where it's drastically helped consumers already (or will, when the "500 lb. gorilla" is theoretically removed).

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[divec]

Personally, I've found that this whole sham of a trial has greatly lessened my faith in the intelligence, circumpsectness, and wisdom of the judiciary.

I challenge you to find one unambiguous hole in PJ's finding of fact. It was a monster document but I read it and couldn't find one place where its accuracy was inferior to Microsoft's proposed version.

The remedy is more controversial, but that's partly the nature of the thing. Hindsight's easier than foresight.

is there wagering?

[Bad_CRC]

I'm seriously interested in whether there is a website, or something that allows gambling on the outcome of all of this.

I personally think any company with as much money as microsoft can buy their way out of anything, but I'd happily put $50 on betting that they will lose the case, just to be an optomist.

anyway, if it does hit the supreme court, that is a victory for the case against M$, since they will not have the option to tie the case in court for years and years.

________
1995: Microsoft - "Resistance is futile"

I hope this will speed this

[DevTopics]

Hopefully, this will put an end to a long story soon. Microsoft has hoped to continue on for years like they've done before. Every year they can leverage their monopoly means big money and new ways to grow (and get our money). Don't get me wrong: I don't want Microsoft to vanish. But I agree with Mr. Jackson that they have used illegal methods to enforce their monopoly. If this is taken away from them, everyone will benefit: the customer (choice is good, and competition will enhance innovation - monopolies don't feel the need to innovate, and they seldom do), and, in the end, even Microsoft (or why do you think that analysts think that TWO Microsofts are more worth than ONE?).

does it hurt being so stupid?

[delmoi]

His phase of the case is over

Re:Thank god

[plague3106]

Or it could be that MS forbids that vendor to bundle other OSes...

Re:This sucks...

[arthurs_sidekick]

Microsoft 's best chance is to try and run the clock on the Clinton [administration].

You are thinking "Just another reason to move this along as fast as possible!"

If you want to endorse banana republic justice, then you're right.

"Banana Republic Justice" sounds to me like what you get when the wealthy and unelected control the (ostensibly) elected. Suppose they are trying to ram this through on Clinton/Reno's watch ... and suppose MS' strategy IS to delay as long as possible and hope the Shrub will pull their ass out of the fire. Well, that's equally cynical, and every bit as much "Banana Republic" as you allege against the DOJ.

Let's remind ourselves of who is recommending the most expeditious resolution of this case. Judge Jackson is the one who made this decision. Why the hell would he want to help out Clinton? Sure, he doesn't want to be reversed, but if that's his aim, then he's going to go for the most legally defensible ruling he can come up with. Notice, again, how hard he's tried to get the two parties to settle. That doesn't sound like the actions of a rabid trust-buster, now, does it?

In pursuing a delaying strategy, MS seems to be accepting that, judicially, they don't have much to stand on (speaking cautiously: all indications are that a witness of theirs lied, and incredibly clumsily, at one point during the trial, and on a non-trivial issue -- that infects ALL of their testimony).

Maybe the point of pushing this through on the current watch is precisely that the decision that's made is LESS LIKELY to be made on the basis of irrelevant factors. At least, whatever people may think of Jackson's knowledge of the IT industry, I think it's pretty clear that the Shrub's is likely to be much, much worse (again, I speak with the lawyers).

Economist: enough! costs would go down

[hawk]

Switching to my professor of economics hat . . .

Administrative costs are a *dis*economy of scale at that size, not an economy of scale. It costs *more* to run a single huge HR department than it does to run two pieces. Perhaps not a lot more (maybe only the single top manager), but the split causes efficiencies, not inefficiencies, in this area.

If windows had competition (which, unfortunately, won't be caused by the remedies), it would cost half to a quarter what it costs now. The retail price of a machine would drop by $50 to $75.

Office would likely drop in price as well, although I'm not as certain on that--it still faces some (but not a lot) fo pricing pressure from the vestigal competition.

hawk

Re:Eh?

[Zico]

Please explain what you're talking about. Outlook says what it does and does what it says. If you get an email with a .vbs file in it, you have to first click the attachment icon, select the .vbs file, then a message pops up which reads, "WARNING: Web pages, executables, and other attachments may contain viruses or scripts that can be harmful to your computer. It is important to be certain that this file is from a trustworthy source. What would you like to do with this file? Open it | Save it to disk." How many hoops do you want the user to have to jump through, anyway? If they don't get the idea by that point, it's just too bad for them -- they're going to be just as susceptible to someone sending them an attachment and telling them to save it and run it from their hard drive.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[shroom]

I usually ignore fundamentalist crap like this, but I'll take my shot at this one.

The court has turned the meaning of this protection around by prohibiting public displays of religion

Careful there, Sparky. The Court has not ruled against public displays of religion (and in fact supports said displays), the Court has ruled against government-sponsored public displays of religion. Small difference on paper, but very different things.

(though they typically only enfoce this against the Christian sects, other religions are deemed to bring a proper "diversity" to public life)

Typical Christian fundamentalist crap. Please cite an example Supreme Court opinion.

instead of adhering to its proper intent, which is that the federal government could not create a state religion and tie the rights of citizenship to membership within the state religion. The authors of the Amendment were quite accepting of the individual states having an official religion, but because the states had different sects, they didn't want the federal government to choose one over the others.

HUH? Say what? I studied the Constitution quite thoroughly in school and I've read a lot about the Bill of Rights and its intents, and I have NEVER heard that one. Which camp told you that? Buchannon, Robertson, or Falwell? The Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court (and the ACLU, and the list goes on and on) all have consistently said that freedom of religion means the right to practice the religion of your choice - or none at all. This means that the government cannot endorse any particular religion. Period.

-Shroom (Jeff Sand)

Re:Offtopic. Flame my ass.

[Cool Hand Luke]

Are you done pissing on Christianity? Okay, zip those trousers up.

I agree with the jist of your point. I take exception to throwing the whole of Christianity into the "Bad Religion Closet".

Now let's narrow your target, shall we? When you say Christianity, you mean the Roman Catholic Chruch, right? After all, throwing out the Holocaust and the Crusades as "crimes" usually is done when arguing against the Catholic Church, right? You know, running around blaming a *whole* religion for everything that's ever gone wrong in the world is fine and dandy. We all need something to rally against, wheither it's the Church, the Government, Republicans, Democrats, Pokemon, etc.

But I'm Catholic. Flame on about the Church all you want; but don't damn the whole faith with it.

*I* don't agree with all the Chruch's teachings. I'm sure as hell not proud that the Church sat on its papal ass durning the Holcaust, and don't even get started on the Crusades. But I truly believe that the Pope, and most of the Church leaders, from priests and nuns on up, are good people trying to help people lead moral lives. Really. However, they're *people*, and, thus, have been/are/will be wrong. I believe in a woman's right to choose; I think the Church should marry gay couples; etc. I know the Church doesn't agree with this. Maybe this makes me a bad Catholic and I should take up Wicca instead. ;)

But I believe the whole nine yards about Jesus, salvation, etc. That's my *faith*. To attack *that* as being wrong or evil is to attack me.

Go after assholes claiming the Bible tells them to hate gays, kill doctors who perform abortion etc. Yell at the Church for not having women priests or promoting overpopulation in the world.

Leave my faith alone.

(On second thought, maybe we Christians have a huge prosecution complex after all. Was that little rant a cry of prosecution or what?) ;)

George Lee

This sucks...

[Picass0]

I have NO love for Micro$oft. Linux is my OS of choice. I lurk on Slashdot enough each day my employer would get pissed if they caught on.

"SO?" I hear you say.

Even though I believe in Linux I think Micro$oft is entitled to due process. The DOJ is ram-roding this thing to the Supreame Court to resolve this during the current administration. Reno knows if the Republicans win in November Bush stands to appoint three Supreame Court Justices. Reno will also be out on her butt. Microsoft 's best chance is to try and run the clock on the Clinton.

You are thinking "Just another reason to move this along as fast as possible!"

If you want to endorse banana republic justice, then you're right. But the DOJ did not make a good case. That's the real reason they want to avoid the appeals process. As a Slashdot reader, you know how Linux, Unix, and Mac OS get jerked around by MS. How about OEMs? Kerberos. Samba. Come on, sing along. Caldera. Java. Instant Messaging. FUD. Fixed Mindcraft Benchmarking tests.

We know there are real charges to be leveled at Microsoft, and DOJ made a case out of a free web browser. Microsoft deserves to be bitchslapped. But it should be for something real, not something Reno pulled out of her ass.

I also hold the opinion that if there is anybody I trust less inside my CPU than Microsoft it's Uncle Sam. I see the door being opened up, no, make that being thrown wide open to regulation. As open source developers how do you feel about the concept of US government controls on Linux code? How do you feel about it over there in Finland?

Maybe it would be fun to see Microsoft get carved into little pieces, but we need to be careful what we wish for.

Re:Eh?

[shilly]

I will happily explain what I'm talking about. I'm talking about secure and safe design. Text messages are irrelevant if a user can launch a virus by clicking twice or pressing return twice. Providing a warning is useless in a system that is predicated on not having to think too carefully about what you're doing--which precisely describes what Outlook attempts to do. The power source in a PC has a label on it warning of the dangers of opening it up. However, the manufacturers wisely decided that that wasn't enough. So, they made sure it's not too easy to get into the box physically as well. Secure design is hardly some sort of obscure part of industrial design, you know...and Outlook isn't secure. Saying "it's just too bad for the user" is not just pointless, it's wrong--commercial organisations are supposed to listen and respond to their customers' experiences. Microsoft used to trumpet the fact that it did this on a bigger scale than any other software company on the planet. Doesn't boast about that much at the moment.

Steve

Re:Wrong

[phutureboy]

Three kinds of people oppose this breakup:
[snip]

Capitalist fundamentalist libertarians (we all know what circle of hell reactionary political thinkers go to)

Dammit DaveWood, I'm a capitalist libertarian, though I tend to think of myself as more practical than fundamentalist. I oppose antitrust laws because I don't want to live under a Soviet-style command economy, which is the direction the U.S. is heading. I don't understand what's so radical or reactionary about that.

I respect your right to disagree with me, but if you're going to do so, please do it without tossing around bullshit labels.

The end result? 90% of the world runs Windows. Extremely unfortunate. Don't kid yourself for a minute that it's because it's a "better product."

Can you name an operating system that is more suitable for Joe Six-Pack than Windows?

I suggest that there hasn't been one in the last five years, and that Microsoft's market dominance is due mostly to the fact that no competitor had their shit together enough to correctly produce and market one. In other words, being in the right place at the right time with the closest product for the majority of the people.

Don't get me wrong - I pretty much despise Microsoft, and I want to see them fall from power, but I want to see them beaten in the marketplace, not in the courtroom. Many Slashdotters seem to think they are unbeatable, but I see them as being extremely vulnerable in the market right now, mostly to free software, ASPs and AOL/Netscape/Time-Warner. All of us here know how fast Internet time goes by - new paradigms and business models could reduce MS to a shadow of itself in a matter of days. I think that is likely to happen.

Re:Wrong

[divec]

Mac, so praised for the greateness of its UI [...] technically is even more behind than Windows.

Remember that Microsoft got their monopoly position using Windows 3.x and only consolidated it with Windows 9x. You'd be hard-pressed to say that Windows 3.x was better than the best of the competition in any way apart from ubiquity of applications - and that happened because MS was big and already had a DOS monopoly to leverage.

Microsoft cannot abandon their user base and start from scratch (like BeOS.)

Yes they can. The only difference is that they'll have bad publicity and they'll be half a trillion dollars richer.

Re:+1 Funny

[luckykaa]

Yep. Slashdot suffers from an irony shortage, methinks.

Re:Thank god

[session]

However breaking them up doesn't really solve any of this....we need to force open standards.

This is exactly the point I was trying to make in my other posts. Breaking Microsoft up will not necessarily help anything. The problem is proprietary protocols and methods that no one else can use.

I'm not convinced OSS is the answer, not yet at least. Open standards, however, seem very much on target.

I'm also very, VERY afraid of government involvement in the day-to-day actions of any business, no matter how bad. Let's face it: if StarOffice offered a MUCH better way of doing things (and it's free), people would start using it more. If there was an open standard as how to save and load documents/data, this would help things even more. Simply separating MS Office from the Windows side of things won't help.

Re:Thank god

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

I know my PC's as a solaris box and a Mac box. Microsoft didn't create anything (and before you mark me as flamebait) they just were the best accumulator of existing techniques and technologies. The PC that we know today is essentially the same as the Xerox PARC system, and an Apple II, or a VAX. Microsoft accumulated concepts to make their system - and to some degree, that's what's gotten them into trouble.

Re:God damnit!!

[ffault]

IPChains & IPMasquerading have never crashed on me...neither has Linux. I paid nearly $1000 for a whole suite of backoffice for NT one time..and MS Proxy server crashes on me. Hell, I didn't pay a dime for Linux Firewalling...even if it did crash I wouldn't care :P

Insightful? More like inciteful

[kevin805]

Is this not a complete flame? Is there something I'm missing?

On what planet is this insightful?

Re:Wrong

[phutureboy]

They simply had no incentive to try. Monopoly, after all.

If Microsoft, as a monopoly, had zero competition they would not have had any reason whatsoever to release new versions of the Windows OS. They could have stopped at 3.1, or 95, and just kept selling that until the end of time. The fact that they do update their OS from time to time proves that they have competition. Why else would they spend the R&D money to develop new versions instead of simply coasting forever?

Now I would say its true that they had little incentive to try, but thats because no other company stepped with an operating system that even came close to sucking less than Windows. OS/2 started making great progress, but IBM didn't market it very well. Someone here said that was because they weren't allowed to because of behavioral remedies from their own antitrust troubles. (can anyone from IBM confirm/deny this?) If this is true then I would say that the antitrust laws are pretty anti-competitive.

No company, not even Microsoft, can hold a dominant market position forever, even (especially) with obnoxious business tactics. Every successful company gets complacent and drops the ball at some point.

Re:Thank god

[jelizondo]

FYI Microsoft did not invent the PC nor it did the OS (DOS) that ran on the first IBM PC. The first PC is arguably the Altair (or the Apple II according to who you ask) and the MS-DOS original program was a pirated version of CP/M. Of course, MS was "innovating" from day one!

Re:Makes no sense to most Non-Americans

[0x0000]

Yes, M$ opened a research division in India. We know. We know M$ is supporting visas for you non-amerikans because all the amerikan programmers are so greedy and incompetent.... We also know other non-ameikans, so we know how full of shit you really are.

If M$ were what non-amerikans thought of when they think of the US, then amerikans would be damn glad for what Jackson has done, since most amerikans are honest, law-abiding citizens who despise the criminal mentality that has created M$.

Amerikans also understand you know what side your bread is buttered on; relax and enjoy. Amerikans are hoping M$ will move its entire operation to India or Malaysia, or somewhere that cannot confused with Amerika in the minds of the world.

Amerikans are sick of M$. M$ is un-Amerikan, and should get the hell out. Let some other country enjoy the same "benefits" amerikans have been stuck with for the last decade. Let M$ go fuck with the national security of some other country. Are you volunteering? Call M$. I understand they are reviewing offers.

Sorry man, you are really pathetic.

I was asking the same thing earlier

[Greyfox]

Screaming from between the lines of the assorted news stories regarding Microsoft's request that the Appeals court and not the Supreme Court be allowed to hear this: "We've paid enough bribes to the appeals court to buy Equador and we don't want to have to do the same thing to the Supreme Court." Of course, I'm paranoid, twisted and cynical. Moreover some people might find it quite offensive that I'd suggest that any of this country's fine public officials could be bought by a corporate interest. Obviously they've been looking out for the public and the consumer for all recorded history.

Re:I was asking the same thing earlier

[Tejota]

How much easier would it be to bribe a single Judge (Jackson) than a whole COURT (10 Judges).

I doubt that either has happened, but I'm SURE
that there's no way you could bribe a whole
appeals court and keep it quiet.

Re:Wrong

[DaveWood]

MacOS doesn't live up to the hype, but it's still better than windows, as primitive as it is. I can agree there are few credible threats on the consumer desktop. A few have come and gone. The issue that I made a point of highlighting is that good works in the space weren't even undertaken, or if they were, didn't reach a level of recognition necessary for their continued development - because they had no expectation of success against the monopoly.

As for what Microsoft could have or should have done, allow me to suggest a commonly used architectural feature which allows the isolation of legacy code from a more modern core - the boxed-emulation strategy. Consider Wine as the outer limits of such an approach, and VMWare as the other extreme.

In other words, take a good OS, support the legacy with an emulation layer, add Moore's law, and stir. If you do it properly, and there are plenty of examples one can point to of that being done, you win on both fronts. Microsoft could have done this three different ways by now. This is not rocket science. They simply had no incentive to try. Monopoly, after all.

Don't be so sure about Dubya

[ballestra]

He's working hard to get Silicon Valley support so he can have a fighting chance in California. If the Valley is behind this case (and AFAIK they are) then Bush would have a lot of reasons not to interfere.

Besides, dropping the case would be politically equivalent to Ford pardoning Nixon combined with passing a special "Bill Gates Only" tax cut. Bush may be pro-business, but he still wants to look like he cares for the little guy too.

"What I cannot create, I do not understand."

Wrong

[DaveWood]

Microsoft did not choose to compete by releasing superior products. There is little excuse for this as far as I can see; they had for all intents and purposes virtually unlimited resources.

They did however, actively and willfully, attempt to ruin competitors with better alternatives to their own products, through a variety of "strategic acquisitions," lawsuits, deals with OEMs, chipmakers, and distributors, "feature copy jobs" released for free to bottom out markets, selectively concealed APIs, "embrace and extend" nonsense, and need I really go on? The trial is public record. So are their emails.

The end result? 90% of the world runs Windows. Extremely unfortunate. Don't kid yourself for a minute that it's because it's a "better product." Anyone with any technical sense (let alone sufficient experience with the product) laughs bitterly when they hear this. Everyone knows it's a mess in there. /.'ers are (generally) technically savvy people and understand this easily. The public at large may not be so fortunate. Sadly, for a variety of reasons both legal, illegal, and unfortunate, they have not been exposed to any of the better alternatives that exist, to speak nothing of the ones which never existed, because of the way the "marketplace" has developed.

Three kinds of people oppose this breakup:

• Microsoft employees and stockholders (stupid, it will probably benefit them in the end)
• Capitalist fundamentalist libertarians (we all know what circle of hell reactionary political thinkers go to)
• And the lowliest of all, Microsoft propaganda victims (did I peg you with this one or what?)

Re:Wrong

[Maserati]

They do have incentive for releasing new versions. Upgrade dollars. If you don't update the OS, then your customers won't have anything to buy. Your revenue will come only from new customers, and that's not enough. Note Microsoft's shift towards application rental - which guarantees an excellent cash flow (unless they fail miserably)

And lets face it, (Windows 1.0 )needed work.

Re:Wrong

[DaveWood]

I respect your respect, phutureboy, and pardon me for making light of your beliefs, but you've never been to the Soviet Union, and worse, I think you actually buy into the whole communist/anti-communist polemic, when the truth is far more subtle.

Unfortunately, now you've got me started.

For you to even suggest what we are "moving towards" is a "command economy" from what we've seen here is a pretty sad little knee-jerk. Have you've studied much history, let alone economics? Would you know what a command economy sounds like if you were getting spanked by one? Have you any idea the details of what Microsoft had to do to get themselves in the position they're in?

Most of all, this irks me because monopoly law is so basic. The fact of the matter is, capitalism screws up. It's logical for it to be screwed up. It follows easily that consolidation of wealth and mergers across interests will progress until they become self-sustaining. The more consolidated a marketplace, the less incentive there is to compete, and the easier it becomes to fix prices, with or without explicit collaboration. In many situations it's possible to end up with a single dominant entity controlling an entire market, with barriers to entry which are too forbidding for anyone to challenge. In these cases, the only thing between you and economic, technical, and social stagnation is a well-organized democratic government. The state where competition benefits "consumers" is, in many industries, a transitory accident.

Captialism is not a panacea. Nothing is, besides collective intelligence. Reactionary belief in capitalism as somehow stronger or more productive a force than democracy shows a failure to understand what makes trouble for democracy in the first place.

The worst part is that you're sitting there on your Windows computer writing this. Hard-core, Reagan-era capitalism didn't give you a very good operating system, did it?

What do I mean? Well, you go ahead and consider that question every time you crash and reboot. ("Oh, but I didn't crash all week!" Sigh...) No, really, think about it for a minute. Because since the late 1980's there has been no good reason for your computer to ever have crashed. Yes, it's really true. Ask around.

For reference, BTW, it is now 2000. And if you want to know why it is we are now moving up on two decades of unnecessary crashing... I'll give you a hint... it's in one of my earlier messages...

Re:Wrong

[phutureboy]

For you to even suggest what we are "moving towards" is a "command economy" from what we've seen here is a pretty sad little knee-jerk. Have you've studied much history, let alone economics? Would you know what a command economy sounds like if you were getting spanked by one? Have you any idea the details of what Microsoft had to do to get themselves in the position they're in?

Why yes, I've studied just a wee bit of history (mostly U.S.) and economics ;)

My feeling that we're headed in the direction of a fully state-controlled economy comes from my observations over the last 12 years, the historical record of the U.S. before and after the 1930's (the period when statist economic policies exploded) the recent resurgence of antitrust enforcement, and from listening to C-Span every day on the car radio.

Most of all, this irks me because monopoly law is so basic. The fact of the matter is, capitalism screws up. It's logical for it to be screwed up. It follows easily that consolidation of wealth and mergers across interests will progress until they become self-sustaining. The more consolidated a marketplace, the less incentive there is to compete, and the easier it becomes to fix prices, with or without explicit collaboration. In many situations it's possible to end up with a single dominant entity controlling an entire market, with barriers to entry which are too forbidding for anyone to challenge. In these cases, the only thing between you and economic, technical, and social stagnation is a well-organized democratic government. The state where competition benefits "consumers" is, in many industries, a transitory accident.

This is a misconception about capitalism that was first propagated by Karl Marx, and has become very popular in the U.S. during the last 75 years.

Consider that consolidation is not always bad. Sometimes it brings with it economies of scale, which can lower price and increase quality for consumers.

Alan Greenspan wrote once in a piece called 'Antitrust' that if entry into a given field of production is not impeded by government regulations, franchises, or subsidies, "the ultimate regulator of competition in a free economy is the capital market. So long as capital is free to flow, it will tend to seek those areas which offer the maximum rate of return." Investors are constantly seeking the most profitable uses of their capital. If, therefore, some field of production is seen to be highly profitable (particularly due to high prices rather than to low costs), businessmen and investors necessarily will be attracted to that field; and as the supply of the product in question is increased relative to the demand for it, prices fall accordingly.

In other words, when capital is allowed to flow freely, even a large conglomerate that has 99.9% market share cannot raise prices with impunity, or VCs and potential competitors will start eyeing that market as a profitable one and will move in to take a chunk of it.

Captialism is not a panacea. Nothing is, besides collective intelligence. Reactionary belief in capitalism as somehow stronger or more productive a force than democracy shows a failure to understand what makes trouble for democracy in the first place.

What greater manifestation of collective intelligence is there than the trillions of economic decisions made every day in the marketplace?

That is the exact point of capitalism (aka free-market economics) - that the collection of economic choices made by billions of free individuals drive efficiency and productivity far better than some committee of suits in Washington could ever dream of.

The worst part is that you're sitting there on your Windows computer writing this. Hard-core, Reagan-era capitalism didn't give you a very good operating system, did it?

Actually I'm writing this on my Linux-Mandrake 7.0 computer. Occasionally X or Netscape will flake out, but the OS itself never crashes :)

Here are some links you may find useful in learning more about the free-market point of view:

http://www.laissezfaire.org/ (Laissez-Faire books)

http://www.free-market.net/

http://www.mises.org/ (Von Mises Institute)

CATO Institute

Re:Wrong

[DaveWood]

Thank you. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Re:Wrong

[DaveWood]

"Why yes, I've studied just a wee bit of history (mostly U.S.) and economics ;)

My feeling that we're headed in the direction of a fully state-controlled economy comes from my observations over the last 12 years, the historical record of the U.S. before and after the 1930's (the period when statist economic policies exploded) the recent resurgence of antitrust enforcement, and from listening to C-Span every day on the car radio."

Sue your teachers.

"This is a misconception about capitalism that was first propagated by Karl Marx, and has become very popular in the U.S. during the last 75 years.

Consider that consolidation is not always bad. Sometimes it brings with it economies of scale, which can lower price and increase quality for consumers."

Sometimes it does. Often it does not.

As for capital flowing freely, you will have to give me your opinion about how freely it has been flowing in the past 25 years. Regardless, capital is not the only barrier to entry into a market, as has been amply demonstrated in our industry. You would do well to read through the specific details of what constituted Microsoft's loss in their case. The judge didn't find every single instance of anti-competitive behavior, but the coverage overall was adequate.

"What greater manifestation of collective intelligence is there than the trillions of economic decisions made every day in the marketplace?

That is the exact point of capitalism (aka free-market economics) - that the collection of economic choices made by billions of free individuals drive efficiency and productivity far better than some committee of suits in Washington could ever dream of."

Simply put, the "trillions of economic decisions" can be supplimented nicely with thorough and intelligent application existing antitrust laws. That legislation did not get written on a lark. You would also do well to study the circumstances under which it was written, and to examine its applications in the intervening years.

On their own, those "trillions of economic decisions" will naturally create an environment, towards which each step has been based on sound economic thinking, where competition has been throttled, or in many cases eliminated.

Consolidation does indeed create "economies of scale" - but it does a lot more than that. Markets are interconnected, and diversification can have network effects (what many economists call "collateral gains"). It is the net effect of these collateral gains that put individuals in the easy position of performing an "anti-competitive act" - denying rival carriers fairly priced access to your network infrastructure, rival online services access to your operating system's desktop, or, finally, spending your ample ill-gotten gains to simply crush the competition, through acquisition or manipulation of entire markets (i.e. flooding).

It is this subtle point that the libertarian party line is unable to acknowledge or answer. But it means that capitalism alone is not a substitute for democracy. Worse, blind praise for the notion of "voting with dollars" is the equivalent of admitting an unhealthy attraction for an aristocratic state.

But to stay on the main point, what you are misunderstanding (in your condemnation of "suits in Washington") is that the same forces which threaten democracy threaten capitalism as well. Human nature is pervasive. Dispensing with the notion of a democratic government does not dispense with the general malaise that makes it unpleasant today. And the "alternatives" you are describing are nothing new. We have seen them before here in this country, and can see them today elsewhere. Libertarians are ultimately, either through ignorance or deliberate and malicious self-interest, describing nothing more than governence by plutocrats. Are you really so ignorant to the consequences of collective "governance" accountable to nothing but an individual's monetary success? Rest assured, we have gotten to the place where we are today through hard and frequent experience.

You didn't happen to be there to see it, and apparently lack a sufficient understanding of history to appreciate it after the fact, but I assure you, the golden years of unfettered capitalism in this country were not an era you would have liked to live in. Unless, of course, you were lucky enough to have been born into the (considerably smaller than it is today) upper class. The day of the unfettered capitalist is over, because it led to injustice profound enough, to foster public outcry so powerful, that even your "suits in Washington" were unable to ignore it and keep their jobs. Imagine that.

But in all seriousness, you really have to stop talking about command economies. There are a few really poor policies related to certain commodities in the US, but rest assured, you have never seen a real command economy. Anti-trust law and command economies have nothing in common, in spirit or practice.

"Actually I'm writing this on my Linux-Mandrake 7.0 computer. Occasionally X or Netscape will flake out, but the OS itself never crashes :)"

I'm very pleased for you. (However, your non-proletarian tendencies make you an enemy of the state. You and your family will now be sent to a reeducation camp. A cadre of trained state economists will be reformatting your hard drive shortly. Muahahaha.)

I appreciate the links. You may be surprised to learn that I am well acquainted with all of them, and have in fact studied the Libertarian party extensively. I agree with their views on many issues. Unfortunately, dogma is still dogma. Most people accept a party line because they are not sufficiently qualified to have their own. To your credit, I find few card-carrying libertarians willing to engage in a free-thinking debate on the merits of the issues. Unfortunately, I remain unconvinced that Microsoft represents good capitalism at work, or that the larger issues of laissez faire capitalism currently spoken of contain anything to distinguish them from historical and current failures.

Re:Wrong

[Christian Smith]

So it was nothing to do with the fact that NT was:
1. Slow. That 'modified microkernel' architecture was a dog on slow (fast at the time!) machines.
2. Expensive. Still is now.
3. Bloated. Needed 16 Meg from the outset. A lot for the desktop in '93.
4. Had no native applications. Not even MS could be arsed to port Office to it until Windows95 was released.

I beleive NT was for future investment, waiting for the desktop hardware to catch up. Releasing it in 93 was probably just a token effort to get some mindshare early.

Re: Is British Columbia still an option?

[phutureboy]

The short answer is that there are now a lot of departments that serve the whole company that would have to be duplicated: HR, R&D, marketing, executive management, distribution, building maintenance, information systems, accounting, legal, and so on.

On your last point, I think a standard published API *would* allow for better, more interoperable 3rd party software, and that anyone who says otherwise is just blowing smoke. I don't think that MS should be forced to publish their private intellectual property though.

I personally have a great distaste for closed and manipulated standards, so I vote with my dollars by not using MS products.

FUCK YOU, THEOCRAT!

[kevin805]

What's troubling about hostility to religion? Freedom of religion means when I go to a state supported event, I won't be forced to endure any religious bullshit.

Where do you get the idea that prayers at a (school sponsered, and tax money paid for) graduation or football game is NOT "establishment of religion"? Oh, is it because it happens to be your religion that's getting bitch slapped for crossing the line?

Or are we playing the "the student was just making a speach, and the school couldn't have known what he would say". If the intent of the law is religious, it's illegal. The supreme court has been very consistent on this matter. It's not what is happening, it's whether was is happening because some BUREAUCRAT, ABUSING HIS POWER, was trying to ENTANGLE GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION. And the supreme court says, "no, you can't do that".

Now, I agree that certain people on the supreme court are totally out to lunch, like the recent (4 judge) dissent that the feds had the authority to prosecute rapist on the grounds that it interferes with interstate commerce. They are clearly in the pocket of "it's our job to make sure everything works, just so long as we can work around the constitution".

The difference between Pat Buchanan and Louis Farrakhan is that Buchanan's positions just seem to somehow end up as actual practice, while Farrakhan is ignored. We attack Buchanan because he is an actual danger. Farrakhan is just a nut in a bow tie.

(let's see, is there anyone else I can offend...)

Re:FUCK YOU, THEOCRAT!

[Overt Coward]

What's troubling about hostility to religion?

Because a society that is constantly hostile to religion, particularly a specific religion, inevitably leads to religious persecution. Check your history.

--

Re:Sham argument #276

[Greyfox]

I prefer "You're obviously an idiot so I must be right." It doesn't make friends of slashdot posters or federal judges, though.

Re:Thank god

[Fiwer]

You forgot to mention they made the first (and only) GOOD GUI in computing history. Despite all the bugs and problems, Windows remains the only decent, GRAPHICAL, OS. There's other great ones like Unix of course, but we're talking about PC's, not servers.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[DaveWood]

Heh. That's too bad. Now we'll never hear from him again. :)

Re:Thank god

[delmoi]

Imagine if Ford motors had established itself as a monopoly in the creation of cars, in the 20s would you just assume that chrysler couldn't create good cars,

huh? Are you saying that chrysler can make good cars?

Sounds Good...

[DustyHodges]

Looks like this is another great victory for the government against MS. Microsoft has helped alot to pioneer the industry, and allow for PC's to be as cheap as they are, by running on any hardware. That, in turn, has allowed for the door to be opened for Linux.

However, now the time has passed. The MS monopoly has gone on for too long, and something needs to come in and break them up if anyone hopes to get their foot in the door.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[FangVT]

The Justices have obviously been following the case, they know how MS acted throughout the trial. Not just one or two Justices but all of them, and they are informed enough to stop 3 of them from sitting due to conflict on interest. If they follow their conservative background then they will rule in favor of the economy, which is against MS.

Given that the "conflict of interest" that the three judges were removed for was that they previously worked for the DOJ, I have a hard time seeing their removal as anything but pro-Microsoft.

Spinnin', spinnin'

[Mark Edwards]

I thought it was funny that after all Microsoft's delay tactics, they publicly stated that with the Appeals Court taking the case, the government can no longer delay the outcome of the trial.

Huh? Spinning the hell out of it, and pretending that nobody else would notice?

I have a feeling that Judge Jackson's stay of the conduct remedies is just an attempt to give Microsoft enough rope to hang itself, by showing that they still won't play nice in the interim...


Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

M$FT's Actions

[slackerboy]

Anyone know if Judge Jackson had some more "strong wording" in this one because Microsoft started appealing before he finished ruling? Just curious.
-Slackerboy

+1 Funny

[SteveM]

Come on, this had to be sarcasm!

Eh?

[Zico]

If you don't want to use Windows, why should you have any say whether or not their APIs are open? The decision should be influenced by Microsoft's customers, partners, and shareholders, not by the few jealous Microsoft haters, who could care less about Microsoft's customers anyway.

Which Outlook security problem wasn't fixed?

You didn't pay full price for that Windows media that you got from an OEM, either, so why should you get the entire thing? Now, if you do want the full media, just tell your OEM that you want it, and they'll give it to you. Note that your OEM might also charge you extra for it, but it's their choice. And your choice to keep buying from that OEM, when there are other PC manufacturers which don't have that policy.

If you want an example of a Microsoft app that lost to a competing product, how about you come up with a Microsoft app that beat out a better comparable and competing product? Internet Explorer is much better than Netscape, which is why Netscape lost. Word Perfect got tossed around between various companies and produced a goose egg, and that's why they lost to Word. Lotus took forever to update Ami Pro 3.1 -- I used to love Ami Pro and only switched to Word (and not until Word 95) when Ami Pro made all us faithful users sit and wait while Word surpassed it. I used to use Quattro Pro, but I don't know many people who think that Excel isn't the best spreadsheet around. Intuit started putting out shoddy Quicken products, so Microsoft Money left them in the dust. Wait a second, you say that Quicken is still the best product? Oh yeah, now that I think about it, Quicken really is pretty good. And if you notice, Quicken still holds the clear lead in the personal finance software area. Starting to see the connection? Oracle makes a great database, and lo and behold, they too rake in more dough than Microsoft does with SQL Server on the NT/2000 platform. Adobe's Photoshop trounces Microsoft's PhotoDraw, and the market share reflects it. Pretty simple pattern, no?

Actually, I think one sentence from your post sums up your attitude better than I could: "Your bias towards M$ products is making me sick." (emphasis mine) I'm also surprised to hear that Irix never needs a reboot. I'm only familiar with Irix on a user level so you'll have to enlighten me, but they never have kernel upgrades that you need to reboot to install? You should also note that all Unices aren't the same -- I can't speak for Irix, but my ES 450 running Solaris 7 and one of my RedHat 6.0 boxes have each crashed more often (once and three times, respectively) than any of my Win2K servers and workstations have since release candidate 2 (zero), and the number of Linux and Win2K reboots have been running neck-and-neck (the crash was the only time the ES 450 has rebooted since I've owned it).

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:Eh?

[Zico]

They still boast about that all the time, and with good reason. And I'm sorry that Outlook is too easy to use for you, but some of us like our software that way, instead of having to jump through a million hoops just to get something simple done. Software should be a way to get things done efficiently, not an ordeal for users.

And those two sentences above explain exactly why Microsoft enjoys such a commanding lead in the OS market, so much so that they're getting sued by jealous competitors over it.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:Eh?

[Zico]

The ILOVEYOU trojan wasn't autorun by Outlook. The user had to run the script manually. It's the same as if the email had said, "Save this file on your hard drive and run it!" It didn't exploit any security hole. Now, you earlier stated that they didn't release anything for it, but they actually did release a patch for Outlook to help discourage people from running any executable content that they receive via email. I and many others aren't bothering to install it because we already know not to execute unknown programs.

Actually, IE didn't pass Netscape until after IE 5 came out, and plenty of people thought that IE 4 was better than Netscape anyway. I eagerly downloaded every Netscape beta from some point during the 2.x series up until the 4.01 version, when it became obvious how shoddy the product was, and ever since then, my Netscape downloads have been few and far between. Oracle and Access aren't comparable products -- did you mean SQL Server? -- and Oracle's still extremely strong on NT.

Actually, my Win2K experience seems to be typical of everyone but Slashdotters, who seem to have these mysterious problems with the stability that other independent publications don't seem to have. It's been absolutely rock solid since even before the release of the final code.

Win2K and SQL Server 2K beta currently hold the record, by a huge margin, in the TPC benchmarks, so it seems like they aren't doing too bad against the other vendors. I'll be interested in checking out the Win2K Datacenter Server, or whatever they end up calling it, when it's released, since I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

And yes, you can go buy from another OEM. They are most definitely not making all OEMs do this (and actually, there's a good deal of speculation that the OEMs are the ones who wanted this policy instituted rather than Microsoft). Go check out the article from InfoWorld about the recovery CD debate. I don't have the link on me, but I think it comes up if you search for "recovery cd". I think TheRegister also had an article about it, but I haven't been able to find it in their archives for some time now.

When did we start comparing uptimes? You brought up stability, so that's what I talked about. I don't consider a forced reboot to be the same as a crash, especially a Unix crash, and particularly a Linux crash where it's time to start dragging out the backup tapes if you're not lucky. As should have been clear by inference, my Solaris server has had a much better uptime than the Win2K or Linux boxes, since the crash was the only time it's been rebooted at all since I've owned it. The Win2K and Linux boxes have been about the same, between installing hotfixes and kernel patches and new hardware. If you doubt Win2K's stability, check out just about any non-Slashdot (or Slashdot-type, you know what kind of places I'm talking about here) source of information.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:Eh?

[talesout]

Given time and left alone, Microsoft's products would eventually surpass the competing products in numbers sold. Why, because they eventually bundle what they can't push on people immediately. Internet Explorer isn't really superior to Netscape. Internet Explorer was put into Windows because Microsoft knew that they couldn't beat Netscape fair and sqare on technical terms. Money is slowly gaining ground on Quicken, and SQL server isn't old enough to look at as an example (I know it's been around for a while, but give it some more time. Microsoft sometimes takes years to figure out a strategy, look how long they missed the boat on Internet technology).

As to Microsoft opening up APIs, who the hell cares? Windows is useless to me, so I don't. But all of those other companies trying to make Windows software probably do. They aren't Microsofts enemies until Microsoft makes them so by trying to leverage thier existing market (OS market share) to push into the developers market (application market share). As to security in Outlook. How many times in the last month have we seen some new virus that attacks only MS systems running some version of Outlook. The bugs have not been fixed, as the viruses keep taking advantage of them.

Just because you are blind to the problems do not mean that they don't exist.
BTW. I love how the MS articles bring out the rabid wintrolls. It can get pretty intense.

Re:Eh?

[shilly]

"The ILOVEYOU trojan wasn't autorun by Outlook. The user had to run the script manually. It's the same as if the email had said, "Save this file on your hard drive and run it!" It didn't exploit any security hole. Now, you earlier stated that they didn't release anything for it, but they actually did release a patch for Outlook to help discourage people from running any executable content that they receive via email. I and many others aren't bothering to install it because we already know not to execute unknown programs."

As a talented sophist, you can presumably supply a good reason why MS ignored basic principles of security, such as "construct a realistic threat model and design accordingly"--could you please share it with the rest of us? I, for one, would like to see the Outlook design team take a trip in a car designed along the same principles. "Whaddya mean you thought turning the steering wheel clockwise would turn the car right? Don't you know better than to do something like that without checking first?"

Re:Oh jeez... (OT)

[Andrew Cady]

Public schools aren't exactly "parts" of the government, but the activities of public schools are considered to be sponsored by the government. (And they are. All a school needs to do in order to not only sponsor prayers but discriminate explicitly against people who decline to participate in them, is turn down public funding. But your right to discriminate ends once you accept the tax-dollars of American Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, atheists, etc.)

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[Overt Coward]

How is having school officials perform religious acts *not* constituting an 'establishment of religion', and how does it not deprive me of religious freedom?

That's not what the case in question is about -- the case involved a school where a student, not a school official, would be selected by his or her peers, not the school officials, to make a pre-game statement of his or her own choosing on a topic of his or her own choosing.

In addition to totally screwing up the establisment clause, the Court is engaging in prior restraint, becuase this is only a proposed policy that has not yet been put into action...

--

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[aphrael]

I'm probably getting dragged into a flame war here, but ...

I'm a taoist. I do *not* believe in Christ, or Christian theology. I am required by law to send any children I have to public school, or otherwise provide schooling for them *in a manner acceptable to the state*.

How is having school officials perform religious acts *not* constituting an 'establishment of religion', and how does it not deprive me of religious freedom?

Guessing What the SC Will Do

[llywrch]

include disclaimer.h:

#I am not a lawyer

When the matter is important, the SC can move quickly & decisively: witness their decision on the Watergate tapes in 1974, & made unanimously.

My guess is that they will consider just how much time this will take, & whether they can clear their docket to hear it in 12 months or less. If they can't hear the case quickly, they'll kick it back to the Appellate Court.

What'll be particularly interesting is if it is referred back with one or two dissents. These dissents will provide some clue of how the SC is thinking, & a wise lawyer will read them carefully to see how to proceed. I'm sure the Appellate Court will study them, since these statements will suggest to them how any decision they make will be upheld or overturned.

Whether or not MS's lawyers study these dissents is an open question. So far they have not shown the insight to pick up on hints like these from the bench.

Geoff

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[cje]

The hostility toward religion, especially Christian religions, in current society is troubling.

Sorry, but this really burns me. I'm sure you're aware that there are people in the world who are being imprisoned and even executed for expressing their religious beliefs. And yet there are those in the United States (or, more generally, in the West) who have the unmitigated gall to claim that Christians are the target of persecution here. This, quite simply, is horrendously disrespectful to people who really are being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Sure, people express hostility towards Christianity. The obvious reason why there is more hostility towards Christianity is that it is the most dominant religion! Furthermore, many outspoken Christians tend to be unfortunately outspoken. You don't see Muslims and Hindus attacking biologists and attempting to turn the clock on science education back to the Bronze Age. You don't see sites such as "www.allahhatesfags.com." Yes, I am aware that literalist creationists and Phelps-like hatemongers make up a very small percentage of those who claim to be "Christians", but certainly you must see how that one tiny brush can paint a bad image on the whole barn, particularly when those who do claim to be "mainstream" Christians are not particularly active in rebuking their more vociferous brethren.

With regards to school prayer, I wonder what the life expectancy would be for somebody who got up in front of a football stadium in South Texas and loudly proclaimed: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet." Yes, I am aware that the standard counter-argument to this is that there are very few Muslims in South Texas, and that most of the people at the game are Christians, and therefore since the majority rules, it should be okay to have an institutionalized Christian prayer before the game.

The problem with "majority rules" is the same problem with democracy in general: in and of itself, it can be a very dangerous thing. The founding fathers of America recognized this, and this is why we have a constitutional republic as our system of government. Democracy only works when it is fit into a system like this, because otherwise it degenerates to mob rule, and mob rule can quite often be very unsavory.

As an example of this, there was recently a small Southern city whose population consisted largely of Christian conservatives. It was discovered that prostitutes were hanging out downtown. How did the city council deal with this? They passed a law forbidding women from wearing shorts after 6:00 PM (because obviously, any woman who would do such a thing is a whore.) And the funny thing is that the majority of the people in the city agreed with the law. Is this the kind of situation that we need on a regular basis?

This is the whole reason we have a Constitution. It prevents things like this from taking place. The majority of the people might have agreed with the above theocratic law, but tyranny is tyranny. The Constitution establishes a framework -- a set of boundaries under which our democracy must operate. It has nothing to do with "the right to not be offended" or any other such rhetoric. The whole purpose is to prevent mob rule, sometimes referred to as "the tyranny of the majority."

Re:OT: 1st Amendment

[aphrael]

Amendments to the constitution "shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution".

Granted, but legal scholars *still* refer to them as individual entities, the same way they would refer to 'Article IV Section 3' or 'the due process clause'.

Re:Oh jeez... (OT)

[Schnedt McWapt]

The ruling is just another nail in the coffin of Public Education. And that's probably for the best in any event.

The top three winners in the National Spelling Bee this year were all home-schooled. Times are changing, and Public Education, which by the way is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution as a role for government, may soon be properly humbled.

Re:Offtopic. Flame my ass.

[mcsnee]

Trousers zipped. First off, I'm much less concerned with the Catholic church (which has had some problems in the past but has evolved into a reasonably respectable institution since Vatican II) than with the Protestant fundamentalist sects, such as the Southern Baptists and the numerous born-again evangelical denominations. It's easier to generalize that as "Christianity," since, down in the South where I live, everybody's Baptist anyway--even the Catholics. I know generalizations are bad; consider my wrist slapped.

I brought up the Holocaust and the Crusades not to cast blame on the Catholic church but to demonstrate that there is a difference between religious persecution and limits on proselytizing.

That said, I have a lot of respect for people who practice their faith in a tolerant, respectful way. I'm not here to hack on them. They have a perfect right to practice their religion, as long as they don't get in my face and tell me how to live my life. At that point, it becomes offensive, and hell yeah, I'm gonna say something about it.

As you say, I think we agree on more than we disagree on here. I'm sorry if you felt like I was attacking your faith; that wasn't my intention.

Re: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[0x0000]

The way they act is as if the whole trial is just a big misunderstanding. I'm beginning to wonder if they're expecting Bush to somehow pressure the courts or the DOJ into either dropping the trial or doing something else that would favor Microsoft.

Yes, their mannerisms are those typical of criminals, caught red-handed, who know that the fix is in. There is no doubt that they believe that they will get away with it. That, I think, was what got under Judge Jackson's skin worse than anything.

It is clear to any thinking person that M$ is a criminal enterprise. Jackson is not a man inclined to pull punches with unrepentent criminals, I think.

Does anyone know if something like this is possible? From what I know, Bush is totally pro-Microsoft regarding the trial...

Possible? M$ is spending millions to make it a certainty. M$ considers both congress and the upcoming presidential elections bought and paid for. They are going to be very upset if a rescue does not materialize to get them off the hook after November. It all boils down to whether or not there are any politicians left who believe that the citizenry are a force to be reckoned with.

Do a web search on the names Ralph Reed, George W. Bush, and Microsoft. If it doesn't turn anything, then it's already over. Otherwise, the FBI may be able to do something. Gore is not clean, either. M$ is playing both sides, with a heapin' helpin' of spin for the general public.

M$ needs the help of the government to stay afloat, at this point. That's why they have "innovated" things like the DMCA and UCITA. M$ believes they can criminalize behaviors that involve using non-M$ products. If they don't succeed in that, M$ will not be able to compete in an open market. That is the concesion they will try to win, regardless of any "penalty"; they want the industry regulated. No more non-corporate servers...

Send BATF to serve the warrents at the Redmond Compound

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is every forced to pray with the crowd. Everyone is free to do what they wish when other people are praying. You don't have a constitutional right not to be uncomfortable. I hate people saying that religion is being forced upon them just because it is within their site.

Re:Oh jeez... (OT)

[Andrew Cady]

The 1st admendment has nothing to do with this.

Where else in the constitution is the separation of church and state?? The only place in the constitution that I see it is in the 1st amendment.

That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[DaveWood]

What I question is why, and how, the Appellate court has repeatedly come down so heavily for the interests of Microsoft? Their track record on dealing with these issues is abyssmal, and from my layman's perspective, circumventing them seemed the only productive course the case could stay on.

Jackson's opinions have, as I suspect for many people, reaffirmed my own faith in the intelligence, circumspectness, and wisdom of the judiciary. But of course that's not a universal condition.

But does anyone know what the connection is? Why does the Appellate in this circumstance seem so firmly in MSFT's pocket?

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[Tejota]

Simple answer, although you won't like it because

it messes with your (simplistic) view of reality.

Because Microsoft has been legally in the right.

The appellate court is independant (after all there are 10 of them). While Jackson is not exactly a DOJ puppet, but he's so anti-ms that the result is the same as if he was.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[kinkie]

Is he?
I recall some people saying at the beginning of the trial that since he was a quite conservative fellow, Microsoft could have a better chance.

The real problem is that along the way, this process changed its face. It begun as an antitrust process, but then the Microsoft side held some behaviours which lean towards contempt of the court and perjury more than a bit, and turned some of the discussion into legal squabble and technicalities. Sure, they might be in the right, but they had a damn bad way of showing it and this has people thinking that maybe they didn't believe that much in their actions.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[divec]

What about the part where he defines the 'relevant market' that MS supposedly has a monopoly in?

Seems fine to me. He looks at what MS sells and then looks at what could replace MS's product.

• Server OSs. "Nope they cost too much".
• Non-intel compatible PC OSs. "Nope, they'd have to buy a new computer, and even for people buying their computer now it would be expensive cos Mac hardware is specialist and costly." (But he says MS has a monopoly even if you include MacOS, cos it's a niche product)
• Information appliances. "Nope, they're not powerful enough yet."
• Network computers. "Nope, the market is tiny and immature, and there's network problems".

Etc. It's as rigourous as something that hypothetical can be.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[Ground0]

Please explain how IBM or Oracle or Sun have a monopoly? I know IBM's op system and its as open as you could want (of course you still pay for it but mostly because the hardware costs so much that you want the support that comes with it). In each of these three cases I can easily think of at least one solid competator to each.

Quit pushing FUD!

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[NMerriam]

It's all jealousy.
What about Oracle's monopoly? What about Sun's monopoly? What about IBM's monopoly?

I see these points made again and again.

Put them both together and ask yourself how they can be compatible?

If MS is being prosecuted for being successful, why aren't other, MORE successful companies being prosecuted? Why isn't Cisco (which has been passing MS on and off for total market value the past months)? Cisco is just as big, just as important, just as influential in their own way as MS is, but no one complains and no one is prosecuting.

Could it be because it's not about jealousy or influence, but abuse of that influence? About breaking the law? Maybe because Cisco doesn't try to "smother the baby in the crib" on a regular basis, but competes on a level playing field and just happens to kick ass?

If you think antitrust should be abolished or changed, that's fine, but it's a separate issue from saying MS is only being prosecuted because of jealousy. There are bigger fish than MS, and there have been rich bullies before Gates, but they were generally left alone until they did something wrong. Just as MS and Gates were -- in the 80s they were brilliant examples of what hard work, luck, skill, and genius could accomplish in the US.

They beat IBM at its own game and changed history. For that they deserve respect and much of the power and money that they've gained, but being a great person at 30 doesn't excuse your crimes at 40...

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[frankie]

the three judges were removed for was that they previously worked for the DOJ

Do you have a verifiable reference for that statement? I'm very interested in hearing more.

Re:That appellate court is pretty scary, huh?

[sethg]

Most of the Justices were appointed during the Reagan era.

(So was Judge Jackson, by the way.) I'm not sure how much you can deduce from this fact. In the US, Federal judges serve for life, which means that once you get appointed, you're free to annoy whatever political faction supported you. For example, the late Justice Earl Warren was appointed by Nixon, but he led the Court through a very "liberal" period.

Although they are conservative judges who most likely want to help big business, they also know that monopolies hurt business and hurt the economy and therefore are more likely to side against a monopoly.

Also not necessarily true. Over the past twenty years, a number of conservative legal scholars and economists have been arguing that true monopolies hardly ever exist, and therefore antitrust law against monopoly misbehavior should hardly ever be applied. One of the most influential of these scholars is Judge Robert Bork, who wrote The Antitrust Paradox -- and, ironically, who supports the government's side in US v. Microsoft. (For more about this subject, read this Michael Kinsley essay.
--

Re:How Predictable

[Raunchola]

"Windows was a clone of the Mac. (and other sources)"

[ Puts on asbestos suit ]

And the Mac was a clone of the Xerox PARC GUI. What's your point?

--

Re:How Predictable

[cpt kangarooski]

like i said - and i'm not trying to flame here - windows did not make things more accessible. it was simply popular. but as far as making it easy for people to use computers, i think MS has probably set us back quite a lot.

And yeah, I know that the Mac was to some extent related to the stuff at Xerox. Do know however, that the father of the Mac, Jef Raskin, was working on that stuff since IIRC the 60's; the tour of Xerox was well after the beginning of the Mac project, and was intended to convince Steve Jobs to listen to his engineers, who were already perfectly familiar with GUIs. Steve was the only person who learned anything from Xerox that day, and still managed to miss ethernet and laser printing.

Re:Thank god

[cpt kangarooski]

I love the oil example. Did it slip by you that OPEC is a cartel? If the government had the authority to (and it's good we don't - soverignity is a good thing for all nations to respect) we would also break them up. If OPEC is bad, why the hell do you imagine that Standard Oil, which was quite similar when you get down to it, be any better?

Additionally, the government is not holding a gun to anyone's head for once. MS exists because the government allows them to; that's how corporations work. And the government gets to set the rules for everyone, including MS. MS has had the chance to defend themselves, and they have the chance to appeal the decision to the highest court we've got. And the buck stops there.

But if the government decides, through the rule of law and through the courts that the best way to prevent MS from harming the economy (which MS has done by preventing competition, stunting innovation and of course, if the 'don't do things that are bad for the economy' crowd is right, has the economy by the short hairs) is to break them up, so be it.

You have a better suggestion? One that takes into account the fact that MS has shown no willingness to change, and has willfully broken agreements with the government not to act in particular anticompetitive ways? Well then, let's hear it.

As for open source code, that's largely IMHO so that the two companies can't collude and continue to create hidden API calls, etc. without it being quite obvious. But the code is still copyrighted; the government has not taken that away. Partially, I'm sure, because it might be interpreted as a 5th amendment taking. (though one wonders if the copyright might simply be voided. It too was granted by fiat of the government. And what they giveth, they can taketh away)

Re:Thank god

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

Drinking the 3$ FUD, I suppose? Try BeOS! And I suppose there's a good reason why you're forgetting the Macintosh...

No, this is smart.

[Chris Johnson]

What the judge understands is that loads and loads of damage has already been DONE- we basically don't have a software industry at this point, just a sick charade of one with the few remaining players dropping like flies.

This is a conscious, intentional decision to allow MS to run totally amok until the last possible moment- forcing the hand of the Supreme Court, or even the appeals court if their opinion matters. It's giving them all the rope they want so they can hang themselves from the highest yardarm- hell, they just bought Bungie to pull the hotly anticipated game 'Halo' off the market for X-Box only. Does that sound like they are observing conduct remedies? They're digging themselves absurdly deep. I wonder what the end result will be.

This is a strategic move and it's about _letting_ Microsoft commit more abuses- really shocking ones! so that the Supreme Court can have no possible course but to smash MS to hell, I devoutly hope with serious jail time for some of the high-ups. And frankly- what could it hurt? The industry is pretty much dead in a lot of important ways, letting MS dance over the corpses isn't hurting anything but our _feelings_ at this point. They'll get theirs- this clinches it. There will be no possible argument of 'but we aren't doing that anymore, this is ancient history!'.

Makes no sense to most Non-Americans

[anilbh]

When non-amercians think of the US we automatically think of Microsoft . Its UNBELIEVABLE that the US is going to wreck the one jewel in its crown. The suggested split is the work of people who cannot distinguish between Oil, Telephones and Software. And never will . As your President joked in India , he thought Windows was something one cleaned . Great joke . But what happens when such people take important decisions. Jackson is of the same feather. We must not forget , Governments get paid because they are there , businesses for delivering the goods . Anil Bhattacharji anil.b@altavista.net Anil Bhattacharji

Re:Makes no sense to most Non-Americans

[JamesKPolk]

I thought the US was associated with television and movies.

On IRC, one man from Sweden put it to me like this: Thanks to US television, the average person in his country probably knows the US legal system better than their own! :-)

Re:Makes no sense to most Non-Americans

[anilbh]

Hi 0x0000, Well you got your name right . I just happened to see your message. It is nice to know that all americans are law abiding citizens . Well we get a lot of your TV crap . We see what cheap thrills your cops get when chasing sometime law abiding citizens . Last we saw them almost kill a pregnant woman and her husband , who was being driven fast to a hospital . We also heard of 15 bullets being pumped into a citizen because he put his hand in his pocket. Sure all that is great . Just happened to look here did not expect this message to be around so long .

Re:Makes no sense to most Non-Americans

[0x0000]

Well you got your name right

And you noticed. How observant of you.

I just happened to see your message. It is nice to know that all americans are law abiding citizens.

Why would you care?

Well we get a lot of your TV crap.

You have my sympathy. But please, it not my tv crap; I neither produce it nor comsume it. You'd be more accurate to say 'amerikan tv crap', or 'amerikan tv', since 'tv crap' is redundant with 'amerikan tv'.

We see what cheap thrills your cops get when chasing sometime law abiding citizens.

Like most non-amerikans, you confuse amerikan television with amerika. This is understandable, since the amerikan govt and amerikan corporations spend billions each year to make sure that you do. Nevertheless, I feel obligated to point out that your observation of media propaganda doesn't confer knowledge of the subject. I.e. You don't know what you're talking about if your your only knowledge of amerika is from television.

...We also heard of 15 bullets being pumped into a citizen because he put his hand in his pocket.

Yes, and it is the citizens that I was talking about. Your brief recitation doesn't even begin to address the abuses taking place here. So what's your point?

My point was that M$ are criminals, amerikans are sick of them, and you are welcome to them, if you want them. This was a direct response to a pitiful attempt to chastize amerikans for not venerating M$ -- a criminal organization.

Are you even aware of your own dissembling, here, or did you just skip logic because M$ doesn't require it?

If you are worried about police state conditions in the US, that doesn't fit at all with the initial pitiful attempt to support M$, since M$ preys on the citizenry, just like the police state does.

Just happened to look here did not expect this message to be around so long.

I guess more than a day is a long time to someone whose weak logic skills limit their attention span...

Ritalin. The wetware mod for Windoze.

An interesting situation

[nahtanoj]

This is going to be good. The Court of Appeals has already accepted the MS appeal, but the Supreme Court could snub them for being too eager (they accepted in less than 24 hours) to take the case. Or, the Supreme Court could snub Jackson and the DoJ by refusing, or snub MS by saying its not worth their time. It would depend on how the refusal is worded. Or everyone could just read in whatever they want to think no matter how its worded. It happens all the time, I'm sure. I would think it would be in MS's best interest for the Supreme Court to take it on, but one can never be sure how things will turn out. I would bet that MS and their lawyers will not pull a single trick like they did in Jackson's court, and that they will be on their best behavior. I think that they tried to make Jackson rule as he did, and for the reasons he did (let's admit it, they were pretty rude in his court). Now, they will make him out to be prejudice against MS, and probably will pull it off. But will the Appeals court or Supreme Court buy it?

Ciao

nahtanoj

MS Lawyer frantically writing down court strategy: Make Jackson out to be prejudiced against MS.

Re:Thank god

[Fiwer]

They didn't invent the first PC, but they brought about the age of the PC. If it wasn't for Microsoft, there wouldn't be a PC in almost every home. That is a fact.

Apple doesn't sell an OS

[bfinuc]

Apple sells complete systems. Microsoft leveraged the power of the Taiwanese computer industry to get cheap hardware for its OS. Apple wanted too much and lost almost everything.

IBM machines have always been cheaper than Apples and thus more attractive to consumers. Microsoft only squeezes you on the software side, and leaves the hardware to someone else.

Microsoft's sales efforts have been the best propaganda the computer industry ever had. No other software company (except maybe Borland) really ever pushed so hard to get computer products into the hands of consumers.

I firmly believe that if Microsoft's aggressive tactics hadn't been used by someone, there would be a lot fewer computers out there right now.

Of course, that's no reason not to break it up.

I dont think so...

[mduell]

IANAL but i think that because they got the appeals court to hear their case, judge jackson can send them directly to the supreme court.

Mark Duell

Re:Thank god

[session]

Good point, but the breakup of Microsoft -will- hurt the industry. The Microsoft trial has even hurt the industry. I'm paying for this trial (and more than likely trials in the future) through taxes. I don't like the government holding a gun to my head saying I have to pay for something I don't even believe in.

I hate Microsoft as much as anyone (Windows is pretty much shit for serious development and/or networking), but I disagree with the point that breaking them up would help the industry. Break ups mean losses in revenue, which means a loss in buying power, which eventually trickles down to a loss for everyone.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Thank god

[MindStalker]

They may have, but it doesn't matter. As an earlier poster pointed out, both Standard Oil and Ma Bell created their industries. But that didn't excuse them from being broken up, and it didn't hurt the economy to break them up. Imagine if Ford motors had established itself as a monopoly in the creation of cars, in the 20s would you just assume that chrysler couldn't create good cars, and allow ford to continue to monolpolise the industry. Or would you have broken them up??

I'm GLAD

[Busiris]

Good... It should go straight to the Supreme Court anyways. Bill will just keep apealing until it was up to the Supreme Court. Judge Jackson is just trying to shave off 5+ years of court cost to the public, most of which don't even care if M$ is a monopoly or not. It also reduces that time M$ has to lobby congress to get the case throw out of court completely (which congress has the power to do). Bill is tring to tell our Non-savy politicans that if the DOJ breaks up M$, it would be the end of IT inovation since THEY seem to think that they are the only company to produce *good* software. It's only a matter of time b4 our politicians step in and stop the trial because they are ignorent.

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[aphrael]

I actually agree with the prior restraint argument --- this case should not have been actionable until someone actually gave a religious statement.

However, I agree with the court's assertion that *everyone knew the intent was religious*, and so it constituted an establishment.

Re: Is British Columbia still an option?

[phutureboy]

Forgot to mention... another reason Windows would probably cost more is that MS doesn't make a whole lot on Windows itself. Rather, they sell Windows comparatively cheaply, and make the lion's share of their money when people buy Office to go along with it. Sort of like giving away razors and making your money selling razorblades.

Without Office around, the Windows half of the company will have only meager profits unless they raise the price of Windows or come up with some revenue stream to replace Office.

A Pubic Service

[logiceight]

By the way the articles all this is responding to is

Jackson sends case to Supreme Court

Just in case you have read down this far and don't remember what the topic is

Re: moderator guidelines...

[Lord_Sy]

Damn, It really pisses me off!...
FUCKIN' COWARD!

Since when are schools parts of the Goverment?

[homebrewer]

The constitution in question here is the Federal constitution. The schools are not federal schools, they are a part of local government.
(Federal) Congress shall make no law..
the states are left to do this. The federal government does not have jurisdiction here, the constitution states that items not listed here are left to the states.

Re:Since when are schools parts of the Goverment?

[aphrael]

Federal) Congress shall make no law..
the states are left to do this. The federal government does not have jurisdiction here, the constitution states that items not listed here are left to the states.

That *may* have been true once. But the SCOTUS has *clearly* stated, time and time again for almost half a century, that the guarantee in the 14th amendment that "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" *extends* various amendments to cover the states; the first is included in that list.

The legal argument for this is reasonably sound, and is based upon things that were said in the debate over approval of the amendment (in Congress) and ratification (by the states).

Re:Since when are schools parts of the Goverment?

[homebrewer]

That *may* have been true once. But the SCOTUS has *clearly* stated, time and time again for almost half a century, that the guarantee in the 14th amendment that "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" *extends* various amendments to cover the states; the first is included in that list.
How is it lawful for the SCOTUS to deprive a person the right to express religious speech freely in a public place? Isn't that a violation of a citizen's right to liberty and happiness?..free speech? Isn't this a case of the court stating what kind of speech is ok and what is not?

Re:Since when are schools parts of the Goverment?

[aphrael]

How is it lawful for the SCOTUS to deprive a person the right to express religious speech freely in a public place? Isn't that a violation of a citizen's right to liberty and happiness?..free speech? Isn't this a case of the court stating what kind of speech is ok and what is not?

The decision clearly does not deprive a person of the right to express religious speech freely. It prevents the state (ie., the school district) from selecting *one person* to express an opinion *representing the entire school*, said opinion reasonably expected to be religious, at an event paid for by the state (school district) as part of the normal conduct of the state (school district).

It's the distinction between me asserting the right to read excerpts from the Tao in a public square (free) and me expecting to be able to read excerpts from the Tao over a loudspeaker paid for by a school at a school sporting event (not allowed); the latter constitutes a state establishment.

I'm not denying that there's an inherent tension between the way the establishment clause is interpreted and the way the free exercise clause is interpreted: i wrote a paper in a constitutional law class which argued that the easiest way out is to abolish public schools. But, unless something that drastic is done, the SCOTUS has to thread a narrow path between two conflicting goals --- and, as far as I can tell, appears to be doing a reasonable job of it.

Re:Thank god

[Zagato-sama]

Quite a few actually, check out pricewatch.com

Maybe you should ask yourself why your operating system of choice isn't bundled with the laptop you want. It just might be because that's not what the majority of consumers want...

Find me a ferrari with a chevy engine while you're pondering that.

Re:Thank god

[talesout]

While this point has been argued into the ground, and I know that you won't believe it, Microsoft didn't make the first GUI, and certainly still don't make the only GOOD GUI. I can think of at least three other ones that I would rather use, and if I really put my head to it, I could probably think of more. There's MacOS (not only a better interface for morons, but way before Microsoft's), Amiga (another good gui that came before Microsoft) and many of the X interfaces. While you point out that Unix wasn't on PCs at the time (a point that could again be argued), there were still good interfaces available for it. And if they weren't any good, then why did Microsoft steal so many ideas from them.

Note, I did say that not any of these invented the GUI. It came before all of them, but they were/are the most widely recognized. At the moment I would say BeOS rocks as far as interface goes, but without applications it's still doomed.

For my money (or lack thereof most of the time) I prefer Enlightenment quite a bit (although I stick myself in KDE at work so that others don't feel lost). I certainly think it is a superior alternative to most available GUIs today. But, only time will tell if something else comes along.

Even if the original poster actually had a point about MS being the first GUI (good gui, yeah right) that doesn't mean that they deserve to survive forever. If they believe in the free market like they claim to, then let them make a superior product. Otherwise, let them die.

Decision

[tundra]

Jackson's decision to send the appeal to the Supreme Court, in my view, was fairly predictable. His decision to also freeze the conduct remedies that were slated to take effect against MSFT on September 5 was suprising to me. It would be interesting to find out what caused this change.

Justice postponed is justice denied.

[frank249]

The findings of fact clearly established that certain Microsoft business practices are illegal. The restrictions that were to come into effect in 90 days directly addressed these illegal practices. Now while Microsoft drags the appeal process out for the next two years, companies like Corel will continue to suffer. As others pointed out, in two years the restrictions may be moot. I would say that the judge should reinstate the business practice restrictions immediately. In this case it is literally true that Justice postponed is justice denied.

OT: 1st Amendment

[nosferatu-man]

"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free expression thereof ..."

Seems like there's a pretty clear clause there regarding the separation church and state; which is also to say nothing of 200 years of precedent.

Regards,

(jfb)

Re:OT: 1st Amendment

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

Yeah - I wasn't complaining about it not being law, but it's clearly not in the 1st admendment, but part of the constitution. Perhaps the Supreme Court needs to dig out their copy of the constitution? (It's right over there by the piles of advertising, if you're looking for it.)

Re:Thank god

[Fiwer]

BeOS? Oh yea, that's the thing nobody has ever heard of before. That's right, that's the thing with no software or hardware support for it! Macintosh? You mean those cute looking things they have in computer stores? The ones that have a commercial about "changing your decor" to match them? There's some real machines! In all seriousness, Apple was good back in the day (I'm talking about Apple IIe) but now.. No.

Aw, hell...

[johnnie]

Great. Just great... i would presume this to be the same US Supreme Court that recently decided that states couldn't decide how to spend their own money, huh?

Just great... we're f*cked...

Re:Aw, hell...

[spectecjr]

USA citizens: If you weren't going to bother voting, (and i know that's most of you) vote Nader.

Hmmm...
You might want to read about Nader here if anyone out there was seriously considering that as an option.

Simon

Re:Aw, hell...

[chaidawg]

If you knew your constitution you wouldn't have said thet. The supreme court never said that states couldn't decide how to spend their own money. They made the ruling on the constitution- Article 1 Section 8: The Congress shall have power To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes; They simply told the state that it was not a states right to perform its own foreign policy.

On the M$ front- good for Judge Jackson, I was waiting for this.

-In order to fly you must throw yourself at the ground and miss.-D. Adams

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[CoughDropAddict]

The current SC decision is awful in light of the fact that the majority ruled that because a student-elected speaker might choose to use the platform to do something even remotely religious. Of course, the speaker could also simply read a poem, talk about the environment, or make an impassioned speech about homosexual rights. In none of the other cases would the school have been held culpable for the words spoken by an individual. The school had no control over what the stuent would say, and could therefore not even be held to tacitly endorsing the student's viewpoint.

The speaker could also make an impassioned speech about religion. No one's regulating what viewpoints can be expressed.

However, leading in the practice of religion is entirely another matter.

Re:Is British Columbia still an option?

[HomeySmurf]

but if Microsoft splits up a lot of businesses will be spending even more money on software that works less well and that doesn't interface that great.

This is the whole point! A monopolistic company inherently produces inferior products at greater costs to the consumer. A breakup of the monopoly can only serve the needs of the consumer. Companies will have to offer better products for cheaper prices to survive. Much fewer M$ millionaires, but better products.

Lets face it, the software industry is still a young one, but it is changing as huge numbers of people retrain themselves in needed skills, that is one reason there is such underemployment in low-wage jobs. As software companies have to become more competitive, jobs will be much less cushy, but better products will be produced for less cost to the consumer.

Consider phone service, does anyone else remember when the phone company owned all the phones, and they sucked. Now phones can do all kinds of amazing things and they are very cheap by comparison. Long distance and international rates are much lower and now there so many new services (caller ID, voice mail, *69, etc). In 5 years we will be amazed at how awesome, cheap, integrated and efficient all the Office Spin offs are, especially the ones that run on Linux.

National interest?

[aralin]

Well, someone said here that the case is not really in the national interest to get fast solved, but its more the personal matter of the judge.

I disagree with this opinion. I think that there can be hardly something that is more in the national interest than fast solving of this case. There are several reasons for this. First of all several retirement (and other) funds have their portfolio based on the MSFT stock and you could watch what the case has been doing with it lately. Second reason is that this company's software is basicly EVERYWHERE, including important US govt and military institutions and if the company that produces it is cheating ... and third reason is that after all the amount of employees in MS is not a number that could be neglected and its not really in national interest to play a game with these people's lifes. When you will count also the amount of employees of comapnies that directly depend on Microsoft, you will get a number that is surprisingly high... and all these people are now not really sure, what will be tomorrow...

Re:Thank god

[longfalcon]

sure, he should have mentioned that with a cute exterior comes a cute(read: superfluous) GUI. MacOS, even X is a eye-candy mess. it is a flake's OS, because it has ceased to be functional and serious. look at IRIX and NT. who has the most DV and 3D apps? And i thought OS X might come out as a true, workstation OS. who was i fooling?

Is British Columbia still an option?

[DanBari]

To those that are avid Slashdot readers, I remember there being a story and mentioning that perhaps Microsoft could become incorporated in Canada and move headquarters there. I'm guessing that there's no way that they could open up a headquarters (the size of a McDonalds') in Canada that serves no actual purpose but so that they can do as they please. Think about it? How many companies are there in the United States that are little pieces of foreign companies?

Let's face it, as much as Linux users, Mac Users and even those of us that dual boot using Windows don't like Microsoft at times (eek...run for your life I've been blacklisted), but if Microsoft splits up a lot of businesses will be spending even more money on software that works less well and that doesn't interface that great. Sure you can bring up StarOffice. Absolutely free, great stuff, but at the same time it still has bugs here and there (I wonder if I'll get demoted to a worthless peon for that comment). "But dude, think about how many errors tehre are in Windows!" True, but until Linux starts taking part of the market share, I'm not seeing corporate America switching to StarOffice. Oh well, that's my two cents...

Re: Is British Columbia still an option?

[kelzer]

The short answer is that there are now a lot of departments that serve the whole company that would have to be duplicated: HR, R&D, marketing, executive management, distribution, building maintenance, information systems, accounting, legal, and so on.

Well, they wouldn't actually have to be duplicated, would they? I mean, if you split the company in half, each half doesn't need the same size HR department as the original.

Sure, there are some added costs, but they should be fairly minor - maybe a 10-20% increase in administrative costs - but there's no reason this has to be passed on to consumers, because Microsoft has been so incredibly profitable that even with these additional costs, they'd still be the most profitable 2 companies on the planet!

Re:How Predictable

[Phroggy]

I'm getting sick of people like you saying "Yeah, maybe Microsoft has done some bad things, but it's OK because we've all used Windows for something useful at some point and they've done a lot to bring computers to the masses." Hello? That does not excuse them!

Go read some of the court documents. Contrary to popular opinion, Judge Jackson clearly believes that Microsoft has made computers more accessible for the masses, has done a lot of good things, and been generally good for the economy. That's great. It doesn't change the fact that they have consistently, repeatedly, broken the law by illegally abusing their monopoly power to stifle innovation in the rest of the industry (and sometimes in different industries).

Breaking up Microsoft isn't going to seriously hurt them. Jackson has been careful about that. All he's trying to do is get them to stop breaking the law. Unfortunately, there are a few issues that the DoJ didn't focus on; consequently, the Final Judgement won't stop Microsoft from abusing their monopoly power at all - rather, it will simply change the way in which Microsoft goes about it (tying everything into NGWS and leveraging that, instead of Windows).

--

Haiku

[575]

Highest of all courts
May decide on the fate of
Lowest of all scum

Re:Oh jeez... (OT)

[Andrew Cady]

The reason that the national spelling bee winners are home-schooled is that their parents force them to study spelling at home specifically to compete in those stupid competitions. I personally consider that child-abuse, as much as forcing your kid to play tennis or golf from the time s/he's old enough to do so, or those horrific beauty pageants. Shit, little league can be torture to a kid, if the parents are laying on enough pressure.

Of course, the parents of the publically schooled kids are forcing them to study spelling too, they're just doing it in after-school time. It's a crime, I swear to God. Kids shouldn't be burdened by that bullshit just so their parents can get an ego trip. Did you hear about that 2nd grader who killed himself because he thought he was failing in school?

</rant>

Anyway, you're right that private education can often be of higher quality than public education, but the main reason for that is that academic private schools take only the kids with the best natural ability, giving them a host of advantages over schools legally required to take anyone, the most important of which is probably the better funding.

The problem with private schooling, though, is the religiously-motivated private schools. That is, the ones that exist primarily to promote religion, to prevent children from being exposed to evolution, etc. These often offer sub-par education, not just in religiously sensitive subjects but all-around (as they typically are not as well funded, and may only be able to attract religious fanatic teachers), and kids are powerless to defend against their parents' ignorance. (Not all religious schools are like this, of course; that's why I distinguish them as "religiously-motivated").

What we don't want is a curriculum dictated by parents -- most of whom believe in all sorts of nonsense and aren't nearly as educated as we should want their children to be.

Moderators: It's not [OT]

[_xeno_]

This always annoys we when a thread changes topics from the one that the story is about and people start marking posts offtopic. No, they are NOT off topic - they're on topic, in the thread! This post is definately on the topic of the parent, but it's just moved off the topic of the article.

And that's where some really interesting, completely off topic discussions come - from pointing out one part of something that was on topic and taking it in a new direction. Maybe the article was overrated, but it wasn't off topic.

Re:Moderators: It's not [OT]

[Troll Boy 2]

And the parent of the whole mess is one of the most over-rated comments I've ever seen.

Good news

[Peter Dyck]

This is good news, indeed.

This means that if the Supreme Court accepts the case, Microsoft cannot appeal the case to the slow and corporate friendly courts. And when the corporate equivalent of the StarWars' Death Star, namely Microsoft Inc., is eventually chopped up by the Supreme Court and all the dirty little secrets are revealed to the public in their full horror, it will be much easier to convince people of the danger that corporations represent.

--Peter Dyck

Re:Thank god

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

Must be on the 5$ FUD, I suppose. There's quite a few BeOS applications (and generally of better quality than Linux applications - no knock, just true). Macs are still serious machines - a 450mHz G4 is a great machine for DV and DTP.

Yes, I know you are atroll.

Re:Wrong (as in, you are...)

[Tejota]

Sure Windows 3.1 was nothing much, but consider the competition? It was far superior in the things that mattered to ordinary users.

The MAC? Sweet, but too expensive.
OS/2? Doesn't run my DOS Apps and takes
Too much memory to run. 4MB was a LOT
in those days.
DR.DOS? No GUI
GEM? Who?

MS won the prize fair and square. Of all the choices, they sucked less.

Your knowledge of history is faulty. You must be one of those geeks who was still in diapers when Win3x first shipped. (did I peg you with this one or what?).

tj

Re:Judge Jackson - Janet Reno's bitch?

[um... Lucas]

What? He's kind of pissy at them for trying to play him as a fool.

Things like submitting doctored evidence (remember the video tape?) and asking for a copy of windows 98 with out IE 4 and receiving a computer that wouldn't boot do things like make judges get angry.

The entire case, Microsoft disrespected him, forgetting that he was the one that was one person they should have been trying to win over. It's not like he brought the case against them. The DOJ did. It was his job to hear it.

[OT]Re:This could be good or bad.

[paRcat]

Just for the record, the ruling yesterday wasn't over students' right to pray. Student can pray privately whenever they feel like it. It was over an educational institution's right to organize a gathering so that a student would be used to deliver a prayer for the assembly.

Re:Thank god

[Fiwer]

You have plenty of freedom. You could, buy a mac, use linux or BeOS (Though I can't imagine why anyone would use either), etc. etc. Invading privacy? never seen that

Re:Thank god

[rking]

If it wasn't for Microsoft, there wouldn't be a PC in almost every home.

Is there a PC in nearly every home? Not necessarily arguing, just surprised. What percentage is it then?

Re:Thank god

[Lupei]

k...I'll bite.

There isn't a PC in even close to every home in america.

IBM had at least as much to do with the growth of the PC as microsoft.

This next point has been mentioned several times in this thread already, but you just don't seem to get it.

Just because Microsoft helped get the PC industry to where it is today, does NOT mean that they should be allowed to do whatever they want.

Lastly try to remember that almost every product that MS has ever sold was created by someone else, bought out by MS, rebranded as a Microsoft product and is then pointed to as an example of "innovation".

The few examples of products where this is not the case were STILL stolen ideas from someone else. In the end we end up with a company that succeded not because of their own technical merit but because of their business practices and market leading position (which they only had through luck in the first place) hence this trial.

However breaking them up doesn't really solve any of this....we need to force open standards.

1st Amendment

[BoneFlower]

In all honesty, I'm surprised that Microsoft hasn't pulled out the First Amendment card. As my rant below points out, the First amendment can be interpreted VERY broadly, and even more so than I cover here. And all without even bending the letter of the law(though thoroughly trashing the spirit).

Microsoft... Could claim that their products were primarily conduits of information, and restricting traditional conduits of information such as newspapers cannot be restricted by hampering their abilities to interoperate, thus Microsoft is protected under the first amendment Freedom of the Press. Technically, that fits the letter of the law, not the spirit. Read on for a more in depth exampl regarding the school prayer you brought up.


"Congress shall make no law respecting establishment of religion"

It is clear that what is intended here is a seperation of religious authority and temporal authority. Having sectarian religious practices performed as part of a governmental occasion is not appropriate. If money, apportioned by the United States Congress, is funding this school in part or in whole, then that means whatever law Congress passed to authorize such funding is helping to establish religion, whether that is the intended result or not, Congress is aiding a group that is establishing expected religious practices.

However, they may be able to challenge this on the grounds of States Rights. To do so they would not be able to accept federal funds for their schools. If the Supreme Court wants to get overly broad, they could make a case that any federal money that gets spent, at all, indirectly funds any state that benefits from it. I mean, you make a federal housing project in a city and put out federal loans to get business going, you benefit that area and the state can spend the money it would have spent dealing with those people, somewhere else, thus they were indirectly funded by the feds.

So the First amendment does cover it. It is perhaps a more broad interpretation than intended, but it can be extrapolated to cover the issue.

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[prizog]

The 1st amendment changes the text of the constitution, but yeah, it is part of the first amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.


-Dave Turner.

Re:Thank god

[Fiwer]

More than 65% I believe. Up from like 10% 10 years ago I think...

Re:You're a moron.

[DaveWood]

"Mostly, they win because their competitors just cant seem to help shooting themselves in the foot."

Yeah. Right.

Re:Thank god

[Fiwer]

No because who gives a shit about Germany ?

Re:Thank god

[shilly]

"I'm also very, VERY afraid of government involvement in the day-to-day actions of any business, no matter how bad."
I couldn't agree more. Who wants the government setting pesky quality standards for the drugs that pharmaceutical companies produce? Or insisting that electricity is distributed (relatively) safely? Or that banks aren't run by convicted fraudsters? After all, corporations have a tremendous record in preserving the environment, respecting employees and customers, and responding quickly and effectively to societal concerns. Also, Bhopal and thalidomide are just figments of everyone's imaginations...

Re:Offtopic. Flame my ass.

[Cool Hand Luke]

And my apologies for running off a flame there. I've heard enough "Catholicism is bad because of the Holocaust/Crusades" agruments that I wanted to point out the seperation between the Church and the faith.

In reality, I was just nickpicking on the use of Christianity.

Game on! ;)

George Lee

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[czei]

The court has turned the meaning of this protection around by prohibiting public displays of religion.

The above statement is a grossly inaccurate distortion made by "prayer in schools" advocacy groups. The actual prohibition is the same as its always been: government is not allowed to practice religion. Governmental bodies such as schools are not allowed to sponsor the practicing of a religion. Since praying is by definition worshiping god, having a school sponsored prayer would be a government sponsored religious ceremony, and thus prohibited.

Another distortion made the "prayer in school" advocacy groups is that religion is totally banned from schools. This too, is false. An example of religious displays that are allowed in schools particularly are student religious clubs, and the study of the bible from a historical perspective, both of which are common where I live, at least. And of course, students are allowed to quitely pray any time they wish.

Re:Thank god

[MindStalker]

I'm refering to the past, they used to make good cars.. :)

Re:Thank god

[Zagato-sama]

Yes of course, that must be it. Microsoft as always is standing over everyone's head holding a gun. How silly of me to believe that your product may actually be unappealing to the masses. So tell me, does Linus forbid VA from selling Windows 2000 based servers?

Re:Thank god

[plague3106]

No, he does. And yes, MS has been known to do that. Several vendors (including dell) have stated MS as the reason they don't preinstall other OSes when presured about it.

Re:Thank god

[Fiwer]

BeOS has no support. I had a guy come into work one day needing a modem LOL that was a joke. He left thinking a lot lower of BeOS (BS)

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[aphrael]

I hate people saying that religion is being forced upon them just because it is within their site.

That's fine for *me* --- but for a child to go to school, and respect/listen to what their teachers say, and then have those teachers/principals/etc turn around and espouse religious beliefs *is* to force religion upon them; what, the child is supposed to suddenly stop listening as soon as the subject changes?

Dude, you're so right!

[Savage Henry Matisse]

Man, any of you persecuted American Christians out there need someone to hide you? I'll gladly make space in my hayloft and attic-- I mean, what with those Muslim, Jew and Buddhist storm troopers pounding the pavement, hunting you down, you need all the protection you can get.

Honest, my heart weeps for those poor fucking Christians.

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[Outland Traveller]

"The school had no control over what the stuent would say, and could therefore not even be held to tacitly endorsing the student's viewpoint."

According to the CNN article I read, the students were not free to talk about anything they wanted- they had to get the school administration's approval for their speech ahead of time.

So, there was an event organized by the local government, where the local government was both implicitely and explicitely excercising editorial control. When viewed in this way it is more understandable why the Court did not think it was appropriate to allow religious practice (ie, leading public prayer).

more than microsoft

[wishus]

This actually scares me a little.. Because if the Supreme Court takes this case, that's it. They set a precedent, and pretty much that's law. The SC rarely goes against precedent..

And this is scarey, because it's not Ma Bell.. They can't divide it up geographically.. The supreme court is going to define "Operating System" and "Application" and "Internet Browser" for all time to come.

Man I hope they know what they're doing. I'd love to see m$ broken up, but could it be too high a price to pay?

All we need is a faulty SC definition of "Internet Browser" mangling our legal system for awhile.

I bet Time/Warner/AOL pays close attention to this.

wish
---

Re:more than microsoft

[catseye_95051]

Relax.

Jackson already defined these things in his findings of fact and did a very good job. If you haven't read themand you'e inertested in this you should.

To inadaquately sumamrize, he defiend three things: Operating system , Application and middleware. OS talks to the hardware, Applciatiosn talk to the user. Middleware lives in-between the applciation and the OS.

For the purposes of being an application platform, he correctly identified the browser as middleware.

We'd all have Macs and bitch about Apple monopoly.

[SlushDot]

after all, if it wasn't for [Microsoft] PC's would probably be pretty much non-existant.

Nope. If MS never existed, we'd all be running Macs because PCs running CP/M would've died out long ago.

And Apple was far more controlling than Microsoft. Remember that not just any SCSI disk worked with Apple. There was exactly one maker of Apple computers, etc. (Umax was allowed for a while, then Apple changed their minds and quashed them.), etc.

Re: 1st Amendment [OT]

[Amphigory]

HUH? Say what? I studied the Constitution quite thoroughly in school and I've read a lot about the Bill of Rights and its intents, and I have NEVER heard that one. Which camp told you that? Buchannon, Robertson, or Falwell? The Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court (and the ACLU, and the list goes on and on) all have consistently said that freedom of religion means the right to practice the religion of your choice - or none at all. This means that the government cannot endorse any particular religion. Period.

Learn some history bubba. Most of New England were theocracies (or at least had established religions, deeply entrenched in gov't) at the time of the revolution. I'm not saying theocracy is a good thing -- but I am saying that your knowledge of history is seriously week if you didn't know that little fact.

--

Forget the legal system..

[drwiii]

We know what Judge Jackson really wants to do..

What this is really about: public relations

[Vicegrip]

This is all about Microsoft trying to win a public relations battle. If Microsoft wins in the appelate court, it will give them leverage when they go looking for support in the crime capitol.

Fundamentally, the issues here need to be decided on by the Supreme Court. Judge Jackson is quite correct in stating the public is not served by a proacted delay caused by one party hoping to stall long enough for the next elections. What are the issues? Does having sufficient market pull where you are able to and in fact do coherce your vendors into only using your product constitute an abusive monopoly? Is the government within its right, in such an event, to persue remedy in the courts? Nobody but the Supreme Court can properly address this.

I also think if Microsoft truly thought there was merit to their case they would be glad to hit the mats quickly... no, what they want to do is win the public relations war and leverage the confusion inherent to elections to cause the issues to never get resolved.

Premonition or just bad cheese?

[The Queen]

I am anxious to know how the Supreme Court handles this...because the other night I dreamt of Bill Gates.

A fellow Linux geek and I infiltrated the headquarters at Redmond under guise of journalists in the hopes that we could uncover some dirt on M$. Once inside, though, we saw happy workers with PDAs and laptops, and clean, ergonomically sound work environments. When Bill came into a room (dressed very suspisciously like Mr. Rogers) everyone would gather around him like he was Jesus passing out fishes or something. My friend and I were flabbergasted. He was so humble and really seemed to care for the well-being of his company.

I wonder if that was a premonition, or just a piece of bad cheese before bed...

The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk

Re:The OSM X-Files: Domestic Violence

[Lupei]

dammit, I posted in this story...can't moderate up.

Long live OSM!

Re:Thank god

[sqlrob]

You mean Win95, the OS/2 (RIP) PM / Mac Finder rip off?

Poetic justice (re: MS in BC)

[Eck]

It would be poetic justice for MS to move up to British Columbia -- just like the State of Washington couldn't protect them from the US judiciary, the Province of British Columbia wouldn't protect them from the Canadian courts. Nobody at MS is dumb enough to set themselves up for extra anti-trust falls that way.

Of course, they'd get to switch from saying they're from "Washington, not D.C." to saying they're from "B.C., not Washington..."

HEY STUPID MODERATORS

[Troll Boy 2]

Parent is worse then troll, and it's +4 informative, go get some skills you horrible moderators, What the fuck is your problems?

Re:Thank god

[mcsnee]

[CHOKE, SPLUTTER] Are we using the same Windows? If by "decent" you mean "crashes fewer than 20 times a day and works right at least 34% of the time" then, sure, Windows is decent. I've lost more far more time and work in one year using their FUBAR OS than I did in 3 years on a MacOS system.

Parent is over-rated crap

[Troll Boy 2]

I really can't believe that shit got +4 Informative. The only thing it informed me about is that the author is a blathering moron. If Christians are so percescuted in this country, then how come a) almost every memember of the 3 braches of the federal government is a christian b)all sorts of christian laws are in effect, you can't buy alchoul in MA on Sundays, no mail delivered on Sundays c) the pledge of allainces and all our coins say "in god I trust". Moderate fucking parent down.

Overt Coward is worse than a troll

[Troll Boy 2]

Over coward has zillions of flaming right-wing Chritian and wealthy centric posts that qualify him as everything that is wrong with society. Furthermore he posts them all at +2, and some moderators with small penises moderate them up further. This moron should be posting at -666, not +4.

Why MS sucks. Duh.

[mcsnee]

I'm stuck using crappy Microsoft products like Windows, IE, and Word, because they've become the industry standards through Microsoft's illegal market tactics. Windows is terribly unstable. Netscape was (until bought by that _other_ monopoly) a _far_ superior product to IE. And don't get me started on all the ways Word makes my life Hell.

What all this means is that other companies who make _good_ products have three options: cut corners, raise prices through the roof, or go out of business. In order to compete in any meaningful way with Microsoft, a company needs either a complete niche market (which Microsoft will find and invade within a year) or an advertising budget on par with the GDP of Germany, the UK and the state of California. And the latter will only work until MS starts 'bundling' a ripped off, shoddy, competing product with its OS, which people will use because it's free.

If that's not harm, I don't know what is.

And to answer the other (stoopid) point... Sure, I'm jealous of Bill Gates. Who wouldn't be? The man parleyed a very basic knowledge of computers and a little business acumen into a multibillion-dollar software empire. Of course, the fact that I wouldn't mind sharing some of Gates' cash doesn't mean that he's not a monopolist, and that his company makes lousy, overpriced products that wouldn't move at all if they didn't already have the market cornered.

Re:Thank god

[Penrif]

That is a fact.

No, no, facts are something that you can prove. You cannot prove that without Microsoft, PCs wouldn't have taken off, simply because that never happened. You can speculate, sure, but that's open to bias. Evedently massivly open to bias.

Re:Thank god

[psmorris]

Your answer is in your reply. No one is debating your idea that Microsoft has changed the computing industry. This change has directly resulted in the PC's that we have today.

A machine that has trampled on my freedom of choice.

A machine that allows a corporation to invade my privacy.

A machine that requires me to continually pay a corporation (lease, my ass.. it taxes me!) just for the machine to operate.

Microsoft's "revolution" is called indentured servitude.

Offtopic. Flame my ass.

[mcsnee]

This is backward thinking. Nobody's saying you can't pray on your own time. Nobody's saying you can't pray in your own space. What they're saying is you can't force someone else to listen to your prayer. Just as (I'm sure) you wouldn't want to be forced to listen to a Wiccan or [gasp!] a Satanist prayer over the school intercom or at a football game (both of which are protected by first-amendment rights), they don't want to be forced to listen to yours. That's what this decision is about. It's not some vast left-wing conspiracy to deprive Christians of their rights.

Christians have lately taken to claiming that they're being persecuted. In fact, the Christian faith is by far the most widely accepted religion in the United States, and has been the dominant religious force in Western culture since at least 325 CE. Apparently, these days, if a Christian isn't handed a platform from which to speak and a captive audience, it's religious persecution.

Also, I think you're distorting the position of the amendments' authors when you say that they were "quite accepting of the individual states having an official religion." The fact that they didn't require the states not to establish religions had less to do with their acceptance than with their concern lest the federal government become too powerful.

Your point about the possibility that the student might be using the forum for something other than religious speech is a bit disingenuous. The state (in the form of the school) _is_ allowed by the Constitution to support environmental protection (or deforestation) or to support or attack homosexual rights. Religious speech is different from other protected forms of speech, a fact recognized by the framers when they assembled the Bill of Rights.

Finally, I take exception to your point that "Louis Farrakhan is not similarly labeled a left-wing Muslim." First of all, I think he's generally considered right-wing (I could be wrong about that), but in any case he is certainly considered a demagogue in the same league as Buchanan by many people, myself included.

I wouldn't be hostile toward organized Christianity if Christianity hadn't been hostile to me first. I find the churches' constant demands that they be afforded every opportunity to proselytize to me and to the millions of other non-Christians in the country nearly as offensive as their claims that, when they don't get such opportunities, they're being oppressed. The Holocaust and the Crusades are oppression. The current state of affairs is barely inconvenience.

Re:MacOS

[narf]

1. Bill Gates was known to yell at his developers : "Make it look like the Mac!"
2. Apple did not rip off the interface from Xerox. They acually paid Xerox, in stock shares, for whatever IP they might see and like during their tour.

Re:We'd all have Macs and bitch about Apple monopo

[Fiwer]

exactly. Decent PC's would be non-existant because rather than having an open market, we'd have the OS AND the machines owned by one company. Also, they'd be so expensive, not everyone would be able to afford them like they can now.

Re:Thank god

[narf]

Windows 95 had a bug that would send MS a complete rundown of your hardware and directory tree when you registered, even when you unchecked the "Send Computer Info" box. MS said they were sorry, won't do it again, etc.

Re:Thank god

[Darren Winsper]

And just how did you travel to this alternate universe where Microsoft never existed? It's the only way you'd know that as a fact.

Oh wait, I forgot, speculation == fact these days, silly me.

Re:Thank god

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

Was this R3 for Intel or something? Try on for size:

Every internal or external hardware modem.

Two of the most popular softmodem chipsets.

R5 is amazing in terms of driver support.

How Predictable

[Anonymous Coward]

Another developement in the Governmental ego trip that is the Microsoft Anti-trust case, and you guys are shouting about how it's time to party. Wake up. Post something intelligent and original. For all the bitching and moaning I hear about how Microsoft is "so evil, I totally hate them and Bill Gates," I wonder how many of you are browsing this with IE. How many of you started out using Windows? How accessible has Microsoft made the world of computing to the average person? Don't bring up Apple, cause if they are so good, why does noone use them?
Don't get me wrong, I don't like Microsoft's business practices, and the unreliability of their products is amazing (in a bad way). But to keep spouting off this regurgitated anti-Microsoft rhetoric is silly and reflects badly on you...

Anon because it's too much trouble to login

I wonder...

[PD]

if the Judge is doing the legal equivalent of a mail joke virus.

First he saw the antics in his courtroom, then he forwarded the "joke" to 9 of his friends.

Re:You're a moron.

[flatrock]

Some are, some aren't. OEMs will install another OS if there's significant demand for it. However, as far as consumer OS's are concerned they haven't had many choices. OS/2 wasn't a consumer OS, too hard to configure and use for the average user. LINUX distributions have made great strides recently, but they still have a ways to go before they are a good choice for the average user.

Religion sucks

[Troll Boy 2]

"opiate of the masses"

Time is on Microsoft's side

[Benjamin Shniper]

Time is on Microsoft's side. This doesn't mean they are right. We have a constitutional right to a speedy trial, no right to one that lasts as long as we want. Most corporations would love it if they could continue illegal and unethical behavhior in full view of the public and justice system for 10 (count them 10) years. Since were all tired of this, we should be happy for the possibility that this judgement moves it along.
An injustice that has lasted for 10 long years is Microsoft's ability to claim that they need more time... and using ALL of that time to harass competitors. It's as if a school bully delayed his suspension hearings for weeks, during which time he bullied the other kids more, and then asks for more time again at the end. If this alone doesn't deserve the corporate death penalty (break-up), then what actions do?

-Ben

Re:Thank god

[plague3106]

Doesn't mean they haven't done alot of bad. After all, Hitler did get Germany out of economic chaos...should we honor him for that?

Lawyer: yes, and some bits & pieces

[hawk]

I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, see ana attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.

Someone moderate that up; it's important and correct. Nonetheless, I'll elaborate a bit more.

The prior ruling was regarding an injunction before trial. Most importantly, it was an order issued *before* hearing evidence, based upon what the appellate court thought likely to be able to be proven. These notions are *entirely* set aside by the actual findings of fact. That is, the appellate court didn't see a high enough probability of the DOJ proving its claims to enter the preliminary injunction. Once the DOJ succeeded, that estimate is irrelevant.

Also note werdna's comments below about the reasons for the SC to take (or not take) the case.

[today's tip: don't try to make buildworld and Xfree 4 at the same time on a 1G disk, no matter how much memory you have . . . there's not enough disk space (and that's before tetex tried to build at the same time :) )

Well...

[SvnLyrBrto]

When I have mod points, I'm inclined sometimes, when I see no other post really worthy of moderation, instead of letting points expire, to mod up one of signal 11's more recent posts just because it pisses off the AC trolls. And is *IS* funny when they whine so much about one user.

john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!

Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if

Re:Thank god

[UnknownSoldier]

> all those professional animators and artists don't know shit about a usefull working environment, now do they?

Just to play the devil's advocate: Do they actually have a choice of platform to run their tools on? Aside from PC's running NT, and SGI's running IRIX, what other platforms do animators use?

I haven't seen 3D Studio MAX on anything other then Win32. Blender has been ported, but I don't know how popular it is.

Interesting News

[Tiger Smile]

I wonder what our chances of an open courty session, or daily access to transcripts as they hear the case?

BTW: Just how much $$$ is MS tossing at politicos to bend the government to their will?

I'm sure we'll see the Borg-Bll on /. when the time comes.

PS: When is MS going to write /. back about that DMCA letter they had sent before?

-- Tiger Smile AKA James Dornan

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

As a long time and well respected member of the judicial system I feel I must make a comment. While it would seem to many that Judge Jackson has acted in a harsh and unfair manner to Microsoft. I can tell you this is far from the truth. Judge Jackson wants nothing but fairness for all in this matter of great importance. The public at large is typically not given all the details and is thus left to sort out the truth by surfing the web or reading many newspapers. Don't get discouraged, the truth is out there and this website is closer to it than any other I have seen. Yes, some of you might be a bit zealous, however that cannot hide the truth below.

My wish in posting this is that it will give hope to many of you who are fighting the good fight. Do not despair, right will win and you will not be dissapointed.

God bless.

No MS != no IBM PC != Macintosh

[erice]

If there were no Microsoft then likely IBM would have bought their OS from Digital Research. PC's would have started with CPM/86 and gone who knows where.

What you suggesting is that Apple would have won, if the *IBM PC* never existing. It is possible but there were many contenders in the early 80's. Apple's Macintosh was only of them. And if IBM PC hadn't taken over, there would certainly have been more. In a world without the IBM PC, we might be typing on Amiga derivetives now. Or maybe the dominent machine would be something that was never born in our own timeline.

Re:We'd all have Macs and bitch about Apple monopo

[Schnedt McWapt]

Actually, any SCSI disk will work with a Mac. Just today I shoehorned a DEC 1 Gig drive into an old Mac that I am installing NetBSD-Mac68K on. You just have to use the A-UX disk utility instead of the feeble MacOS one.

God damnit!!

[Fiwer]

Just because I tell the truth, I get moderated? Excuse me let me be a normal slashdotter Oh Linux I love you so much!! *SMOOCH* Linus Torvalisdufljiwer let me kiss your fat ass! Oh, I hate bill gates! I love linux! Linux is so great, watch what i can do with it! /mount -d asdflkjw09oeirjl;asdjkf;alsdjkfzxck, output: hi look! it says hi !! wow!!!

Moderators??? WTF???

[BoneFlower]

What is wrong with this??? Most comments I see at 4 or 5 on every discussion are more trollish than this one. So he marked a potentially contreversial part of his post?? If anything that makes him less of a troll.