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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.
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)
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
wait until you see 8000 angry penguins in time square
Already seen it. Remeber the climax of 'Batman Returns'?
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.
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
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
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.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
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...)
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.
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.
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.
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
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.)
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
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.
--
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.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
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).
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.
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.
----
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??
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
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.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
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.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
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
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:
We're on the road to Tycho.
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?
We're on the road to Tycho.
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.
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??
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.
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.
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.
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...
Fruit flies like bananas... Time flies like the wind...
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
-Cheetah
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.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
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.