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US DOJ Says Jackson Not Biased
the_rev_matt sent in linkage to CNN talking about how the DOJ has said that Jackson was not biased in his Microsoft Ruling. Now mind you since
nothing will ever happen as a result of his ruling, I guess it doesn't really matter either way.. I mean, many people think Microsoft is a monopoly. But doesn't appear that anything will change.
is busy editing Slashdot
...part of a 150 page brief...
Only a lawyer could call 150 pages "brief."
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Interesting point. While not being citizens, they are considered independent entities.. Perhaps they are simply exersizing their rights.. :-P
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
The limits to freedom quotation is available at www.gwbush.com in it's full context.
Even in context the quotation is appalling.
If Judge Jackson didn't note or mention those things, he'd be obviously biased in favor of Microsoft...
I'd hope for more from a news site... Slashdot seems to be pretty biased on this issue. So Microsoft = biased, Slashdot = biased, all things Microsoft/Linux related biased = bad... Hmmmm, where do we go from here?
Reminds me of an insightful comment I saw on alt.tasteless:
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Face it, Starr spent $60 MILLION to get Bill Clinton by any means nessesary, and finally resorted to looking for misleading statements about the presidents sex life for a bogus purgery charge.
Lets spend at least $5 million investigating Bush to see if he actually served those couple years in the Air Guard, and another $5 mill for those rumors of an illegal abortion.
I thought I had seen everything on Slashdot, but congrats on showing me something unexpected. I read your post, saw your name was "buttfucker2000", and saw you had a link in your sig. I thought, "oh wow, I'll bet the link is really gross. Some joke about pussy or something." I have my own office, so I clicked to check it out. It's a real site about fricking cats. It has these queer little pastel images of kittens available for download. If you're going to name yourself "Buttfucker2000", do something cool with your sig. Come on.
Yeah, it's off-topic. My Karma is really really high.
-B
Oh my. Who to believe??
Never meant half of the things I said to you. So you know, there's a half that might be true - G. Phillips
Actually, "misunderestimated" sounds like a great new word to me. However, if you wanted to try and say he didn't mean to say that a claim could be made that he was just talkign too fast and let a few words run together.
If you want to speak a dead language, try picking up Latin.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nothing personal against you either, It was not so much your particular post as the whole lot of 'clone' posts extolling the stupidity of GW - I'd have done the same if it had been tree jokes and Gore (well, possibly I would have let someone else handle that...). Your post just made the best target.
/. a safer place for you and me.
:-) tacked on... without the "sarcasm" marker it looked pretty neive and funny to me! It had a second level of amusment for me thinking of a mere ':-)' as context. Yes, I am easily amused.
In context, it looked far less like humor than an attack, and I'm just tired of people calling other people stupid as if it were a valid argument - so I thought I'd produce something of a counter argument to the rampant flow of 'poo-poo head' comments. Sure I come off as a humorless buffoon, but that's the kind of risk I'm willing to take to make
1) You come off looking like you're really into shiny things, if you catch my drift.
2) It was marked up, with the
3) I am sorry I had to stoop this low, but like you say it was funny out of context! It just lept out at me.
4) It's like the "Banannarama" song - you just can't have so many similar words appear so close together withough a reader chuckling at least a little.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As an example of how to use this new and wonderful word, Consider what to say if you finish a project early. I suppose you might say "I finished early", and hardly even get a notice out of people at a meeting.
But, try saying "I misunderestimated the scope of work to do... and now I'm done early!" Everyone in the room will be thinking about you for a good long time after that (after they stop laughing) - and remember, no press in bad press! You come off looking eccentric and mysterious, as well as creative.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1) The states are co-prosecutors. They do not, and many have stated they will not, withdraw.
OK, granted, but it doesn't stop the DOJ from fighting with them.. (as in "we should just fine them $100" or something stupid like that.
2) The DOJ won a resounding victory in the trial. Backing off would make you look like an idiot.
Come on, this is the Shrub we're talking about - this is the same guy who said to Dick Cheney "Find me the best person to be my running mate", then Cheney comes back and says "Umm, it's me!" - and the Shrub just says "Oh, OK!"..
I can just see some infighting between the plaintiffs, and the Supreme Court siding with MS.
What it means it that nothing will stay the same.
The legal system appears too slow (and seemingly too fucking stupid) to cope with the internet.
My guess is that micros~1 will look completely different in 5 years time, and not because of any anti-trust case. Either their recent stupidities will backfire with consumers, and/or they morph into something new and different.
Time will tell.
Ted Turner, I assume?
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Why not give them the right to vote, idiot?
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
I'm just glad that I turned on the "prompt for cookies" option before they started doing it. What a close call!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
have a look at the last 5 stories dude, there aint much being submitted.
How we know is more important than what we know.
damn.. think the font on that page could be any more unreadable?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Well, assuming Ashcroft makes it in as AG, DOJ may still stay the course. He's no big fan of Microsoft.
Hmm, last time I checked, Judge Jackson ruled in DOJ's favorite, of course the DOJ will say he is unbias.
And the majority of the people neither thinks Microsoft is a monopoly nor do they care.
Antitrust generally has nothing to do with product quality and everything to do with business practices. And frequently, practices only in a narrow range of a company's activities.
Headline:
Washington - Microsoft, Dell and Unisys Executives Jailed for Treason After Announcing New System That Will Make Voting as Reliable And Easy to Use as a Home Computer.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
The comments in question were made AFTER a judgement had been made. His part in the cas eis over unlees a high court sends it back to him. Those comments do not give evidence to the judge being biased during the court case. Remember all of the blunders Microsoft did during the case. All he did was state a conclusion he reach after the facts were presented to him.
There argument doesn't float.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Riddle me this:
If money and value are conserved, then how does the Treasury Department and the banking system increase the money supply, and why is it possible to have inflation that increases far faster than population growth and any possible demand could outstrip supply?
.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Technically, there are limits to freedom -- even political speech.
For instance, campaign contributions have been recognized by SCOTUS as being free speech (Buckley v. Vallejo, IIRC) -- but, they also ruled that there is a compelling interest in regulating it in order to reduce even the semblance of corruption; a contribution forbidden by the regulations is illegal even if no corruption is actually involved.
The FEC, therefore, has jurisdiction over this sort of stuff. And if one interprets parody anti-Bush sites as political advertising -- particularly if they are also pro-Gore, as some are IIRC -- then it is arguable that these are services essentially contributed to a campaign, and therefore should fall under the scope of the regulations. ISTR, in fact, that there was once a Slashdot story mentioning the FEC's stance regarding political statements online by third parties and the possible need to determine how much value was put into them.
In that sense, as long as political ads on television are constrained, perhaps political parody sites -- mostly set up to trash a candidate, and usually promote his main rival -- should be regulated too.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Precisely, which makes the concept that there's only so much money to go around patently bizarre.
Practical case --
Some years ago, Brazillian banks paid 1% interest per day for savings accounts; they had to offer this, just to keep up with inflation. Anybody who claims that can happen, while suggesting that the money supply is in fact largely static, is either claiming that demand for goods was, strangely, increasing a corresponding amount in general (and thus driving up prices), or that there was a general conspiracy to raise prices across all sectors of the economy, (which seems just as weird), or that the Brazillians were just being completely wacky (ditto).
The only plausible way to account for that was that the money supply was increasing, essentially devaluing the currency and forcing people to exchange greater and greater amounts (in absolute terms, not necessarily relative to value) for the same goods.
Value is created. Just because Mr. Ellison may have tens of billions of dollars doesn't mean that others have lost tens of billions of dollars that they'll never recover; they in turn create goods and perform services with their own intrinsic value. Economics isn't zero-sum no matter what a fringe may believe.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Andover.net executive: Hey CmdTraco, there are not enough hits to slashdot today... put something about Microsoft or whatever...
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HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
As some people know, Boeing is the last major plane manufacturer in the United States. They also have many other departments, such as Missle Defense. Visiting there the other day in Aneheim, the guy I talked to described Boeing "in bed" with Microsoft. The government has protected and is using Boeing, so why wouldn't they do the same for Microsoft? To the average non-geek, there is only "Windows." Maybe they're working with the government on something as well?
><>
As others have pointed out - but of course. What's the story here? This headline is merely an invitation to a flamefest.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
[stock rant on the subject]
This whole story should be marked (-1, Flamebait) or (-1, Troll) .
The job shared by Hemos, CmdrTaco, et al., can be stated as publishing stories on the front page that will generate lots of page visits. To troll, in the fishing sense, is to put bait out that will generate predictable bites on the hook. Thus, Slashdot is a troll, but that's by design.
If you don't want to be baited, don't go somewhere that constantly and loudly claims to have nothing to do with professional journalism. They intend to get people to talk, even if it's on a gut-reaction level, as that is what pays the rent.
[end of stock rant on the subject]
[
On the other hand, maybe it doesn't...
This is a manual virus. Copy it to your sig and help me spread!
Whoa, the Caldera lawsuit may be instructive to Senator Hatch. However, I believe he has always been more interested in the fortunes of another Utah-based company, that is, Novell ($2.4 billion market cap) rather than Caldera ($89 million). He's just, I think, more practical. Interestingly, Novell was the last owner (after buying Digital Research) of DR-DOS before Caldera acquired it and filed suit.
Having said that, I completely agree with your comment.
> Music | Posted by CmdrTaco on 15-01-01 19:01 from the well-maybe-I-guess dept.
Is that because Jackson is apparently pretty common name for musicians, that this news is under "Music" ?
I don't know if what you've said is true as I've not spent much time following the case ... BUT if that were true, then my "think like a lawyer" brain tells me they're trying to piss the judge off enough to give him a bias -- so they have grounds to appeal ... MS's lawyers knew from the start they didn't have a chance.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Yup. that's basically the whole story. Luckily for me, I use all the "worst" and most "user-ufriendly" software, such as KNapster on Linux Mandrake. I'm just sitting here waiting for the RIAA or M$ (or both) to come over to my house and demand 'retrobution' for breaking these all so important laws. ("Oh of *course* I'm goin to pay tons of money instead of downloading something better for free!")-
----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
Perversely greped and groped by PowerPenguin
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/9805-micros oft.html
I'm not surprised - wasn't he really close to declaring them in contempt at one point? And do I recall correctly something about a video which was more or less falsified?
If he had said these things before the trial, then there would be cause for concern. But what the hell is wrong with sticking to your guns after the fact? Call it "bias" if you like, but to me it sounds like his verdict was more honest considering that he was actually convinced of what he was writing about.
Or maybe I'm just on crack...
Agreed. Actually, MS should count themselves lucky that Jackson didn't try to nail'em for perjury after those attempts at sham videos.
Dubya better not try to pull the fed out of the case. It was the Repubs who kept screaming that "You can't change the rules of the game after it's started."
Of course, politians have incredibly flexible memories and morals, so who knows.
Of *course* the DOJ is biased. So is Microsoft - they'd probably grasp at ANYTHING which would possibly lead to that verdict being overturned.
Chris Tembreull
Web Developer, NEC Systems, Inc.
Chris Tembreull
"My karma just ran over your dogma."
Ah yes, how could I forget being taken of the gold then later silver standard so the government could print as much money as was needed.
If they can do it why can't I?
The List of Grievances with Slashdot.
Why because I hold liberal values does that automatically make me a welfare advocate? I am neither supported nor consider welfare a good system. I am enraged by the Graduated Income Tax system and the way tax cuts usually come to the richest 1%.
You posted that comment on an open source advocacy site suggesting people stop leeching off other people's endeavors. Ironic and paradoxal.
I could really go either way on this issue, actually. I hate seeing the Federal and State tax deductions off my paycheck every week, but it irks me even more knowing that Microsoft paid $0 to State and Federal tax system. Very disturbing. That's our capitalism.
The List of Grievances with Slashdot.
No offense to anyone who agrees with the judge. I only mean to share my opinion... and it's probably biased.
In my posts way back when, i predicted that MS would use Jackson's big blabber mouth against him and I was right. haha, What a fool, I pity him not.
Well, I haven't been picked in the times I've been called, but that's also part of the system. The jury system is, IMO, similar to what somebody said about Democracy: it's a terrible system with only one redeeming feature- that every other system people have tried is worse.
Actually it's better than that. It means that every citizen, even those who aren't picked to sit in judgment, has an opportunity to see the justice system in action. It's hard to emphasize how important that is. And, quite frankly, if you think about how suspicious people are about corruption in the system today, think about how bad it would be if there weren't a strong random element in selecting the arbiters of the facts. Professional jurors would be predominantly people with judicial axes to grind, rather than ordinary people with ordinary views. If you relied exclusively on judges, the political pressure on their appointments would be much, much greater than it is today. The alternatives are just too scary to consider seriously.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Sadly, though, the law doesn't actually wind up generating juries that accurately reflect the community from which they come. The rules of jury selection allow the lawyers to throw a certain number of potential jurors out without having to justify their exclusion. The result is that in a community with a large slant favoring one side or the other, the slant is exaggerated by the selection process. Of course the racially biased juries from the old South were made worse by the fact that in many cases all of the officers of the court were complicit in helping the racial bias, but it can still happen today. If, for instance, 80% of the people in a community are impressionable idiots, a lawyer who thinks that it will help his client to have a jury full of impressionable idiots can probably get one, while a lawyer who wants a jury of smart independent-minded people will have a lot of trouble.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Well, you're not helping matters any with that kind of attitude. If you don't like the way that juries work, there's something that you personally can do about it: don't try to wriggle out the next time you get called for duty. If all of the intelligent, creative people who you seem to think are trying to avoid jury duty would go down there and do their part, it would be that much tougher for the lawyers to try to bias things. Remember that in most cases the lawyers have only a limited number of peremptory challenges, so if there is a high enough percentage of non-gullible people in the jury pool they won't be able to get rid of them all.
Why is it that the people who complain about our political system can't be bothered to vote, and the people who complain about our justice system can't be bothered to serve jury duty?
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
How many cases did the US gov't prosecute against General Electric in the 70s and 80s --blowing off toxic waste cleanup regs, lying to gov't regulators, fraud and overbilling (overbillioning) on defense contracts, etc.-- and did Uncle Sam stop buying from GE even for a moment, a corporation which, if it were a person living in California, would now be in jail for life? (3 strikes)
There are many advantages to being a monopoly power- being a power to be reckoned with is probably first, even before profits. Besides that, in other gov't dept.s than the DoJ, MSFT is still regarded as a cool up and coming software company that is among the very few comapines they would trust to write a large complex networked accounting system in a reasonable time frame.
Killing off your competitors may have some long term risks, but you can see for yourself how handsomely it returns in the short run.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
What about the context of these statements!
Q. Do you think that Bill Gates has anything in common with any great world leaders?
A. "Bill Gates is very Napoleonic"
Q. Brad Pitt made the Vanity Fair Best Dressed list this year, what is your personal opinion on this?
A. "I think Bill Gates is one of the worst [ever]"
Q. Do you think that microsoft employees like to socialize with each other, playing Quake or Paintball or perhaps some card games after work? What board games do you think they would enjoy most?
A. "Bill and his company obviously have monopoly traits, no, no doubt about it"
The quotes you pulled from Xenomech does not sound stupid/silly/bad at all, despite your best effort in trying to make it so. Yes, someone can be an idiot and get to that level, if enough of the population are idiots and vote along party lines, or think that Gore is too "robotic" and W is more "human", or think that voting republicans will benefit them more. Sometimes people vote out of fear, fear that the democrats will win. I agree with Xenomech--W is a retard. And a cold-hearted liar to boot--check out W's electric chair record in TX, where everyone toasted is guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. Anyway, this is getting out of topic... Cheers, e.
It will be interesting in the coming months to watch how the DOJ's currently 'obvious' position on Microsoft changes once Bush starts asserting power and the new order starts creeping in.
It is easy to control all that you see,
Reminds me of an old Wizard of Id cartoon
King: You have the right to be tried by a jury of your peers.
Accused: Huh! No bunch of pickpockets is gonna judge me!
Sure, lets use a jury of M$'s peers, that would be fair. Now onward to finding a jury of peers. M$ is a computer (hardware and software) corporation, so therefore their peers are other corporations. So, using that logic most of those who would be on any "fair" jury are actually witnesses for the prosecution. Sun, IBM, Apple, Compaq, etc. are the peers of M$. I hardly see any of them doing a great deal to defend M$.
On an another more serious note, I was discussing the M$ thing with soemone I go to church with. Their reply, (after hearing about all of the theft, threats, false promises, broken contracts, etc.) was that everyone does these things in that industry and that Bill Gates made computers easy to use for people so we should overlook 'his' shortcomings. (BTW: people see things this way: Bill Gates=Microsoft, personally and figurativly) Also he gives so much to charity and has done so many great things. We should just leave him alone. Who needs a choice we should all use windows because everything would be simpler then and everything would be compatible and would magically work then. Does this sound objective to you?
No, that's true. Conservatives lined up in support of Starr because they felt the position he was supporting was in line with their principles, and liberals attacked him as an wild man probing far too much into the President's life. Liberals felt the investigation was outrageous and Starr was a nosey, sexually starved religious right winger, conservatives supported it whole-heartedly and said Starr was the most calm of any of the people involved and cared only for the facts. Now it's kind of reversed (liberals support bringing MS into court, conservatives think MS should be left alone) except the man who was once seen as calm and factually driven by conservatives may now be cast as out of control and a government nanny. It's a very interesting twist of fate.
This is absolutely true. While the case may hit a few bumps during the transition from Reno to (possibly) Ashcroft, the states are just going to roll over and act as if nothing happened. Remember, one of the first states to look into this was Texas, home of Dubya.
I also find it quite interesting that one of the lawyers now involved in the Microsoft cases is Ken Starr, the man hated by liberals & Clintonians and loved by republicans & conservatives for his work on the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. I'm wondering how many of those conservatives will view his taking on the MS-DOJ case since it has been *my* observations that most of the opposition to the DOJ-MS case has come from Republicans and pro-laizze-fare economists who *generally* lined up in support for Starr during Clinton-Lewinsky.
Oops, that should say: the states *aren't* just going to roll over and act as if nothing happened.
And the verdict in the case of US vs Microsoft is...
The Judge is acquitted of bias!
Mr. Borg Gates wins again.
A cynical person might think this was their tactic all along. Piss off the judge so much that it looks like he's biased against them, then use that in appeal.
I agree. I favour something like a juror's licence - something that anyone with a little dedication could get, like a driver's licence. They'd take a few evening classes. Logic, lie detection, etc... Juries would still be random, with all the benefits that gives, but they would be a random selection of _qualified_ people.
One of the most important jobs in our society, that of juror, is one that any old unqualified person can do.
But why would anyone bother to take the classes? Well, jury duty should pay _well_. It's important. Acknowledge that importance with the green stuff.
I've never been called. The people I know who have been called, and did their civic duty taking a week off work going down to court every day didn't get picked. I'm not saying I would necessarily avoid jury duty, but this kind of thing does not exactly make it worthwhile.
But I'm not sure the best way to fix a flawed system is to make it work as well as it possibly can. That just hides the flaws, and so means it will be longer before it gets fixed.
Oh, and I voted in the last election, if only so people couldn't make the "You have no right to complain if you didn't vote" argument at me.
We just had that message posted a few days ago. It seems to me that if Linux is MS's biggest threat, then they are indeed a monopoly. While Linux/Gnome/KDE/etc. may some day give them a run for their money. I don't see them losing any sleep over it.
That's sort of like saying "The biggest threat to humankind is the cockroach." Sure, in a few million years, something could happen, but I'm not too worried. Thus humans have a "monopoly" on the planet.
I'll probably get flamed for this, but c'mon guys, Linux is not going to start replacing any real percentage of desktops in the forseeable future. Anyone that thinks otherwise is at best, extremely optimistic, and at worst, delusional.
Slashdolt
-If you don't agree with me, then I'm not explaining myself well enough.
The 1st ammendment and 2nd ammendment are more important than Microsoft's monopoly over uneducated people's decision to purchase Microsoft software. Microsoft's operating system somehow is symbiotic with their company's headquarters. Say, for example, they get split up into 4 different, government-regulated companies, and everything will still be evident. Bill Gates will just chant to everyone... "Let us shutdown and restart and maybe everything will be ok."
My point is that no matter how much competition there is, there will always be the so-called "popular" software; no matter how much you separate it, chop it down, and string it up. It is only fair that you apply your same principles of open-source contribution to the Microsoft company. Do you know how much grit and wroth the entire Microsoft company feels deep inside their small brains when they try to explain to computer-educated people of why the keep their "Linux myths" page on microsoft.com? They are suffering. Microsoft is not a healthy company and their employees aren't the sharpest broadheads in Bill Gate's quiver. Like all diseased animals, they will surely die at the feet of a much bigger bird.
Benjamin Franklin, one of the manny awesome dudes in the history of the United States , once said that any person who gave up a little freedom for a little security deserves no freedom at all. He also said that people should bathe nude once a week. Now, given all the anti-reverse-compiling laws that the government has devoted itself to enforcing, I would do my best at keeping the government out of my own business expeditions. Every law that is passed is an attack on our freedoms. Taxes are anti-freedom. Today, nobody can live somewhere and be free from debt. Debt and fear affects everyone's freedom. For example, I don't want to report the income I made at that shitty, uNsTable, fagget-founded, San Franciscan auction website that I incessantly direct my http client towards. I don't want the government to have the power to decide who is the "MONOpoly" of open or closed source software, and I sure to hell don't want to give the government any advantage over UNITED STATES' private enterprises because there are too many ill-founded computer users who think they have an intelligent vote on why Microsoft is or isn't a monopoly.
People are children in nature. Do you think an Athiest who debates on whether the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have a monopoly over good people? Then you have the wicken people claiming that they too should have equal *axxess to kindergarteners on Good Friday. Give those people no respect. Those same people that take away your freedoms live all around you. Do not take part in their traditions and do not let them educate your children. But hell, who is the person that says they are just trying to be nice and friendly and didn't mean to hurt you? String them up, no?
However how many other people sidetrack and decieve the true fighters for freedom, I have a perfect phylosophy on solving Microsoft's monopoly on ignorant computer users...
1.Linux, BSD, BeOS on everything and
2.Microsoft-inspired-overly-simplified client software that is unlike Microsoft brands by being idiot-proof;
3.for a more affordable price to the average do-it-now joe.user
I demand that Tux carry a pop-gun, complete with cork and string! YEAH!
without prejudice
DOH!
What are you talking about? As I RTFA, I see nothing about the appeals court rendering a decision. All I see is a story saying the DoJ submitted their brief to the court.
funny munging
The Appeals court certainly has yet to say anything! That will happen sometime after the 9th of February and not before! Do any of you people actually know what this case is even about?
What kind of mother names her child "Penfield" anyways ? That even beats the nature-based names of the hippie era. At least when someone's called "Liberty Stevens" you know her mom was just dead stoned, but Penfield ?!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
actually, Microsoft isn't a monopoly, but they did employ monopolistic practices. personally, I think the punishment should fit the crime, a break up is the wrong solution, the proper solution would be proportionate fines, (we could pay off the national debt)and necessary monitoring and regulation.
Well, not that it's worth too much, but let me say this, then you can flame me all you like. My family lives in the bum friggin middle of missouri (the state of misery). We're talking cow pattie central here. Because my family is heavy into politics, I've gotten several chances to meet Sen. Ashcroft. While I do not at all agree with many of his views, I can say that I think he'll be FAIR. Perhaps more friendly than we'd like to see, but less friendly than what everyone seems to expect from us conservatives (liberals in missouri hardly exist..even the so called "liberals" are relatively conservative). He's certainly in the middle of the politics of Washington, but he is still interested in actually doing his job and trying to do it right.
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised that it SEEMS that the conservatives heading into congress and Washington are saying that they'll take a look at liscensing issues, and hopefully try to put an end to the M$BS we've been seeing.
Just my two cents.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
...and while Gates was evasive in his deposition
...he complains about judicial bias without one reference to the findings of fact?
"Ballmer, more birdshot"
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Did the DOJ sing its opinion that Jackson's not biased? If not, why the choice of category?
I was a bit confused myself. Other posts are of the opinion that this shouldn't have been front-page news, or that the title could have been done better.
Of course, when things don't quite make sense, the conspiracy theories start.
The person who submitted the story, the_rev_matt, does not appear to be a regular SlashDot poster. He does appear to have several incarnations, such as reverend_matt and The Reverend. One of those IDs, reverend_matt, has a email address of troll@punitiveart.com. This gentleman already confesses to some troll leanings.
The website, at www.punitiveart.com, is a slashdot-style website where the reverend posts stories of his own personal interest. The latest story was dated November 5, titled Men are Better Than Women. While the casual viewer may think that this is a right-wing rant, the post goes on to condemn misogyny. This individual has a history of using stealth tactics to get you to read his story.
It is possible, then, that he wanted the story printed, and used sly tactics, such as using a strange category and a flamebait title, to get the editor to post it.
However, I believe it to instead be a code signal. Others will see this post, the title, the subject, and know that they should prepare. They will then search the comments for a specific comment, from a specific user, and know the time is near. Finally, the comment will be moderated, in a strange fashion, one that will leave the meta-moderators scratching their heads, but those in the know will know that the next phase has commenced, and to unlease the virus/ detonate the bombs/ flee to the deserts/ write letters to the editor, or whatever the grand plan is.
Or, it could just be Slashdot editors screwing up again. It's become commonplace enough that it doesn't bother me anymore. Of course, maybe they want you to ignore it...
Good to hear from you! I was hoping you would clear up whether the post was made with a Music topic or not.
.NET strategy or whatever makes it irrelevant. If this is the case, it's using the courts (and costing the taxpayers money) in a somewhat unethical fashion.
Microsoft basically filed a claim that, based on comments the judge made after the trial, that he was biased and his judgement was impared. There are three explainations:
1. Microsoft is trying to create as many cases as possible. This way, as long as one is still pending, they can avoid the breakup. Or, at least put it off until the
2. Old-fashioned FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt), now applied to government and legal questions. Before, the American public could think, "A judge ruled that Microsoft is a monopoly!" This would impact stock price, consumer opinion, etc. Now, they have to think "A judge ruled that Microsoft is a monopoly, but the judge may be biased, and the decision hasn't been reviewed by a higher court, and the tech landscape has changed since then, and there's a new president who is pro-business..." End result - consumer opinion is put on hold, stock price stays somewhat steady, and Microsoft gets some breathing room.
3. They truly believe that he has to be biased. This would almost prove the judge's opinion that Microsoft is arrogant: "How can anyone rule against us? He must have been biased at the start!" All the have on him is an interview after the fact, unless he has some "friends" that will rat on him. I doubt there is enough evidence for this trial to go through. As far as I know, higher courts rule on the possible subjectiveness of the lower court by reviewing the case, and Microsoft case is more "the judge was flawed" then "the case was flawed", or so it seems.
Anyway, it's interesting.
Now, the slightly off-topic stuff. I was confused by the music topic, so I went to search for your name. The search engine ignores the character "_", so a search for "the_rev_matt" ended up as a search for "therevmatt". I then searched for "punitiveart", and found the three references. I looked at the web site, and was interested by what I saw (thanks for some good links).
Either you posted in a weird forum (which you didn't), or a Slashdot editor changed it to the Music topic. Either way, an editor should be in the position to go back and fix the problem, especially with the visual cue that something is wrong. Why didn't they?
It got me thinking, has the editiorial content gone down since I started reading, or do I just notice it more? There have been some strange behaviours, such as typos, links that were never checked, etc. Someone points this out (in an intollerant fashion, usually), and folks use that thread to complain about the declining quality on SlashDot. Perhaps off-topic, but I can argue that posting to a thread is on-topic, even if the original thread is off-topic (obviously, I have a bias, since I do it myself). However, the moderators browsing at earliest posts, no threads, don't see the thread, and mod it as off-topic. I see these in the meta-mod, and ocassionally mark them as unfair mods, sometimes taking a karma hit myself in the process.
Anyway, I've seen corrections and additions to stories, so I know it is possible. The question is, why don't they do it more often? Ocassionaly, they will change something, which will make a whole thread (the back-seat editor thread) stop making sense, so possible it's for consistancy. However, these do go into the archives, so I'd like to see some pro-active editing, to take out mistakes when they are noticed.
One of the things I like about SlashDot is the reasonable approximation of a water cooler. A story may or may not be interesting in itself, but the discussion is almost always interesting. Usually, the form is "On the subject of Linux, Kernel 2.4 was just officially released!". In my opinion, this one should have come out as, "Speaking of news, the DOJ filed a brief in the case where Microsoft accused Judge Jackson of being biased". Instead, it came out as, "On the subject of Music, the DOJ says that Jackson was not biased!" My responce may be "Duh! Of course they would say that", or "Huh? Music?". Lively, but off-topic discussion insues.
I've seen a lot of mistakes lately, so maybe a copy editor is sick, or I'm just noticing them more. One possible explanation, though, is that the mistakes are intentional, written in a code only a select few understand, blah blah blah. From there, it was simple enough to imagine a global conspiracy. Maybe you weren't even who you said you were, someone just stole your id (maybe the conspiracy searches for those who have several ids, and create a new one).
I've rambled on enough. Interesting website, congrats for adding content to this Internet thing, and thanks for being good-natured about it.
Nah, it should be titled:
...and Microsoft went to the gallows, still proclaiming his innocence. Even today, there are many who claimed that being found holding a bloody knife standing over the body and saying "I'm glad I killed the bastard" was purely circumstantial, and that the 57 witnesses could have been wrong.
Side which won previous round in court battle refutes allegations of bias made by side that lost previous round in court battle
---------------------------
'No rational religion claims "supernatural" exists, that's an atheist slander.' - seen on slashdot.
Penguins and jailbirds. The Linux Pimp
--It's Pimptastic!--
He got a head start toward Carnagyism last year when he donated billions of his lucre to erect educational buildings with his name on them. To complete the picture, he allegedly plans to take to wearing heavy fur coats and beaver hats, bathe for hours in a tub filled with hundred dollar bills, and hire the Pinkertons to keep his employees from unionizing.
After the pall of the antitrust suit has worn off, look for Gates and company to begin acquiring properties with the same vigor as before. Next step: Baltic Avenue.
www.ridiculopathy.com
...there is a Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
While they may be 'at the gallows' for the moment, their fate is far from certain. If there is anything I've learned as a citizen, it's that the government takes its sweet time to get the job done. By the time the verdict is actually applied, Microsoft will have a profitable business model for both (all?) of it's sects. Also, as far as I know, there is no law at current that disallows companies to share information exclusively with each other, which means that these new companies could still hold a closed source regime.
--- What
How can anyone in this day and age not be biased one direction or another? Unless you braved the frozen tundra of the Siberian wastelands and stumbled onto civilization, you are biased. Anyone that has really used a computer in the United States has been biased one way or another whether by a certain degree of comfort with 'this is what I have always used' or 'well, this is what came on my machine, so I keep it for tech support.' Any school-age child in a reasonably well-funded district has been touched in some way by computers and the operating system that was on them. This makes them inherently biased. The work force is over-populated with machines, and managers who insist on having the same OS loaded on them that they use at home because there is no learning curve. That makes most working adults biased also. You can ask for a non-prejudicial judge to preside on the bench, but it's a delusion. To make matters worse.. would you actually want someone who knew nothing about computers to make such a landmark decision? This is a double-edged sword. Comfort and exposure breed bias and prejudice.
I'll just keep chugging away on my linux box, and watch from the sidelines.
With Linux making more and more headway, and IBM about to launch a HUGE marketing campaign on our behalf, I ask this of the community... .sig is sort of a Bill-bash, but it really was a funny joke.)
Does it really matter anymore?
Can we finally get past this whole "M$ is evil, Bill's the devil attitude? I mean, when is the last time you paid a tax to Bill?
I'm guessing a long, long time.
Wouldn't our energies be better focussed and possibly even more creative if we could just finally let this go and move on?
(I realize that my
"I've seen plays that were more exciting than this.
Honest to god... Plays!" Homer Simpson
If someone claims not to have an opinion on something, they are lying. If someone does not display their opinion it is because if they do they will loose their power to influence others (the people stupid enough to believe that the person does not use the law to enforce their opinion (even if their opinion appears to be the supremacy of the law- its not unless the judge/lawyer is altruistic, therefore deceiving themselve)).
In the distance you hear an ominous moo.
Um, I was under the impression that juries are made up of a group of your peers?
... who else?
Hmm, so in this case we should choose:
Larry Ellison
Scott McNealy
You *really* need to get out more if you're building conspiracy theories around me! No, I am not a regular poster. I've submitted many things, but this is the first time I've gotten posted (I suspect because I'm usually slower than most...). The reason I have several IDs (and note that the other two have not logged in in over a year) is because I've left several jobs and forgotten to back up my mail including things like slashdot passwords. I'm lazy, so I just create a new userid. A single story with a "misleading" header (it was not misleading, it was a quote that the article was responding to) doesn't exactly qualify as a history. Not that Slashdot did not use the text that I submitted (which was a fairly banal statement to the effect that the DOJ had reported the results of their investigation). I didn't choose a strange category (I used the default one, which was news, I have no idea why Slashdot changed it to music, maybe they meant to change it to It's Funny). As far as the many comments since then that "the DOJ is biased" etc, of course they are. The point of reporting this was twofold. 1 - they issued an official position (which will prove awfully embarrassing if the Supremes eventually find they were wrong). 2 - it is a legitimate news story, whether or not the report was biased. MSNBC failed to report even the simple fact that it had been issued.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
Moreover, the "Jury of Peers" situation is a difficult one in business law, because a corporation is endowed with the legal powers of a human being. Beyond who is M$'s peer, what constitutes a "peer corporation"?
Last, a jury of 12 randomly selected citizens would be difficult in the case of M$. This is because the legal proceedings involve the interpretation of antitrust law, which is a huge and very complicated body of law. While I believe that M$ is an abusive monopolistic power, the nuances of antitrust escape me, as they probably escape everyone else on /.
That is why a qualified federal judge decided this case, and did so correctly. I still am unclear as to why he felt it necessary to go and give interviews - that definitely seems to compromise his impartiality, and hurt the case immensely. The only argument I would make is that he did so to leave an opening for appeal, and allow the trial to continue indefinitely. Perhaps he wanted to keep the trial going so that time would level the playing field without the need for direct federal intervention, and possibly scare M$ into submission.
The DOJ could nuke the Redmond, execute and toss the bodies of all international the Microsoft employees into the crater, and make the Windows use illegal and punishable by the death, and it still wouldn't help the Linux in the server or the the consumer markets.br
Free Anne Tomlinson!!
It is a monopoly, those other products that you listed are better in many ways. (To this day I can't understand how poeople can even use ms office, its such crap) They mantain there monopoly by keeping incompatibe w/ competing products,(or older ones) bullying "customers". Who else came up w/ byeing software then paying for using it? Or the crap software "agreements"? Or having IE intergrated into your os? Those was all forced to us because we don't really have a choise. Ya I can use linux 100%, but I can only do 10% of what I use to.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
Agree here. I happened to see the interview with Bill Gates a few (2?) years back on the BBC. Now the interview would be conducted by Jeremy Paxman, and I think most British readers will agree that he is one of the UK's most feared interviewers. Once Paxman feels he has cause, he can and will break his subject on prime time TV, so I sat down to really enjoy myself.
It turned out that the interview focused on Bill personally, not on Bill as the chairman of Microsoft, so Paxman was rather lowkey for his doing, and I was dumbstruck: I actually liked Bill's personality. One thing that was obvious was that this nice, likeable man really believed that he was doing the right thing.
Well, I guess we all know what the road to Hell is paved with, don't we......?
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
FIX MY IE WHEN IT FOO BARS ON THE MS WINDOWS UPDATE WEBSITE. DAMN MICROSOFT KEYBOARD AND CAPS LOCK. 640k ought to be enough for anybody ;)
ack what's with this gay ass filter.. i can't make one lame joke and have it posted... damn it rudolph.
Oh yes! The incredible evil of creating an operating system whose file browser can also display web pages. Oh and its evil(tm)...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
More accurately: everybody is biased. There are a few rare people who can see past their personal biases. Some judges are even among these few people.
Just an observation that although I would have thought that this crowd ( and CmdrTaco in particular) would have been sophisticated enough to note that Microsoft was not found guilty of being a monopoly. Being a monopoly is LEGAL. Abusing the power of being a monopoly is what is illegal, and precisely what microsoft did. The reason this community should fear a monopoly like microsoft is their desire to crush competitors using illegal monopolistic tatics, not just being a monopoly itself. In other words, being a monopoly is a necessary but not sufficient condidition for the violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. You also have to actually abuse the power.
Being disintegrated makes me so angry.
Someone touched on the issue at hand somewhere in these postings, but I can't find it anymore. Oh well.
The point in question is not whether Microsoft is a monopoly, but in being one, did they act like one? (high prices, no innovation etc). I don't believe they truly are, or we wouldn't have Linux as a viable platform would we? They are close, but no cigar (yet).
Again, if you take a really good look at the articles being filed back and forth, Microsoft has not acted like one.
And yes, they have done a few things wrong, but none of them truly come under the laws covered by anti-trust. And yes, the Judge shouldn't have opened his mouth and said the things he did (he has no credibility any more) and Microsoft is trying to worm their way out using some technicalities.
The question being raised now is: Should Microsoft be split in two/three/twenty pieces as a remedy to it's anti-trust violations? Short answer: No. Although lots of people will want to see that for their own reasons, Microsoft's appeal will probably work to a large extent (not all 'charges' will be successfully appealled), and the cases still to be held valid will definitely not warrant such a huge and extreme measure.
Any sensible rebuttals or agreements?
As I understand it, the government didn't pay anything for that MS/UNISYS/DELL voting system yet. Those companies decided entirely on their own to build it and then are going to try to sell it to individual municipalities. (Voting in the US is not regulated at the federal level. Each district does it their own way and then reports results up to the next level in the hirearchy.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Today was the today when the DOJ was required to submit their rebuttal of MS's appeal statement; the case is still going and on time, as the appeal court is expected to rule on this by the middle of the year.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Remember that you also have 19 states persuing action along side the DOJ. The DOJ may back down, but power really hasn't changed in those states and they'll keep up the fight.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Ahh, well if this is true, then by extension the entire Rush Limbaugh franchise should be regulated by the government.
But why stop there? Newspaper editorial boards, columnists and book authors should also be regulated because they all have opinions. In fact the jokes I make at work, or comments I make to friends should also be regulated as campaign contributions.
Personally I find the notion silly and to some extent quite repulsive. As an US Citizen, my right to speak out against those who hold and are running for political office is not only protected, it is encouraged.
I think you are coming to several wrong conclusions based on the facts at hand.
Microsoft is going through a reinvention of itself, partly because of this court case, but also because of the change in the industry. This is not untypical of any corporation which matures.
Corporate executives who start a company rarely stay forever, but leave when the climate changes. There is a big difference between being part of a small company and a large behemoth, and it takes a different kind of executive.
It was inevitable, the challenge for Microsoft is to keep the momentum going with new blood.
Uhh, the geeks are jealous of Microsoft's success. Come on, people aren't attracted to Linux because of it's technical superiority, they are attracted for the same reason people pierce their tongues. It's a desire to be different, to be cool, whatever.
Larry Ellison is one of the primary motivators behind this anti-trust lawsuit, and he's certainly in this game because of jealousy.
I wouldn't look too deep here for vindication of your beliefs because in the long run you'll be sorely disappointed.
Who would Microsoft's "peers" be? Hmmm ... how about other software companies? That jury could have folks on it like Scott McNealy, Larry Ellison, James Barksdale... after all, these folks are in the business and know all about how a software company ought to be treated, right?
Hey, we can dream... (grin)
--
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Unisys Corp
SOFT MONEY DONATIONS: 1999-2000
To Democrats: $0 (0%)
To Republicans: $141,300 (100%)
Total: $141,300
Dell Computer
SOFT MONEY DONATIONS: 1999-2000
To Democrats: $125,549 (26%)
To Republicans: $353,300 (74%)
Total: $480,599
Microsoft Corp
SOFT MONEY DONATIONS: 1999-2000
To Democrats: $916,792 (43%)
To Republicans: $1,236,964 (57%)
Total: $2,153,756
---
Folks,
Given that Bush thinks the entire case was politically motivated, I think what we may see is that once Bush takes office within 90-120 days there WILL be a settlement out of court on this case.
Very likely, MS will pay a multi-million US dollar fine, and the entire case will be settled at that point.
Sure, one Michael Dell can give more than lip service to Linux, but the vast majority of Dell desktops, laptops and servers go out pre-loaded with Microsoft software. They'd rather see MS still be around for revenue reasons. People forget that Dell is a HUGE contributor to the Republican Party last year.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Funny that you bring that up, because it was that exact interview (or rather, the report of it) that I first mused that Bill might really not be in touch with reality. I don't remember many specifics, but one was that he had never heard a Bill Gates joke. That's whacked. But there was something else he said in there that really got me thinking that maybe he really did live in a world where Microsoft was leading the revolution and making the world a better place. This Wired article slammed that notion home. Not that it matters, I suppose. But it was something of a stunning revelation--you wouldn't think that someone as smart as he obviously is oculd really be so far from "getting it". Or maybe I need to reevaluate that idea in the first place...
--
Liberty uber alles.
"This is the beginning of a new chapter in this case," Gates said at the time of Jackson's ruling. He called the decision inconsistent with past court decisions and with the realities of the marketplace.
aren't just Gates reading a press release prepared by his lawyers, but rather him asserting his own opinion of the facts (he researched anti trust law, etc, and was absolutely convinced the law was on his side).
Perhaps the most striking thing in the article is how it shows that Gates really appears to believe what he says. He appears to have been genuinely confused as to why his own government came after him. You can fake a lot of sincerety, but I doubt someone like Gates would go as far as faking tears in front of the company's board.
--
Liberty uber alles.
then you would see that is wasn't the DoJ, but the Federal Court of Appels. The judge being biased was one of the grounds that Mircosoft wanted to have the ruling overturned. In the appels process, it was determined he wasn't biased.
For more into RTFA! I'd say more, but I don't want to be flamebait.
Value can increase too.
Ralph has a chunk of wood. Useless and valueless by itself. If ralph cuts it up and makes it into a birdhouse, however, it now has a value and can be sold.
Because money and value are not conserved. In a capitalist system, wealth is not just re-distributed--it also can be created.
What is "at large" exactly? If you're talking about a town with 99% white population, then the odds are very high that you'll get an all white jury. Likewise, if you sample the country as a whole, the majority is still non-black; it is very possible (in fact, it happens regularly) that you'll get an all white jury. What you're presumably looking for is balance and impartiality. Though a larger or more "even" sampling may flatten out some unbalances, it's far from a guarantee of impartiality.
As long as you're talking about humans, there is always the possibility that there is bias one way or the other. I remember just a couple months ago, businessweek, or some similar magazine, did a survey on Americans' attitudes towards business. A rather alarming percentage of those polled showed definite suspicion against companies in general. That's a bias right there. If the situations were different, if the accused was a black person and the jury, white, with a majority having suspicions of black people then you'd never hear the end of it.
This is not to say that i'm sympathetic towards MS at all (i'm not), but I'm simply making my point. Juries are not guaranteed to be impartial, never mind intelligent, sophisticated, intellectual, educated, etc. In fact, quite the opposite, they tend to be less capable than society as a whole. Furthermore, on the balance, most companies PREFER trial by judge, not jury. It removes a great deal of unpredicability.
First, you're mistaken if you believe that juries are "incapable" of being biased. Go back to your history books and you'll see hundreds of cases where juries have overlooked vast amounts of evidence to arrive at a guilty (or not guilty) verdict.
Second, one of the fundamental aspects to a jury is the right to have a jury of your so-called peers. No single person is nearly as wealthy or pervasive of MS. Hell, no one on any jury is even going to remotely approach Bill Gates' wealth. How is the average jury supposed to know the difference between, say, 50m dollars and 5b dollars to a companies bottom line? If you look at a great many tort cases, some clearly haven't the foggiest idea.
Third, just because a case requires some sophistication to fully comprehend doesn't mean it is not worth while. If we're going to talk about, say, medical malpractice, then we want someone that understands medicine or, if not that, at least someone that has enough sophistication to understand junk science and poor logic.
Fourth, many of us as consumers _know_ MS broke the law. That doesn't necessarily mean we want to convict a company or a person soley on that basis, but to say we don't "know" before a jury tells us a poppycock. That's like stating that a rape victim doesn't know she (or he) was raped until the jury says so.
oh well, that's enough for now
Depends on whether he made those statements before or after evidence was presented. Being able to reach a conclusion isn't necessarily a sign of bias.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Bush also dones't have a mandate for his agenda and if he want's to have a second term then he will preserve the status quo.
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
I totally disagree with your assesment that someone can be an idiot and reach that level, even with the help of stupid voters - remember that the voters vote for the person who managed to be in the position to be voted on (and I thought that other quote I pulled out was silly!) within the party, and that means they won that spot from a lot of other people fighting hard for it - so at the top level of politics on any side, you have no idiots.
Now, if you just stick to saying GW is sheer Evil (or even a liar) then I have no cause for complaint (though I or others might dispute some facts you offer up), as you might very well believe that is true given what you believe in and what he believes in. But saying someone else is stupid (or a "retard" - when do you graduate grade six?) quite frankly gets a lot more paint on the painter than the canvas.
The the only point I'm trying to make here and in my original post is not so much defending GW, it's that calling people an idiot (especially based on quotes alone) is just noise and offers nothing of value. How can we have interesting discussions if we all sounds like preschoolers arguing at recess?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Stating facts, as Mr Jackson did in those quotes, is not bias, it's just that, facts.
"Bill Gates is very Napoleonic"
"I think Bill Gates is one of the worst [ever]"
"Bill and his company obviously have monopoly traits, no, no doubt about it"
Hmmm.... only the last of those quotes comes anywhere near fact (and even that's dubious). What you see above is what's known as opinion, and in a legal trial, opinion generally means squat unless there's facts to back it up.
Either way, opinion == bias.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
A bunch of anti-MS biased nerds on Slashdot discussing how the anti-MS biased DOJ doesn't think the anti-MS ruling judge was biased.
That's what an appeal is for. To debate the fairness of the trial, to introduce new evidence or to in any way request a new trial. It's not like "hey, the judge was a bastard", "oh. well in that case you're dismissed Microsoft, go about your newly found illegal business. Write it up folks, Microsoft is immune from all future prosecution." If the trial was unfair, try it again. I dont care, the truth is on our side.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Well I just searched for the name and it had two t's like everyone else on earth with that name so you can understand my mistake. I dont think you have to be a geek to know anything about marketshare. As a matter of fact, I would say that your average geek wishes he never did learn anything about marketshare and all the business crap that suits have to deal with. Is McNeely even CEO of Sun these days? I dont know, I dont care, but if you're talking about Microsoft being a monopoly, you really should ask a few questions of the guy who is in charge of about the only company that actively competes against Windoze these days.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Mod me back down, that was Senator Orrin G. Hatch not Ashcroft. Two other great quotes in that hearing though:
"There is a very strong need and desire to have single operating system running on all computers worldwide." -- Steward Alsop.
"it's clear the best product doesn't win." -- Scott McNealy, talking about the desktop market.
How we know is more important than what we know.
the mere fact that you think that you cant get a new judge that is unbiased, one way or the other, nullifies this whole argument anyway. If you are willing to believe that any new judge would be biased in Microsoft's favour then why are you not the least bit concerned that Jackson wasnt biased. Sheesh, show a little respect for the system.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Most of those bushisms would sound stupid in any context. Tell me how you could use the word 'misunderestimated' IN context, and without looking like an idiot?
Subliminably.
Well, what the DOJ said is part of a 150 page brief in respounce to things mentioned in Microsoft's appeal. Taken in this sense, it is a part of there arguement against the appeal. They are responding to what Microsoft is saying. Using your arguments, Microsoft is biased too, so we should ignore what they say?
Also using your arguments, both defendants and plaintiffs are baised so why should they be in court?
There is always baiseness(is this a word?) in court cases. That is the point. Someone is defending there point while at the same time disproving the other parties point! Did you even read the article? I read it on Friday 1/12/2001 (but I didn't bother to submit it because my submissions get rejected).
I did like some of what Jackson said. I like the section where Jaskson compares Bill Gates to Napoleon and said Microsoft "executives behave like children"
Seriously, does Schnedt Microne's comment deserve a 5? Watch, I get marked down for pointing out the flaws in his argument.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Juries can't be biased? Hrmmmm.
How about
racially motivated nullification?
Or the time and effort spent on jury consulting? It's done for a reason -- because jurors DO bring biases, and some of them are fairly predictable based on things like social class, race, gender and so forth. The evidence ranges from presentation details (dress the defendant in a suit -- which SHOULDN'T matter to an unbiased jury deciding solely on points of fact and law) to peremptory challenges based on probable biases and so forth.
Jurors are people. People are biased. You can't escape that.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
It used to be that juries sat on all criminal proceedings.
First, this is not a criminal case. Secondly, a jury is a random selection of people. If we start with the premise that some people are biased, a statistical sampling plus the juror elimination process (assuming competent representation for both parties) will only guarantee that we have good odds that the jury that is not overwhelmingly biased one way or the other.
Juries are excellent at deciding simple criminal matters like "does the glove fit?" or evaluating the evidence and deciding what it shows. However, the lay person is not qualified to judge sophisticated legal matters like Antitrust law is. Even the legal experts are divided upon whether Microsoft broke the law here or not.
Mmmm.. Donuts
It is not unfair if someone has more than you do. It is only unfair if that was achieved by stealing what was rightfully yours. If the poorest 99% were to rise up and steal the wealth of the richest 1% simply because they are the majority, then THAT would be unfair.
I don't pretend that the wealth of the richest 1% was rightfully obtained. But you make no argument to show that it wasn't. It would be just as stupid to presume that it wasn't rightfully obtained just because.
You don't have a RIGHT to own a car, or a house, or fancy clothes. You are given those rights by your peers (in terms of money) in return for your contribution (in terms of a job, selling what you produce, services, etc.) to them. If you're not doing anything that's benefiting the rest of society then you don't automatically have a RIGHT to benefit from the fruits of their labors.
That's how capitalism works, brother. Now go out there and be useful and stop expecting to leech off other peoples endeavors anytime soon.
Mmmm.. Donuts
He has a history as a conservative, business friendly jurist and no fan of anti-trust actions. When it first was evident he would get the case he called Microsoft an "engine of the US economy" and said he was "loathe to damage it."
So yes he was biased, TOWARD Microsoft. The fact taht even he was convined they were a predatory monopoly that needed controlling by the end says a lot and will be hard for MS to overturn using this tact.
They might do better in their PR battle with this line, though. The 2 minute memory of the American people never ceases to amaze me.
Keep in mind that a decision has already been rendered. The DOJ culd totally drop persuing it and it still doesnt mean the courts woudl find reason to over-turn it.
Besides I really don't think Bush's cronies want the polticial heat they'll get by suddenly dropping this.
OK, we've all heard (and many of us have participated in) the spelling/grammar/facts flamage of the 'editors' of /.. This isn't one of those posts.
... doesn't appear that anything will change." bit) are nothing but annoying filler. If they were submitted to the discussion thread, they'd probably get modded down as 'troll' or 'flamebait.'
A recommendation, though; quit with the 'one-line editorials.' If you're going to comment on a submission, then either write a _real_ comment, or don't bother at all. These silly little comments tossed off (i.e. the whole "Now mind you since nothing will ever happen
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Let's keep something in mind. At a jury trial the judge is a traffic cop making sure that the presentation of evidence to the jury is in accordance with the rules, and is there to make sure that the lawyers and the jury don't do anything that is not in accordance with the law.
Here, Jackson was deciding whether Microsoft did it, and is supposed to be not PRE judging the case. Juries are not supposed to be PREjudiced either. However, judges and juries are allowed to be pissed at a defendant AFTER hearing all of the evidence.
Really, when a judge is setting the penalties for illegal acts he is allowed to be upset at what was done. Think about it, the judge or jury was convinced that the defendant did something illegal. It is to be expected after that, a judge will have a bad opinion of a defendant that he thinks (and/or the jury thought) did illegal things.
Surely, Jackson could have behaved better, because he is not supposed to comment on cases going up for appeal. Is he not supposed to get angry when he sees Bill Gates denying on videotape that he knows what the word "browser" means? Can't recall anything related to any email he ever read or authored? When Microsoft and/or its attorneys doctored a demonstration video on a key point of proof?
I really don't think that judges have to be punching bags. If you go out of your way to make a judge hate you, then well, golly gosh don't be surprised when he does!
So get off your welfare and start oppressing your fellow citizens!
That is almost my point. The richest 1% of the population controls more wealth than the other 99% combined. I'm all for capitalism, but there is only so much money to go around. The separation between the richest of the rich and the poor continue to grow without bounds.
The richest people have bank account balances with 10 - 16 figures. The poorest of the poor eat rice and water for dinner, if at all.
This country was forged on the backs of poor immigrants. Labor unions slowly ended unfair working conditions. We have evolved into a consumer culture. How is the population to combat monopolies like Microsoft? Consumer unions?
The List of Grievances with Slashdot.
In one week the entire DOJ is going to be filled with compassionate conservative lawyers and department heads. (Compassionate to big business, Conservative to the poor working class).
The outcome of the anti-trust trial against Microsoft really depends on the new Attorney General, and, of course Bush's agenda.
Maybe someone should find out what the NRA would like to see happen to Microsoft, that may provide some insight into what Bush might do.
The List of Grievances with Slashdot.
First of all, OF COURSE they won't say he's biased. They wouldn't want bad PR for their department. All US Gov agencies work that way. Ever see the White House declare anything bad about the prez? Nope.
"Bill Gates is very Napoleonic"
"I think Bill Gates is one of the worst [ever]"
"Bill and his company obviously have monopoly traits, no, no doubt about it"
And THAT'S not biased? Yikes.
------------
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Tonight on Fox: Deadliest Executions Part XVII
Juries are a group of people specifically designed to be as gullible as possible.
Start with a random group of schmoes, remove anyone capable of thinking up an excuse, then give each side the opportunity to get rid of any juror which the lawyers think cannot be convinced of their side's case. You can't get people inherently biased towards your side, because the other side will get rid of them, so the optimal solution is to get the most gullible people, and rely on your persuasion skills to bring them round to your side. Both sides want gullible people, because both sides think they can argue the best.
Result: A collective jellybrain.
Now what is that meant to mean? If its supposed to mean,"This will end up in the Supreme Court anyway and they'll decide" then I would note that Jackson's findings as to the facts of the case cannot be ignored and his treatment of the evidence presented and therefore the verdict cannot be easily overturned on appeal unless he was shown to be biased, mad or an idiot.
I know you're trolling me, but I can't resist.
M$ forced deals where distributors and manufacturers of computers had to sell every machine of theirs with Windows on it, or else they couldn't sell any machines with windows on them. If they wanted to sell a machine without Windows loaded, they still had to pay for the license.
This put a lock on manufacturers to only use Windows. Then, M$ levered this agreement to declare what software would be allowed in the preload of those computers.
M$ and IBM fought tooth and nail, and M$ threatened to charge IBM more for Windows, because IBM included Netscape and Lotus Millenium Suite in their software preload.
That's M$ taking illegal advantage of monopolistic power.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Actually, no.
I drive and preserve these so-called "30-year-old land barges."
They are a beauty to behold, a pleasure to drive, and part of our history worth preserving.
Do I think everyone should be driving one? Not so. Do I think you have the right to legislate that I can no longer drive mine? Definately not.
I'm doing more for the environment in two ways by driving my two 38-year-old cars.
First of all, I'm doing my part to keep from adding to landfills and junkyards.
Second of all, my "dinosaurs" as you call them, when well-tuned and maintained, put out less emissions than computerized emissions-controlled autos.
Even more importantly, when a computer-emissions controlled car does begin to pollute, it pollutes WAY more than my 38-year-old cars do when poorly tuned.
People who stand behind this elimination of grandfather clause notion have a few motivations for it, and the environment isn't one of them, typically. They want me to junk my perfectly suitable automobiles not because it's good for the environment, but because it's good for the economy.
First, they get money pumped into the auto manufacturer's pockets. Then they get higher vehicle taxes. Then they get to charge high prices for emissions testings, not to mention fines if a part fails on the many-component emissions equipment. (EGR, catalytic, o2 sensor, computer, solenoids, etc...)
It's far more economical and evironmentally considerate for everyone if I keep driving old vehicles and keep them finely tuned.
Sometimes, older is better. If I can help avoid buying into new technologies, I can continue to live in the fashion I prefer. No exhaust tests, no dynamometer, just lights, horn and wipers.
No accutest sniffer-mobiles to flag me down and fine me.
Older is better: no CPRM, no HDTV with copy controls.
Some technologies have too steep a price.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
To claim bias based on the judge's expression of opinion after the trial is quite ridiculous. After all, it was his job to form an opinion.
Now if the DoJ told the appeals court that the judge who ruled in their favor was biased, now that would have been news.
Or, for that matter, if the appeals court had ruled that Penfield Jackson was or wasn't biased...well, that would have been more newsworthy. But just the fact that the DoJ made an argument...uhm...I was kinda figuring they were going to do that here sometime...
-- dR.fuZZo
Did the DOJ sing its opinion that Jackson's not biased? If not, why the choice of category?
sulli
RTFJ.
I read the CNN article, and it seems that the title was just a summary of the case presented by the justice department. The anti-trust case is now moving through the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where Microsoft has alleged that Jackson was biased, based on statements he gave to the New Yorker magazine.
Now, CNN used just about the same headline, "U.S. denies judge who ordered Microsoft breakup was biased". Perhaps the headline "U.S. Justice Department Files Brief" would have been better, but the title was accurate. Flamebait for Slashdot, but accurate.
Perhaps a better title for the Slashdot story would have been "Microsoft Anti-Trust Case Continues". The story probably is not front-page news, but deserves to be posted somewhere - it will be interesting to see what happens in what may be the last days of this case (with a Bush nominee potentially yanking the DoJ off the case). Another interesting story would be how much Microsoft / Bill Gates contributed to the Republican campaign, and how it was done.
However, the DOJ is biased. They were one of the sides in the case, for pete's sake! So why does it matter that one of the sides in the case, which clearly is biased, says that the judge was not biased?
It boggles the mind why this completely obvious point warrants a headline on Slashdot.
Hey, at least they spared us "Microsoft declares Judge Jackson biased!" a couple months ago!
"And like that
In this day and age, it is very hard to come across anyone, let alone a judge, who has a truely "unbiased" opinion. You would have to track down a little old lady who is deaf and blind that has been disconnected from the real world for the paast 50 years to even come close, and it still wouldn't be...
How Jaded Are You?
You neglect the 4th dimension my friend. Yes, money supplies can increase [though typically value does not, hence inflation], but only with respect to time. In other words, at any given time, there is only X amount of money available, and X is increased with the passage of time, meaning that economics IS zero-sum in a sense, just not over relatively large amounts of time.
As an example: Ralph has $2. Ralph needs milk and bread, total cost = $2.50. The money supply may expand, but at the moment that Ralph needs that extra $0.50, it won't. Ralph would have to wait, meaning he has to go hungry and thirsty for whatever amount of time it takes for that extra $0.50 to appear. Also, at the same time the money supply may expand that extra $0.50, the price might also rise [inflation after all] another $0.25, so poor ralph has to wait still longer. In the end, you get the infinite series that never goes to zero, so poor Ralph dies of thirst and hunger.
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
It doesn't matter whether a company is a monopoly or not to the DOJ. What matters is if they use illegal or anti-competitive practices to obtain or maintain a monopoly status.
--
Linux user says Slashdot not Biased!
"I don't hate Microsoft," said U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, "I just feel the world should be exposed to other quality operating systems like Fisher Price's Speak-N-Spell and AOL's upcoming You've Got An Operating Syst-- ehh, I'm sorry. Disregard that last statement, it's classified and I wasn't supposed to say anything. Dammit, get Case on the phone."
-p4
(c) All Rights Released.
To those thinking Bush may change something in the handling of the trial, consider
...Backing off would make you look like an idiot.
2)
I think it's a little late for ol' Dubya to be worried about looking like an idiot.
"There ought to be limits to freedom..." - Gov. George W. Bush
"Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" -- George W. Bush
"Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods." -- George W. Bush, Dec. 20, 2000
"They misunderestimated me." --George W. Bush
"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures." --George W. Bush
"They want the federal government controlling social Security like it's some kind of federal program." --George W. Bush
"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." --George W. Bush
That's *exactly* what Microsoft is trying to do - they think that because Jackson was biased from square one, that they should be granted a new trial with a new judge, prefferrably one assigned by the (business-compassionate) appeal court. What the appeal court has to decide is if Jackson's bias drastically altered the outcome of the case such that if an unbiased judge was in place, the outcome would have been different. And IMO, that answer is no: as long as the judge was familar with how computers work in addition to legal facts, the evidence that was presented at the trial was heavily against MS.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
The question of being bias comes down to a matter of timing. If Judge Jackson made these statements before or during the trial, or made statements to the effect of 'I felt all along ...', then there is a strong case that he was biased.
If, however, these opinions as expressed were formed as a result of the case, then what is the difference between these opinions and the judgement he rendered as a result of the arguments presented?
I do agree that the tone of the comments is a bit more flamboyent than one would expect from a jurist, but it helps to show why he gave the sentence he did. These statements alone do not show a prejudice on the part of Jackson.
There are some hard questions here, and for that matter, some
questions that in my view need to be answered. And I am delighted
that Mr. Gates, whom, as he knows, I genuinely admire and respect, is
here to present his views. For the reality is that the future of
innovation in the software industry depends in large part on the
power, practices, and arguably the success of Microsoft.
Gee, let me think about this...
How we know is more important than what we know.
But doesn't appear that anything will change.
Odd comment, considering that either MSFT gets broken up (which sends a pretty strong message to business, and should make companies think twice about imitating them), or the DOJ and the states get smacked (which sends a pretty strong message to DAs and the DOJ about the standards required for sustaining an anti-trust case). Either way, something's going to change.
And, even if somebody believes that Bush would be sufficiently pro-MSFT and brazen enough to pull the DOJ off the case -- which seems unlikely given its high profile -- don't forget that there are plenty of states in on the case that wouldn't drop. Remember the Big Tobacco settlement? The Feds weren't really involved on the plaintiff's side until they smelled money; it was pretty much all handled by the states.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
To those thinking Bush may change something in the handling of the trial, consider
1) The states are co-prosecutors. They do not, and many have stated they will not, withdraw.
2) The DOJ won a resounding victory in the trial. Backing off would make you look like an idiot.
3) The number one senator in favor of the monopoly ruling is Orrin Hatch, the Republican Senator from Utah who is also chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Recall Caldera is in Utah, and they've already had their case with DRDOS against Microsoft. If there is one Republican Senator that can exert an enormous effect on judicial appointments, it is Orrin Hatch. Bush cannto piss him off.
It is the mission of the Attorney General, as prosecutor, to seek the STRONGEST ruling possible, and then the settlement/punishment that is in the best interests of the state (or country). The Microsoft case will be prosecuted to the fullest extent in the appeals case.
If the appeal is less strong than the initial ruling, which seems likely, then expect the Attorney General, maybe Ashcroft, to take some pro-Microsoft action. But he must be careful to do that in a way that keeps the states on board.
This should have been retitled, "Side which won previous round in court battle proclaims that judge impartial." Wow, that's a shocker...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I don't think he is biased. It seems to me like Microsoft really pissed him off during the trial.
However, if he really wants his decision to stand, he certainly is not being very prudent about it. Every inflamatory statement he makes about MS increases the chance that they will win on appeal.
Seems to me like he did as good a job as he could with the case. Now if he could only shut up while it crawls through the appeal process.
The end result could be, via the .NET initiative, that Windows is an empty shell. And the government is left with an empty victory.
That being said, does this open the door for Microsoft to be regulated as a public utility. With the use of Microsoft services, all those businesses depending on MS to be up and reliable 100% of the time, there is going to be one huge stink if it isn't close to 99.999 percent reliable (about 5 minutes of down time per year)
Microsoft, I am sure will have all kinds of legal language absolving them of any and all possible damage for using their system. This is what lawyers are for, and is very standard these days in EULAs. With enough outrage, and law suits, regulation would be sure to come.
It is easy to imagine a new kind of public utility, based on information technology. It would be interesting to see regulated prices for software services, since they are a monoploy.
I wonder if this would have to be done via local commitees on a town by town basis, for example. something similar to cable tv.
Actually, the time for action on something like this would be now.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
From my understanding, as long as the trial is only on civil charges (which is what this case is) and the defendant being a business, the jury by peers is dropped for practical reasons. If this were a criminal case (for example, rumored bits that the CEOs of Ford and Firestone might have been brough in on criminal charges related to knowingly distributing bad tires), then a jury of peers would have been called. IANAL of course.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Now mind you since nothing will ever happen as a result of his ruling, I guess it doesn't really matter either way.
I urge you to read the "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" article from Wired a couple months back. My take on it is that progress really did get made through this lawsuit. Two important things happened. One was that a bunch of Microsoft people were finally confronted with reality (rather than Bill's version of reality, which, pity the poor billionarie, he really appears to believe) in a credible way, and they reacted by leaving. That had to have had some effect on the faith of the remaining true believers there.
Second, though, was that it marked an important turning point for non-geeks. Much of our ranting about things that Microsoft has done was easily dismissible by the teeming masses as "jealosy of Bill's wealth" or whatever. The findings of the court finally put some of that in the public's face in a significantly less deniable fashion.
The public, of course, will soon have or has already forgotten, but I think a lot of industry types have had the huge morale boost of seeing the giant stumble. That in itself is probably already changing the way things are being looked at and planned.
But even if you don't agree with any of this, at least take the first suggestion and read the article. Not only will it bring back a lot of interesting things about the trial you might have forgotten, it contains a wealth of information that was really juicy but under embargo until the end of the trial.
--
Liberty uber alles.
How about a bunch of quotes from you on /. taken out of context?
'Computers are supposed to make everyone's life easier, not harder. That's why we need pretty dialog boxes.' - Xenomech
'Has the rush to commercialize the web destroyed its commercial viability?' - Xenomech
'I don't get any anymore.' - Xenomech
'"No" means "No". It does not mean "No, but, in a little, while assume I meant 'Yes' and tell me to say 'No' again if I *really* meant 'No' the first time".' - Xenomech
The point is not that you are an idiot, obviously you are not. The point is that if you want to, you could pull a choice selection of quotes from just about anyone and make them look like an idiot (I'm sure you could find a bunch from my posts) - I personally think that the more creative someone is, the more likley you are to get a bunch of slightly messed-up remarks. That doesn't mean they are an idiot, and might mean they can approach problems with a little more creativity than others...
By buying into and propigating the myth that ANYONE at that level of politics is an idiot, you are just a tool of the media AND even worse you are underestimating the other side and presenting a weaker argument than you might otherwise. How could someone really be an idiot and get to that level? They ovviosuly have some skills, even if one of them might not be perfect diction.
For instance, I didn't like Gore but I didn't go around saying he was an idiot or made of wood or any other juvinile things that other people come up with. I disagree with his methods and personally find how he uses his intelligence to be quite dangerous (Clipper chip). I pointed that out instead of calling him a woody drone.
If you want to attack Bush, try basing it in reality and cease the mindless flaming. All I've heard from the other respondents is 'Of course he'll try and stop it, he's an idiot'! You look like a mindless pack of (poorly programmed) attack trolls. Show some creativity and thought in your arguments!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
</sarcasm>
information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
However, the DOJ is biased. They were one of the sides in the case, for pete's sake! So why does it matter that one of the sides in the case, which clearly is biased, says that the judge was not biased?
It boggles the mind why this completely obvious point warrants a headline on Slashdot.
Hay thar.
In the common-law system of trial by jury, the judge is the gatekeeper/refereee and the jury is the factfinder/deliberator. Juries have a strong history of protecting the accused from arbitrary prosecution and of truly showing what the people think should happen. It used to be that juries sat on all criminal proceedings. Sadly, this is no longer the case.
But more importantly, juries by definition aren't biased. Juries are composed of laypeople who have no political motives one way or the other. They're a legitimizing force for the government (hence why the king of England originally instituted grand juries) because they're as close as we can get to the intrinsic truth. Any case that we're not willing to put before a jury of our peers isn't worth pursuing. And any case that we have to resort to getting a paid career judge to decide is tainted with suspicion.
Microsoft probably did break the law. But we'll never know for sure, because they weren't tried by a jury in the proper tradition. You should feel outraged. I know I am.
Read the rest of this comment...
I think the DOJ's rebuttal to MS's appeal arguements is trying to remind the court that facts have been put in place from the lower court proceedings, and that is the heart of the issue: did Jackson misintreprete the evidence to achieve those facts? Doubtful - the evidence was plainly against MS and regardless of how much bias a judge may have, the only intelligent conclusion from the evidence was that there was a monopoly and the abuse of that position involved. Maybe his final verdic was one where he had some bias involved, but it probably was also one where he realized that there would be rounds of appeals including him possibly seeing the case, and that the true final judgement against MS would probably be smaller than any initial penalty he might state. Therefore, he used a rather damaging penalty as a starting point, expecting that a final penalty will be reduced from that, but still significant.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I think this transcript of the Senate hearings on Microsoft & their potential anticompetitive practices would have been a more interesting topic for discussion, since Sen. Ashcroft asks Bill G. a number of pointed questions, and says at one point "I think we all agree here that Microsoft has a monopoly." Will the DOJ under Bush (and, presumably Ashcroft) be as friendly towards Microsoft as people predicted before the election?
Just my 2c.
Microsoft:
judge is biased.
DOJ:
judge is not biased.
and in other news...
RIAA:
Napster is stealing.
Napster:
Napster is not stealing.
Marsha Clark:
OJ did it.
Jonny Cockren:
If the glove don't fit...
Coke:
Pepsi sucks.
Pepsi:
Coke sucks.
Does it really make a lot of sense that the US government openly accuses Microsoft of being a monopoly and then asks them to be responsible for their new voting system?
"Yeah, you're a huge monopoly, we're going to fsck you up! Oh, by the way could you do our voting system? We'll pay you tons of money!"