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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.
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!"